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CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

 

THE
CHARLES WILLIAM WASON
COLLECTION ON CHINA
AND THE CHINESE

 

 

 

 
Cornell University Library

DS 904.G45 1898
Ever:

ininnin
 

 

 

A Memeer oF THE OrriciaL Cuass.
Every-Day Life in Korea

A Collection of
Studies and Stories

By Rev. Daniel L. Gifford

Eight Years a Missionary in Korea

CHICAGO

Student Missionary Campaign Library

57 WAsHINGTON STREET
Copyright, 1898, by Fleming H. Revell Compan
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 dif-
ferent from ourown. ‘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;

7
8 PREFACE

the ‘‘Encyclopedia of Missions;” the ‘‘Seoul In-
dependent;” the ‘‘Korean Repository.”’

In one respect, however, this book will be ob-
served 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 historic-
ally from its beginnings, its many-sided develop-
ment 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.

Menpvota, ItL., Nov., 1897.
Il.
III.
IV.

VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.

XI.
XII.
XIII.
AIV.
XV.

CONTENTS.

Where Is Korea? 5 ‘ . .
A Historical Vitascope, . : :
How the People Live, ; 2 f
A Wedding in Korea, . ‘ -
Guilds and Other Associations, . .
Ancestral Worship as Practiced in Korea,

A Visit to a Famous Mountain, .

The Fear of Demons, . é ‘
An Adventure on the Han River, . ;
Leaves of Mission History, : i.

Missionary Life and Work, . é ‘A
What the Gospel Did for One Man, .
Education in the Capital, ‘ ‘ .
Building of the West Gate Church, .

A Remarkable Forward Movement,
Appendix A, ‘i 7 7
Appendix B, . . .

PAGE
11
24
46
Jo
76
88
99

106
118
128

136

170
195
207
230

231
Every-day Life in Korea

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. Insigning 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 fore-
finger of the clerk was gently waving to and
fro unmistakably in our direction. A moment

later I stood at the desk. ‘‘Korea, Korea’’ (in 4
u
12 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

tone of soliloquy), ‘‘where is Korea?’ I
answered, ‘‘You surely must know where Korea
is—the scene of the late warin 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, paren-
thetically, that the up-to-date spelling of the
name of the country, 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 isa
matter of surprise that so many people at home
persist in thinking of Koreaasan ‘‘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 toa
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
WHERE IS KOREA? 13

country; viz., from about 34 to 43 degrees north
latitude. But as the far north of the country is
prodigiously mountainous and but little popu-
lated, it is well to associate the relative position of
Korea on the map with the Ohio valley, plus
Tennessee. Seoul (pronounced by many Sah-
oul), 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 area
long way apart, if tigers do exist there. Inthe
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, equiva-
lent 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
14 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

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, itis 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, giv-
ing 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
tice, 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.
WHERE IS KOREA? 15

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 fallin the
tide of a very few feet only. The interior of the
‘country is a perfect checker-board of mountains;
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 par-
tially enveloping sea. From this range lateral

coy
16 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

spursrun out. The influence of this range upon
the country is seen in the fact that, with the
exception of the two southeastern provinces (pro-
duced 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 popu-
lation of Korea may be compared to an open fan,
with the handle to the east and the slats project-
ing toward the Yellow Sea, the first in order
being the southeast provinces of North and South
Kyeng Sang.

The most important stream is the Yalu 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 men- |
tioned—the Tatong River, in the north, upon
which the city of Pyeng-yang (pronounced Ping-
yang) is located; further south the Han River,
which bends around the city of Seoul; and still
further south the Keum River, all of which are
on the west side of the peninsula. In the south-
east of Korea, also worthy of mention, is the Nak-
tong River. The treaty ports of Korea consist of
WHERE IS KOREA? i7

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 sea-
port 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, mak-
ing a total of thirteen provinces. The historical
eight, with their “subdivisions, are located as fol-
lows: 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 hand-
18 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

sleds, 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 three-
pronged trolling-hook, in the water below.
Their success in fishing, it may be mentioned,
seemed to be rather similar to that of the major-
ity 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 snow-
fall 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 num-
ber 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 way it will pour
for half a day at a time. There will be clouds
-with recurring showers for one or two weeks.
WHERE IS KOREA? 19

Tiled roofs begin to leak. Here a mud wall,
there the thatched roof of some poor Korean, falls
with acrash. 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 toa limit of perhaps go
degrees, Fahrenheit. Everything goes out upon
the line to dry. One’s spiritsrevive. Ungainly
pith hats come out, 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. Mos-
quitoes 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 rst and ends the 15th of August;
but not infrequently i it lasts from ‘laté 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
20 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

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.
«Aorean..rice is .of.a.good quality, and.much of it
Js 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,
ot of which they prepare a dish called “cook.
_Su,”’ 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 ina sliced form for another of the side dishes
which they eat with their rice. Another product
is the ‘‘paichu,’’ a species of cabbage shaped
WHERE IS KOREA? 21

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 i is raised
in large quantities. Broorh corn and (hemp? are
also cultivated. Cc Cotton) also grows in their fields.
It may be mentioned” parenthetically that most of
the clothing worn by Koreans is madg out of cot-
ton cloth, part of which is native ‘and part the
roduct of the looms of Osaka and Manchester.
Silk goods are also woven, for which industry the
“mulbe Dery 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 effect-
ive. ‘The farmers all live in villages. Large
tracts of land lie untilled.

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

°
22 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

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, itis very good.’’ There are musk-
melons, apricots, nectarines, grapes, a small red

Tuscious persimmons and execllen chestnuts andl
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 but-
ter. 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, pos-
WHERE IS KOREA? 23

sessed 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. 5. Gale’s
sketch in the Korean Repository.

Every house keeps a wolfish or..currish Gog,
brave to a fault—in barking. ‘Cats' exist anid
tazor-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 plenti-
ful 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

A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE

As the beginnings of Grecian history are inex-
tricably 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. Mystery 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; recog-
nizing 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 thou-
sand years. However, Chinese and Korean tra-
dition 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
24
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 25

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
ausurper rid the country of the tyrant, and him-
self 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, you 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 myth-
ical Dan Kun, of giving to the country a civiliza-
tion such as he had known in China, his sphere of
influence being Southern Manchuria and Northern
Korea, between the rivers Liaoand 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
26 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

descendants of Keja reigned as kings over what
has been known as Ancient Chosen.

The historical muse now apparently suffered
from along lapse of memory; for itis 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 aterm 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 fight-
ers that they have been most successful. It
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 27

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 Man-
churia, near the Sungari River. In comparison
with the surrounding peoples they hada singu-
larly 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 7o 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 contin-
uous 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
28 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

River. Atthe 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 Ben-
han 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 amuch higher order, for they lived
in palisaded cities and had already learned the
art of weaving silk and working iron. Itis 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 King-
dom.

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 south-
east and Pakje in the southwest of the peninsula.
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 29

We are now in the epoch of the three kingdoms.
The kingdom of Pakje presently became the lead-
ing 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 army 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 7oo 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 Korioin 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 sover-
eignty, but ordered him to cease the invasion of
Silla, China’s ally. Herefused and a great invad-
ing army came by sea and land from China. By
the splendid defense of the city of An-ju the men
30 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

of Korio held 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 dis-
appeared from the map.

Let us turn our attention next to the kingdom
of Silla. The island of Kiushiu, upon which is
located the modern city of Nagasaki, brought
this kingdom into early collision with Japan; for
settlers from Silla came to believe that they
owned the island, which opinion was disputed by
the men of the dominant Yamato tribe, living in
the vicinity of Kioto. The result was that in 200
A. D. the Japanese, under Queen Jingu, marched
to suppress the so-called Kiushiu ‘‘rebels.”’
Being convinced that the root of the trouble lay
in the peninsula, the queen crossed with her army
to the mainland, overran without resistance the
kingdom of Silla, and returned to Japan with rich
tribute. From this time may be said to have origi-
nated the claim of Japan, so similar to that of
China, that Korea was their tributary country.

Intermittent war was waged between the men
of Silla and the allied forces of Pakje and Korio
down to the tenth century, in which occasionally
the Japanese would assist Pakje, or the Chinese
would be allied with Silla, or the nations north of
the peninsula would help Korio. Buddhism,
introduced into the kingdom in 528, steadily
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 31

grew to be the prevailing religion. One of the
ablest scholars of Silla is credited with the
invention of the admirable native alphabet, to be
mentioned later. Kiong-ju, the capital of the
kingdom, developed into a city of great relative
material splendor and a center of learning and
refinement whose influence was felt, not only
throughout all Korea, but as far as the court of
Japan, teaching the arts of peace. Politically,
Silla finally came to rule the entire eastern half
of the peninsula, until, as the last of the three
kingdoms, she fell, in 934, to give place to united
Korea.

In speaking now of united Korea, we need to
notice that sometime in the ninth century, race
movements north of the Tumen River brought
into Northern Korea large numbers of emigrants,
who soon grew prosperous. Out of these people
a Buddhist monk named Kung-wo, in 912, raised
an army under the flag of rebellion; but he was
presently killed and succeeded by his lieutenant,
Wang, a descendant of the old royal house of
Korio. China was at that time occupied with wars
at home. Moreover, the government of Silla, the
one remaining kingdom, had grown decrepit.
Thus Wang had everything his own way and a
very few years sufficed to bring the entire
peninsula under his sway. He chose for the
site of his capital the city of Song-do, also known
as Kai-seng, some sixty miles northwest of Seoul.
Here his descendants reigned for four hundred
32. EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

years. For convenience we may think of this
period of history as the era of the Song-do
dynasty. The kingdom took the name of Korio.
This was the golden age of Korean Buddhism.
Wang’s son and successor speedily formed an
alliance with China, and sent her tribute. One
hundred years before the time of Gutenberg the
Koreans were printing books from wooden blocks,
whence the art was introduced into Japan.
Genghis Khan, the Alexander of the Orient,
who with his Mongol hard riders conquered nearly
the whole of Asia, sent one of his three armies to
conquer Korea and Japan. In 1218 the Korean
king declared himself the vassal of the great
Mongol chief. A few years later a Mongol
envoy was murdered in Korea. In answer, an
invading army came, which divided the country
under Mongol prefects. The people, as soon as
they dared, rose and murdered them all. Then
they were invaded in earnest, and, among other
exactions, the Korean king was required to do
homage in person at the conqueror’s court. For
several decades, though always turbulent, the
Koreans were held under Mongol rule. Kublai
Khan, the grandson of Genghis, in 1281 forced
the Koreans to assist in an unsuccessful invasion
of Japan. Their presence among the invaders
helped to intensify the hatred between the penin-
sular kingdom and the island empire. From this
time, for two or three centuries, the Japanese
central government being weakened through the
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 33

prevalence of civil wars, Japanese pirates were
abundant, who drove Korean junks from the seas
and made the life of coast dwellers miserable.
This did not improve the state of feeling in Korea.

In 1392 there was a change of dynasties which
brought to the front the Ye dynasty, now on the
throne of Korea, though the direct line came to
an endin 1864. The name of the country was
also changed from Korio to the ancient term,
Chosen. The Wang dynasty had greatly degen-
erated, and a tyrant was on the throne. Ye
Taijo, a military officer, had risen to be the head
of the army and had become the king’s son-in-
law. Korea for some time had neglected to send
tribute tothe Mongol ruler on the Dragon throne.
The Mongols had made a half-hearted effort to
again subdue Korea, but the troops under Ye
Taijo repelled them. And now a Ming emperor
was on the throne of China, who demanded
pledges of vassalage, which the king, against the
wishes of his people, refused to send. As Korea
was about to be overwhelmed by the Ming veter-
ans, Ye Taijo seized the reins of power, deposed
the king and made his peace with the emperor.
With Ye Taijo began the new dynasty, whose
capital city was changed to its present location at
Seoul. The dress and top-knot of the Ming era
of China was at that time adopted in Korea, and
continues in vogue to this day.

