Every-day life in Korea;

Preface

The author has had in mind a number of classes of readers in the preparation of this book ; among others, business men, fond of facts in a compact form, ladies in the missionary societies, ever alert to add to their fund of missionary information, and another class still, found in the young people's societies, who enjoy information presented in a pictorial or narrative form. We all are fond of hearing of things that have a human interest; and we like to know how other people live their lives and do their work in the world, especially if their experiences and environments are quite different from our own. The pages that follow may be characterized, in the main, as a series of pictures of life in Korea — life in the olden time, as history has presented it; modern, every-day life, as the Westerner living among an Oriental people sees it ; life as it is affected by the work of the Christian missionary; and, finally, the life of the missionary himself. The author acknowledges his indebtedness for much of suggestion and material to the writings of others who have dealt with things Korean — "Corea, the Hermit Nation, " by Rev. W. E. Griffis, D.D. ; "Korea from its Capital," by Rev. George W. Gilmore; "Korea and her Neighbors, ' ' by Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop ;

8 PREFACE

the "Encyclopedia of Missions;" the "Seoul Independent;" the "Korean Repository."

In one respect, however, this book will be observed to differ from all the other volumes upon Korea that have preceded it, and that is in the proportion of its pages devoted to a presentation of the missionary work of the land. Here it will be found that the work has been traced historically from its beginnings, its many-sided development fully portrayed, with a chapter at the close on that glorious, evangelistic, forward movement now in progress in the country, the spread of which continually reminds the workers on the field that in a very peculiar manner they are "laborers together with God."

DANIEL L. GIFFORD.

Mendota, III., Nov., 1897.

Contents

I. Where Is Korea? . . . . 1 1

II. A Historical Vitascope, . . . . 24

III. How the People Live, ... 46

Chapter I Where Is Korea?

A friend and myself, returning to America after our first term of missionary service in Korea, sat one Saturday evening in the office of a hotel in Salt Lake City. In signing the hotel register an hour previous, we had each of us written in the column intended for addresses, simply the word designating the country from which we had so recently arrived. A thoughtful look came over my companion's face, and presently he remarked as we sat there: "I think we made a mistake in signing that hotel register. The clerk will not know where Korea is; will think that we have given a false address and will become suspicious of us, under the impression that we are trying to swindle the hotel. " A moment later I glanced toward the desk and, sure enough, the forefinger of the clerk was gently waving to and fro unmistakably in our direction. A moment later I stood at the desk. "Korea, Korea" (in a tone of soliloquy), "where is Korea?" I answered, "You surely must know where Korea is — the scene of the late war in the Far East." "Oh," was his reply, "I never before saw it spelled with a K. " He smiled, and evidently his mind was relieved. Allow me to remark, parenthetically, that the up-to-date spelling of the name of the countr}^ followed by all who reside there, is K-o-r-e-a, with a "K." With all the gratuitous advertising given the country by the comparatively recent Chino-Japanese war, it is a matter of surprise that so many people at home persist in thinking of Korea as an "island" located somewhere "in the tropics." In view of this fact a brief study of the geography of the country may not be out of place in this opening chapter.

Directly west from the crescent-shaped Hondo, the largest of the islands of Japan, lies the long and narrow peninsula of Korea. With no very great strain upon the imagination one may see, in the contour of the country, the resemblance to a rabbit sitting erect. If, too, we may take for our conception of the modest little animal, Joel Chandler Harris' portrait of "Br'er Rabbit," in his fascinating animal tales, the analogy may likewise hold true of the character of the people, who, in the main, are mild-mannered, interesting, keen of intellect and bright, especially in the arts of deception. "Br'er Rabbit he lay low."

