Time for another shameless plug.
The introduction of electricity into Korea was one of mixed blessings. To some it was the introduction of progress and modernization, but to others it was the introduction of Western ideas that conflicted with their beliefs and threatened their way of life. Unfortunately, it was also a tool used by both Westerners and Koreans to exploit the superstitious.
The first power plant in Korea was built in 1887 but it was marred with death and government corruption. The chief engineer, McKee, was accidental shot and killed by the Korean soldier assigned to escort him. The soldier would have been executed except for the pleas of not only the American Minister (ambassador) but also McKee’s young widow.
“King Kojong was so impressed with the woman that he offered her and her son $500.00 in compensation and a house for life if they would agree to remain in Korea. The kind king also pledged to pay the son’s tuition while he remained in Korea.”
It has been alleged that King Kojong was afraid of the dark - not the bogey man that haunts the darkness in many of our fears, but a coup attempt. Apparently in the past, many attempts to overthrow the government took place at night, and because of this King Kojong worked throughout the night. It is understandable how the young King could soon find himself at the mercy of a smart American businessman with control of the palaces electricity:
“Mr. Power, however, had an ace up his sleeve, he ‘realized that his majesty was in deadly fear of assassination and that he would go crazy if he had to spend all night in the dark.’ So ‘Mr. Power went to the plant, and by the disconnection of a screw arranged it so that it would run perfectly without giving light. About dusk that evening there was a great excitement at the palace. The buttons were turned but the globes would not burn as it great darker the emperor sent his messengers to Mr. Power to ask what was the matter. He replied that he had not had his money, and that the spirits who ran the light plant would no work until he was paid. His majesty thereupon asked why the money had not been sent and told the corrupt officials that if it was not delivered at once their heads would go off.’”
But superstitions could also be used by the Koreans. After Korea was annexed, lights in the Japanese sections of Seoul had a problem of ending up broken:
“Many Koreans said that these stones were thrown by [the] ghosts of people who had been buried nearby and were offended by the lights.”
There were other deaths and accidents attributed to electricity that can be read here.
57 Comments
I really enjoyed this post a lot. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Evil spirits don’t break lights anymore, now they hide in fans.
I am not a Japanophile as many who have read my posts will attest to. The Japanese are not the most equality-minded people on earth.
However, let’s give credit where it is due. Japan brought modernization to Korea. Korea at the time was like an African nation, full of ignorance and superstition.
Japan enforced modern power plants, railroads, education system and medical system. Without Japan’s intervention, Korea will be where China is at right now. One-seventeenth of a Korean per-capita income.
As this article shows, Koreans were not ready for modern world. It rather preferred ignorance and their superstition.
Japan pulled Korea out of that and educated average Korean youths(this was prohibited by Yangban class) to face the modern world.
Let’s give credit where it is due.
100 years ago, foreigners brought good things to Korea like electricity and Christianity. Now they bring drugs. Goodness gracious, how times have changed…
119 years ago Korean diplomats tried and got caught smuggling cigars into the United States
Fantastic post. Thank you.
#3
I wonder if you believe this modernization by the Japanese during the occupation relieves the Imperial Japan (that is, the regime(s) that colonized Korea) of its responsibility in its acts of imperialism against Korea.
There’s no doubt that modernization in Korea was initiated by Japan, but it seems that, at least for me, the modernization was for the sake of the Japanese expansionist policy rather than for the pretense of Korean welfare.
Then I have to ponder whether we should look at the results or the intentions when we examine morality in an action. Even if we accept without questions the claims of minimal human rights violations during the occupation made by Japan, no one can refute that at least national sovereignty of Korea had been taken away. Having established that, should Koreans really believe that the occupation was a beneficial experience for their people?
But of course, if you are merely saying that modernization in Korea was started by the Japanese occupation, none of the above matters. Though I must point out that the industrialization in Korea during the occupation was merely in the areas of “light” industry rather than “heavy” industry that Korea seems so focused on in the modern times (steel, shipbuilding, heavy manufacturing, etc.), the basic infrastructure was indeed established during the occupation (disregarding the purpose).
“Electricity”…”shameless plug“: that’s almost good as the inherent pun in Thomas W. Power’s last name!
Robert, didn’t you write an article a few years back on the various superstitions, accidents, and downright popular unrest that accompanied the related project of the introduction of electric streetcars to Seoul?
