As always, one is highly encouraged to read Robert Neff’s latest contribution to the Korea Times, which is truly a trip:
A ghoul, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is: “(1) A legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses. (2) One suggestive of a ghoul.” With that in mind, let’s consider the next couple antecedents.
The incident of May 1868 has been described as “one of the most extraordinary affairs ever known,” and indeed it was. Ernst Oppert, a 36-year-old German merchant in Shanghai and Feron, a French priest, planned and undertook an outrageous act that will always be associated with their names. Feron had recently escaped the religious persecutions in Korea that had claimed the lives of his religious brothers. He approached Oppert and suggested that by disinterring the body of Taewongun (the regent and de facto ruler of Korea)?????s father from his tomb off the coast of Korea. They would then hold the skeletal remains as hostage and force Korea to open to Western trade, and, of couree, religion.
Read the rest on your own.
