#myeongseong

[eirikswood]

The Perpetual Subjugation of Joseon-guk

an allegorical depiction of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) and Empress Myeongseong (1851-1895), based on Le Supplice de Jane Grey (1833) by French painter Hippolyte "Paul" Delaroche

The Perpetual Subjugation of Joseon-guk, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[peridot-tears]

Alice Roosevelt was reportedly a fine woman and champion of African-American rights. But upon her visit to the late Queen Myeongseong’s tomb, the first damn thing she did was ride one of the stone animals standing on the site.

That sort of sacrilege, brought about by modern imperialism and western misunderstanding, is representative of the attitude of even the most well-meaning, equality-championing westerner towards the inclusion of Asians in this narrative even today.

[vespertilii]

So I’m about to write something about Queen Myeongseong of Korea and she was compared to a kitsune/kumiho in some imperial Japanese correspondence at the time, which led to me being briefly tempted to name the essay “Smells Like Fox Spirit: the Role and Image of Queen Myeongseong in the Struggle for Korea”

[birdcap]

Empress Myeongseong aka Queen Min.  One of the last great defenders against imperalism in Korea before the fall of the Joseon Dynasty.  Murdered by the Japanese in her palace.

[oniontaker]

If you could remove ONE Japanese war crime, what would it be?

I don’t think removing a specific single one would make a utilitarian difference as opposed to removing one at random. That said, I would probably remove the slaughter of Empress Myeongseong. She was Joseon’s 國母 and earned that title by being more an Emperor than her weak husband ever could.

The Japanese killed her for a reason. She was an obstacle not just for their colonisation of Korea but for their overseas expansion as a whole as a figurehead. She was the strongest political leader aside from the Emperor but was far more shrewd, ambitious and social than he. She attempted to broker protection agreements with a number of Western countries.

Not only that, she was a believer in education by setting up an international English school within the palace and setting up a national newspaper to inform the commoners of national and international affairs (while encouraging literacy). She was a strong feminist, that set up a school for women to study for the first time in Korean history (now known as Ewha University). She was a controlled progressive, inviting other cultures, sciences, technologies for the nation’s benefit despite strong opposition by Isolationist politicians and nobles.

She had her flaws certainly, but I believe that with her alive, we could have repelled Japanese colonisation with the help of China, Russia and possibly America. There is a part of me that thinks that this would mean no American liberation/invasion and a heavy Soviet influence in a united Korea… which makes the possibility of a modern North Korea being the norm for the whole peninsula… so maybe it was for the better… I just don’t know

[meiyun-korea14]

Day 3: Empress MyeongSeong's birthplace & being a traditional Korean

Let's continue on with events on day3.

After the walk on Seoraksan & seeing the TongIl Buddha, we were back on the bus to head to YeoJu, a city in GyeongGi Province (same province as Seoul cos we're finally heading in that direction now!).

We made a stop at the Won Ju rest station. Woooot rest station snacks & drinks ^^

Cafeteria-like, & divided into different food sections like the previous rest station; except this one has its own ramyeon (instant noodles) section.

Some shops in the facility. You can get ahjumma clothing here :P

More food outside; these are mostly street snacks.

mmm not the cheapest snacks out there though. The bag of grilled squid I had last time was 5000won (~$5USD), & here, a single sausage was 2500won (~$2.50USD). You can definitely see the different pricing as you head towards bigger cities.

So instead of food/snacks (I brought some from China when we went on this trip), we got coffee from the convenience store. Cheers~ Vanilla latte for mom, caramel macchiato for bro, & mocha for myself.

& good thing we didn't buy snacks, or else we wouldn't have had enough room in our stomachs for lunch here! I thought "KFR" (Korean Food Restaurant) only existed in Hub on the University of Alberta campus lol but there's a KFR in Korea too!!!! :O

Here we had a pork x mushroom pot. The soup was rather interesting as all I tasted was just soy sauce =/ hmm.. .

Sidedishes. The only place that served shredded seaweed as opposed to seaweed sheets.

Nonetheless, it was another enjoyable meal. Felt so bad for our tour assistant/photographer, Jimmy. He never gets to sit when we eat- he's always busy refilling things & scooping everyone rice (the seconds, I mean. The restaurant has a bowl of rice laid out in front of you once you arrive).

We're actually on the way to the birthplace of Empress MyeongSeong, but we passed by her statue as well. Clever driving by our driver oppa??

Here @ Empress MyeongSeong's birthplace.

Empress MyeongSeong tombstone. [More info: http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=264609]

Site map. Don't worry, it's not this big- this map is actually for YeoJu travelling so it covers the city of YeoJu.

While most of our tour mates visited the birthplace/old home 1st, my mom, bro, & I went to see the museum 1st to avoid the crowd.

Several of these exhibition rooms inside & each one of them was blasting air con like there's no tomorrow. It was quite chilly in there. Nonetheless, they were all very brightly lit & was very clean. Looks more like an art gallery at times rather than a museum.