Yes - that was the Electric Guillotine. It dealt with people using the tracks as pillows. Naturally when the street cars came by they ended up losing their heads. I am sure that the old Korea Times articles can still be found on the net..perhaps cached.
Well, I have an interest in the transportation side of Seoul Electric’s long history—i.e., the streetcars, which is the the reason I recalled the article. The incident described therein was pretty spooky and morbid…anyhow, the article seems to be no longer available….
Oh wow, that just sounds so gruesome… Kinda like that one scene in Suicide Club.
I will see if I can find it and then send you the link if you would like….
Yes - that was the Electric Guillotine. It dealt with people using the tracks as pillows. Naturally when the street cars came by they ended up losing their heads. I am sure that the old Korea Times articles can still be found on the net..perhaps cached.
I dunno. Sounds more like something made up by a bored expat with an overactive imagination with the aid of some mind-bending substances…
Something I have always appreciated with Trolls - few of them bother to learn their own history and those who do collectively choose to forget those parts that don’t suit their agenda. Instead, they try to claim…what was it? “[S]omething made up by an bored expat with an overactive imagination with the aid of some mind-bending substances…”
Like they say - fact is stranger than fiction.
Robert,
Wasn’t it you who was going to do a review of The Foreign Destruction of Korea?
“Something I have always appreciated with Trolls - few of them bother to learn their own history “
Shak’s gravatar image of Lee Wan-yong went unidentified for weeks.
Something I have always appreciated with Trolls - few of them bother to learn their own history …
You could be right for all I know. Since I don’t indulge in white man’s burden historical nostalgia-waxing, I’d readily admit that I’m no big expert in dumb-ass Chosun-era backwardness.
However, from a pure logical standpoint, I cant seem to fathom why even the most ignorant Chosun-in would choose something as uncomfortable as a steel rail for a pillow, nor fail to wake up and sense danger from all the noise that an approaching late 19th/early 20th vintage locomotive would surely make….
Street cars weren’t pulled by locomotives; they were powered by electricity.
Ha! Some of my dinner almost hit the screen.
“White man’s”?
5,000 years, uh?
Netizen Kim, in a nutshell, it was a sultry, humid summer night the first year or so the line had been put into place. As I recall—I could be hazy on the details—it was near the end of the line…the tracks originally terminated at or near a royal mausoleum, so perhaps it was in a park. The steel rails were cool and not significantly harder than Korean pillows (heh); also, as it was late at night, there were not supposed to be any streetcars still running—the last one was behind schedule or there was same light night Owl run. As streetcars are electrically powered, they are quiet. The motorman probably saw the folks lying with their heads on the tracks too late to be able to stop. The inevitable accident ensued, and there were riots and unrest as a result, over the trauma this new technology had brought about.
The article is gone now from the Korean Times archives—or the archives aren’t functioning properly—and I can’t find it in the Internet Archive.
As a concession, I should add that suspicion to new technology is a universal phenomenon. When trains were first introduced in England (where the steam locomotive was invented), folks there thought they would cause pregnant women to miscarry and all sorts of other horrible things.
#18: “same light night Owl run” ==> “some late night Owl run”
Golly, an iron rail as a pillow!? Hmmm…*rubs chin*…it will nicely accompany the stone bed I bought on home shopping TV. On a somewhat-related note, when will cause and effect be introduced?
I’ve wondered a similar thing, but about wide-wake school girls and a noisy, ground-shaking tank.
Yes, but you’re forgetting something.
The US soldiers purposely steered their armored vehicle to run over the girls. Then had a good hearty laugh about it.
Where did I learn this, you ask? Why, the trusty Korean media of course!
I’m sure nobody will ever believe that I had no intention of setting off this particular line of discussion with my innocuous comment in #8, but it’s the truth.
I believe you. And thanks!
“100 years ago, foreigners brought good things to Korea like electricity and Christianity.”
Actually, it was a Korean monk who brought Christianity to Korea.
#26 - Exactly, brought it here from China. Korea is unique in that it’s one of the very few countries that was self-evangelized.
Sewing -
That was pretty accurate…and well said. It is not that the Koreans were too ignorant, but drunk and had assumed the streetcars had already gone by - it was running late that night.
