hankyoreh

Ji Bo-ram poses with some of her rare and collectible books

On July 25, the Hankyoreh brought to light the original copy of a German-language declaration and publication dating back to the 1920s in which Lee Geuk-ro, a scholar of the Korean language and one of the first Koreans to study abroad in Germany, denounced the Japanese Empire’s plundering of the Korean Peninsula. The original document, which had previously only been mentioned in the historical record, was found by Ji Bo-ram, 32, who has been a professional collector for the past four years.

When Ji showed up at the Hankyoreh office in Seoul on July 21, she was carrying a large paper sack. “I’ve just brought a few of the items in my collection that I’m most proud of,” she said. She acquired the Lee Geuk-ro papers over the course of a few years from antique bookstores in Germany.

Ji explained that she had learned of the existence of “Koru Li” (or in other words Lee Geuk-ro) and the works he published in Germany while she was reading through various early modern Korean documents and that she had waited patiently for the original to turn up. “Just because you want something doesn’t mean you’re going to find it. I do have my own way of locating documents, but I can’t tell you what it is,” she said.

Another item in Ji’s paper sack was a publication in French titled “L'indépendance de la Corée et la paix” (meaning “Korean independence and peace”) that was published in 1919 by the Paris office of Korea’s provisional government. This was printed and distributed by Kim Kyu-sik, who was attending the Paris Peace Conference as the head of the New Korean Youth Corps, in order to raise awareness of what was happening in Korea. Ji also had some documents in English, including one printed by the Korea National Association (KNA) in San Francisco in May 1919 and another printed by the Korea Information Bureau (KIB) that Philip Jaisohn (Soh Jaipil) set up in Philadelphia in the same year.

“I’ve been focusing on collecting publications related to the independence movement and the activity of missionaries when South Korea was opening up its ports,” Ji said. Collectors operate in a dizzying variety of areas, but Ji explained that she is working in a relatively small niche. Her primary source of income is selling the documents in her collection to individuals or to museums and other organizations through auctions. She also said she is sometimes hired to track down specific documents.

“In 2008, I was studying in the city of Swansea, in Wales, when I happened upon a book called ‘Old Korea: The Land of Morning Calm’ at an antique bookstore there. The book was written and illustrated by Elizabeth Keith [1887-1956], a Scottish painter, after she visited Korea. That was when I got into the hobby of collecting old books,” Ji said.

Ji has cultivated an interest in religion since she was young, so she focused her search on documents that shed light on the activities of missionaries in Korea when the country was opening up to the outside world, such as Horace Underwood and Homer Hulbert. And then in 2014, she quit the company where she had been working and decided to become a full-time collector.

“Since I was young, I’ve always been under an immense amount of pressure from the fear that I might drop out of the fierce competition. While I was working at that company, I even felt like I was one of the Hebrew slaves who were forced to make bricks without even being given any straw. I figured I would never be happy living like that, so I just quit the company. I thought I should do something I liked, which is why I turned my hobby of collecting into my occupation.”

While she didn’t have anyone to teach her or even to give her tips, she says she has gained a fair amount of expertise through trial and error, including the ability to figure out when antique books are likely to make their appearance. She also says she has been gradually building her own network of antiquarian bookstores and museums in other countries. A major source of pride for Ji as a collector was finding the gospels of John (second edition, published in 1883) and Mark (first edition, published in 1884), which were part of the first Korean Bible translated by missionary John Ross, in an antique bookstore in the US in early 2015. (She subsequently sold the books, so they’re no longer in her collection.)

When asked about her plans for the future, Ji pulled out from the bag a book called “Korean Games” that was published in the late 19th century and flipped it open. The book shows various aspects of Korea’s recreational culture through the works of landscape painter Kim Jun-geun (known by the pen name “Gisan”), and even traditional bowmakers and the craftspeople who made and repaired the gat (a traditional Korean hat) can be seen in its pages.

“I want to be a craftsperson. These days people are always talking about how you have to get a job at a big company. But instead of just following the crowd, I think it’s important to go off on a side street and hone your own specialty. I want to keep going down my own path as a collector, a path I’ve chosen on my own. My dream is setting up and running my own museum one day, far in the future,” Ji said.

By Choi Won-hyung, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]