Tribute was sent to China and at first to Japan,
though later it was discontinued. Japanese pirates,
34 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

with Korean renegades for pilots, still harassed
the coasts of Korea. But within the peninsula
life grew easy. The people traded and tilled the
fields. The officials and the military officers led
a life of pleasure, and war was the last thing in
the world for which they were prepared. Likea
summer holiday, the time glided by until the
close of the sixteenth century. Then came the
two terrible Japanese invasions, like the sweep
of a great tidal wave, leaving death and ruin
behind them and the memory of dreadful deeds.

In 1585 a master general, Hideyoshi, had
arisen in Japan, where for two centuries anarchy
had reigned. His conquering hosts had brought
the entire group of islands under the Mikado’s
feudal rule, and now waited on their arms for
new foes to conquer. He had been given the
highest rank attainable by a subject, and he was
incensed that the Koreans, whom he regarded a
tributary people, had failed to send their greetings
with those of other vassals. He sent as envoy a
tactless old warrior, to inquire why tribute of late
years had ceased to be sent. His mission was a
failure, and the old man lost his life on his return.
Another envoy was more successful, and he
returned with a tribute-bearing embassy from
Korea. These, after along delay, were granted an
interview by Hideyoshi, and later he sent them,
together with various presents, an insolent reply
addressed to their king. He also sent asking the
tulers of Korea to help them renew peaceful rela-
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 35

tions with China, which the pirates had disturbed.
The reply from Korea was naturally unsatisfac-
tory. He then resolved not only to humble
China, but incidentally to crush Korea. This
was in 1592. The army which disembarked at
Fusan was enormous, well-provisioned, and con-
tained a corps trained in the use of match-lock
guns, a weapon at that time new tothe East. The
command of the troops was divided between two
generals; one, Konishi, an impetuous young man
and a Roman Catholic; the other, Kato, a fierce
old fighter and an ardent Buddhist. Each wasa
good leader in his way, but intensely jealous of
the other. Konishi arrived first. The fortress at
Tongnai, close to Fusan, quickly fell. He at
once started north through the peninsula, follow-
ing the course of the Naktong River as far as
Sang-ju. Kato arrived a day later, and he fumed
with rage to learn that his rival had already taken
his departure. He took the more western road,
sending detachments into the Chulla and Chung-
chong provinces. Then began a race between
the rival armies to reach Seoul. From Sang-
ju, in the Kiung-sang province, Konishi pushed
on to Chiong-ju in the Chung-chong province
and quickly reduced the city. Kato arrived
here a few days later, but he redoubled his
energies, so that the very day Konishi entered
Seoul by one gate, he entered by another. They
found a deserted city. The king and his court,
accustomed to spend their days under the spell
36 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

of the flowing bowl and the attractions of dancing-
girls, had found themselves unequal to the situ-
ation and had fled precipitately to Pyeng-yang
in the north, amidst the drenching showers
of the rainy season. Soldiers and people vied
with each other in the speed of their flight to
the mountains. The king had ordered the rem-
nants of hisarmy to make astand at the Rim-chin
River. Kato and Konishi, after a few days’ rest
in the empty capital, with united forces started
north. At the Rim-chin River, by a feigned
retreat, they induced the Koreans to cross, then
routed them and seized their junks. Here the
two Japanese leaders, owing to mutual jealousy,
drew lots and parted company. Kato went to the
eastern side, while Konishi remained on the west-
ern side of the peninsula, both of them headed
for the north. Konishi marched on Pyeng-yang,
while the king fled across the border at Eui-ju.
Konishi camped upon the opposite side of the
Tatong River till the Pyeng-yang troops made
an unsuccessful night attack upon him, which
only resulted in betraying the locations of the
fords in the river to the Japanese, who, promptly
availing themselves of the information, crossed
and took the city. Here Konishi, before starting
for China, awaited the arrival of his fleet, which,
however, was never to come. Some Koreans had
in the meantime been thinking and had evolved a
new model of fighting-junk. With these they
lured the Japanese fleet into the open sea and
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 37

proceeded to demolish it. This greatly raised
the spirits of the Koreans, who had hitherto
seemed dazed by the rapidity and success of the
Japanese movements. The king, from Liao Tung,
was sending importunate appeals for help to the
court of Peking. A few thousand Chinese troops
marched down from Liao Tung into Korea. The
Japanese allowed them to enter the streets of the
city of Pyeng-yang, and then, from well-chosen
positions, attacked and cut them to pieces.
The court of Peking now took the invasion seri-
ously. They began at once to raise an army of
40,000 men, and juggled with characteristic
Chinese diplomacy in order to gain time. About
all of importance that Kato had’ done in the
meanwhile was to capture a couple of Korean royal
princes. Koreans were beginning to organize
bands for guerrilla warfare. In 1593 came the
Chinese army, 60,000 strong, and aided by Korean
troops attacked for two days the fortifications
the Japanese had reared on the hills north of
the city of Pyeng-yang. Then Konishi with-
drew his troops in the night, and retreated to -
Seoul. Small Japanese garrisons were being
taken by Korean bands. Kato presently yielded
to the appeals of his colleague, and also returned
to Seoul. The allies now began to advance on the
capital. Then came the terrible massacre in
which the Japanese troops put to the sword hun-
dreds of non-combatants, drove out others and
laid waste large portions of the city. Later a
38 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

terrific battle was fought near Seoul, in which
the allied Chinese and Korean troops were worsted
and withdrew to Song-do.

A winter of suffering from famine and pestilence
in an exhausted country settled down. At its
close a treaty of peace was concluded, and the
Japanese returned to Fusan.

While negotiations were pending the Japanese
showed that, while they were willing to be at
peace with China, they did not consider that
they were done with unhappy Korea. Kato was
given orders to capture the walled city of Chin-ju
in Southeastern Korea. I have seen in that city
the temple built in honor of a Korean dancing-
girl who at this period is said to have lured on
shore a Japanese general and then drowned her-
self and him at the same time from a flat rock in
the river. After a most stubborn resistance on
the part of the Koreans the city was taken and
large numbers of people were put to the
sword.

Hideyoshi, considering himself insulted by the
form of address in the letter of the Chinese
emperor, sent with an embassy, broke off negotia-
tions and renewed the war in what is known as
the second invasion of Korea. A Chinese army
marched down to the city of Nam-eung, in South-
western Korea. The first battle of the campaign
was anaval one off the southern coast of the
country, in which the Korean fleet came to grief.
Kato and Konishi now moved on Nam-eung, with
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 39

its splendid walls. After some days’ fighting the
walls were scaled by piling up bundles of green
rice on one side and by climbing a secret mountain
path on the other. In the fight which ensued
thousands of Koreans and Chinese were slain,
whose noses and ears were later cut off and
shipped to Japan to form the great ‘‘ear mound,”’
now to be seen under its monument in Kioto.

About the same time, off the south coast of
Korea, the Chinese and Japanese fleets fought a
battle, in which the fleet of the latter was anni-
hilated. This, as in the other invasion, really
defeated the Japanese, as it destroyed the supply of
food upon which they relied. The Japanese
advanced almost to Seoul, but learning of the
approach of large reinforcements for the Chinese
army, and their food supply growing scanty, they
began their retreat, spoiling the houses and tem-
ples as they went of everything of value. This was
notably true of the ancient and magnificent
city of Kiong-ju, once the capital of Silla,
which they not only spoiled, but burned to the
ground.

They finally rested within the fortifications of
Ulsan, where part of them remained. This place
was besieged by an army of the allies, and much
desperate fighting followed. The siege was
finally raised owing to Japanese successes else-
where, and more noses and ears were sent to
Japan. For a time the war lingeredon. Then
Hideyoshi died and the Japanese troops were
40 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

recalled. This ended the terrible war. Tribute
was sent for a hundred years or so, and then its
sending was discontinued.

Life passed comparatively uneventful in the
peninsula until the regions to the north sent forth
another host of hard riders in the Manchus. In
1619 the Koreans, who had at first helped the
Chinese, became convinced that the Manchus
were destined to triumph—which they did even-
tually, and seated one of their number on the
Dragon throne—so they went over to the Manchus.
But they continued to give real assistance to the
Chinese. Presently the Manchus found time to
turn their attention to the Koreans, and twice
invaded the country as far as Seoul, leaving death
and destruction behind them. The king and his
court in each case fled down the Han River to the
island of Kang-wha, which was captured in the
second invasion. The king had now to make his
allegiance actual by furnishing the Manchus with
grain and providing them witha small army. To
the new Manchu emperor they also had to send
yearly a stipulated tribute; such, for instance, as
roo ounces of gold, 10,000 bags of rice, roo tiger
skins, ete.

Thence until the recent past they saw no more
of invading armies. In 1653 a Dutch ship was
wrecked off Quelpart Island and the men were
held as slaves in the peninsula for a number of
years. One of their number, Hamil, escaped and
wrote a book upon the country. At the close of
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 41

the last century a Chinese priest, and in 1835
French fathers of the Jesuit order of Roman
Catholics, slipped secretly, at the risk of their
lives, into the peninsula, to follow up work which
had germinated from the reading of some religious
tracts that had found their way into the country
from China. The account of their labors and
sufferings is admirably told in Dallet’s ‘‘ Histoire
de l'Eglise de Corée.”’

The revolutionary nature, from a Korean point
of view, of the new teachings, which demanded
nothing less than the abandonment of their most
sacred custom, the worship of ancestors, together
with the discovery of what they considered
treasonable political intrigue in a letter written
by a Korean convert inviting the invasion of
western armies, early brought upon the Catholic
adherents murderous persecution. In 1839 three
French fathers were killed. And in the minority
of the present king (while the cruel Tai-won-kun,
his father, was on the throne as regent), occurred
the terrible martyrdoms of 1866. Fear of foreign
aggression and the rumor that the Chinese were
killing the Catholic adherents in their country
were the inciting causes. Fourteen bishops and
priests, with thousands of their Korean converts,
suffered martyrdom.

In reprisal, in the following year, a French fleet
appeared off the coast; but nothing came of the
expedition beyond a brush with the Korean
soldiers guarding the island of Kang-wha, in the
42 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

Han River. In 1871 came some American gun-
boats to avenge the murder of the crew of the
American schooner ‘‘Gen. Sherman,’’ wrecked
near Pyeng-yang, and after brisk fighting the men
of the ‘‘Monocacy’’ and ‘‘Palos’’ captured five
forts on the island of Kang-wha. In 1876, the
present king now reigning in his own right, a
treaty was signed between Korea and Japan
which opened the long-closed gates of the ** Her-
mit Kingdom.’’ With the help of Li Hung
Chang, Admiral Schufeldt, in 1882, secured a
treaty between Korea and the United States, and
treaties with other western nations followed.
Before the year closed a reactionary insurrection,
incited by the foreign-hating Tai-won-kun, took
place, in which a number of Japanese were killed
and Tai-won-kun was kidnaped by a Chinese
warship and taken to China. China—although
before the signing of the treaties, when the
murders of the French fathers and the crew of
the ‘‘Gen Sherman” were under discussion—had
declared that she was in no wise responsible for
the Korean government, yet later she made
much of the fact that yearly tribute had been sent
to her, and her ‘‘Resident,’’ by subtle diplomacy,
made himself the power behind the throne, at
least in checking all progress along western lines.
Judge O. N. Denny of Oregon, for several years
adviser to his majesty, although appointed through
the influence of Li Hung Chang, felt it his duty
to strongly combat the position assumed by
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 43

China. A party of progressive young nobles,
rendered desperate by conservative opposition,
organized the ‘‘emeute of 1884.’’ High officials
were killed. For three days the young nobles
ruled the kingdom. Then Chinese soldiers
appeared in opposition, and Japanese soldiers
took the part of the young men. There was fight-
ing, and the young men had to flee, some to Japan
and some to the United States, while the
Japanese, with their citizens in a hollow square,
fought their way down to the coast. Chinese
influence now had a clear field.

