Written to Griffis:
Korea in the Second Person
Written to Griffis:
Korea in the Second Person
Written to Griffis:
Korea in the Second Person
The innermost layer of the conceptual map of Griffis’s virtual Korea consists of the first-person space. This is the space in which Korea is described in Griffis’s own voice; this is the realm in which Korea becomes the most personalized, internalized “I” space. Griffis’s own writings about Korea — from scholarly works such as Corea: The Hermit Nation, to his journal entries that mention Korea — are products of this sphere of cognition. Rather than to attempt a summary of Griffis’s works and all of his scholarly opinions, I would like to identify the coordinates that locate this personalized construction of the Korean space.
Created by Griffis:
Korea in the First Person
William Elliot Griffis Collection
Perhaps the most private of the writings by Griffis evidencing this first-person space are the mentions of Korea in his appointment calendars, which follow Griffis’s daily activities, meetings, and thoughts. Appearances of the word “Korea” in the appointment calendars thus imply the presence of Korea in Griffis’s interior, as part of everyday endeavors and thought. “Korea. N.Y. Columbus Hall,” he writes on February 12th, 1900, presumably marking a Korea-related appointment in New York (Griffis “Appointment calendars”). “ITHACA HIGH SCHOOL JAPAN-KOREA ILLUS.” he writes on December 20th, 1910, perhaps in scheduling a lecture or meeting (Griffis “Appointment calendars”). “KOREA,” he again writes in majuscules and without any additional explanation, on January 13th, 1919 (Griffis "Appointment calendars"). Korea had made its way into Griffis’s most private pieces of text, whether by means of scheduled events or through his trains of thought. It existed not only as an object of scholarly inquiry, but as an entity that Griffis’s most intimate “self” thought of and pursues in daily life.
William Elliot Griffis Collection
William Elliot Griffis Collection
In presenting this first-person space academically, however, Griffis had to acknowledge the fact that he was physically detached from Korea, and that his pversion of Korea was quite different from those of actual residents, missionaries, or even travelers. In the preface to the first edition of Corea: The Hermit Nation, Griffis states the following:
“In one respect, the presentation of such a subject by a compiler, while shorn of the fascinating element of personal experience, has an advantage over the narrator who describes a country through which he has travelled. With the various reports of many witnesses, in many times and places, before him, he views the whole subject and reduces the many impressions of detail to unity, correcting one by the other. Travellers usually see but a portion of the country at one time.” (Griffis xvii)
Griffis argues that his understanding of Korea surpasses the limitations of physical distance, and that this distance can even allow him unbiased, scholarly acumen and thus a more accurate mental reconstruction of Korea. Here, the “compiler” — the “I” — who builds the virtual space of Korea is a consciousness that possesses the ability to evaluate any kind of information flowing in through the third- and second-person spaces. In his preface to the third edition, Griffis goes a step further:
“The reception of this work, both in the United States and Europe, as well as in the East, has been most kindly. From those best able to criticise it thoroughly, by having made themselves familiar by travel in the interior of Corea beyond the ports and capital, have come gratifying words of high appreciation.” (Griffis ix)
Here, he claims that his rendition of Korea has been approved by those who have physically experienced the place. Griffis, in defending the credibility of his work, thus argues that his first-person space is not a product of mere imagination but an accurate portrayal of Korea supported by objective reality.
In other words, Griffis, in his first-person construction of Korea, at once reached the elevation of the skyscraper spectator and brought the faraway “hermit nation” to his most private mental space. The voice of the “I” was not limited by its vantage point, but made use of it; it attempted to transcend the boundaries of physical distance by taking the outside voices of the third and second person, and retelling it in its own words — according to the scholarly ability of “the compiler” to distinguish objective truth from opinion. In the first person space, Griffis strives to be both unbiased towards and closely in touch with his object of study, at once hovering in the air and “in the interior of Corea.”
I would like to conclude by discussing Griffis’s trip to Korea in 1927. Had Griffis been able to publish more work on this visit, whether scholarly or non-scholarly, the model I have proposed would have been more nuanced. “Seoul — city of dreams from 1871,” writes Griffis in his travel journal, yet not much is known about the way this trip revised these “dreams” or proved them to be true (Griffis “Journals”). With the absence of sources describing the scholar’s physical experience of Korea, Griffis remains a case in the study of virtual experience and construction of space. Griffis’s vantage point from his “hermit nation,” like Icarus’s view of his father’s maze, or the spectator’s vision of the cityscape on a skyscraper, encouraged the scholar to read, imagine, and interpret Korea in the most fascinating and academically significant ways.
William Elliot Griffis Collection