UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Contesting Seoul: Contacts, Conflicts, and Contestations Surrounding Seoul's City Walls, 1876-1919 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0sc5v176 Author Lee, Sinwoo Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Contesting Seoul: Contacts, Conflicts, and Contestations Surrounding Seoul’s City Walls, 1876-1919 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Languages and Cultures by Sinwoo Lee 2014 © Copyright by Sinwoo Lee 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Contesting Seoul: Contacts, Conflicts, and Contestations Surrounding Seoul’s City Walls, 1876-1919 by Sinwoo Lee Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Languages and Cultures University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor John B. Duncan, Chair This dissertation explores the contacts, conflicts, and contestations surrounding Seoul’s city walls, and how they shaped Seoul’s transformation and Korea’s transition from the opening of the ports to the early colonial period (1876-1919). One of the main goals in this dissertation is to assert the inseparable connection between the capital and its city walls in the premodern period, and thereby the importance of examining various contestations and negotiations over its city walls in understanding Seoul’s transformation into a modern city. More specifically, not only was the construction of Seoul’s city walls instrumental in establishing Seoul as a capital and Chosŏn as a dynasty, but also its very existence came to symbolize royal authority and national sovereignty within the changing sociopolitical conditions of the Chosŏn dynasty as well as the diplomatic relationships in ! ii the larger East Asian contexts. In the same way, I argue that, the reverse, the destruction of the walls—both as symbolic and physical boundaries—played a significant role in Seoul’s transformation and Korea’s transition from the premodern to modern period in the global context. By largely focusing on forces from above and their intentions, the existing scholarship presents Seoul’s transformation during this period as a progression from the royal capital Hansŏng (1394-1897) to the imperial capital Hwangsŏng (1897- 1910), before being disrupted by Japanese rule as the colonial city Kyŏngsŏng (1910- 1945). Stepping outside this teleological explanation, my dissertation challenges and adds complexities to the existing narratives by revealing how the Taehan Empire’s efforts to make Seoul as a spatial manifestation of its imperial power were contested by other historical groups’ attempts to respatialize the capital with different agendas: to an extraterritorial space, a democratic space, and a colonial space. Within a larger theoretical framework of the mutually constitutive relationship between space and society, this study argues that the transformation of Seoul from a walled to an open space was a process in which various historical actors competed against and cooperated with one another to make Seoul a new space of possibilities, at the crossroads of modernity in Korea. ! iii The dissertation of Sinwoo Lee is approved. Namhee Lee Andrea S. Goldman Timothy R. Tangherlini John B. Duncan, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Vita viii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Encasing Chosŏn: Seoul and its City Walls 24 Chapter 3: Blurring Boundaries: The Issue of Mixed Residence in Seoul 57 Chapter 4: Negotiating Boundaries: Conflicts over Public Space in Seoul 93 Chapter 5: Demolishing Walls 126 Chapter 6: Conclusion 160 Bibliography 171 ! v LIST OF MAPS AND FIGURES Map 1. Seoul by James S. Gale (circa. 1902) 28 Map 2. Seoul during the Chosŏn Period 31 Map 3. Chongdong Area at the Turn of the Century 66 Map 4. Southwestern Seoul during Taehan Empire 68 Map 5. Seoul’s Administrative Boundaries over Time 154 Figure 1. Independence Gate and Independence Hall (circa. 1897) 100 ! vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My greatest debt in the completion of this dissertation is to my advisor, Professor John B. Duncan, whose steadfast support, encouragement, and guidance has been a great source of my strength and perseverance throughout my graduate career. I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Professors Timothy R. Tangherlini, Andrea S. Goldman, Lisa Kim Davis, and Namhee Lee for their generosity and willingness to serve on my dissertation committee. I am also indebted to the late James B. Palais of the University of Washington, and Professors Kim Do-hyung and Choi Yun-o at Yonsei University, whose guidance have shaped not only the foundation of this dissertation but also my intellectual path