Draw a line from Milwaukee to Atlanta, and you have about the range of the latitude of the country; viz., from abovit 34 to 43 degrees north latitude. But as the far north of the country is prodigiously mountainous and but little populated, it is well to associate the relative position of Korea on the map with the Ohio valley, plus Tennessee. Seoul (pronounced by many Sahoul), the capital, in every way the most important city of the peninsula, containing perhaps 200,000 people, is in the same latitude, as Mr. Gilmore suggests, as the city of Richmond, Virginia. So it will be seen that Korea and the tropics are a long way apart, if tigers do exist there. In the absence of statistical bureaus, such as are found in western lands, it is impossible to lay claim to scientific accuracy in speaking of the size of the country; but Korea with its islands has probably an area of ninety thousand square miles, equivalent to that of the states of New York and Pennsylvania combined.

Probably twelve million people are scattered through the valleys of the Hermit Kingdom.

The visitor to Korea journeys, as does almost everyone, by a Japanese steamer of the Nippon Yusen Kaishia line, from Nagasaki, Japan, which first touches at the southeastern port of Korea — Fusan. Thence to Chemulpo, the seaport of Seoul, half-way up the western coast, the steamer threads its way through a profusion of islands, washed by dangerous currents. Off the south and west coasts of Korea lie thousands of islands, whose waters teem with fish. Indeed, one of the titles of the King- of Korea is "Lord of the Ten Thousand Islands." These islands are mostly mountainous, many of them sheer rocks, while others are covered with vegetation. The largest of these is Quelpart, the "Botany Bay" of Korea, and probably the best known is "Port Hamilton," at one time an English possession. Along the eastern coast, it is worthy of remark, islands are exceedingly rare. Hon. C. Waeber, the former Russian minister, in his admirable paper on the meteorology of Korea, speaks of the cold Arctic current flowing down the eastern coast of the country; but the southern and western coasts are washed by the same Yellow Sea which laves the shore of northern China, and the waters off these two coasts feel the influence of one of the three branches of the warm Japanese Current, which corresponds to the Gulf Stream flowing in the Atlantic Ocean.

The coast is rather bleak and forbidding, giving but little idea of the fine scenery existing in the interior. Frequent inlets break the coast line, especially on the west and south sides of the country, in the smaller of which at one time of the day may be seen a broad sheet of dancing water, with boats laden with brush and rice, flitting hither and thither; but seen at a later hour, a transformation has taken place and the eye rests on dreary mud-flats, with a junk here and there standing high and dry on the plain, or resting in the channel of a very modest creek.

Crab-holes are much in evidence. Wading-birds utter their sharp cries, and yonder the smoke curls from the rude hut of the salt-refiner. This transformation scene has been wrought by the tide, which rises along these coasts, somewhat as it does in the Bay of Fundy, to an average height of twenty-six feet. On the eastern coast, be it noted in contrast, there is a rise and fall in the tide of a very few feet only. The interior of the country is a perfect checker-board of inountains ; for, in traveling from one end of the land to the other, a person is never out of their sight. The mountains are chiefly composed of gneiss, various schists and granite, which in the lower peaks and hilltops are mostly in a disintegrated form. The soil of mountain and valley is generally yellow in color, but certain of the peaks are black, as are some of the river plains. These picturesque mountains, of every shape and size, are frequently verdureless, with many a furrow cut into their surface by the heavy rainfall of the summer. Others are covered wholly or in part with pine shrubs or trees, as well as grass and bushes of the magenta-hued azalea. The only snow-capped peaks, to my knowledge, are found in the Ever- White Mountains, upon the northern frontier. A high ridge of mountains traverses the peninsula somewhat close to the eastern coast, forming a watershed with a short slope to the east and a long slope to the west, between it and the partially enveloping sea. From this range lateral spurs run out. The influence of this range upon the country is seen in the fact that, with the exception of the two southeastern provinces (produced by the range veering over more toward the middle of the country, as it nears the south, in latitude 37 degrees), most of the larger rivers and the bulk of the population are to be found on the western side of the peninsula. This illustration I have heard used : The distribution of the population of Korea may be compared to an open fan, with the handle to the east and the slats projecting toward the Yellow Sea, the first in order being the southeast provinces of North and South Kyeng Sang.

