The introduction of bicycles into Joseon Korea

A curious crowd gathers around a Western visitor and his bicycle circa 1899.

By Robert Neff

Warmer weather means more cyclists are taking to the bike lanes along the Han River and the streets of Seoul.

Korea has an extensive bicycle network allowing riders to safely travel throughout the country and visit places that only a decade ago were too dangerous to visit by bike.

But when did the first bicycle arrive in Korea? According to various sources, it was in December 1884 when 26-year-old Lieutenant Philip V. Lansdale, an American naval officer, rode his bicycle from Jemulpo [Incheon] to Seoul. Horace N. Allen ― an American missionary doctor who witnessed the event ― wrote:

"In 1884 one of our naval officers came to Seoul from his ship at [Jemulpo], bringing with him his bicycle, which was of the hold high wheel type. We went through the crowded main street, he on his wheel and I on a horse. As this appalling looking object came in sight, the throngs of people rushed to the middle of the street for a good view, and as it came nearer they fell back in unfeigned astonishment amounting to open-mouth alarm, as the strangest thing they had ever seen glided through the narrow passage left for it.

"As the high wheel and its rider passed and was seen to be harmless and simply another of the strange freaks of the newly arrived foreigner, they actually fell into each other's arms with laughter following the relief to their first surprised alarm."

Fording a river with a bicycle circa 1899.

It is assumed that Lansdale took his bike with him when he returned to his ship but apparently it had inspired others to purchase their own. According to some, F. R. Borioni ― an Italian who first worked for the Korean Customs Department and then later opened one of the first hotels in Seoul ― is credited as the first person living in Korea to import a bicycle.

Other sources, however, claim that Dalzell A. Bunker ― an American English teacher in the mid-1880s ― was the first to import a bicycle with solid tires. Soon Oliver Avison (a Canadian missionary) and Frederick S. Miller (an American missionary) joined the ranks when they imported two bicycles with soft air-filled tires from England in 1895.

By the late 1890s, there were at least two dozen bicycles in Korea and they were used as a quick and effective way of traveling about the country. They were especially popular for travel between Seoul and Jemulpo ― a trip that could be done, according to Horace N. Allen (who was at this time the American representative to Korea) "without particular exertion in three hours, and but for seventeen minutes toiling through the sands, it [was] a delightful ride."

He left the American ambassador's residence and traveled over an unpaved road to the ferry at Mapo and then across the river and the sand. He then traveled on the unpaved and badly rutted road to the China Town area of Incheon on a single speed bike! That is rather an impressive time ― even now.

Allen did this trip so often that he was able to boast to an elderly Korean gentleman, one day just before noon, that he had traveled almost 3,220 kilometers by bike. His astonished listener asked, "in all good faith, if [he] had done that distance since breakfast."

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