It is no secret that Seoul is filled with coffee shops; they are everywhere and often right next to one another. They are so common that one barely notices them. Surprisingly, Seoul also has a large number of museums, which - like the coffee shop - are often passed by unnoticed.
On the night of Feb. 23, 1885, Seoul was visited by one of its most dangerous adversaries - a fire! George C. Foulk, the American representative in Seoul, reported that a large “conflagration broke out” in a Korean government-owned lumberyard and warehouses just to the north of the American Legation. The buildings and a “quantity of valuable timber” were destroyed.
History often confines itself to narrating only the events surrounding key protagonists and antagonists, their exploits and faults and their eventual fates. But in my opinion, it is often the people surrounding these key figures who are the most interesting - the ways in which they interact with our heroes and villains, the subtle (and, sometimes, not so subtle) influence they exert and their own deeds that are sometimes misappropriated by or misattributed to the powerful political player.
History often confines itself to narrating only the events surrounding key protagonists and antagonists, their exploits and faults and their eventual fates. But in my opinion, it is often the people surrounding these key figures who are the most interesting - the ways in which they interact with our heroes and villains, the subtle (and, sometimes, not so subtle) influence they exert and their own deeds that are sometimes misappropriated by or misattributed to the powerful political player.
In Korea, the New Year began with change and trepidation. December had been brutally cold but the first week of January 1898 was pleasantly mild. There was the promise of prosperity. The rice prices, which had been extremely high due to the failure of the crops in the capital region the previous year, continued to fall as more shipments of rice arrived. There were probably some who believed that the supernatural was responsible for this change of fate.