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Fifteen Years Among The Top-Knots: Or Life In Korea
Lillias Horton Underwood, Frank Ellinwood (Introduction)
4.19
16 ratings7 reviews
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
292 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1904
Book details & editionsLillias Horton Underwood3 books2 followers
Anne
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August 15, 2023
This is a brilliant primary source from an American perspective of Korea near the end of the Joseon Dynasty. Lillias Underwood was a Presbyterian nurse who came to Korea in 1888 and stayed for fifteen years, experiencing the changes which took place in Korea involving the assassination of Queen Min in 1893 and the slow takeover of the Japanese. A brilliant book and really interesting!
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Stephanie P
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January 12, 2022
It was interesting to see how newcomers to Korea perceived Korea and Korean culture during this time period. It was also eye opening to see how racist Christian missionaries were, and how they spoke so lowly of Korean people.
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Robert Jeens
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June 30, 2023
This little volume was published in 1904. Lillias Underwood was a Presbyterian missionary who arrived in Korea in 1888. She was a doctor to the Queen of Korea and moved in the highest circles and so had a very privileged view of current events and society at a very tumultuous time in Korean history. She married Horace Underwood, who was the founder of the school that later became Yonsei University, where I teach English as a Second Language.
The content of the book ranges from fascinating to pedestrian. She was in Seoul during the whole time of the Sino-Japanese War. She was the Queen of Korea’s doctor until the Queen was murdered by the Japanese in the royal palace. She witnessed the flight of the King to the Russian Legation, which was right next door to her house. She witnessed first-hand the efforts of the Independence Club to try to modernize Korea and keep it out of the clutches of other powers. She travelled all over Korea, in places where Westerners had rarely or never gone before and attested to the geography and beauty of the place, an opinion I happen to share. The one-story, thatched houses in Seoul looked like a forest of mushrooms. What was it like to float down the Yalu River between China and Korea? What was life like for a working missionary? She and her husband proselytized much, helping to establish hospitals, schools and churches. Her husband wrote dictionaries and grammars . She was an active part of a community of people who have since become somewhat famous, including Henry Appenzeller, William Scranton, Horace Grant and Horace Allen.
It is difficult to know exactly what to think of these missionaries from a perspective of 2023. It is very easy to dismiss them and their attitudes. Lillian Underwood was very definitely a cultural imperialist. She came to spread a gospel to the heathen and she knew they needed it. While she found much to admire both in the individual Koreans she met and in Koreans as a group, she had many criticisms as well. Among the common people, cleanliness was more known by its absence. And she regarded rival indigenous religions as at least useless and at most devil worship. She knew that she came from a much more civilized society and came to Korea to help spread that civilization. As for her descriptions of life in Korea in the 1890s, of course they come from the perspective of a privileged white woman. She lived in relative luxury. She had the ear of and protection of the Royal Court. She knew the King and Queen well. She moved in elite circles and treated the great and the good. She also treated the down and out because she considered it her Christian duty to do so.
What can we do with these attitudes? Well, it seems pertinent to point out that there are many Koreans in 2023 who would share many of her attitudes to their countrymen in the 1890s. That is why Korea now has great public sanitation, clean streets, and an awesome public health system based on Western medicine. It might be impolitic to point out but it seems to me that the development of South Korea has been a great proof of the benefit of the spread of Western Enlightenment values, science and principles of government. All people have the ability to make complex cultures but not all cultures equally allow for complex human development. She came from a privileged background in the USA, and when confronted with low-caste Koreans such as sailors, bandits or “coolies” she could be scathing about their character, but one must wonder how she would have described similar people in America. When she met Korean nobility, she often found them to be polite, kind, erudite and well educated in their own way. Of course she stereotypes when she writes about the best way for white people to interact with “Asiatics”. She praises Koreans’ “childlike” faith. On the other hand, she was self-aware enough to observe that Koreans were not always impressed by all things Western. An official, upon returning from New York, enjoyed it very much, “except the dirt and the smells, which were horrible.”
She was very sympathetic to the Royal Family in general and the Queen in particular and when she voiced an opinion about, she was likely to blame the King’s father, corrupt officials or the Japanese for the problems that beset Korea. That is still a popular opinion but there are other Korean historians who put the King and his wife’s scheming family right at the center of the rot that corrupted the Chosun dynasty. I am not enough of a scholar of the period to give an expert opinion, but I think there is enough blame for the Royal Family to have participated unwillingly in the loss of Korean independence.
Give the book a read if you are interested in that period of Korean history. It is a privileged Western perspective but she was here and she saw the things she saw. It is not only of interest to people interested in the history of the early Christian churches in Korea though there is a lot of that too. People interested in the latest fads of political correctness will find much to criticize here, and personally I am no friend of the church, any church. On the other hand, how many people did she doctor back to life? It seems to me a portrait of a portion of a life well-spent.
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Liza
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March 16, 2022
It took two attempts to finish this book for me. While informative, descriptive and reasonably well-written in parts, some chapters were tough to get through, and those were usually dedicated to the Christian missionary work. But let's get the bigger problem out of the way first.
If you sum up the bare facts, i.e. "white, Christian American from a privileged background", "late 19th century", "Asian country with its own culture and ancient history", you'll probably guess what the problem is. The Western sense of superiority and condescending, ignorant attitude, blatant disrespect toward cultures much older and different from their own, religious intolerance, are on full display. Which is educational in its own way, since the author, being from the 19th century, is proud of those sentiments and lays them out without shame, making her a transparent and honest, if brutally ignorant, narrator.
Now, about the Christian missionary work. Don't get me wrong: that was the reason why Mrs. Underwood headed to Korea in the first place, so it makes perfect sense that the heavily Christian point of view would be present. But even though I approached the book with the goggles of neutrality purposefully put over my eyes, sometimes they just wouldn't stay on.