The most important stream is the Yahi River, off whose mouth occurred the one important naval engagement in the recent war. This river, together with the Tumen River and the Ever- White Mountains, forms the northern boundary of Korea, between China on the north and the territory of Russia on the northeast. Other important rivers there are, which, however, do not compare in length with the one first mentioned— the Tatong River, in the north, upon which the city of Pyeng-yang (pronounced Pingyang) is located; further south the Plan River, which bends around the cit}'" of Seoul ; and still further south the Keum River, all of which are on the west side of the peninsula. In the southeast of Korea, also worthy of mention, is the Naktong River. The treaty ports of Korea consist of

Seoul, Chemulpo, and Fusan, already mentioned, and Gensan on the eastern coast. Two new ports have been opened this autumn — one at Mokpo in the southwest, the other at Chinampo, the seaport of Pyeng-yang.

Korea, for many centuries, consisted of eight provinces, but about a year ago, for administrative purposes, five of the largest were cut in two, making a total of thirteen provinces. The historical eight, with their subdivisions, are located as follows: In the northeast are the provinces of North and South Ham Kyeng; in the northwest are North and South Pyeng An ; below them, in the western central portion, lies Whang Hai, then Kyeng Kui, then North and South Choung Chong; in the eastern middle part is Kang Won; in the southeast lie North and South Kyeng Sang; and in the southwest are North and South Chulla.

The remark upon the country which seems to call forth the greatest surprise at home is, that in the winter time I frequently have seen oxen, each laden with a couple of great bags of rice, walking across the Han River, near Seoul, upon the ice.

Further than this, now and again, when taking a Saturday afternoon half-holiday skating upon the same river, I have seen a hundred men and boys at a time grouped on the ice, half of them standing about with their long-stemmed pipes, the other half seated upon little handsleds, each beside a small square hole in the ice and in his hands a square-framed reel, with which he worked up and down a heavily weighted threepronged troUing-hook, in the water below. Their success in fishing, it may be mentioned, seemed to be rather similar to that of the majority of men who invest in lottery tickets. But the point to be noted is that the ice was frozen to such a thickness that, with a hundred or more men massed in one spot, it neither broke nor cracked. Winter settles down by the middle of December. In the central and southern parts of the country the thermometer ranges down to zero; farther north, in the vicinity of Pyeng-yang, the mercury has been known to fall as low as fifteen degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. What the cold lacks in thermometer readings it seems to make up in a certain penetrating quality. In the neighborhood of Seoul there is an occasional snowfall of perhaps six inches. By the middle of February the weather begins to moderate, and by the middle of the following month the farmers are mending the banks of the rice fields and beginning their spring work. The spring and fall in Korea are long and delightful, with any number of beautiful clear days. But what shall I say of the rainy season of midsummer?

Think of the fall of rain in the heaviest summer storm at home, and that is the Vv^ay it will pour for half a day at a time. There will be clouds with recurring showers for one or two weeks.

Tiled roofs begin to leak. Here a mud wall, there the thatched roof of some poor Korean, falls with a crash. Streets and drains are washed as clean as in Philadelphia. Clothes and trunks grow moldy. Shoes removed at night are covered with green in the morning. You seem to grow moldy yourself. The entire system becomes relaxed, and great care needs to be exercised in the selection of food and drink. Then, when one's powers of resistance seem almost exhausted, the sun bursts forth with mid-summer force, and the thermometer ranges up to a limit of perhaps 90 degrees, Fahrenheit. Everything goes out upon the line to dry. One's spirits revive. Ungainly pith hats come oiit, for the westerner in Korea, as in so many other localities in the Orient, must protect the head against the direct rays of the sun. Mosqiiitoes and bull-frogs make the nights melodious; then, after a few days of glorious sunshine, the rains commence again. The rainy season proper begins with July ist and ends the 15th of August; but not infrequently it lasts from late June to early September, a period of three months. At its close quinine becomes a table relish to ward off malaria.

