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Corea or Cho-Sen
Excerpt from Corea or Cho-Sen
The illustrations in this book are reproductions of sketches taken by me while in the country, and though, perhaps, they want much in artistic merit, I venture to hope that they will be found characteristic.
The illustrations in this book are reproductions of sketches taken by me while in the country, and though, perhaps, they want much in artistic merit, I venture to hope that they will be found characteristic.
- GenresNonfiction
334 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1895
About the author
Arnold Henry Savage Landor
52 books2 followersArnold Henry Savage Landor (1865 – 26 December 1924) was an English painter, explorer, writer, and anthropologist. Landor wrote in an often witty style.
Landor was born in Florence, Italy, where he spent his childhood. The writer Walter Savage Landor was his grandfather.
He left for Paris at age fifteen to study at the Académie Julian directed by Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre. He then traveled the world, including America, Japan, and Korea, painting many landscapes and portraits.
He had an active role in World War I, designing tanks and airships. Eventually, he retired to write his autobiography in Florence, where he died in 1924. He is buried in the English cemetery in Florence.
Landor was born in Florence, Italy, where he spent his childhood. The writer Walter Savage Landor was his grandfather.
He left for Paris at age fifteen to study at the Académie Julian directed by Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre. He then traveled the world, including America, Japan, and Korea, painting many landscapes and portraits.
He had an active role in World War I, designing tanks and airships. Eventually, he retired to write his autobiography in Florence, where he died in 1924. He is buried in the English cemetery in Florence.
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December 31, 2015This short book has what must be the most heartless narrator of all the travel writing I’ve read. After I finished it, I went and Googled the author, and apparently he was quite renowned in his time, to the point that Queen Victoria invited him for tea to make him tell her stories of his exploits. Well, he did see some interesting things, but his style is trying so very hard to be witty and engaging that at times his sentences feel as if forced out by convulsions; I enjoyed it at first, then got bored, then saw some disturbing things…
The narrator visits the Korean kingdom shortly before the Japanese invasion. His opinion of the country is formed partly by the usual kind condescension of a Victorian gent towards his inferiors, partly by sadistic amusement, and partly by the regular 19th-century racism:
“In Corea, as is the case all over the far East, the natives are not much concerned about this […] existence and attach little importance to death and physical pain. I have no doubt, in fact I am positive, that the Eastern people feel pain much less than we do, partly because they are accustomed from childhood to be insensitive to bodily agony, but chiefly because they are differently constituted to us. In our case, the brain, by means of which it is that we judge of the amount of pain inflicted on us, has been trained to receive impressions so quickly […], that, indeed, many times we actually feel the pain before it has been physically communicated to us at all. With the Corean, as with the Manchu or the Chinese, a reverse action takes place. With them, the brain works so very slowly that, supposing a bad ache is taking place in any part of the body, whence is being conveyed to the drowsy brain the unpleasant news of the agony that that part is undergoing; well, what in that case happens in the Corean skull? By the time the brain has grasped the idea that the aforesaid part of the body is really in a state of suffering, the pain is almost gone. This, roughly stated, is I believe, a truthful explanation of their going to death with so much bravery.”
That’s the thing. This dude is a bit too much interested in suffering and death, without even pretending to fake any kind of compassion. He goes wherever something bloody is going on: a guild brawl, a whipping of a soldier, a public execution – he loves those especially. A half-dead beggar is to him a ROFLMAO case; and he laughs, and besides, other people on the street laugh too – how can you not, when the beggar makes sounds resembling a cow, because his throat and half his face have been eaten by leprosy? Hilarious, right? Right? Guys?
Here is how he observes children flying kites on the city walls:
“It is quaint to see rows of children with their little red jackets, standing on the high walls of the city, spending hours in this favorite amusement. They have barely room to stand upon, as the wall is hardly more than a couple of feet wide, and it was always a surprise to me that, amid the constant jerking and pulling the young folks were never precipitated from their point of vantage to the foot, which in many places would be as much as thirty feet in height. I have watched them for hours in the expectation of seeing one of them have an accident, but unfortunately for me they never did!”
Yeah. He hopes and waits for HOURS for a child – or preferably more than one, I guess – to fall thirty feet down from a wall. “Unfortunately”! This dude really is something. I wonder how many of those imperial sadists toured the world in 19th century, ogling tortures, executions, and all kinds of misery in faraway lands.
The narrator visits the Korean kingdom shortly before the Japanese invasion. His opinion of the country is formed partly by the usual kind condescension of a Victorian gent towards his inferiors, partly by sadistic amusement, and partly by the regular 19th-century racism:
“In Corea, as is the case all over the far East, the natives are not much concerned about this […] existence and attach little importance to death and physical pain. I have no doubt, in fact I am positive, that the Eastern people feel pain much less than we do, partly because they are accustomed from childhood to be insensitive to bodily agony, but chiefly because they are differently constituted to us. In our case, the brain, by means of which it is that we judge of the amount of pain inflicted on us, has been trained to receive impressions so quickly […], that, indeed, many times we actually feel the pain before it has been physically communicated to us at all. With the Corean, as with the Manchu or the Chinese, a reverse action takes place. With them, the brain works so very slowly that, supposing a bad ache is taking place in any part of the body, whence is being conveyed to the drowsy brain the unpleasant news of the agony that that part is undergoing; well, what in that case happens in the Corean skull? By the time the brain has grasped the idea that the aforesaid part of the body is really in a state of suffering, the pain is almost gone. This, roughly stated, is I believe, a truthful explanation of their going to death with so much bravery.”
That’s the thing. This dude is a bit too much interested in suffering and death, without even pretending to fake any kind of compassion. He goes wherever something bloody is going on: a guild brawl, a whipping of a soldier, a public execution – he loves those especially. A half-dead beggar is to him a ROFLMAO case; and he laughs, and besides, other people on the street laugh too – how can you not, when the beggar makes sounds resembling a cow, because his throat and half his face have been eaten by leprosy? Hilarious, right? Right? Guys?
Here is how he observes children flying kites on the city walls:
“It is quaint to see rows of children with their little red jackets, standing on the high walls of the city, spending hours in this favorite amusement. They have barely room to stand upon, as the wall is hardly more than a couple of feet wide, and it was always a surprise to me that, amid the constant jerking and pulling the young folks were never precipitated from their point of vantage to the foot, which in many places would be as much as thirty feet in height. I have watched them for hours in the expectation of seeing one of them have an accident, but unfortunately for me they never did!”
Yeah. He hopes and waits for HOURS for a child – or preferably more than one, I guess – to fall thirty feet down from a wall. “Unfortunately”! This dude really is something. I wonder how many of those imperial sadists toured the world in 19th century, ogling tortures, executions, and all kinds of misery in faraway lands.
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