The Chino-Japanese war of 1894 is so recent
that few comments are necessary. An insurrec-
tion having occurred in the south of the country,
due to excessive extortion upon the part of the
officials, the king of Korea asked the help of
Chinese troops, who were sent by Li Hung
Chang. This the Japanese resented as contrary
to the Chino-Japanese treaty, which allowed only a
legation guard of Chinese in the country. The
Japanese came with the rallying cry, ‘‘The inde-
pendence of Korea,’’ drove the Chinese out of the
country, and took the two great forts that guard
the entrance from the sea to the Korean capital.
The main events of the war were the sinking of
the Chinese transport ship, ‘‘Kowshing,’’ bearing
the British flag, the land battles in Korea at Asan
and Pyeng-yang, the naval fight off the mouth of
the Yalu, and the taking of the Chinese fortresses
at Port Arthur and Wei-hai-wei. Incidentally.
44 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

the Japanese stormed the Korean palace and
revolutionized the government, putting into the
government offices Koreans favorable to their
schemes of reform. Granted the right of Japan,
which was not conceded at the time by the repre-
sentatives of the other nations, to march her
armies into the land of a friendly country and
overturn its government, the reforms instituted
by the Japanese were in the main most excellent.
And that they made an honest effort to carry
them out was seen in their sending as minister
Count Inouye, one of the best administrators in
their country. Then came the blunder of the Ito
cabinet, so fatal to Japanese interests, in the
sending of Viscount Miura as his successor, fol-
lowed by the dreadful murder, October 8, 1895, of
the queen, known to have been by far the most
astute politician in Korea. For months the grief-
stricken king was held a close prisoner in his own
palace. Then one bright morning, in February
of the following year, by aclever ruse his majesty
and the crown prince slipped out of the palace in
the closed chairs of palace ladies, and fled for
refuge to the Russian legation. There they met
with a cordial welcome from the Russian min-
ister, Mr. Waeber, and his gracious wife, who
have moved recently to their new diplomatic
home in Mexico City, and both of whom, I may
remark in passing, were highly respected and
beloved by all the foreigners in Korea. From
that time onward the influence of the Great
A HISTORICAL VITASCOPE 45

Northern Empire has steadily increased in the
peninsula.* At the Russian legation his majesty
remained for a year, and then moved to his new
palace within the foreign settlement. It is under-
stood that this autumn he will assume the title of
emperor, and that the name of the country will be
changed from Chosen, the ‘‘land of morning
calm,’’ to that of Daihan, whose significance is
that of ‘‘Great Han,’’ Han being the term which,
as will be remembered, was applied to each of the
political divisions of the land in the dawn of its
history.

* As the book goes to press, word has come that the
Russians have reversed their policy in Korea. They have
recalled the thirteen military instructors and the financial
adviser, who but a short time previous had displaced Dr. J.
McLeavey Brown, and have entered into a compact with
the Japanese in which it is mutually agreed that neither
country shall nominate military instructors nor financial

advisers for Korea without a prior agreement between the
two contracting powers.
CHAPTER III

HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE

How well I remember the afternoon our steamer
swung around Deer Island, where the Russians
have been trying to get a coaling-station, into the
round harbor of Fusan, disclosing the strange,
new land to our unaccustomed eyes. I can see
now the green-covered hills, with here and there
a white object stalking over their surface that
suggested only too distinctly the beings that are
said to creep in church-yards after the night has
fallen. Koreans almost universally dress in white,
and the fashion of their garments is unique. Let
us study the attire of my friend, Mr. Pak, as he sits
near by all unconsciously puffing away at his long-
stemmed pipe; for the smoking of tobacco is com-
mon among the men and women of Korea. On
his head is around, tapering, flat-topped hat, with
a brim thirteen inches in diameter, woven with
very fine strips of bamboo, which make it exceed-

.ingly light. This hat is ordinarily black in color,
but under certain circumstances the mourning
customs of the country require it to be of a whitish-
yellow hue. Except in the seclusion of his home
this hat is always upon his head. As he slips the
ribbon from under his chin and removes the hat

for a moment, we see that his hair isdone up in a
46
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 47

very peculiar way. He has suffered the coarse
black locks to grow very long, and, I may remark,
periodically has a large square tonsure shaven on
the top of his head; but this you would never
guess as you look at him, for his hair has been
gathered up and tightly coiled in a top-knot, two
or three inches long and asingle inch in diameter,
which stands straight up from the crown of his
head. Bound about his brow, so tightly as to cause
a slight depression in the forehead, is a band of
woven horsehair, two inches wide. This serves
to hold his hair in place and into it he occasionally
tucks a straggling lock with a tool that looks
like a little horn paper-knife.

As Mr. Pak considers himself rather a gentle-
man, should you see him in the seclusion of his
home you would observe on his head a skullcap
of black horse hair, dented in at the front so that
it looks like a two-stepped horse block; or again,
either with or without this skullcap, you might
see on him another style of horse-hair hat that
gives one something of the impression of a royal
crown that had been flattened under a letter-
press. Think of a suit of clothes without a
single button! Everything istied up with a girdle
or with some form of band with one end sewed
to the cloth. Mr. Pak wears next his body a
jacket reaching to the waist; and over this, while
away from home, he wears a full-sleeved loose
robe that falls to his ankles. Beneath it you
catch an occasional glimpse of a pouch or two,

ea
48 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

and of the case for his scholarly goggles hanging
from the trousers girdle. The trousers them-
selves are baggy and are gathered in below the
knees with a pair of cloth leggings tied at the
ankles. He wears a pair of stockings padded
with cotton batting. On his feet are a pair of felt
sandals which he leaves out of doors whenever
he enters a house. This is the picture which Mr.
Pak presents. In the winter he wears clothes
padded with cotton, including an overcoat, and
clinging tg the sides of his head a black fur-edged
covering that keeps his ears warm. Here and
there you see a man with a coat dyed some shade
of blue or green; or a black coat showing white
sleeves. Silk garments are seen occasionally.
The laboring classes frequently wear for a coat
only the short jacket; their working trousers fit
more closely and their feet are shod with sandals
of straw or twine. Koreans sometimes wear
leather sandals and, in muddy weather, you will
see wooden shoes raised by a couple of bits of
wood three inches above the ground. On the
chair-coolie’s head you will see a round-crowned,
wide-brimmed, black felt hat. Yonder farmer,
following his ox laden with a towering mass of
brush for firewood, wears on his head a convex
arrangement, two feet in diameter, of coarsely-
woven thin strips of wood which, in shape, looks
something like the top of a circus tent.

Of the Koreans it may be said that, while shar-
ing in many of the characteristics of the other
 

 

 

 

A GENTLEMAN OF THE Otp ScHOOL.
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 49

inhabitants of the Far East, racially they are a
type by themselves. In height they average fairly
well with the people of Northern China. The
Korean face will bear study. The forehead,
sufficiently high, shows no lack of brains. The
bright black eyes are slightly almond-pinched at
the corners. The nose is rather low and flat, and
the lips are full. Another type of features, it may
be remarked, is also frequently seen, especially in
the north of the country, in which the eyes are
round and the features are regular, sometimes even
delicately chiseled; but the black hair and black
eyes are practically universal. Mr. Pak wears a
thin mustache and a few straggling hairs adorn
his chin—no need for him to shave every day, for
the simple reason that the Koreans, with few
exceptions, have nothing or almost nothing on
their faces to require the use of a razor.

The Korean houses are peculiar. Generically
they may be divided into two classes—those roofed
with a deep thatch of rice straw, seen almost
universally in the country villages, and those
‘covered with a black-tiled roof, usually on the
homes of the well-to-do. With the exception of
avery few government and business buildings
the houses are all one-story structures. The
framework of a Korean roof is so cleverly mor-
tised together that not a nail is required in its con-
struction. In the support of this framework, with
its burden of thatch, or tiles set in loose earth,
well-planed logs of wood cross the rooms over-
50 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

head, and these rest in turn on wooden pillars
erected at intervals of eight feet. The tiled roofs
are gracefully curved upward at the corners, and
both varieties of roof project three or four feet
beyond the building proper. In the construction
of the walls a wicker work of twigs is woven, and
over this mud is plastered, making an adobe wall,
which, however, is occasionally faced with stone.
The windows are double. The outside ones
are latticed and swing on rude hinges, while the
inner ones slide in grooves, and both sets are
covered with tough paper that admits a dim light,
though inserted in them may occasionally be seen
asingle pane or bit of glass. In making their
floors the Koreans have hit upon quite an eco-
nomical mode of heating their rooms, although it
is death to ventilation. By the use of stone and
mud, perhaps six parallel flues are built up, which
converge at each end into an opening leading
outside, one into the chimney, the other into the
fireplace. These flues are covered over with
matched stone slabs, and a smooth coating of mud
is laid over all. When this has been well dried,
in many cases two layers of paper, of which the
upper one is thick and well saturated with oil, are
neatly pasted over the floor. The walls and ceil-
ing of the room may or may not be covered with
wall-paper, generally white. At least one room
has its fireplace so constructed that a couple
of round, shallow iron kettles for boiling rice or
heating water may be fastened into them. For
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 51

fuel they burn chopped wood, pine brush or hay.
In cool weather a dish of coals is always in evi-
dence to warm the hands and to light the pipes. I
have had some experience with Korean floors. In
my country trips, following the native custom, at
night I simply spread my sleeping arrangements
on the floor, well sprinkled, however, with ‘‘insect
powder.’’ In a Korean’s case, let me remark,
they would consist of a small wooden block for
a pillow, a quilt, and possibly a thin mattress.
If in a room where the amount of fuel used in
heating the stones under you can be regulated,
you experience only a genial glow running up
and down your spine; but take the case of a Ko-
rean inn where under you rolls the fire used to cook
the food of a dozen men, and you feel like a trout
in the skillet. In whatever other ways Korean
houses differ, one feature they have in common—
there is always a square or rectangular inner
court, carefully shielded from the gaze of the
public by buildings and high walls. Within this
court are jars of food and a little bed of flowers.
The living-rooms are generally on two sides of the
court. There is the black, smoke-stained kitchen,
containing the fireplace with the iron pots men-
tioned above. Here are also cooking utensils,
and yonder, not unlikely, bundles of fuel piled upon
the floor of earth. Next to this is a sleeping and
living room, possibly capable of subdivision with
sliding, paper-covered doors. At right angles to
this sleeping-room is a wide, enclosed porch with
52 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

a wooden floor, completely open on the side of the
court. Here the bowls of crockery or brass are
stored in brass-trimmed cupboards and the din-
ing-tables are stacked, and here the women, in
suitable weather, pass the most of their monot-
onous existence, seated upon the well-polished
floor, for chairs are not used by Koreans. Indeed,
the only other article of furniture seen is an
occasional painted or embroidered screen or chest
more or less decorated, or possibly a greasy lamp-
stand holding the little bowl of vegetable oil with
a bit of wick resting on the edge. Some, how-
ever, especially in the ports, use little kero-
sene lamps. Then on the other side of the
porch will be another living-room with flues
under the floor. Next the kitchen, or on the
third side of the court will be a shed or two, with
native locks and ring-and-staple fastenings on the
doors. On the fourth side is the ‘‘sarang,” a
room with openings outside, where the male
friends of the man of the house congregate, with
never a thought of venturing in to see the ladies
of the house. Furthermore, it is not considered
polite for the gentlemen to ask much about them.
One curious fact is that in the country none but
members of the aristocratic class are allowed to
have little verandas on the outside of their sar-
angs.

