An advertisement in a Seoul newspaper offered a helpful instruction to anyone who could not read the notice beneath it: “READ THE FOLLOWING or have it translated to you.” The notice, written in Korean, advertised a geography book. A prospective customer who could read the English invitation but not the sales pitch could enlist someone who knew both languages.
The instruction appeared in the 23 April 1896 issue of Dongnip Sinmun, known in English as The Independent. The paper was barely more than a fortnight old, having launched on 7 April with three pages in Korean and a fourth in English. Its publishers wanted readers outside Seoul and beyond the privileged classes. In their April editorials, they addressed Koreans “of every class and grade.” The surviving issue; editorial selection.
The small advertisement suggests how much could stand between an invitation and the person it was meant for. Within a single newspaper, someone might follow one page easily and need help with another. Other prospective readers had to obtain a copy before they could discover whether it contained anything they wanted to read. The editors took an interest in these practical difficulties, down to the spaces between words.
Making room for the reader
Hangul already served purposes well beyond the newspaper office. Women used it in correspondence; Buddhist texts appeared in it; novels circulated in handwritten and commercially printed copies. These uses, described by the National Institute of Korean Language, coexisted with the prestige of Chinese writing. The Independent could address people familiar with Korean writing without requiring them to master Chinese characters first. It was joining an existing world of readers. Historical overview.
Even so, knowing the letters did not make every page easy to follow. The editors explained that people less familiar with the script could struggle when words ran together. They would put spaces between them. Rather than leave that difficulty with the reader, they could change the way the paper was printed. The English page accommodated another audience, including foreigners seeking information about Korea. Editorial selection.
On the third page of the 23 April issue, a postal timetable supplied collection and delivery times alongside advertisements. Such information gave a reader a reason to consult the paper for an ordinary task. The geography-book notice belonged to the same practical world: a book for sale, a language difficulty anticipated, a suggestion for getting around it. There was more to do with a newspaper than read its editorials from beginning to end. 23 April issue.
The editorials nevertheless had a definite purpose. Their platform called for development using Korean capital where possible, with foreign expertise, and for foreign textbooks to be translated into Korean. It also affirmed loyalty to the king. The publishers wanted to influence the direction of the country as well as report on it. Someone checking a postal time need not have shared that program, and the variety of material on the page left room for different reasons to pick it up. Editorial selection.
The cost of a cheap newspaper
According to historian Shin Yong-ha’s account in the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, the newspaper initially sold for one jeon a copy. Producing it cost one jeon and six ri. Each sale therefore left six ri of the production cost unpaid. Shin describes the loss as one the publishers accepted for the paper’s educational purpose. The editors themselves explained that they had chosen the size of the sheet with an affordable price in mind. Shin’s account; editorial selection.
There were several ways to get hold of it. Shin records deliveries and postal distribution to subscribers, as well as street sales in Seoul. The original selling price did not last: on 1 January 1897, less than a year after the launch, the Korean edition’s price rose to two jeon as the publishers sought to address their losses. Shin’s account.
A buyer, however, was not necessarily the only person a copy reached. The Seoul Museum of History’s later account describes people sharing copies and reading the paper aloud to others. Through such practices, someone could encounter its contents without making a purchase or reading it unaided. The person who could read had something to offer as well as the person who owned the sheet. Museum account.
Sharing did not remove the work involved. Someone still had to acquire the newspaper, and a listener depended on another person’s reading. But a copy could serve more people than the transaction that put it into circulation would suggest. Asking who bought the paper leaves out some of the people who could use it.
A correspondent has a question
In its miscellaneous-news section on 23 April, The Independent printed an objection to a rival newspaper’s report, presenting it as a letter from someone surnamed Yi, living in Jaedong. How Yi encountered The Independent is unknown; the surviving item gives us the complaint the editors chose to print.
The rival, Hansŏng Sinbo, had published a purported children’s rhyme. According to the letter, Yi had never heard it, and neither had the people Yi had asked. The objection concerned something readers were being told was already circulating among them. Yi wanted to know where the newspaper had heard this rhyme. Published correspondence.