But if the rainy season is trying, it would be a national calamity to be without it, for the rice ponds, to which the nation looks for the main staple in its year's supply of food, are carefully banked and terraced so as to drain from one into the other, and wait for the poured-out blessing of rain to bring the golden harvest. If the Koreans could not live without rice, quite as little could they do without rice straw. With it the common people prepare the feed for their stock, thatch their roofs, make their sandals, braid ropes, weave cables for the anchors of their junks, make sails and the mats for their floors, tie up their strings of ten eggs each, and make the sprawling images of men filled with small coin which they throw upon the roadside the fifteenth day of the first moon of the year to carry away their ill-luck. Korean rice is of a good quality, and much of it is shipped to Japan. When the rice supply grows scanty, in the late spring, the country people boil barley in its stead for their main food staple. Millet is similarly used in some localities. Wheat is used almost exclusively in making liquor. From buckwheat they make a kind of vermicelli, out of which they prepare a dish called "cooksu, " of which foreigners are very fond. Beans are used for food — put sparingly into the rice kettles, or decomposed for a peppery sauce which furnishes one of their side dishes. Again, they are mixed with chopped straw and boiled in water, forming a hot mixture that is the sole food of the cattle and horses of Korea. Beans are also an article of export. A species of turnip or enormous white radish called "mu" is used in a sliced form for another of the side dishes which they eat with their rice. Another product is the "paichu, " a species of cabbage shaped something like a nubbin of corn. This, with the red pepper — which, spread out to dry in the fall on the farmer's thatched roof, adds such a touch of color to the rural scenery — is used with other ingredients for making a species of sauerkraut, of which the Koreans are fond. Most Korean side dishes, I may remark, are seasoned very highly with either salt or red pepper, or cooked with vegetable oil. Ginger, onions and lettuce are grown in their gardens. There is a very limited production of potatoes. Tobacco is raised in large quantities. Broom corn and hemp are also cultivated. Cotton also grows in their fields. It may be mentioned parenthetically that most of the clothing worn by Koreans is made out of cotton cloth, part of which is native and part the product of the looms of Osaka and Manchester. Silk goods are also woven, for which industry the mulberry tree and the silkworm are cultivated. The ginseng root, so highly prized as a medicine in China, is grown as a government monopoly. Korea is essentially an agricultural country, with methods of cultivation that are crude, yet effective. The farmers all live in villages. Large tracts of land lie unfilled.

There is considerable mineral wealth in the country. Iron in the forms of limonite and magnetic ore is profitably mined. An excellent quality of anthracite coal comes from the vicinity of Pyeng-yang. Tin, copper, lead and silver mines exist. Gold in considerable quantities is carried out of the country each year, part of which sees the custom-house, and probably as much more which does not is exported to China and Japan. One hundred miles north from Pyeng-yang, at Unsan, gold is being mined by an American syndicate, which also has under construction the first railroad to be built in Korea, which will run from Chemulpo to Seoul.

In the matter of fruits there is first a woody pear, which reminds me of the remark of my lamented friend Ritchie, of China, in speaking of similar fruit in that country: "It all depends on what you are eating it for. If you are eating it for a turnip, it is very good." There are muskmelons, apricots, nectarines, grapes, a small red cherry that grows on a bush, scrubby apples, luscious persimmons and excellent chestnuts and walnuts. The Koreans have fine-looking cattle which they use, bullocks and cows alike, for working in the fields, carrying loads and dragging great clumsy carts. Cowhide is an article of export. Koreans never think of drinking milk, and express great disrelish for the taste of butter. The average Korean is too poor to eat beef and pork with any regularity, and in their stead he eats various varieties of fish, and, though he is slow to admit it to the foreigner, he occasionally roasts his dog. A few sheep exist, which are reserved as sacred animals for royal sacrifice to Hananim, on special occasions, such as a drouth.

The Korean pony is small, sure-footed, possessed of great endurance, but frequently vicious. It is used as a beast of burden, and shares with the aristocrat's donkey the honor of use under the saddle. For an appreciative description of the Korean pony I commend you to Rev. J. S. Gale's sketch in the Korean Repository.

