The Marmot’s Hole

Took a little walk Saturday to a couple of sites of interest in the downtown area near Samsung Hospital.

Gyeonggyojang

Long-time readers will have seen this place before.

The Gyeonggyojang, located on the grounds of Samsung Hospital, was built in 1938 as the residence of Choe Chang-hak, a gold mining magnate who racked up an impressive resume of pro-Japanese activities during the colonial era. The building was designed by Kim Se-yeon, one of Korea’s first modern architects, and built by a Japanese construction company.

After Liberation, Choe gave the house to Korean independence fighter Kim Gu, the last president of the Korean Provisional Government, for use as an office. On June 26, 1949, Kim was assassinated on the second floor of the building, quite possibly with the involvement of President Rhee Syngman.

Hong Nan-pa House

A cozy Western-style brick home, the Hong Nan-pa House was built in 1930 by a German missionary. It’s famous as the place where Korean violinist and composer Hong Nan-pa spent the last six years of his life. Hong, one of Korea’s first Western musicians, undoubtedly contributed much to Korean music, but he was also a Japanese collaborator, having been a prominent member of several major pro-Japanese organizations. It’s for this reason that Hong was named to the list of Japanese collaborators compiled by the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities and the Compilation Committee for the Biographical Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Koreans.

This area of Seoul is a rather nice place to walk around — high up, it offers views of the Seodaemun area. The old city walls used to run through here, too, and are currently being restored.

Taylor House (Dilkusha House)

A short walk up from Hong Nan-pa’s house brings to an alley in which you’ll find a) a very large ginkgo tree and b) a handsome American-style red-brick house. The house was originally believed to be the office of the Daehan Maeil Sinbo, a bilingual newspaper founded in 1904 by British journalist Ernest Thomas Bethell. Accordingly, plans were made to designate the property a historic site and turn it into a newspaper museum, but doubts as to the house’s history were raised. In particular, the writing on the house’s cornerstone — “Dilkusha 1923: Psalm CⅩⅩⅤⅡ- I” had everyone perplexed.

The 2006 visit to Seoul of then 87-year-old American Bruce Taylor revealed the true history of the house. The building was built in 1923 by UPI correspondent Albert Taylor, Bruce’s father, as a family residence. Bruce Taylor, who was born in Seoul, spent his early years at the home until the Japanese expelled his family in 1942. Interestingly, both his father and grandfather (who ran a gold mine in what is now North Korea) are buried in Yanghwajin Foreigners’ Cemetery.

He also cleared up the meaning of cornerstone. Dilkusha, which apparently comes from the Dilkusha Palace (which itself was rather interesting building) in Lucknow, India, means in Hindi, “My heart is happy.” Oh, and Psalms 127: 1 reads, “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

The house is inhabited now by several families and really could use some restoration work. The city was taking measures to designate it a modern cultural property, but I have no idea how far that’s come.

Former Keijo Office of Hazama Corporation

OK, this building is nowhere near the other three.

After my little walk, I headed over to Yongsan Electronics Market to see if GTA IV for the Xbox 360 had come in. Well, indeed it had, but at 100,000 won, I decided even a game that had earned a 10 at IGN could wait until next month. Since I’d come all the way to Yongsan, however, I tracked down a historic building that I’d read about elsewhere.

This funky little building, located in an alley off Hangang-no, was the Keijo (Seoul) office of the Hazama Corporation, a Japanese construction company that is still very much alive and kicking. During the colonial era, Hazama did a lot work with the colonial railway company, building the Yalu River Railway Bridge and Seoul’s Indogyo Bridge (some great photos from the 1960s). Accordingly, the company established its office in Yongsan, where the colonial railway authorities were based.

At one point, the building had a second-floor balcony that has since been removed.