The Marmot’s Hole

With the weather as nice as it was on Sunday, I popped by the Gyeongbokgung Palace to stroll around and snap a few photos. The area around the Gyeongbokgung Palace and Samcheongdong-gil is wonderful in the autumn as the ginkgo trees turn color.

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In particular, I spent a bit of time looking around the Jipokjae, a Chinese-style structure opened to the public earlier this month for the first time since Park Chung-hee’s coup of 1961. Historian and Marmot’s Hole contributor Robert Neff wrote a good piece on the building and its history in OhMyNews International.

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The structure is believed to have been built in 1873 when the Geoncheonggung Palace was built in the rear area of the Gyeongbokgung. King Gojong attempted to build the Geoncheonggung in complete secrecy, hiding the plan from high officials and even Regent Heungseon. Once building got underway, however, word got out and there was apparently much opposition, but Gojong got his way in the end.

Empress Myeongseong a.k.a. Queen Min was assassinated in the complex on Aug. 20, 1895.

Interestingly enough, Korea’s first light bulbs were lit in the Geoncheonggung on March 6, 1887. Construction of the generator, build next to the Hyangwon-ji Pond (where it apparently killed all the fish), was left to Edison Lamp Company—for the full story behind Korea’s first electric light project, see here (in English, but .pdf file). What is perhaps even more interesting is that Korea’s royal palace got electric lighting two years before China’s Forbidden City and Japan’s Imperial Palace did.

At any rate, most of the Geoncheonggung’s buildings were torn down during the Japanese imperial period, but I did find an old picture of the place—notice the Western-style structures.

While I was in the neighborhood, I also stopped by the Gyeonghuigung Palace behind Seoul History Museum.

(For 1,200 px version, click here)

(For 1,200 px version, click here)

What, so no early modern era Western-style buildings this time?

Well, OK, since you asked…

This hidden treasure—and it is hidden, in this case beneath Gangbuk Samsung Hospital—is the Gyeonggyojang, which from November 1945 to June 1949 was the home and office of Korean independence activist and last president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, “Baekbeom” Kim Gu.

Kim was assassinated in his 2nd floor office on June 26, 1949. Many point fingers at Syngman Rhee for the hit, although this has never been proven.

The building itself—built in Western-Japanese style (but designed by Korean architect Kim Se-yeon)—has quite the history. It was constructed in 1938 by Choe Chang-hak, who made his money in gold mining. After Liberation, poor Choe was condemned for collaborating with the Japanese, his name even being submitted to the special committee set up to try colonial era collaborators. Well, perhaps just to show he wasn’t such a bad guy after all, he “provided” the Gyeonggyojang—then called by the much-more Japanese sounding name Chukcheomjang (or however you pronounce that in Japanese)—to Kim upon his return from China. It was Kim that coined the current name of the structure.

After Kim was assassinated, the building reverted back to Choe. Later, it became the Taiwanese ambassador’s residence, and during the Korean War, it was home to a unit of U.S. Special Forces. In 1967, the Samsung Foundation purchased the building, and it’s now part of Samsung Hospital.

In 1996, Samsung submitted to Seoul City a plan to move the Gyeonggyojang and in its place build a 17-story hospital. This apparently pissed off a lot of people—or pissed off a few vocal people. Samsung nixed the plan after Seoul decided that the building was worth preserving due to its historic value. This didn’t satisfy everyone, however. The head of a Kim Gu society went on hunger strike earlier this year to demand that the building be restored to exactly how it was when Kim lived there.

Somewhere, I’m sure Kim Gu is turning over in his grave knowing that his former home is owned by Samsung, founded in 1938 by future Korean business magnate and then-Japanese collaborator Lee Byung-chul.

For what it’s worth, while I was snapping photos, a security guard came out and told me I had to get permission first to photograph the building, although he left me alone after I told him the photos were for personal use.