By Robert Neff
Yi Sung-tak was a young man from Pyongyang ― likely a Christian ― who arrived in Seoul in 1893 in search of a career.
Like many young men, he dreamed of becoming rich and powerful and knew that a good education was key to his success. Somehow, possibly through family connections, he managed to gain the coveted entrance into one of the few foreign schools in Korea at the time, Paichai, where he studied English.
With the knowledge he gained from school and Korea s continued modernization and interaction with the rest of the world, his future seemed reasonably secured. It should have been, but Sung-tak was a troubled youth.