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Prior to the 20th century there were few Western journalists who spent any great amount of time in Korea. Western newspaper accounts of the country were often gleaned from Chinese and Japanese English-language newspapers or from the personal correspondences of missionaries and travelers in Korea to their families back home.
There was, however, one well-known journalist who came to Korea not once but several times and provided some of the more interesting and least known accounts of the country during the late 19th century. He was Frank G. Carpenter, an American, who had convinced several papers to finance his travel around the world in exchange for a series of weekly letters describing his adventures.
Carpenter arrived in Seoul in early November 1888 and immediately began wandering the streets of the city in search of interesting things to write about. He described the streets as being filled with people, beasts of burden and noise.
Although Seoul had a large population (according to Carpenter, 300,000 people lived within the walls), there were very few shop – nearly all of them small and scantily stocked. The goods were hidden behind a curtain and were only brought out for the potential buyer’s inspection at the whim of the merchant who, according to Carpenter, cared very little if his goods were purchased or not. In fact, many merchants were afraid to sell large orders for fear that they would not be able to restock. Instead of offering a discount for buying in bulk, the purchaser was often charged more than the original price for taking all of the merchant’s stock.
While Carpenter was disgusted with the shop merchants he was impressed with the street vendors.
“The loudest-mouthed and most enterprising persons in the whole city seem to be the vendors of the roasted chestnuts. They are little boys with their hair parted in the middle like girls and braided in one tightly woven cord down the back. Their stock usually consists of about a quart of chestnuts and they have a little pan of coal over which they roast them while you wait.”
Restaurants appear to have been one of the few businesses in Seoul that did a thriving trade. The small restaurants served up “all sorts of dainties from raw fish to toasted liver” and also had a thriving home-delivery service. Small round tables, about a foot high and about 40 centimeters in diameter with four or five little legs were filled with food and then the delivery boy would lift the table and balance it on his head and walk through the busy streets with the legs hanging down around his neck.
Carpenter attributed the thriving food industry to the Koreans’ “ever present craving for food and they make their bellies their gods. To eat, to smoke, to sleep and to squat is all outward appearance the chief employments of the people and to be fat in Corea is a sign of wealth. A big stomach is an honor …” He then claimed that Korean “mothers, in order to increase the size of the stomachs of their babies, stuff them day after day with rice, paddling them on the stomach to press down the contents to make room for more.”
Apparently Korean food did not sit well with Carpenter. “Such dishes as I saw were not at all appetizing and everything was seasoned highly with red peppers.” The peppers were everywhere and Carpenter surmised that they were even eaten as appetizers ― an appetizer he wasn’t going to partake of.
Robert Neff is a contributing writer for The Korea Times.
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