Every house keeps a wolfish or currish dog, brave to a faiilt — in barking. Cats exist and razor-backed pigs. There are also rats, mice, and weasels. If one knows where to go, where mountains are many and men are few, tigers, leopards, foxes, wild boar, and deer can be found in the country. Saucy magpies, screaming kites, inky crows and armies of sparrows are to be seen everywhere. In the country may be heard the cuckoo's and the wild pigeon's notes ; and the lark pours forth his melody. The stately stork and crane swoop over the rice fields. Falcons and eagles are seen rarely. Many a pheasant starts up from beside the country road, resplendent in the gorgeous plumage that finds a faint reflection in the markings of the barn-yard fowls, so plentiful in Korea. Near the seashore a tree top is visible now and then, filled with the nests of the noisy blue heron. The graceful swan is seen occasionally; and wild ducks and geese abound, plentiful enough to stir the huntsman's heart.

This sketchy view of the nature of the country and its products may serve as a canvas upon which we may throw, in the pages that follow, our pictures of life in Korea.

Chapter II

As the beginnings of Grecian history are inextricably intertwined with the loves and jealousies of the gods, and English history has its early legends of the marvels of King Arthur's court, so the history of Korea is sufficiently old to lose itself in mythical traditions. Mj^stery has always enveloped the Ever-White Mountains on the northern frontier of the land. The people in the olden time, according to tradition, lived without a ruler, until a deity descended from heaven and made his home at the foot of a sandal-tree upon the Ever-White Mountains. The people, recognizing his superiority, made him their king and called him Dan-Kun, or the "Sandal Prince." He made his earliest home in Pyeng-yang, where to this day there is a temple to his honor, and his descendants are said to have reigned for a thousand years. However, Chinese and Korean tradition alike affirm that a being somewhat more authentic, the Chinese noble, Keja, was the founder of the social order of Korea. Keja lived in the days of the wicked emperor Chow Sin, the "Nero of China." He was one of three wise counselors who met with the usual fate of the givers of good advice to wicked kings. One was killed, one had to flee, and the third was locked up in prison, the last-mentioned being Keja. But a usurper rid the country of the tyrant, and himself ascended the throne. The new king would gladly have given to Keja the highest office in the state, but the latter seems to have had as painful a conscience as any non-juring rector in the days of King William of Orange ; and he declared that his duty to the dead king forbade him taking office under one whom he considered a usurper. Another case, 5^ou see, of the "divine right of kings. " The upshot of the matter was that Keja, gathering together a band of several thousand retainers, the remnants of the defeated army, in the year 1122 B. C, while Samuel was still a judge at the other end of the continent, went into voluntary exile and settled among the aborigines of Korea. He gave to his kingdom the name of Chosen, which, be it noted, is the modern native name for Korea. He vigorously carried forward the work, said to have been begun by the mythical Dan Kun, of giving to the country a civilization such as he had known in China, his sphere of influence being Southern Manchuria and Northern Korea, between the rivers Liao and Tatong. The city of Pyeng-yang is said to contain his grave ; and in two of the largest cities of the country, Pyeng-yang in the north and Chun- ju in the south, I have seen large temples that were erected in his honor. Tradition also states that the descendants of Keja reigned as kings over what has been known as Ancient Chosen.

The historical muse now apparently suffered from a long lapse of memory; for it is not until some two hundred years before Christ that the narrative is resumed. Tradition from this period is replaced by a detailed record. Of Korea's ancient history I shall give, in the briefest manner only, an outline of important events and changes that have been made in the map. These are culled from the many scores of pages in which Dr. W. E. Griffis, with infinite research, has chronicled in his "Corea, the Hermit Nation," the history of the country until the era of the treaties, some fifteen years ago. The central location of Korea, a peacefully inclined country with warlike nations to the west, north and east, has made its history largely a record of invasions from China, Mongolia, and Japan. The invaders would come on their conquering career, and the people would bend for a time like forest trees before the storm. But, the pressure being removed, they would resume their national life.; a nominal tribute would be paid for a term of years, then after a time they would forget they ever had been conquered, when another tidal wave of war would pour over them from without.

