From unwieldy pipes to black-market cigarettes, tobacco has been an important part of Korean society for over four hundred years....
Words by Robert Neff Photos from the collection of Robert Neff One of the earliest modernizations to Seoul was the...
In 1885, Percival Lowell published a book entitled “Choson: The Land of the Morning Calm.” It was a huge success and helped coin the phrase that is still often used to describe Korea. But when the first Westerners arrived in Seoul in the early 1880s, it was anything but calm....
Words by Robert NeffPhotos from the collection of Robert Neff Joseon Korea was generally perceived by foreign visitors as a...
History isn’t without its foibles and quirks. If it’s not lack a of information about Shakespeare, then it’s the real...
During the late Joseon era, Koreans were well-known for their fondness for children—not only their own, but foreign children as well. While many children thrived on the attention, others did not. Annie Heron, who was born in Seoul in 1886, recalled waking up one morning to the sound of her...
If you really want to learn about early Korean-Western relations, you have got to start by looking at Nagasaki, Japan....
In 1882, three courageous American officers became the first Westerners to step foot in Busan. When the intrepid elderly British adventurer Isabella Bird Bishop visited Fusan (modern Busan) in January 1894, she declared, “It is not Korea but Japan which meets one on anchoring.” She was, of course, referring to the large population of Japanese that literally dominated the foreign settlement of that port, and, for the most part, the surrounding Korean community.
We have all been taught that aviation history was made on December 17, 1903, when the Wright brothers managed to go airborne for 12 seconds in a heavier-than-air vehicle that we now call an aircraft. But were they the first? Korea’s history is also sprinkled with accounts of flight. In...
Words by Vaughan Wallis, Illustrations by Pat Volz You may have heard of the Korean Wave, the spread of Korean...