into Korean history. I would like to extend special thanks to my colleagues at UCLA and Yonsei University, including Howard Kahm, Paul Cha, Elli Kim, Janet Lee, Youme Kim, Dennis Lee, Hanmee Na Kim, Hannah Lim, Jaeeun Kim, and Kiha Kwon, for their academic and personal support during my graduate years. This dissertation was supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Korea Foundation, the Sochon Foundation, the Center for Korean Studies at UCLA, and the Institute for Korean Studies at Yonsei University. I would also like to thank the staff of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures for their assistance throughout my graduate career at UCLA. My last words of gratitude go to my family and friends. Without their unswerving love and faith in my ability, this dissertation would not have been possible. ! vii VITA 2002-2003 Exchange Program University of Washington Seattle, Washington 2004 B.A., Korean History Yonsei University Seoul, South Korea 2006 M.A., Korean History Yonsei University Seoul, South Korea 2007 Chancellor’s Prize Award University of California, Los Angeles 2009-2010 Korea Foundation Graduate Studies Fellowship University of California, Los Angeles 2011 Mellon Foundation Pre-Dissertation Fellowship University of California, Los Angeles 2011-2012 Korea Foundation Graduate Studies Fellowship University of California, Los Angeles 2012 Korean Studies Dissertation Workshop Social Science Research Council 2013-2014 Collegium of University Teaching Fellows University of California, Los Angeles 2013-2014 Dissertation Year Fellowship University of California, Los Angeles ! viii Chapter One Introduction In May 1916, amidst the demolition of Seoul’s city walls and gates, the Maeil sinbo (Daily News), the official Korean-language mouthpiece of the Japanese colonial administration, announced “the grand project of walking around the city walls” (sunsŏng changgŏ).1 It was an advertisement of a 40-li (13-mile) walking tour along the city walls, “the best historical remain of Hanyang,” on a sunny Sunday in May. The tour was to leave from the South Gate at eight in the morning and go around the city’s four main gates and four small gates along the ridge of Seoul’s four inner mountains that were encircling the city’s downtown, enjoying the scenic view of the Han River in the distance. Anyone who brings their own lunch, the newspaper advertised, could join a chance to explore the historical and cultural landmarks of downtown Seoul with a special lecture on city’s geography, history, folk tales and war traces. Meanwhile, the newspapers serialized “Kyŏngsŏng’s city walls,” a piece on colonial Seoul, for a week until the day of the tour. It covered historical, architectural, and cultural features of the city walls from the moment when the walls were first constructed after the founding of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1897), through the time of the Japanese and Manchu invasions of Korea at the turn of the seventeenth century, and until the Taehan Empire (1897-1910). The walking tour of Seoul’s walls in 1916 was much more than a journey through the history of its vanishing walls; it was also a journey through the history of vanishing Hanyang and Chosŏn. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Maeil sinbo, May 4, 1916. ! 1 In contrast to the nostalgic tone in the walking tour, contestations over Seoul’s city walls were fierce before they were ultimately demolished. Although there were tensions surrounding the city walls before, it was the signing of the Treaty of Kanghwa with Japan in 1876, which brought Korea into the global system of capitalist modernity, that sparked unprecedented challenges to Seoul’s city walls and urban space inside the walls. Seoul witnessed a growing number of foreigners venturing into the space inside the walls, whom expanded their communities with extraterritorial rights and strong capital resources, creating a new tension that was “scarier than gunboats and more troublesome than rebellions” for the Korean state and Seoul’s residents.2 Internal political upheavals made the situation in the capital even more volatile. Protesters forcing their ways into the space inside the walls to engage in central politics, despite continued warnings from the government, concerned the Korean state that a democratic revolution like the French Revolution could occur in the capital.3 The contestations over the city walls continued and yet unfolded in different ways after Korea became a Japanese protectorate in 1905. Despite a growing recognition of their uselessness and impediment to modernization, the Taehan Empire held on to the walls to maintain public order in the capital,