Customer Reviews

Korea and Her Neighbours (Pacific Basin Books)

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this books tells more than just facts about korea one hundred years ago. she-isabella bishop-wrote it on her experience in korea. she traveled every mountain,river and road on her foot, well, actually, somtimes in a boat and carriage. anyway, though it was very hard time then and she had not only pleasant experiences, her love to the country shines throughout the book. i think it is lucky for us korean that she wrote this book.

Isabella Bird did a wonderful job in describing her first-hand experience of Korea and its society before Japanese occupation. Her striving for accuracy and fairness is commendable and many pictures show glipmse of life in Korea in late 19th century.

KOREA AND HER NEIGHBOURS is a book that is eerily prescient about Korea. It is also provides glimpses of Korea as it was before Japan's Occupation. It has all the confidence of its time, but has some drawbacks.

KOREA AND HER NEIGHBOURS was written by a remarkable woman, Isabella Bird Bishop, an independent British Victorian lady who had also written books about Japan and the US. She toured Korea four times between March 1894-7, and also toured Manchuria and Korean settlements in the Russian Far East. She visited Pusan, Seoul, and Pyongyang, and also sailed the Han River on a raft and climbed the Diamond Mountains. Her accounts and opinions are unusually precise and honest, and still meaningful. Other topics of discussion include marriage customs, shamanism, political events, accounts of the Sino-Japanese War, Koreans in exile, and interviews with the Korean royal family.

The book also includes photographs, particularly useful and informative, since the Japanese destroyed many of the royal households during the Occupation.

Bishop had the opportunity to see parts of Korea that most foreigners have not seen since the Korean War and the division of the peninsula. Although she is very critical of the Korean government and upper classes, she develops a fondness and sympathy for the people of Korea. But, that does not impede her honesty, and she criticizes common behavior and customs readily.

Although the book is full of information, whether it be political, historical, sociological, or naturalistic, her Victorian viewpoint is very apparent. Her faith in Japanese (and Russian) assistance to develop Korea is uncannily prescient, if only naive. Confronted with the account of the murder of Queen Min by the Japanese, she can only plead special pardon for the Japanese, whom she sees as enlightened saviors. Her belief in development is well-meant, but is too simplistic for such a backward country as Korea was. But her account of foreign efforts to reform Korea are expansive (she includes ample appendices and transcripts of government documents). She is a firm believer in a form of democratic republicanism not seen since the First World War.

This is a treasure for students of Korea and Asia, but also for students of the late 19th Century. This very spirited, independent woman amazingly travelled alone, accompanied only by hired men, down rivers and up mountains in summer and winter, walked across battlefields, waded through slums, and interviewed kings, queens, and politicians. This is not only a triumph of scholarship, but of adventure.

This book presents an insightful account of Korea (in particular, Seoul) during the final years of the Lee Dynasty.
We learn that Seoul in those days bore striking resemblance to present-day North Korea, i.e. a total hell hole. I find this fascinating because most, if not all, Koreans speak fondly of this period and lambast the Japanese for destroying their "culture".

Highly recommended.

Although this book gives an interesting snapshot of the state of Korea during the 1890's, I found the perspective to be a bit dated. Bird is a layperson describing events and accordingly provides a superficial account of Koream events. This is also a perspective of a Victorian lady with all the prejudices of that bygone era. The book is amusing from that perspective and is more like a novel; but it is hardly a scientic or sholarly study--if you are looking for a more scholarly work in your study of Korea and its history at this time you might instead look to more a recently published work and written from someone with appropriate educational background and training.

Accordingly, this book should be read with a grain of salt as it is written by a layperson with all prejudices of a bygone Victorian era. It is hardly historical. It is perhaps like reading WWII American accounts of the Japanese empire and its people and taking that as the historical perspective.