Fish are sold in a Korean market in the early 20th century. Robert Neff Collection
Up until a couple of decades ago, the arrival of the mailman was one of the highlights of the day. Although opening the mailbox almost always revealed an assortment of junk mail and bills, every so often there were letters from friends and relatives. It was especially exciting to find international envelopes adorned with curious and beautiful stamps, promising adventure in faraway lands — albeit experienced vicariously through the pen of a loved one.
One such correspondent was Ethel Higgins. She was just 27 years old and a newlywed when she moved to Korea in 1910. She came from Claremont, a small farming town in rural Illinois with a population of about 200. It is through her letters home that we can peek at snippets of her daily life in Songdo (modern Gaeseong in North Korea) in the early 20th century.
In her first letter home, Ethel explained that to the Japanese and the “natives,” the peninsula was known as “Chosun” — meaning “Morning Freshness.” Yet, in all of her letters home, she never used “Chosun,” but instead referred to the country as Korea, perhaps because it was more familiar to her readers. Unlike many — if not most — early visitors, her initial letter describing Fusan (now called Busan) is refreshingly positive:
“Nearly all the men and boys wear white; the women and children, for the most part, wear bright colors, though many of the women wear white with long white capes thrown over their heads in such a way as to hide most of the face. The garments are all loose and flowing, however, and to me the street scenes of Korea are picturesque.”
A Korean market in the early 20th century / Robert Neff Collection
From Fusan she took the train to Songdo, but she apparently did not deem the day-and-a-half journey important or interesting enough to write about. It is a shame, because she had a lot to say about her train ride in Japan. She described the Japanese as “cigarette fiends; nearly all of them smoke,” and warned “American travelers must become hardened to tobacco smoke, and many other things more or less unmentionable.” It seems strange that she did not note Koreans were also very fond of smoking.
Describing her new home, she wrote: “Many of you will be surprised to learn that we are living in a city which is said to contain some 60,000 inhabitants.” While Songdo was enormous compared to Claremont, it was far smaller than Chicago, with its population of 2 million — a city that at least some of her family, particularly her father, had visited.
The next couple of weeks were spent adjusting to their new home. Their belongings had to be unpacked and arranged. One of Ethel’s greatest apprehensions — and one shared by many early Westerners moving to Korea — was the condition in which her piano would arrive. Fortunately, when she unpacked it, she “found it to be in good condition after its journey of about nine thousand miles.”
Both Ethel and her husband were teachers, and they did something that many foreign residents — both in the past and, sadly, in the present — often did not: they studied Korean. In her letter, she wrote:
Source: Korea Times News