Dinner is announced, and the little square or
round tables, twelve inches high, are found steam-
ing in the porch of the inner quarters, or if friends
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 53

of the host are out in the ‘‘sarang’’ two or three
laden tables will be passed in for them at a
window. Everyone gets down upon the floor
in the usual Korean sitting posture, cross-legged
like a tailor, sometimes one and sometimes two
atatable. The first course, if the occasion be an
especial one, is a bowl of soup. The heaping
bowl of rice is then discussed, either with the brass
spoon or chop-sticks. And the chop-sticks de-
scend every now and then upon the contents of the
little side dishes, the brine-soaked ‘‘mu,” or turnip,
the bits of dried fish or meats, a species of sauer-
kraut composed of cabbage, shrimp, ginger, onion,
red pepper, salt, etc., with an occasional dip into
the bean sauce (Ala Worcestershire). For liquid
food he drinks cold water, or the water in which
the rice has been cooked. Poor people often eat
with their rice only the sauerkraut or pickled
turnip. Korean etiquette allows much smacking
of the lips while eating; but if dining out in the
sarang, in the presence of a visitor, politeness
requires him either to offer him food or excuse
himself for eating. Koreans also eat with the
tapidity of a traveler at a railway lunch counter,
or a table full of threshers.

Linguistically the Koreans are furnished with
a language that takes second place to neither
the Chinese nor Japanese languages in difficulty
of acquisition. The young Westerner: entering
upon its mastery has just one thing in his favor—
he does not know what he is getting into. Three
54 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

modes of expression are in use among the Ko-
reans—the colloquial, the book language and the
Chinese written characters. Let us first notice
the colloquial—the language of the people—which,
when reduced to writing, is known as the
“Unmun.’’? The Unmun alphabet comprises
twenty-eight letters, which are combined in syl-
lables that are written one under the otherin ver-
tical columns and are read from the back end to
the front of the book. Korean scholars affect to
despise this style of writing, its use in former
years having been confined largely to the printing
of flashy novels, though of late its use in the
printing of missionary literature and certain
newspapers has helped to give itdignity. Struc-
turally the colloquial may be termed agglutinative.
Many of the root forms are derived from the
Chinese. The noun endings rival the Greek in
number, though used rather carelessly in ordinary
conversation. The verbal endings mount into the
hundreds, and prepositions, conjunctions and
endings that mean the same as our marks of
punctuation have a way of sticking to the root
formations. One thing which multiplies the
number of verbal endings is the custom of the
country that gradations in age and social position
require a varying use of high, low and middle
forms. A teacher in one of the girls’ schools in
Seoul one day found two of her little girls in a
violent quarrel over the question of which should
use high language to the other. ‘“‘I am the
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 55

older,’’ cried one; ‘‘I am the bigger,’’ sobbed the
other.

Second, the book language, after the manner of
Latinized English, is largely composed of words
derived from the Chinese. It is written in the
Unmun character and is used in a few transla-
tions of the Chinese classics, in parallel sections
with the orginal. It is also employed in certain
other moral writings.

Third, in the Chinese characters the scholars
read the literature of China, and do their letter
writing. All government documents are written
or printed in Chinese.

Speaking of gradations in social position, cor-
responding to the ‘‘literati’’ in China and the
“samurai” in Japan, the Koreans have an aristo-
cratic class know as ‘*yangbans.’’ They are the
scholars, the possessors of blue blood, the holders
of government offices. They are ardent Con-
fucianists and are intensely conservative.
Among their own class they are hospitable and
punctiliously polite. The poor yangbans have a
way of sponging upon their more fortunate rela-
tivesand friends. They let their finger-nails grow
long to show their contempt for labor, and they
despise the classes below them in the social scale.
I saw a young man with a stone in his hand
chase another man all over a village one night,
because the latter, belonging to a lower social
grade than he, had dared to smoke a pipe in his
presence. .
56 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

Slavery exists in a mild form in the country.
For the most part slaves are attached to families
as bond-servants, much as was the custom in Old
Testament times. One class of slaves are men
and are the hereditary property of rich nobles.
In another class the women alone are counted
as property, and can redeem themselves or secure
their freedom by leaving in their place an able-
bodied daughter in the state of bondage. A third
class are the female slaves attached to magis-
tracies—female criminals, or the wives of crim-
inals. They are truly to. be pitied, for their
degradation passes description.

The government of Korea is an absolute mon-
archy. The king, however, calls to his assistance
a council of state composed of a chancellor and
various ministers and councilors. Certain of the
departments have foreign advisers, two of whom,
Dr. J. McLeavey Brown, adviser to the finance
department, as well as chief commissioner of the
customs service, and General C. G. Greathouse,
the former U. S. Consul General at Yokohama
and present adviser to the law department, have
of late rendered distinguished service to the Ko-
rean Government. The Korean troops in Seoul
are at present under the instruction of three com-
missioned and ten non-commissioned Russian
officers. Each of the thirteen provinces has its
governor, with a proper number of assistants;
and each of the 339 magistracies in these provinces
has its magistrate with a force of writers and
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 57

runners. Every village has its head, generally
an old man. Official honesty is apparently a
thing almost unknown in Korea, and the poor
people lead a sorry life; for not only must the
regular taxes be paid, but they are subject to the
further exactions of officials, runners, inspectors,
policemen, soldiers, not to mention the bands of
robbers that roam the country every winter and
spring. Much of the so-called laziness of the
Koreans is simply apathy, produced by the inse-
curity of property rights. With the exception of
a few rich merchants and men who own large
estates in the country, the great mass of the
people are very poor and they live a hand-to-
mouth existence upon a scale which Westerners
would consider impossible. Day laborers, when
they can get work, receive per day an amount
equivalent to from ten to fourteen cents of our
money, and upon this support their families.
Money goes further there, however, the unit of
their coinage being the ‘‘five cash’’ piece, a
round brass coin with a hole in the center, worth
about one tenth of an American cent.

But if the Koreans have their troubles, they also
have their pleasures. They are great lovers of
nature, and live out of doors much of the year.
The men are fond of picnics. Several scholars
will go to some picturesque spot and there com-
pose spring poetry in Chinese. Or a party will
spend hours in the practice of archery, at which
they are quite skillful. If you happen to be in the
58 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

country upon the occasion of a spring or fall holi-
day, you will hear the rhythmical clang of a brass
gong, the staccato note of a tambourine beaten
with a stick, or possibly the shrill tones of a
brass clarionet. Drawing near you will see a
circle of young men and half-grown boys dancing,
some of whom, perhaps, are dressed in female
attire. At a certain time each spring the Ko-
reans indulge in stone fights, a rather rough kind
of sport. Two sides face each other with leaders
wearing padded hats and carrying clubs. These
skirmish awhile with an occasional interchange of
blows, and then the two sides rain stones at each
other, much like a snow-ball fight. Presently, with
a mighty roar, one side begins to drive the other
back. Spectators catch the enthusiasm and join
the attacking force. The fun waxes fast and
furious—so furious that not infrequently some
one is maimed or killed. Nothing that I have
seen in Korea has given me such an impression
of the latent force and fire in the usually apathetic
Korean as this somewhat brutal sport.
Magistracies often keep a native orchestra.
“‘Keesangs,’’ or dancing girls, handsome, edu-
cated, dissolute, whose art consists largely in pos-
turing, enliven the feasts of the official class. Old
men while away the time playing a native game
resembling chess. It must sadly be admitted that
Koreans have their vices. Lying is universal.
Generations of practice have given them a won-
derful skill in the art. Business men continually
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 59

cheat and overreach in their business transac-
tions. A friend of mine, now a worthy Christian,
told me that formerly his thought every morning
as he awoke used to be, Howcan I cheat someone
today? and that attitude of mind, I am led to
believe, is common to a large class of Koreans.
In spite of heavy penalties, stealing is frightfully
common. Professional thieves carry great knives,
and are handy in their use. Gambling, in spite of
severe punitive laws, is widely practiced. Our
harmless dominoes in Korea are used only for
gaming purposes. Cards are also used that are
long strips of cardboard the width of one’s finger,
bearing Chinese characters. Men become so
frenzied with the gaming passion that, after
losing everything else, they are known to stake
and even lose their wives into slavery. The
drink curse is widely prevalent in Korea. The
liquors are of two kinds; one white and thick, the
other a clear liquid. They are made from rice,
barley or wheat. Saloons are frequent, with
sauerkraut and liquor for sale. Maudlin sots or
drunken brawls, with men tugging at each other’s
top-knots are, alas! a common sight upon the
streets. Their thought is low-planed. The
social vice prevails, and vice that is unspeakable.
In a word, the Koreans have every vice possi-
ble to a mild-mannered, heathen nation, with the
one exception of the smoking of opium. Let us
turn to a subject more pleasing—the woman of
Korea. She is frequently good-looking. She
60 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

parts her glossy hair in the middle and combs it
straight back, arranging it in a coil behind,
at the base of the head, through which she thrusts
an ornamental rod some six inches long, fre-
quently made of silver. Her clothes are much
like the men’s, with trousers, padded stockings
and sandals; but the jacket is very short, and
she wears in addition an overskirt, high-waisted
and reaching to withina few inches of the
ground. A jaunty little cap with broad ribbons
hanging behind is sometimes worn. In probably
no respect does the life in heathen countries and
in the lands that have felt the uplift of Gospel
truth show so marked a contrast as in the posi-
tion that is given to their women. In Korea,
except where the influence of the missionaries
has been felt, no man thinks of educating his
daughters. Nearly every village has a Chinese
school for boys; but not one for girls. With the
exception of a very few rare instances, such as
the lamented queen, no women outside of the
keesang class have received a mental training.
Here and there a woman can read Unmun. ‘‘Cus-
tom,’’ hoary with age, that arch-enemy of all
originality and progress, in Korea as in other parts
of the Orient, fetters the people even to the
minutest details of their life; and custom requires
that the Korean women lead a life of great seclu-
sion. From the time that the child first buds into
the maiden until her face wears the tracery of
old age, the respectable Korean woman is largely
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 61

a prisoner within the four walls of the court of
the women’s quarters. Let it be noted that the
women in country villages, middle-aged women
of the lower class, and Christian women in their
attendance upon church meetings allow them-
selves greater freedom of movement. Occasionally
on the streets may be seen a woman’s closed
sedan chair, with dangling, fan-like little red
ornaments, and with a couple of coolies striding
_ between the chair poles. Or again a few women
will be seen with long green cloaks or white
skirts drawn over their heads so closely that of
their features only a shining black eye is visible.
But these occasional visits to the houses of
relatives or friends are generally paid at night.
In what a narrow world do they pass their lives!
And then the women are universally spirit-
worshipers, and live in constant dread of evil
spirits. In view of these facts, can we wonder
that the habitual thinking of Korean women is
petty, or superstitious, or vulgar? Poor things!

It is easy to see, then, what a mental, moral and
spiritual uplift the Gospel message brings to the
women of the country.