I tried to find it on the net and it doesn’t seem to exist…with Marmot’s permission I think I will load it up later after I try and find some of the pictures (may need your help on loading the pictures Marmot).
The Electric Guillotine
[Korea Times]2004-04-23
The Electric Guillotine
I have lived in Korea for a number of years - most of it spent in the military. I remember one night, while on a summer exercise, I almost ran over an elderly woman sleeping in the middle of a dark deserted mountain road. Fortunately for both of us I noticed her barely in time and managed to avoid hitting her. I remember that I was extremely furious and frightened at the same time and demanded an explanation from the KATUSA that was in the vehicle with me. He explained that the heat of the summer night had driven her to seek comfort on the cool asphalt surface of what she thought was a safe road to sleep on ? she was unaware that we were having military exercises in the area.
Since that near-accident I learned a lot about Korea’s history during the late Choson period and I am always surprised at the way history repeats itself. That elderly lady was lucky, but in the past there were many who weren’t.
After Korea’s opening in 1882, modernization rushed into Korea. By 1901 a railroad from Chemulpo to Seoul had been completed; telegraphs, and in some instances telephones, connected Seoul to other cities of the Empire and to the outside world; electricity, and the American owned Seoul Electric Railroad Company (SERC) operated a fleet of streetcars that transported passengers and cargo through the streets of Seoul.
Almost all of this “progress” which was introduced into Korea was initially met with superstitious opposition and the SERC was no exception. When it was first introduced in 1898 many people were worried that the electric wires angered the gods and disrupted the natural order of things. They reasoned that the Americans and their streetcar enterprise were responsible for the severe drought that the country was experiencing. Eventually though, the citizens of the city came to realize the benefits of the streetcars and actively used and accepted them.
Summers in Seoul were extremely hot and many of the men would sleep outside when the weather permitted it. Those who lived near the SERC line often made their beds next to the tracks and used the rails as their pillows. The rails were of a similar shape and size to the Korean traditional pillows and the coolness of the rails greatly appealed to the heat troubled sleepers.
One American visitor in the summer of 1901 noted: “…we often saw long rows of white-clad citizens, like prostrate ghosts, laid out on mats of straw, snoring in ecstasy, their necks reposing on the cool, and, to them, comfortable rails.”
Many Koreans also sought refuge in the few parks in the Seoul area. One of the most popular parks was Queen Min’s tomb near the Chongnyangni district. It was serene and beautiful with trees and grass. The SERC had expanded its line to the entrance of the park and when the weather was fine, the streetcars were often filled to capacity as picnickers traveled to and fro. These picnics often lasted until late in the night and the drunken revelers returned to their homes in Seoul on the last streetcar, the Owl. It departed at 11:30 p.m. and arrived at the terminal at midnight.
Most of the residents along the tracks were well aware of the streetcar’s schedule and waited until after the Owl had made its final run before they spread out their straw mats and reposed for the night in the cool air. However, one night in August 1901, the Owl was delayed, possibly due to mechanical problems, and departed much later than usual.
At least two people were unaware that the streetcar had been delayed and they laid out their straw mats thinking that the Owl had already passed for the night.
The streetcar was equipped with an electric light and probably a bell, but due to the late hour there were probably no warning rings or calls to alert pedestrians of its approach. The driver was most likely driving faster than normal, trying to make up for the lost time and thinking that the streets were empty. He might have noticed the two Korean men, their heads lying on the rails, and tried to warn them with the bell and shouts, as he tried to bring the streetcar to a screeching halt, but it was too late.
The streetcar rolled over the necks of the sleeping prone figures and decapitated both men like an “electric guillotine.” A horrified but angry crowd gathered and shouts for revenge echoed in the streets as the crowd attempted to destroy the mechanical murderer that had just mangled their neighbors to death. The operator, fearing for his life, managed to make good his escape.
The crowd was dispersed with the arrival of the “California House.” The “California House” was a group of cowboys and railroad men from California that had been brought to Korea after the first streetcar riots in 1898.