Now, it must be said that I'm talking about this particular Christian here, and not of all people who follow that religion, obviously. The author refers to Korean people as "heathens" throughout the book. She sees the female dancers as "fallen women". She makes petty remarks about the clothes, hairstyles, makeup, bodies and faces of the local women. She is sure that the "pagan" traditional rituals, such as ancestral worship will soon fade into obscurity (which, spoiler, they haven't done).
According to statistics, Seoul now has the most Christian sects practicing within its walls than any other city in the world. Some of them are dangerous, some are eccentric, but so many of them contribute to homophobia, misogyny, intolerance and even social inequality in the modern society of South Korea.
While I believe that the missionaries' intentions must have been good for the most part, while they helped promote medicine and education in certain fields as well as hygienic culture, along with lessening domestic violence to a degree, not every consequence of their work has served Korean people well in the long run. But that is a complex subject and not one that this book could possibly deal with.
That said, my historical curiosity was satisfied in many ways while reading this book. The author describes many interesting details of the everyday lives of Korean people in that period and devotes some pages to respectful and vivid descriptions of Korea's beautiful nature.
Some reader discretion is advised, though. There are many descriptions of violence and death that can get pretty vivid at times.
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Christina
Author 62 books
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November 1, 2019
Very interesting peak into Korean/Chosen life at the time. I felt that this missionary lady tried to tell about her (and her husband's) adventures without making herself or her acquaintances seeming to be heroes; nor tried to frame Koreans in purposefully negative ways. She and her colleagues made mistakes and did good things (religious, medical, etc) and she was honest to point out some of the worst offenses. Likewise, she pointed out through simple description of events good and bad things various Koreans did.
I really appreciated her intimate review of her times with the king and queen (Queen Min, who was murdered) and her observances of the lifestyles and nuances of Korean life at the time. This is certainly a book worth reading for secular and religious people alike, for, if you don't care for the religious remarks, there's quite a bit of descriptions of villages, mountains, people, clothing, food, lifestyle, etc. Quite a bit of humor throughout, too.
The only aspect that rubbed me the wrong was Underwood's (at the time) innocent, occasional remarks of referring to the Koreans as "natives" (technically a correct term for any national people, but just sounds wrong). Or, her subconscious "judging" of some of the people's culture per American/European standards of civilization. The example of this that stands out is her remark that the queen wore such delicate silks and satins and was so well-bred that despite her "never having been to a European court" she "almost seemed like she was from a civilized country".
It was also hard to figure out if I was pronouncing the Korean words she referenced through Arabic characterse correctly. I don't think she had, or was using one of the standard Arabic spelling/renditions of Korean words. My husband is Korean, and though I kept showing him the words, most of the time he wasn't sure, either (lol). An example is the use of 'Moxa' (moxabustion?) but Underwood was actually trying to spell "mogsa / 목사" (pastor).
On the other side, though, Underwood was also aware and acknowledged her own subconscious cultural arrogance, and that being in another so different culture made her more aware of this; and that, just because she thought something in her culture was better, didn't necessarily make it so. Two examples was (1) a Korean yanbang telling her Korean music to him was superior to Chinese and American/European (after he'd heard American-style military band music and had returned from America); and (2) when she was told that America must be 'superior' to Korea, to which she said it was not.
If you can get past these types of little remarks, you'll enjoy this book. Such a valuable microreview of a time past in Korea, despite any potential incorrect information from her outsider POV.
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Eugenia Kim
Author 2 books274 followers
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ReadDecember 3, 2015
Lillias Horton was a doctor who went to Korea in 1888 as a Christian humanitarian missionary, whereupon she married one of the first Presbyterian missionaries to land in Korea, Horace Underwood. They traveled throughout Korea for fifteen years, and were connected to the Korean court, having had several audiences with the Kojong and Queen Min. This memoir of her travels is revealing and important for its eyewitness viewpoint, provincial as it is, of Korea in an era so few Westerners were familiar with. They lived through and witnessed the Japanese incursion into Korea, Queen Min’s murder, and the ongoing jockeying of power between the king and his father the Daewongun, the Tonghak uprising, birth of the Independence movement via the Independence clubs—virtually the dawn of the end of the kingdom and the dawn of the Japanese occupation. Her point of view, while prejudicially reflective of the attitude of that era, and her eye for detail bring a unique and fascinating account of Korea at the end of the 19th century. She mentions the work of many early missionaries by name, the scope including translations of tracts, the bible, and creation of Korean-English dictionaries. She especially focuses on the many smaller towns they visited in their mission work, and the hardship of the lives of the women, the “unsanitary filth” of the homes and streets, the lack of medical care, and the hunger for Christian salvation. She describes mobs of villagers when they first traveled into the country, folks so eager to see the foreign lady that they would poke fingers into the paper windows to peek in. Like James Gale’s THE VANGUARD, this memoir is an important description of daily life in the hermit kingdom at a tumultuous time, and is the female version of the Western vanguard into Korea. © 1903/1908. American Tract Society.
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Esther
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January 1, 2021
It was no doubt one of the best books I've read, and will not fail to impress readers with interest in missionary work, Christianity, medicine and/or history (Korean).
The book was written by Mrs. (Dr.) Lillias H Underwood, wife of Mr. Horace G Underwood. It is the story of their life in Korea in the late 1800s when they were in Korea to carry out missionary work. It tells of their experiences within the country - relationship with the king and queen, witnessing and living in the terrible conditions of the country at that time, going around the country to spread the Word and the experiences they encountered being one of the early 'foreigners' in the country. Original photos were included in my paperback version from Amazon.
Overall it was a fantastic read, and I personally highly recommend it!
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