The girl is married when amere child, between
the ages of twelve and sixteen, to a youth she has
never known, and, as is the case in China, comes
under the sway of her mother-in-law. If her
mother-in-law is kind and her husband is good to
her, a fair measure of home happiness awaits her.
But the customs of the country all favor the
62 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

married man rather than the married woman.
He may divorce her upon any one of seven
grounds—such, for instance, as inability to live at
peace with her mother-in-law, or the absence of
little ones from the home circle, especially the
boys so necessary for the continuance of the
ancestral worship. Then again, Confucianism
throws its semi-religious sanction over the
practice of the men’s taking secondary wives or
concubines. Large numbers of men in the middle
and upper classes therefore take one or more con-
cubines, whom they keep either in the same house,
or in a separate building not far away, or in
another village. As the man has some choice in
these secondary attachments, it is very apt to be
the case that the. poor first wife has the respect-
ability and the concubine has the love. Once
again, marriage customs bear heavily upon the
women, in that it is not considered respectable
for a widow to marry again; although itis to be
admitted that many a young widow, rather than
face the burdens of life, becomes a concubine.

In the country, women are allowed much social
freedom. I always like to watch a company of
them hulling rice. The machine consists of a
piece of timber shaped like a two-tined fork, and
is hung on a pivot, with a cross-piece on the
handle end that forms a hammer to pound the
tice. One woman feeds the hole, where the ham-
mer strikes, with unhulled rice. Then the bevy
of women take hold of the straw ropes hanging
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 63

in the shed; they step upon the two prongs and
the hammer end rises; they step off and the ham-
mer falls. Step on, step off. Chatter and laugh-
ter make the air melodious. Let us further con-
sider the pursuits of the women. Korean house-
wives are accomplished needle-women. The
‘mode of washing and ironing clothes is peculiar.
Before washing, the seams are ripped and the
clothes are taken to pieces. Then beside the well,
or the brook outside the city, women of the lower
classes or the servants of the rich beat the clothes
into whiteness with flat wooden paddles. Iron-
ing is done in the inner quarters of the house,
frequently into the small hours of the night. The
ironing is done with a large wooden roller that
may or may not be laid on a smooth block of
stone. Two or four ironing-sticks, like police-
men’s clubs, are used, depending upon whether
one or two women do the ironing. The pieces
of cloth are laid about the roller and, with a rhyth-
mical tapping not unpleasant to hear, the clothes
are beaten stiff and smooth. Each autumn the
thrifty housewife puts down great jars of ‘‘sauer-
kraut” and pickled turnip for the winter use of
the family.

Little children in Korea certainly lead a happy
life; for whatever their other faults Korean men
and women love their little children and are kind
to them. These little ones ride astride of the
backs of father, or mother, or the six-year-old
brother or sister. In summer they toddle about,
64 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

as someone has remarked, ‘‘dressed in nothing
but a hair ribbon,’’ or at most a short, quilted
jacket. When the New Year’s season arrives, in
February, their fond mothers deck them out with
every kind of gayly-colored clothes. Would that
they might alwaysremain soinnocent and happy!

The small boy in Korea is much like the small
boy everywhere; his business in life is to play.
He makes a small hoop’ with a handle and fills
it full with a mass of cobwebs. Then with it he
catches insects. Or again, you will see him with
the end of a string tied about some large insect
which he allows to fly to the end of its tether.
In one or two instances I have seen him witha
centipede on the end of astring. Iam sorry to
say he sometimes gambles, pitching ‘‘cash’’ ata
mark. At the New Year’s season the sky is
bright with his tailless kites, made square with a
hole in the middle. The string is wound on a
four-armed reel that has something of the shape
of the reel of a binder, only it has a long
handle on one side fastened into the hub. The
boy, grasping the handle with one hand and a
corner of one of the arms with the other, twirls
this reel backward and forward very skillfully
and makes his kite go about the heavens in any
way he pleases. With these kites they fight,
crossing strings in the effort to saw each other’s
string intwo. And the custom is that the kite
that floats helplessly away, anyone may keep
who can catch the severed string. Girls are fond
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 65

of playing at see-saw. A bag full of sand perhaps
a foot high is set on the ground. Across this is
laid a plank. Stretched alongside, at a proper
height for the children to grasp and steady them-
selves, isarope. Two girls stand erect upon the
ends. One gives an upward spring and, as she
alights on the board, gives the other an upward
toss, who, as she alights in turn, throws the first
girl aloft a little higher. And so the sport goes
on, until in their upward flight each girl is thrown
two or three feet into the air. Frequent rests
are necessary, but the sport is the occasion of
much glee. In the springtime swings are set up,
which boys and girls alike enjoy. But the chil-
dren must work’as wellas play. Many of the boys
go to school to learn to read and write Chinese.
Other boys in the country must trim branches
from the pine shrubs or rake the grass on the hill
sides to bind into great bundles of fuel, or scare
the armies of English sparrows away from the
yellow rice fields; while the girls must learn to
cook and do fine needle-work. Although Korean
children show great outward respect to their par-
ents and toelderly people, I do not think that they
are trained to obey very well. Respectful greet-
ings upon the part of children to older people are,
in the case of the boy, a complete prostration with
the hands on the ground and the forehead rest-
ing on the hands; the girl sinks downward ina
courtesy till her finger tips touch the floor; she
then steadily rises, folds her left hand beneath
66 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

her right arm and slowly sinks down as before.
All boys and bachelors wear their hair in a
braid down the back. When the latter marries he
is allowed to put up his hair and wear ahat. I
have been amused when sitting in a sarang with
a group of men to see a slip of a boy with his hair
done up ina top-knot enter, and note how respect-
fulthey were; a moment later a fine, sturdy young
man, perhaps twenty-five years of age, with a
braid down his back, appeared, and they all used
low talk tohim. The one was married, and the
other was not. Korean men have three names, a
boy name, often an opprobrious term, like ‘‘pig,’’ so
that the spirits may not become jealous of the
honor shown him. The second and third are men’s
names, given when his hair is put up at the
time of his marriage; one by which he is to be
known familiarly among his friends, the other
his formal, legalname. Girls have pretty names,
meaning plum-blossom, treasure, etc. After
their marriage they are known only as so-and-so’s
wife or the mother of so-and-so.

Just a word now about some of the character-
istics of the Koreans. They are by nature rather
a kindly people, and they treat us foreigners on
the whole with much respect. It shows itself in
such ways as this: A foreigner enters one of the
tortuous lanes in which Seoul abounds, and
which happens to be closed. Immediately a man
or asmall boy steps forward, politely explains
that you cannot go that way and promptly points
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 67

out to you the proper road, and that, too, with no
apparent thought of remuneration. With all their
many and glaring faults, one readily learns to love
the Koreans. They area hospitable people and
can be exceedingly polite. Their politeness, too,
has a certain manly tone about it that one likes.
They are a leisure-loving people, full of curi-
osity and fond of sight-seeing. Men will some-
times leave their families and be gone from home
for months wandering about the country. Time
is no object to them. Their actual knowledge
of the world they live in being small, and news-
papers, until the last few years, being non-exist-
ent, their minds have been immensely interested
with very petty things. For instance, men sitting
by the roadside can tell every mark on a horse
that has recently passed by. News hasa wonderful
way of traveling from mouth to mouth. Leta
foreigner go down into the country to a certain
place and by nightfall every village within a ra-
dius of twenty miles is discussing him and all the
particulars connected with his arrival. It is inter-
esting to watch two Koreans engaged in a dis-
pute, for instance, over a business transaction.
Their voices are high pitched; they gesticulate
violently; they fairly rage at each other. One
unaccustomed to their ways expects an immediate
casualty of at least a broken skull. But as Mr.
Gale remarks, only a few minutes elapse before
they are seated at each end of a piazza quietly
smoking their pipes. I have noticed something
68 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

similar in the scoldings fathers give their sons.
The tones of the reproof were fairly blood-curd-
ling. A moment later and the furious parent was
as placid as a moonlit lake. A Korean gentleman
rarely scolds other men; he lets his servant do it
for him. This suggests another trait. Koreans,
especially of the upper clases, have a distaste for
unpleasant things; and if they have a hard thing
to do or say they invariably get a third party to
do it for them, wherever it is possible. Koreans
who have learned to read a book or two in
Chinese are apt to be inordinately conceited. As
in China, a selfish individualism is only too char-
acteristic of the great mass of the people. No
man receives credit for being disinterested in any-
thing he does. Patriotism and public spirit are
practically undeveloped qualities in the minds of
the Koreans. In political life there is incessant
intrigue on the part of those out of office to dis-
place by fair means or foul the holders of govern-
ment position; and once in office their principal
thought is that of the boa-constrictor—the desire to
“‘squeeze’’ the people. Let it be noted, however,
that there is now a small progressive party in Ko-
tea that finds its inspiration largely in a number
of young men who have either held official position
or studied for a number of years in the United
States. Their mouth-piece is the /ndependent,
a tri-weekly newspaper published in the ver-
nacular by Phillip Jaisohn, M.D., an able young
Korean nobleman, medically educated in the
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 69

United States, who has held a position in one
of the departments in Washington as an expert in
microscopy, is a member of a Presbyterian church
in Washington, is a naturalized American citizen,
and is married to an American wife. At present,
in addition to publishing two newspapers, one in
Korean and one in English, he holds the position
of adviser to the Department of Agriculture and
Commerce.

One who knows the Korean people, in spite
of all that has been or can be said of their
faults and vices, and of their listless apathy, so
largely the result of the conditions under which
they live, cannot help feeling that they have in
them the capacity for a high development when
once the truths of the Gospel have permeated the
mass of the people and when they can live in
security of life and property, under wise laws
righteously administered.
CHAPTER IV

A WEDDING IN KOREA

Among most peoples the wedding forms one of
the most notable events in social life, and the
Koreans are no exception tothe rule. One bright
morning in March, several years ago, we were
informed that an opportunity was afforded us to
witness a wedding conducted according to the
Korean custom. The invitation was promptly
accepted.

In company with two friends I took my way to
a Korean hut near the wall, where a youth and
his betrothed were about to make their bows to
each other. Just as we arrived, the good-natured,
round-faced fellow was donning his outer robes
in an open space in front of the house.

According to Korean custom, he wore a cos-
tume like that which officials wear in royal audi-
ences—one which he had hired for the occasion.
The robe wasadark green, and bore ‘‘placques”’
with a pair of embroidered storks on the breast
and back, About the weater, like a hoop, was
the black enameled belt, and on his head was a
‘““palace-going’’ hat with wings on its sides, and
finally he got himself into shoes that looked like
“‘arctic’’ overshoes, two or three sizes too large
for him.

7o
A WEDDING IN KOREA 71

At last he was ready to go indoors. An attend-
ant preceded him with a red, flat-brimmed hat on
his head, about his neck a string of beads, and in
his arms a goose. The goose’s feet were tied,
and fastened through her beak was a little skein
of red silk. In the two marched—three perhaps
I ought to say. The court of the house had an
awning of gunny-sacking suspended over it. Here
ared table stood, with two red ornaments on it
which looked like tall candlesticks, or sealed
vases. The court was full of Korean men,
women and children.

In front of the table the bridegroom bowed two
or three times in the performance of a religious
ceremony. And singular bowing it was. He
gently lowered himself upon his knees, and then
bringing forward his hands upon the mat, he
bowed till his head touched the back of his hands.
Then gracefully he resumed the standing pos-
ture. The last time he bowed he sank with the
goose in his arms. Iam told that the goose is
the symbol of fidelity in Korea, it being popularly
believed that if a wild goose dies its spouse never
mates again.

