The Opening Years
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Card meaning
Upright - an old gate and a new gate open side by side in the same wall. Today both stay open.
Reversed - with both gates open the wind passes through. What to let in is decided separately.
The tale
After the ports opened in 1876, new institutions and goods entered Joseon.
The telegraph, streetcars, the postal service and modern schools began in this period.
Legations and Western-style buildings rose around Jeongdong in Seoul.
Hanbok and suits, thatch and brick stood on the same street.
The Korean Empire was proclaimed in 1897.