Korean Children circa 1900-1910 / Courtesy of Robert Neff Collection

By Robert Neff

Western accounts of 19th-century Joseon often depict the lives of Korean children as bleak existences -- a constant struggle to survive. Infant mortality was extremely high and children were frequently not named until after they survived their bout with smallpox. This dreariness even extended into their play.

According to Horace N. Allen (an American who lived in Korea from 1884 until 1904), Korean children "play games corresponding to the toilsome tasks of their elders. The girls play at sewing and keeping house and at the dreary washing that may soon become their lifelong toil. In imitation of their fathers the boys bear miniature play burdens suspended on poles balanced on their shoulders… (and) pitch pennies and gamble as do their elders."

In 1895, Yun Chi-ho, a Korean official, echoed this dreary sentiment when he wrote "one of the most emphatic signs of the low condition of life in Corea is the conspicuous absence of toys."

However, things were changing. "Lately Japanese and Chinese toys, poor and few as they are on account of the Corean poverty, are seen in the stores. Also cakes, biscuits etc. So a Corean child today is better off in these matters than his seniors 10 years ago."

About the same time, Christopher Thomas Gardner, a British diplomat in Seoul, also noticed change. Although Buddhists were not allowed to enter the city, Buddha's birthday was kept as a children's festival.

"Early in May the streets are full of toys for the little ones and on the day itself the town is given up to children wearing bright new clothes and enjoying themselves. The sight in the big main street, with its throngs of happy children in their bright clothes, each child with its hands full of toys, accompanied by their fathers and grandfathers in snowy clean white raiment, showing in keen contrast with the somber grey tint of the nearest houses, and the dark-green of the fantastically shaped mountains in the distance, seems a glimpse of fairyland, and would have delighted the heart of Hans Andersen."

One of the most popular games for boys (and men) was kite fighting. The object was to cut the string of the opponent's kite and great expense and effort was made -- including gluing ground glass to kite strings -- to ensure victory. Normally kite flying was restricted to the New Year holiday but by 1895, according to Yun, children could be "seen with kites every day in every moon."

This increased freedom to fly kites whenever and wherever children wanted soon caused problems. Apparently, in 1897, a popular place for children to fly their kites was near the army barracks but these kites were prone to get tangled in the telephone wires that ran between the barracks and the War Department. The police were instructed to prevent the children from playing there any longer. The children moved to the city's streets and main intersections (especially Jongno) and subsequently obstructed traffic, not only with their kite-flying but also with games of "jegichagi" (Korean shuttlecock or hacky sack). In the following year 1898, the public was informed that these activities would no longer be tolerated in the thoroughfares of Seoul.

Not all combat games took place in the air. A Japanese correspondent in 1883 wrote: "We frequently saw parties of boys playing a game of mimic warfare, the opponents calling themselves Koreans and Japanese. It is said that this sometimes leads to real fighting in which some of the lads have been killed. In fact we have seen a number of them whose clothes were bloodstained. The Japanese side always comes off the worst."

Nearly two decades later, Horace N. Allen observed: "Lately the little urchins have taken to imitating the soldiers drilled in foreign style and give the commands quite creditably, even to sounding the bugle calls on little toy horns."

Allen summed up Korean children as being "like the young of other lands, except that perhaps they are more generally well behaved." A high compliment from a man who cherished his own two sons and likely spoiled them.



Robert Neff is a historian and columnist for The Korea Times. He can be reached at robertneff103@gmail.com.