The Koreans never have shown great valor in the fighting of pitched battles, but it has been rather in irregular warfare and as garrison fighters that they have been most successful. It was about 107 B. C. that Ancient Chosen, in which was embraced the four northern provinces of Korea, North and South Pyeng An and North and South Ham Kyeng, finally fell before the armies of the Han dynasty, and for a century or two came under the sway of China.

The destinies of these northern sections of Korea were presently to become affected by the incoming of a people from still farther north. The Fuyu race had their home in northern Manchuria, near the Sungari River. In comparison with the surrounding peoples they had a singularly high order of civilization. From Fuyu migrated southward what became the Kokorio tribes, whose seat was to the north and west of the headwaters of the Yalu, near the Ever-White Mountains. About 70 A. D. they began to enlarge their borders till they absorbed the north of Korea and came into collision with the Chinese, whose power they displaced as far as the limits of Liao Tung, in Manchuria, which was known thereafter as the country of Korio. They sustained, until the seventh century, a fitful warfare with the Chinese, who had troubles in their own land, so that, although they sent an occasional invading army, they could never give the continuous attention to these eastern tribes which was needed in order to subdue them.

Let us consider next the early history of Southern Korea, which for present purposes we may consider to be all the territory lying south of the Tatong

River. At tlie time Ancient Chosen was absorbed into China, in 107 B. C, all Southern Korea was divided into three Han or geographical divisions, the Mahan in the western central part, the Benhan in the south, and the Shinhan in the eastern central portion of the peninsula. These were loosely joined confederacies of aboriginal tribes, with spirit worship for their only religion, and with a rather low grade of civilization, though it should be mentioned that relatively the Shinhan people were of a much higher order, for they lived in palisaded cities and had already learned the art of weaving silk and working iron. It is stated that in the first century A. D. works of skill and art were sent from here to the Mikado of Japan which were greatly superior to anything produced in the Island Empire of that day. Probably the secret of their advanced state is that refugees from China had settled in their midst. But certain political changes are to be noted. Kijun, a king deposed in old Chosen, fled southward, and among the Mahan tribes set up what is known among the Koreans as the Pakje, and among the Japanese writers as the Hiaksai Kingdom. The name Shinhan became changed to the Silla Kingdom.

Inter-tribal war was of frequent occurrence, and presently the map of all Korea would need readjustment as follows: There are now three kingdoms — Korio in the north, Silla in the southeast and Pakje in the southwest of the peninsula.

We are now in the epoch of the three kingdoms. The kingdom of Pakje presently became the leading state. Here, in 374 A. D., the writings of Confucius and Mencius first entered the peninsula from China. A decade later Buddhism likewise established itself in Pakje. In the following century the men of Pakje, having defeated an invading aimy from China, their independence was virtually recognized by the emperor. About 660, in the course of their internal warfare, Silla appealed to China for aid, which was granted, and as the result of the war Pakje became absorbed into China. But presently they were again in arms, and invoked the aid of Japan against Silla. The Japanese sent a fleet, which, however, was surprised and sunk by the allied armies of China and Silla, with the result that the kingdom of Pakje was utterly laid waste. Large bodies of the people of Pakje, about 700 A. D., emigrated to Japan, introducing, it is supposed, the study of the writings of Gautama and of the great sage of China. Let us turn once more to the kingdom of Korio in the north. The government of Korio was feudal, with great nobles almost as powerful as the king. In 641 one of these murdered the king and seized the throne. The Chinese emperor acknowledged his sovereignty, but ordered him to cease the invasion of Silla, China's ally. He refused and a great invading army came by sea and land from China. By the splendid defense of the city of An-ju the men of Korioheld their own till the Chinese, from lack of provisions, had to withdraw, and, like the fate of Napoleon's army in the Moscow campaign, thousands of Chinese soldiers died in the winter retreat. In 664, however, another invasion was more successful, and the kingdom of Korio disappeared from the map.