Moving back to Gyeongbok Palace

• Published date: 05 March 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

In the final days of February 1885, Seoul was awash with activity. The main city streets (especially the street running between Gyeongbok and Changdeok palaces), notorious for being cluttered with squatters' shacks, unauthorized booths and extensions to the shops of merchants, were cleared out and all the debris was removed. The gutters ? infamous for the amount and type of nefarious waste they contained ? were also cleared. These were the preparations being made for March 3, when the king and the whole royal household would leave Changdeok Palace and move to the new palace (Gyeongbok) which they would henceforth occupy.

The handful of Americans residing in Seoul were also busy preparing for the move. Horace N. Allen and his wife, Fannie, were provided access to the newly reconstructed palace a week or so earlier so that they could take some pictures.

Allen's attempts to take photographs of the palace were thwarted "by a rough Chinese soldier who kept obstinately getting in the road till he spoiled my [picture]." Allen was a fairly large man and "thrashed" the soldier "soundly" and threatened to tell the Chinese minister to Korea of the soldier's mischievousness. Allen's threat was real and the soldier knew it. The American doctor helped treat a number of Chinese soldiers wounded during the failed coup in December and the Chinese minister was known (at least to Allen) for his cold and callous treatment of his soldiers. He refused to let Allen amputate the limb of one of the soldiers because the handicapped man would be useless to society ? the soldier soon died.

Because of the Chinese soldier, Allen's day (along with his pictures) was ruined, but he hoped to return the following day with George C. Foulk ? the acting American representative to Korea ? to try again.

It is a shame Allen did not describe the palace in his diary or include any pictures taken of it before it was re-occupied by the royal family. The only images and descriptions we have are from the previous year when it was still being repaired.

In March 1884, one American naval officer wrote in his journal:

"The paved walks are admirably laid, and in the outer courts are crossed by canals walled up with granite, on the borders of which are couching tigers, in the same enduring stone, dipping their heads in the water as though to drink.

"Hundreds of buildings are still standing, probably the former residences of minor officials, servants, and soldiers; but the subdivision which contained the King's...