Dead [White] Man’s Party, With More Daisies and Less Oingo Boingo

by Robert Koehler on June 2, 2008

A couple of photos taken at Yanghwajin Foreigners’ Cemetery and Hangang River Park.

Lots of interesting Dead White Folk at Yanghwajin — this is the grave of Luigi Casati, the first Italian consul to Korea. He died in Seoul in 1909.

This would be the grave of Big. Gen. Charles Le Gendre, the French-born US Army officer and Civil War veteran who served as US consul in Amoy, China and a military advisor to the Japanese and Korean governments. He died in Seoul in 1899. Can’t imagine he was the prettiest guy in Seoul — he had his left eye and nose blown off in the Battle of the Wilderness.

Just some roses near the grave of British journalist Ernest T. Bethell, who founded the Daehan Maeil Shinbo and severely criticized the Japanese until he died in 1909, several months after he was “aggressively interrogated” for three weeks at Seodaemun Prison.

Oh my, look at all the daisies at Hangang Citizens Park.

Yep, it’s a daisy and a bee.

{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Sonagi June 2, 2008 at 12:48 am: Amoy, China = Amoy is a formerly used Anglicized name for the coastal city of Xiamen, located across the straits from Taiwan.
2 Notlob June 2, 2008 at 1:41 am: Any updates on the status of the lawsuit(s) at the cemetery? And all the other dubious crap going on over there? Mr. Neff, can you hear me?
3 pawikirogi June 2, 2008 at 8:49 am: thank you for teaching me about this man named bethell. i was unaware of him. may his soul rest in peace.
4 dong9chin9 June 2, 2008 at 10:16 am: In a weird bit of foreshadowing, in these photographs the graves look uncannily like little apartment blocks. How many vacant plots are there, and don’t pretend you haven’t inquired.
5 Aceface June 4, 2008 at 6:06 pm: The book on Bethell affair written by a Korean Professor had just translatedd in Japan this month.
鄭晋錫著/李相哲訳『大韓帝国の新聞をめぐる日英紛争あるイギリス人ジャーナリストの物語』

According to that,Bethell was died of “Dilation of Heart”,probabably come from heavy drinking and smoking.
Though the stress of interrogation may have cost him a heavy stress that could have affected negatively to his health,I doubt there were any torture on Bethell by the Japanese authorities considering Britain and Japan was ally at the time and Bethell was already being prosecuted by the British consulate for damaging British interest by
angering Japanese.