1st, let's learn about her!

There's a Korean drama on her if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Myeongseong_(TV_series) Moon Geun Young is in it!!

I remember the Korea240 days... I had absolutely no Korean history background before taking that class -.-; I was so lost for the 1st few classes, but luckily I caught up. Not only did I not know anything about the details/rulers of each dynasty/period, I didn't even know the dynasties/periods themselves. It was tough... but I did well in that class!!

Numerous black & white photographs of historical happenings. You know, it'd be really neat to actually spend the time & look at this stuff, but unfortunately, the nature of being in a tour did not allow us to do that.

Empress MyeongSeong's jewelry. Oh my gosh, I love all the hair pieces!! Chinese court ladies had similar hair pieces as well, & I absolutely love them. They're so intricate & pretty.

Old books & documents.

Cloud River written in different fonts. In case you were wondering, yes..these are Chinese characters. Koreans had 2 sets of characters- the nobles & court (aka the YangBan classes) use Chinese characters cos they had relations with the Chinese back then. However, the commoners used what's current day Korean. It was a distinguishing feature of the upper & lower classes; apparently, if you're "low", you're not allowed to use the Chinese characters, & if you're "high", using the commoners writing system was degrading.

More important documents.

Sometimes I wonder... Korean is such a fascinating language. Due to Chinese influence, they borrowed the Chinese writing system, & a lot of the words (esp 4 letter idioms) sound similar to the Chinese language. Like...how did they "change"/"transform" the Chinese pronunciation to fit Korean speech? & then come up with a set of Korean alphabets to suit the Korean language??...

I love calligraphy! I can read/write but these famous works... I have no clue what the historical context behind them are.

Chinese calligraphy, Korean-style.

When River was explaining the history of this special sword to us on the bus, it was very interesting & funny in the sense that it was very comical the way she told the story. But all I can say now is that...the real version of this sword somewhere... (this is a replica of it) was used by Japanese assassins who entered the Empress' court & killed off 3 women whom they suspected was Empress MyeongSeong. Indeed, 1 of the 3 was really their target, & then the assassins escaped. Yrs later, as a sign of apology/remembrance, the Japanese offered a replica of the sword for the Koreans to keep - it ended up being placed here in the museum beside Express MyeongSeong's birthplace. Appropriate, no?

Mini figurines. Look how many "moves" with her when she goes somewhere! It's crazy!!

Getting ready to go somewhere?

Outside the museum now. Across from the entrance to the museum is a little park. Not much there besides this turtle fountain.

Now we switch spots with the rest of the tour mates haha they go into the museum & we go to the old home.

I am such a giant here in this photo o.o

The walls are surprisingly low.

I've always wanted to stay at a traditional accommodation that looks something like this!! But for now, I can only sit & rest a bit here. Maybe next time.

The back of the house.

This building was separate from the main building & I think it's just another bedroom. That's what I saw when I peered inside. For the servants, perhaps?

Another turtle! Ironically, turtles symbolize longevity, but the Empress herself died at age 43.

Bye, now~

A <5min bus ride brought us to the KimChi-making school. But before that, adjacent to the school was a place where we could play dress-up :D

KIM SOO HYUN!!!!

My mom likes him too hehe

Our tour assistant/photographer picked out the headpiece for me ^^

My 2nd time wearing a hanbok costume. I wore one when I was in China in 2006 while I was on the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hanzhou-Suzhou-Wushe tour. You'd think I'd try on a Chinese outfit...but nope!

Here's the KimChi-making school. They call it a "school" but it was more like just a classroom for teaching how to make kimchi for a group of tourists. Besides offering lessons, they also sell various types of kimchi here.

While waiting for the instructor to arrive, bro & I snapped some photos outside the huge classroom.

Traditional kimchi jars. You wouldn't see something like this if you travelled back in time to the traditional days of Korea cos these would have been all buried underground. For protection against the harsh winters (Koreans keep their kimchi like this for yrs!!), but also to keep away from ppl who might steal them.

& the class officially begins. Stations were set-up with a plate, with a 1/4 of a cabbage & a chili paste for marinating the cabbage.

The Korean instructor then started talking IN MANDARIN (& it was GOOD MANDARIN) about kimchi history, then discussed the ingredients in the chili paste in front of us. Then went through a step-by-step instruction with us on how to massage the paste within the leaves of the cabbage. Of course, several samples of different kimchi types were passed around. I tried ginseng kimchi for the 1st time & it was really interesting. Ginseng is grown all over Korea & so it is incorporated into a lot of their dishes. Ginseng has that distinctive bitter sweetness; with the spicy chili paste, it almost tasted more sour. I wished we could have purchased some to bring back ='(

Having fun with kimchi~

Instead of "cheese" for pictures, Koreans say "kimchiiiiii"!

[koreantt-blog]

Empress Myeongseong (Queen Min)

[notbrianna]

Empress Myeongseong, the last empress of Korea, with keun meori