They were big, rough-looking toughs that easily intimidated the Koreans into submissiveness with their size and fighting prowess. They were officially drivers and engineers, but in reality were expensive Company bodyguards. The following morning the SERC responded by placing posters on all of the streetcar poles in the city declaring the track as the private property of the SERC and henceforth no one would be permitted to sleep upon the rails. These posters were quickly ripped down by the crowds who threatened to riot again because they felt that it was their right to sleep upon the rails. For several days the situation was tense, but eventually the SERC capitulated to the demands of the Korean public. According to the American visitor the Koreans continued “to enjoy the night air with their necks upon the chilly steel, heroically defying the electric guillotine.” The SERC made some changes.
the Owl car did not deviate from its schedule, but if there was a delay or breakdown the car would postpone its run until the following morning. The Company won a short-lived peace, but there would be more riots and demonstrations in the following years.
Thank you very much Dokdoforever….
The more things change…
The next time an English teacher complains about not getting paid, maybe s/he could give that a try.
Robert Neff, I was told by a historian that the power at the palace was short-lived because it resulted in run-off polluting palace ponds/bodies of water. Anything?
Thanks, Dokdoforever.
The California House? What a story–Korea really is another world
Not sure why it was called the California “House”, but we could certainly use a group like that again.
Also amusing to see sock troll Nutizen Kim pawned so thoroughly.
I risk either giving Netizen Kim a conniption and/or setting off a flamewar, but heck, we’re halfway there already.
This Lankov article mentions the incident soon after streetcar service began that probably led to the “California House”’s being brought over:
The Rise and Fall of the Seoul Tram
There is an eerie parallel to a much more recent incident, in the public reaction to a Japanese motorman’s accidental running over of a Korean girl.
Thanks Sewing, Mr. Lankov’s articles are always interesting. At least our resident troll can learn something about the country he has taken upon himself to defend at all costs, facts be damned
This is strictly semantic:
Wiki defines a troll as ” person who is deliberately inflammatory on the Internet in order to provoke a vehement response from other users.”
Maybe this time bluejives is a troll, but I think usually he’s just stating his opinion. If you are just stating your opinion, are you deliberatively inflammatory?
Peninsular, I doubt this is bluejives unless he totally lost his sense of humor in one of the boroughs…this is more like the race-baiting tool who was apparently banned once already and came back.
“Since I don’t indulge in white man’s burden historical nostalgia-waxing” is trolling, from someone who doeasn’t even know the history of the country.
No, it’s definitely bluejives.
He has not changed his posting shtick in at least thirteen years.
i think netizen kim isn’t bluejives.
He is. When he first started posting as Netizen Kim, he forgot to change his wolf gravatar until I pointed it out.
This changes everything
He has totally lost his sense of humor. Eh, I won’t bother him anymore, carry on with your antics (what happened with the Hebrew lessons?).
he’s not. He never mentions anything about Hebrew lessons. That wolf pic is very common. And used by many. It’s not even a unique pic, like that of some other users. I could find one right now.
and he doesn’t quote anyone like the way bluejives did.
Then he’s Ban Ki-moon pretending to be Kushibo posing as a gyopo
Google “wolf” and you will get hundreds of thousands of search results. Bluejives dropped out of the K-blogosphere right around the time Net Kim showed up with the same gravatar. Shortly after I pointed out the gravatar, it disappeared.
Speaking of which, will the Marmot ever re-enable avatars?
i’ve seen the same gravatar/wolf pic in other places. is that proof?
Proof of what? How about some links to other netizens posting with this apparently popular gravatar?
Ok, I apologize for the snide remark I made earlier. It was in jest.
No need for you to, uh, lose your heads over it…
I rather like Mr Neff’s writings and I look forward to the next installment of stupid Chosun heathen tricks.
Bluejives is an idiot (viz original idiocy in nos. 4 and 13 above, and attempted ass-covering idiocy in no. 16).
oranckay, why do we suffer this troll? For entertainment purposes? Look at Robert’s post and consider his effort to put it together, and then look at Bluejives’ assine efforts to hijack the thread. Look at the language he uses - regularly uses, and which must be regularly deleted - and see his ham-handed efforts to gloss over his idiocy.
Really, why is he still here?
C’mon, he apologized. We all - well, many of us - write dumb shit occasionally.
When he writes ‘[s]ince I don’t indulge in white man’s burden historical nostalgia-waxing, I’d readily admit that I’m no big expert in dumb-ass Chosun-era backwardness’, he’s more than a mere asshat.
Bringing race into this thread simply shows Bluejives for what he is - indeed, for what he regularly is. Where’s the apology for that - a real one, not some crapdance followed by more of the same on another thread?
Point taken.