By special invitation we then assumed a position
upon the porch of the little house, facing the
court. A mat was placed upon the steps, con-
necting with another mat on the porch. Pres-
ently the groom came to the front of the steps
and stood there, while our attention was called
to the room opening upon the porch. This room
93 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

was filled with women, mostly young and more
or less good-looking. I had caught a peep at the
bride as she sat on a cushion.

But now she was coming out. Two middle-
aged women accompanied her, each holding one
of the bride’s arms and guiding her steps, for her
eyes were sealed completely. Clear up to her jetty
hair, the face of the petite bride was painted a
ghastly white. In the middle of‘ her forehead
and of each cheek were painted great, round, red
spots; her lips were also bright red.

Her dress consisted of a bright green waist over
a brilliant red skirt. Fastened through the coil
of hair on the back of her smoothly combed head
was a hair-pin, consisting of an ornamental rod,
perhaps fifteen inches long. I remember it, for I
almost got caught on it, in brushing by her later
on.

Upon her head was a crown-like cushion, sur-
mounted by half a dozen nodding sticks of beads,
possibly three inches long. Down her back hung
two broad brown ribbons, caught together with
two ornaments, one a smooth, rectangular red
stone, and the other a rosette of white jade, a
stone precious in the East.

This little, painted, gorgeous creature was
guided out, as I have said, by two middle-aged
women. Across the mat they went, and at the
end of the porch they turned the little bride about,
and laid over her clasped hands a white handker-
chief.
A WEDDING IN KOREA 73

The groom now stepped to the other end of the
mat and the principal part of the wedding cere-
mony began. The bride made her bows. The
attendants raised her arms till the small,
draped hands lay level with the sightless eyes.
Then, partially supported by the matronly
women, she sank in a courtesy so profound that
at the lowest point she was almost in a sitting
posture. Then in the same slow, solemn man-
ner she rose again. Her face at this time, and
indeed during all the ceremony, was as expres-
sionless as the face of a sphinx.

Three times this profound courtesy was repeated.
Then it was the groom’s turn. His face had
more feeling in it than hers. Indeed, it looked
flushed and anxious; much as a European’s face
might have appeared under corresponding circum-
stances. Our Korean groom now responded to
his bride’s greetings with two and a half bows, in
which his head almost touched the floor. Then
the bride and the groom were made to sit down
upon their respective ends of the mat.

A table stood against the wall laden with what
Koreans consider delicacies, but what they seemed
to our perverted foreign taste I will refrain from
stating, out of politeness to our host. Bread look-
ing like a white grindstone, dishes: of white,
stringy vermicelli, bowls of ‘‘kimche,’’ a native
sauerkraut, candies, and a bottle of native liquor
were there.

The couple were now sitting. The woman
74 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

nearest the table took a cup and filled it with
liquor. This she touched to the bride’s draped
hands, and presented it to the groom. He took a
sip, and handed it back. She refilled the cup, and
they repeated the ceremony to the third time.

Then came a curious performance. The ‘‘go-
between’’ hada part todo. She was the old lady
with gray hair who had literally ‘‘made the
match.’’ She had attended to all the necessary
preliminaries, even to doing the courting for the
young people. The goose again appeared upon
the scene. This time the skein of red silk had
been removed from the holes in her beak.

Another woman held the bird, while the aged
match-maker filled her hand with soft, stringy
vermicelli, and offered it to her gray birdship.
The goose eagerly dabbed away with her beak
until she was nearly satisfied, when the old lady
finished the ceremony by eating herself what was
left in her hand.

All this had been done in the doorway leading
into the bridal chamber. This room was now
cleared of its young and middle-aged ladies, who
were compelled to join the crowd in the court.
To the bridal chamber the groom repaired and,
removing his wedding robes, which made him look
like an official, assumed garments more befitting
his rank. His new costume consisted of a new
white robe, and one of the ordinary broad-
brimmed, conical-crowned hats.

He then came out, and the bride retired to the
A WEDDING IN KOREA 75

room, to resume again her cushion on the floor;
but just before she subsided into her placid medi-
tations, her two attendants required her to bow to
her foreign guests, and three times, without the
movement of a muscle in her face, she sank to the
floor in profound courtesies. We did not know
just what was required of us at this juncture, but
one after another, with perplexity written on our
faces, we saluted the bride with American bows.

They were just arranging boxes with the view
to feasting us with Korean delicacies, when the
lady of our party reached the conclusion that it was
time to retire. The motion was carried without
debate, and amid many hospitable protests we
made our farewells in our best available Korean
phrases and withdrew, wishing for our hosts every
possible blessing. .
CHAPTER V

GUILDS AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS *

If you were to stroll down the street leading
from the West Gate to the center of the city of
Seoul, and with observant eye should note the
contents of the shops placed here and there along
the way, you would notice at first a number of
general shops. Andin these booths, wide open
to the street, you would see an assortment of
goods probably something like this: a few articles
of food, fine-cut tobacco, matches, hair ornaments,
bright-colored pockets that look like tobacco
pouches, and a few story books. It is noticeable
that in these cluttered displays only a limited range
of goods is to be seen. Further down the street,
as you near the tower of the great city bell, the
shops grow more substantial, and to see the goods
of many of them you must go inside. In these

*This chapter is a picture of business conditions before
the late war. During the “reform era,’’ instituted by the
Japanese, the office of magistrate of the market was abol-
ished, the pu-sang office ceased to be numbered among the
departments of the government, and the power of the
merchants’ and peddlers’ guilds was broken. But since
the conservative reaction set in, itis understood that the
guilds have regained much of their ancient standing and
power.

76
GUILDS AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS 77

shops a merchant sells only one kind of goods, as
paper, or shoes, or silk. But in the same shop
several different shop-keepers may have their
stalls. _These men are the members of the
merchant guilds. ‘Any Korean can open a little
general store. But certain lines of goods can be
handled only by the members of trade guilds.
There are many different guilds corresponding
to the different kinds of goodssold. For instance,
the sandal trade, as distinguished from the trade in
straw or string-shoes, is entirely in the hands of the
shoe guild. One thing which seems curious to our
Western notions is that the different kinds of cloth
goods are handled each by a separate guild. There
are guilds for cotton goods, for colored goods, for
grass cloth, the gauzy summer goods, plain silks
and figured silks. Then there are guilds for cot-
ton, dyes, paper, hats, head-bands, rice, crockery,
cabinets, iron utensils and brass ware. These
are some of the principal trades of which. the
guilds have a monopoly. These guilds hot only
regulate their, trades ‘But are mutually helpful in
certain emergencies. For example, in case one
of their number dies, they give financial aid
to his family. Each guild has a head; and he
with his servants is to be constantly found for the
transaction of business at the guild headquarters.
Should a man desire to enter into business in one
of these monopolized trades, he must make appli-
cation to the head of the guild. Should he prove
acceptable, he must pay an entrance fee to the
78 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

guild of, say $20. The head of the guild then
furnishes him with a certificate of membership,
duly made out and stamped with the seal of the
guild, and the guild members come around and
offer him their congratulations. He can then
rent his stall or room and open up his wares
‘whenever he likes. But suppose a man, without
asking leave of the guild, should undertake to
open a shop for the sale of silk or rice, what
would happen? All would go well for a time;
then one day his guild certificate would be called
for. None being produced, a tempestuous time
would ensue, the probable end of which would be
that the guild would confiscate the contents of the
shop. At all events, in a day or two there would
be one less merchant in the silk trade. How-
ever, in this connection, a curious custom should
be mentioned. From the twenty-fifth day of the
last month of the Korean year, that is, during the
last five days of the old year, and through the
first five days of the new, Korean custom allows any
one whatever to sell any kind of goods he pleases.
Why it should be so I cannot tell, only such is the
time-honored custom. This is the reason why
the displays of shining brass ware are to be seen
in all their glory upon the streets around Chong-
No (the bell-tower place) at the New Year’s
season, while at any other time you must hunt for
them among the shops, should you desire to see
the handsome ware. While the guilds can
cope successfully with intruders of their own
GUILDS AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS 79

people, they are powerless in the competition
with the Chinese and Japanese merchants.

Members of guilds are required to pay a
monthly tax to the head of their guild.

The government is accustomed to collect taxes
from the guild, but applies directly to the head
of the guild for payment. The patriotism of the
guilds was shown upon the occasion of the burial
of the dowager queen, when each guild added a
large and beautiful silken banner to the gorgeous
pageantry of the funeral.

Superior to either the guilds or their chiefs is
an official appointed by the government to rule
over the merchants. He may be termed the
magistrate of the market. He holds the rank of
dan-sa. At his government office he settles dis-
putes between merchants, and acts as a judge in
matters pertaining to commercial law. Not
unlike the merchant guilds are the artisan guilds;
what we would call at home ‘‘trades unions.’’
But they are spoken of by a different name; for
instance, the carpenters’ guild or union would be
known as the ‘‘room of the carpenters.’’ Trades
unions exist of the carpenters, the masons, the
tilers, the chair-coolies, the rice-coolies, etc.

We come now to a form of guild, which, on
account of its peculiar features, is deserving of a
separate treatment. This is the peddlers’ guild,
known as the pu-sang guild. These need to be
distinguished from the fo-sangs, who are also mer-
chants, who travel from market to market in the
80 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

country, but who in their organization are simply
the ordinary guild adapted to the conditions for
selling goods in the country. The fu-sang, or
peddlers’ guild, which we are now toconsider, is a
very large and powerful guild. In the country
villages shops are rarely found, but the buying
and selling of merchandise is done upon special
market days. The country has been districted
among conveniently placed market towns, in
groups of five each, so that once in five days each
of these towns has itsmarket day. And peddlers,
for the most part belonging to this peddlers’ guild,
keep traveling around these five-day circuits, carry-
ing their stock of goods, one upon his shoulders,
another on an ox, and still another on pony-back.
But the peculiarity in the pu-sang guild consists
in their connection with the government. Ina
truly feudal sense are their services at the dis-
posal of the government. Not one office, but
the higher officials of any government office, feel
at liberty to call in these peddlers for special serv-
ices. Is detective work required, these roving
peddlers can be made use of. Does the king
desire to visit the ancestral graves, in the many
preparations which the occasion requires, such
for instance as the making ready the city streets
and country roads, the peddlers’ services are
employed, Orin the country, is a special escort
required for the guest of the magistrate, the serv-
ices of the pu-sangs are called into requisition.
Mr. Gilmore’s ‘‘Korea from its Capital,” narrates
 

 

 

A Mountain PaviLion.
GUILDS AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS | 8x

how Lieutenant Foulk, when naval attache of the
American legation, had once a pleasing experi-
ence, while traveling in the country, of the
courtesies of the pu-sangs, acting for him in the
capacity of a night escort.* Especially are they
liable to military service should the government
have need to call an army into the field in addi-
tion to the troops in the barracks. So that,

*.The following is the account mentioned above, that was
written by Lieutenant Foulk, describing his experience
with the pu-sangs:

