Hamel and the Kingdom of Korea

By Kim Byong-kuk

The two previous translations of Hamel's book, namely the old French translation and the Churchillian translation were both flawed and distorted versions of the original Dutch document. Prof. Gari Ledyard of Columbia University, the famed Oriental scholar, shed some new light on Hamel's adventures but did not provide a new English translation of the book. Br. Jean-Paul Buys is a Dutch national and his painstaking translation efforts and research work were supported by the City of Rotterdam, the Dutch Korea Trade Club, and the Royal Dutch Embassy in Seoul.
"Hamel's Journal" is divided into two sections. The first section consisting of Part I to Part XII is an enthralling account of the shipwreck of the Sperwer off Cheju Island, the internment of the surviving crew, and finally the escape to Nagasaki, Japan.

Shipwrecked
The Sperwer, with sixty-four men on board left Batavia on June 18 1653. On August 16 1653, the Sperwer was lost in a storm and twenty-eight men perished. The thirty-six survivors, driven ashore on the southern coast of Cheju Island, were all interned and spent ten months on the island. Then, they were transferred to Seoul where they were employed as bodyguards to a general for about three years. They appealed to the King to release them but they were always told that it was not his way to send foreigners away from his land. The King apparently did not want facts about his country to become known to other nations. Then, a Manchu envoy came to Seoul and the senior navigator and one sailor approached the Manchu envoy in an attempt to return to the Netherlands by way of China, but they were immediately captured and jailed. After this incident, the remaining thirty-four Dutch sailors were transferred to Pyongyong, Kangjin in Cholla Province. They lived seven years in Pyongyong and eleven of them died during that period. After three successive famines in 1660, 1661 and 1662, they were divided into three groups since Pyongyong could ill afford to support them and sent to Yosu Chwasuyong (12 men), Sunchon (5 men) and Namwon (5 men). At the time of their escape attempt, sixteen men were still alive, of whom eight succeeded in reaching Nagasaki.

Tinged mirror
The second section, "Description of the Kingdom of Korea" covers Hamel's observations on a wide range of subjects with which he came into contact or which caught his observant eye.
Hamel examined Korean life and customs from the perspective of his own cultural background, Holland and Western civilization in the seventeenth century. Hamel could make observations at close hand because the Dutch sailors were allowed to go about relatively freely with few restrictions. Moreover, Hamel could observe the lifestyle of upper class people because curiosity prompted these people to invite the Dutch to their homes. Many of Hamel's observations are verifiable either by the looking at established historical facts or observing customs which still survive from former times.
Hamel's "Description of the Kingdom of Korea" is a mirror tinged undoubtedly with colours of his own perceptions and prejudices, but it is also a mirror enriched with the knowledge and inquisitive curiosity of a widely travelled foreigner. Therefore, we can use Hamel's work to look back on the long-gone days of the Yi Dynasty. The descriptions of historical Korean society used by contemporary Korean scholars have usually lost much of their freshness and dynamism from the difficult process of composing them in Chinese classical form. However, Hamel's description was straightforward and forthright and his work exudes a raw vitality. Any reader of Hamel's work will not miss the thrill and fascination of uncovering a well-hidden treasure house.

Hendrik Hamel
Hamel's Journal and a description of the Kingdom of Korea 1653-1666
Translated from the Dutch manuscript by Br. Jean-Paul Buys of Taize. RAS Publications 1994; paperback 107 pages.

This article was compiled from Kim Byong-kuk's two articles which appeared in the Korean Times on November 16, 1994 and March 1, 1995 respectively. Dr Kim Byong-kuk is an economist who lectured at several Korean universities and had a senior post at the Central bank of Korea and the Asian Development Bank. He writes columns for the Korean Times on a regular basis.