“It was nightfall when we started to return. The mag-
istrate, who was an officer of the pu-sang, brought his seal
into use, and called out thirty of the body to light us down
the mountains. Where these men came from or how they
were called I did not understand, for we were apparently
in an uninhabited, wild, mountain district. They appeared
quickly—great, rough mountain men, each wearing the
pu-sang hat. We descended the worst ravine in a long,
weird, winding procession, the mountains and our path
weirdly illuminated by the pine torches of the pu-sang
men, who uttered shrill, reverberating cries continually to
indicate the road or one another’s whereabouts. Suddenly
we came upon a little pavilion in the darkest part of the
gorge; here some two hundred more fu-sang men were
assembled by a wild stream in the light of many bonfires
and torches. On the call of the magistrate they had pre-
pared a feast for us here at midnight in the mountains.
Here the magistrate told me he had been asked by the late
minister to the United States, Min Yong Ik, to suddenly
call on the Ju-sang men of the Song-do district for serv-
ices, to show me the usefulness and fidelity of the body;
and he had selected this place, the middle of the mountains,
and time, the middle of the night. I need not say that the
experience was wonderful and impressive.’’
82 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

although Korea has no ‘‘merchant marine,’’ she
may be said to have a merchant soldiery.
Another curious feature is that among the
great departmental offices of the government,
such as the foreign office, the home office, and the
war Office, there isa pu-sang office for whose head-
quarters a large house is provided in the center of
the city. And further, one of the greatest nobles
in the country is the president of this office. In
other words, he is the head of the pu-sang guild.
Then the fu-sangs are subdivided according to
magistracies, having what we would term a
county organization, and there is a chief who is
the head of all the pu-sangs ina given magistracy.
Men who are not peddlers frequently join the
peddlers’ guild. A former gateman of ours, and
in our neighborhood a paperer and one of the
coolies are said to belong to the peddlers’ guild.
The popularity of the guild is due chiefly to
its size and power. Not that they have any
direct authority, but they are clannish in help-
ing one another. For example, a pu-sang desires
to collect a debt, but his debtor declines to
pay. Does he put his note in the hands of a
collection agency as we would at home? No, he
mentions the matter to a few of his peddler
friends. In the evening he calls again in company
with these friends. And as twenty stalwart ped-
dlers begin to bare.their brawny arms, the debtor
comes to the conclusion that he believes he can
raise the money after all. But they have more
GUILDS AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS 83

legitimate modes of helpfulness. Like other
guilds, they help each other in the case of special
emergencies, such as a death or wedding in the
family. On two occasions, I have seen great
gatherings of the pu-sangs. They had large tents
erected, and I remember that some of their num-
ber wore white straw hats, with a couple of cot-
ton balls in the band. These were said to be low
men in the order.

These various guilds, as we have seen, have
characteristics in which they differ, combined with
features that are similar. One of the family traits
is the custom of mutual help with money or
goods upon specified occasions. There are also
certain varieties of another Korean association,
known as the yet or kay. The kay is a promi-
nent feature in Korean social life. There are
many varieties of these associations, organized for
all kinds of purposes, some good, some bad.
There are associations of which the Koreans
themselves disapprove theoretically, as being
organized for gambling purposes—lotteries in
other words. Again, there are perfectly legiti-
mate ays, which are insurance companies, or
mutual benefit associations, or money-loaning
syndicates. There are several different kinds of
lotteries. One variety is limited in the number
of those who engage, and has but one prize.
Another kind has a hundred chances; and still a
third has a thousand chances. Then there is one
which the Koreans say has been copied after the
84, EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

foreign lottery, where tickets are sold in unlimited
numbers. This is probably true, for I have seen
the tickets of the Manila Lottery exposed for
sale in the Chinese stores, instructing them in the
ways of Western civilization. It is to the credit
of the Korean government that it frowns severely
upon these lotteries, and suppresses them where-
ever it is possible.

We come now tothe mutual-aid societies, insur-
ance companies and loan associations. There is
a form of kay which, considering the customs that
govern it, would appear to be legitimate. A
certain number of men belong to it; and they
have a fortnightly or monthly casting of the lot.
When a man has drawn the prize, he cannot try
again until every other member has had his turn
in drawing the prize. But whether eligible or
not for the drawing, he must keep up his regular
periodical payments to the manager of the 4ay.
In some such associations, I am told, the amount
of the sum drawn goes up month by month till a
certain limit is reached, when it drops again to
the originalamount. We were surprised one Sun-
day on going to church to see the house-boy of one
of our missionary friends standing with a fantastic
tissue paper head gear on his head, and a native
lantern in his hand, in a group of similarly fur-
nished men outside a house where a funeral was
to be held. He had to. He belonged to an
association whose members are pledged to carry
lanterns at the funeral, and furnish some stipu-
GUILDS AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS 85

lated article, as the grass-cloth with which to wrap
the remains when one of their number dies.
Then there is another association which pays the
entire expense of the funeral, when death invades
the home of one of its members. These insur-
ance kays are known by a number of names. In
contrast with these, there is an association whose
members are assessed when there is a wedding in
the family, or a young son puts up his hair ina
top-knot, and assumes the garb of manhood.
There is still another variety which helps at both
weddings and funerals. These insurance and
mutual-aid associations are conducted on the
assessment plan.

‘Koreans also associate themselves together in
kays for the purpose of loaning money. There
is one variety composed of people who loan their
money and divide the interest at the New Year's
season in order to lighten the heavy burden of
expense which custom connects with that festival
season. Another heavy item of expense in Kor-
ean families is the preparation of their winter
supply of certain articles of food, made in the fall.
Among their other preparations many families
salt down a large quantity of shrimps at this
season of the year. Hence it comes about that
there is an association whose members each spend
their portion of the accrued interest on their united
loan in buying the winter supply of shrimps.

It is a matter of course that every Korean
scholar wants to attend the royal examinations
86 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

once in a while. But for the poor country
scholar attending the foaga* is expensive, for,
added to the cost of the examination paper, ink,
etc., is the item of hotel bills on the way. So
these scholars form an association, loan their
money, and in the course of time divide the
accrued interest, and find themselves in a position
to attend the examination in Seoul.

The Koreans are very fond of going out of the
city upon picnics in the spring, when the azaleas
and other flowers are in bloom. So, festive but
impecunious people sometimes form an associa-
tion, loan their money, and use the interest in
going out upon such excursions when the flowers
are in their glory. Men who are fond of archery
have their Zays. Four or five archers meet and
contribute a small sum each to form a prize,
which is then given to the man most skillful with
his bow. Or two sets of archers meet for a
friendly contest, and the rich men and poor men
among them, according to their several abilities,
contribute a purse, out of which they provide a
feast and dancing-girls to entertain them. Money
is loaned by the says at what we would consider
very high rates of interest. Yearly loans are
sometimes made, but more often money is loaned
on ten months’ time. In these ten-months’ loans, if
a man’s credit is very good, he can borrow per-
haps at 20 per cent. More often the rate charged
is 30, 40, Or 50 percent. Thus 1,000 cash in the

* These Koagas were abolished at the time of the war.

 
GUILDS AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS 87

course of ten months brings in an interest:
amounting to 200 cash, or more. Often the
return payments are made during the ten months
at the rate of one-tenth of principal and interest
each month. Certain kinds of fays have each a
manager, who is expected upon the occasions
when they meet, once or twice a month, to fur-
nish the members with wine ora meal. I once
saw such a meeting in the country, and witnessed
the casting of lots, when their names, written on
white nuts about the size of a hickory nut, were
drawn one by one from a gourd receptacle.

We sometimes think that in the home-land we
‘ have organizations for almost everything under
the sun. But I am not sure whether Korean life,
with all its different associations, is not about as
complex asours. The business world is certainly
organized to an extent we are not acquainted with
in Western lands. True, there are trades unions
in each alike, but in Korea nearly all the mer-
chants inthe land are bound together in their
powerful guilds, that are practically trades unions
in the mercantile world. And itis worthy of note
that one feature characterizes all these associa-
tions, whether merchant guilds, trades unions,
the semi-political peddlers’ guilds, or the legiti-
mate kind of ays, and that is the trait of mutual
helpfulness in time of need.
CHAPTER VI

ANCESTRAL WORSHIP AS PRACTICED IN KOREA

The religious beliefs of Korea show a blending
of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shamanism.
The Confucian learning, as we know, forms the
basis of the education of the country. Every
magistracy throughout the land has somewhere in
its town a temple dedicated to Confucius, where,
twice a year, in the spring and in the fall, the
magistrate, with his numerous writers, worships the
spirit of the sage. The social fabric of the coun-
try is largely Confucian. .Ancestral worship is
Confucian. Again, the monasteries and temples
of Buddha are scattered throughout the country—
a faith with much of its lustre gone. Frequently
before a village door may be seen a couple of
monks or nuns soliciting alms, as they tap upon
their wooden begging-bowls in time to a monoto-
nous chant. Socially, they hold nearly the lowest
position, and until the time of the war were for-
bidden to enter the gates of Seoul. Shamanism,
or Spiritism, has its representatives in the blind
sorcerer, the mutang, or sorceress, and the
geomancer who chooses fortunate grave sites.

Each religion furnishes its share to the
mythology of the country. At the head of their

system of belief is Hananim, whom the Chinese
88
ANCESTRAL WORSHIP IN KOREA 89

recognize as Shangti. Many would introduce as
next inferior to him Buddha (indeed, some go to
the temples upon the death of a relative to pray
the Buddha to send his spirit to the good abode).
Then come the ten judges of hades, whose pic-
tures may be seenin Buddhisttemples, Through
their servants they are said to be well versed in
the affairs of mortals. Upon the death of a man,
one of his souls is seized by official servants of
these judges and hurried to hades. The judges,
knowing whether his deeds have been good or
evil, give sentence, and in accordance with the
judgment the spirit is sent either to the Buddhist
heaven or to the Buddhist hell to spend the rest
of his existence. In the latter place are manifold
kinds of punishment.:. For you must know that,
while many Koreans believe with the Southern
Buddhists in the transmigration of souls, many
others follow the Northern cult in the belief in a
heaven and a hell. Another class of Koreans
believe that the soul does not go to the realm of
departed spirits, but wanders about on this earth
dependent for its condition upon the fidelity of
his sons in keeping up the prescribed sacrifice.
Next below the ten judges come the sansin, or
mountain spirits. Each mountain on the checker-
board of Korea is supposed to have its presiding
genius in the person of a mountain spirit, of
whom more anon. Below the mountain spirits
are many other kinds of spirits. We come now
to the £uzsen, or devils. Nearly all the women
go EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

and three-fourths of the men of Korea stand in
mortal terror of these malevolent beings. Is
any one sick, or in trouble, going on a journey or
moving his lodgings, the demons are propitiated
by sorcery.

With this brief look at the religions of the
country, let us center our attention upon the
ancestral worship as practicedin Korea. Ances-
tral worship is Confucian in its origin. Con-
fucius was intensely practical in his philosophy.
His mind took no pleasure in dwelling upon the
supernatural. He said: ‘‘Spirits are to be
respected, but to be kept at a distance.’’ On
another occasion he said: ‘‘While you are not able
to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?’
He found ancestral worship existing among the
ancients he so much venerated, and he passed on
the custom almost without comment. And yet,
while he set before men a beautiful array of
virtues to be practiced, because he gave to the
virtue of filial piety an excessive importance and
made it the foundation stone of his structure, he
may be said to have furnished the principle for
ancestral worship.

The customs regulating ancestral worship in
Korea are so interesting, that it may be profitable
to consider the procedure after death somewhat
in detail. Koreans believe that every man has
three souls, and upon death one goes to hades, or
wanders about on the earth, one goes to the grave,
and one takes his abode in the ancestral tablet,
ANCESTRAL WORSHIP IN KOREA 91

In the last moments before death, silence reigns
through the house. Sad ministrations follow, and
the remains are placed in new clothes for burial.
Outside the door is at once placed a little table
with three bowls of rice, and a red squash; and
alongside of it are ranged three pairs of straw
shoes.

Three official servants have come to take the
soul to the ten judges in hades. These are pres-
ents tothem. Smelling the flavor of the cooked
rice, they are refreshed. The shoes being burnt,
they are shod for the journey. The squash isa
present to the prison official who lived 2,000 years
ago, and was fond of squash. Then the rice is
thrown away, and the squash broken. This is
done during the first half-hour afterdeath. Then
the inner garments of the deceased are taken out
by a servant, who waves them in the air and
calls loudly to the deceased by name. At the
same time the friends and relatives of the dead
man loudly lament. After a time the clothes are
thrown upon the roof of the house and left there.

The choice of the site of the grave is considered
a matter of great importance to Koreans. The
semi-globular mounds are invariably placed upon
hillsides. While they may be placed upon slopes
facing any direction, a south exposure is pre-
ferred, probably for reasons such as carry weight
in China, the belief being there that inasmuch
as warmth and life proceed from the south,
and cold and frost from the north, that grave
92 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

is most fortunately located which is at the same
time sheltered from the north and open to the
good influences supposed to emanate from the
south. But if.that were all, the choice of a grave
site would be asimple matter. There are many
intricate points connected with the subject, in
which only the initiated are versed. The rela-
tives are obliged to consult a geomancer. He is
a learned man who, by long study of books upon
the subject in his possession, knows all the super-
stitions relating to the good and bad influences
supposed to be in the ground: He must choose
the burial site. It is believed that a well-chosen
site brings rank and money and numerous sons to
the children of the one buried there.

The day of the funeral arrives. The remains
have been placed in a coffin more or less expen-
sive, according to the means of the family. At
dusk they start with a long train of lanterns, the
brilliantly colored hearse, the loudly weeping
mourners, of whom the male members are dressed
in the bushel-basket hat and the yellow mourner’s
clothes. The grave at last has been reached,
the interment has taken place, and the mound has
been rounded up. Now occurs the first sacrifice.
Small tables are placed in front of the grave.
Upon them are set offerings of wine and dried
fish. The relatives, facing the offerings and the '
grave, bow to the ground in five prostrations. A
formula is repeated, wishing peace to the spirit
who is to dwell in the grave. Afterward, at a
ANCESTRAL WORSHIP IN KOREA 93

little distance behind the grave, like offerings
and similar prostrations are made to the moun-
tain spirit. The mountain spirit is supposed to
preside over the place. Prayer is offered to him,
invoking his protection as host to the spirit in the
grave they are committing to his care. This is
deemed necessary in order to secure hospitable
treatment forthe spirit atthe grave. After these
ceremonies the wine is disposed of, and the fish
is divided among the servants.

We now come to the third soul of the man.
He returns from the grave with the mourners
to take up his abode in the ancestral tablet. In
the room the tablet is to occupy (a vacant room
if possible) another offering is made.

The offerings consist of native bread, wine,
meat, cooked rice and vermicelli soup. These
articles of food are placed before the tablet that
the spirit may regale himself with the flavor.
The relatives and friends bow five times. Then
the food is taken into another room and eaten by
the assembled company.

At this point it may be well to make a few
explanations. The ancestral tablet consists of a
couple of strips of whitened wood, put face to
face, with a hollow space cut into their inner sur-
faces, and within which are written upon one of
the strips, in Chinese, the family name and other
writing. A small round hole connecting this
inner space with the outer air is supposed to give
ingress and egress to the spirit. The tablet thus
94 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

constituted is slipped into a socket in a wooden
block, and thus adopts an upright position, follow-
ing which it is placed in a protecting case. After
three years of mourning it is put with the other
ancestral tablets in the little cabinets in the
ancestral temple adjoining the house. During the
intervening time, if the man is wealthy he places
the tablet in a vacant room, usually in his wife’s
apartment. But if the man is poor and has no
ancestral temple, the tablet is placed in a box on
one side of the room, and on the occasions when
he worships his other ancestors, strips of paper
with writing on them are pasted on the wall in
lieu of the proper tablets. The common people
worship not only for their father, but also for
their grandfather and great-grandfather. Some
go back two generations or more. High officials
worship for four, while the king worships for five
ancestors.

Some curious customs regulate the period of
mourning, strictly so called.

If the father dies, the family goes into mourn-
ing for three years. If the father and mother die
the same day, the same period of mourning is
observed; and likewise, should the mother «die
some time after the father’s death. But if while
the father is alive the mother dies, the family
wear mourning garments for one year.

Again, suppose three generations of a family
to be living. The father dies, and the family
goes into mourning for three years. The grand-
ANCESTRAL WORSHIP IN KOREA 9s

father dies next, and the son takes his dead
father’s place in wearing mourning clothes for
another three years. Where a man received
rank, posthumous rank is sometimes given to his
departed father from the feeling that the father
must always be considered higher than the son.
An official cannot hold office during the three
years of mourning. And we remember how, in
the year of mourning for the Dowager Queen,
custom required that the public offices be closed
for a long period of time. Custom also prescribes
that no matter how young a king may be at the
time of his decease, his successor must be younger
than he, so that he can perform the sacrifices.

But to return to the family in mourning.
Allusion has been made to the mourning clothes
ordinarily worn. On the minor sacrificial occa-
sions, a peculiar robe is worn. It consists of a
flowing-sleeved garment, split up the back to the
waist, over which division a fold falls to the bot-
tom of the garment. During the three years,
upon the two national mourning days, and upon
the anniversary of the father’s death, an especial
attire is worn by the male relatives during the
ceremonies of mourning. Among other features
the official hoop belt is worn; and the hat is
peculiar, in which a white loop goes up over a
baggy skull-cap from front to rear.

During the three years a dish of fruit is con-
stantly kept before the ancestral tablet.

Let us consider the sacrifices further demanded
96 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

by the laws of ancestral worship. Upon all these
occasions the eldest son is invariably the master
of ceremonies. During the three years certain
sacrifice is rendered only before the deceased
father’s tablet, and not in the ancestral temple.
On the first and fifteenth of each Korean month
sacrifice is performed, and rice or vermicelli soup,
amid lamentations, is placed before the tablet.
The time for the sacrifice is one ortwo hours after
midnight. The anniversary of the father’s death
is avery important occasion during the mourning
years. While in mourning, on the night before
this anniversary, sacrifice is made before the
tablet. The next morning friends visit the fam-
ily in mourning, and sympathize with them, upon
which occasion food in many varieties is set before
‘them. Some time during the day the mourners
repair to the grave and repeat the sacrifices of
the previous year to the soul in the grave and to
the mountain spirit.

These constitute the sacrifices peculiar to the
first three years. Afterward the offerings upon
the first and fifteenth days cease, while sacrifice
on the father’s anniversary day goes on perpet-
ually, but in the ancestral temple where the other
tablets are. Mention should be made here of the
anniversaries of the grandfather’s and great-
grandfather’s death, when sacrifice is made in
the ancestral temple, and at their graves.

We come now to the eight Korean holidays upon
which sacrifice to the dead must be performed.
 

 

 

A Waysip_E Ibo.
ANCESTRAL WORSHIP IN KOREA 97

The occasions are New Year’s day (about the
ist of February), the fifteenth day of the first
month which closes the New Year’s holiday
season, the two national mourning days, and four
other festivals. Upon these days sacrifice is
offered at daybreak. One peculiarity marks the
celebration of these eight festivals during the
mourning years. A double sacrifice is performed
at the house; one in the ancestral temple before
the remoter ancestors’ tablets, the other later,
before the father’s tablet in the other building.
The two general mourning days come in the
spring and in the fall; one in the third month,
corresponding to April, the other in the eighth
month, our September. Upon these two days the
practice is various. Some visit their father’s
grave, and some do not. Others again visit in
addition the graves of their grandfather and
remoter ancestors, upon which occasions they bow
and offer their food at the graves and before the
presiding mountain spirit.

Now, as to the significance of all this ancestral
worship. The literature upon the ancestral wor-
ship of China, especially the pamphlet by Dr.
Yates, seems to indicate that the Chinese believe
that the happiness of the dead and of the living is
directly connected with ancestral worship.
Whether their fathers are rich or beggars in the
other world depends upon the fidelity of their chil-
dren in keeping up the prescribed sacrifices, and
they are believed to reward or punish the living
98 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

children according to their faithfulness in ances-
tral worship.

Many Koreans would agree with this view. Still
another class seem to believe that the condition of
the dead is permanently fixed by the sentence of
the ten judges upon their arrival in the other
world. Such would hold that whether a man
worships his father or not, does not affect the
happiness of either the father or the son. But it
does affect the reputation and social standing of
the son among his acquaintances, as being a man
who shows respect or disrespect to the spirit of
his father living in the ancestral tablet in his
house. Such are some of the features of the
ancestral worship of Korea,
CHAPTER VII

A VISIT TO A FAMOUS MOUNTAIN

As I was told at a monastery near by that I
was the first foreigner who had visited this noted
mountain, it may prove of interest if I relate my
experiences while there. Asto the question of
where it is, I would state in the province of Chung
Chong, perhaps ten miles south of Kong-Ju, the
capital, a little off from the main road that leads
to the south. Kay-riong-san is a notable moun-
tain, whether for itself or for its venerable mon-
asteries, but more especially because it rises not far
from the spot which, tradition tells us, is to be
the site of the future Seoul of the next dynasty,
whenever it comes. The natives put it thus:
The founder of the present dynasty had deter-
mined to locate his capital there, and had been
three days at work on the walls, when the moun-
tain spirit warned him off. The site was not for
him. He must locate at the present Seoul. The
property was being held for the dynasty that
would follow hisown. And as his majesty had no
desire to engender the ill-will of the local deities,
he prudently withdrew his claim.

The mountain is magnificent; as high as Pyok-
Han to the north of our city of Seoul. But instead
of a cluster of glorious peaks, there is a suc-

99
100 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

cession of perhaps a dozen such peaks in pic-
turesque irregularity. On the side of our ap-
proach they were green with splendid timber to
their very summits. I think that one gains a more
vivid sense of their majesty from the plain,
because the eye sweeps up over comparatively un-
broken slopes of green to the tremendous peaks
above. I cannot soon forget the approach to the
monastery at the foot of the mountain. Splendid
trees centuries old lined the avenue, through whose
interstices came the sunlight and glimpses of the
majestic green mountains. Birds were singing,
while here and there could be heard the music of
cascades. We arrived at the monastery. Here
were buildings that were erected at the time when
our fathers wore armor or wolf-skins in the train
of Emperor Charlemagne, a thousand years ago.
One temple into which we looked, that was six
or eight hundred years old, impressed us as
having been built when Buddhism was in its glory.
The fine large statues of the three seated Buddhas
and of their attendants beside them, together with
the platform on which they were placed, towered
aloft some fifteen feet. The wooden frame which
held the drum of the monks consisted of two
very well-carved dragons. In another build-
ing was the finest bell I have seen in Korea.
Upon its sides were carved the names of the faith-
ful who had given it. It hung from its frame by
a loop of well-made dragons of bronze. In one
of the thousand-year-old buildings time had been
A VISIT TO A FAMOUS MOUNTAIN 101

unkind to the Buddha. Half of his dainty mus-
tache was wanting, and the gold was gone from
his fingers. In another building were four large
pictures of noted priests. One with a flowing
black beard represented Sa-Miong-Tong, who it
is said went to Japan, in the days of the invasion,
and by his magical arts intimidated the Japanese
into concluding a peace with Korea. Such is the
tradition. The persimmons growing at this
monastery were the finest I tasted in Korea.
We saw a foundry in which the monks make
kettles, such as the natives use for the cooking of
food. Standing by itself in a rather wild place rose
a curious iron tower. Iron cylinders, perhaps
two feet in diameter, were placed one upon
another to the height of forty feet. Two tall
stone slabs helped to support the tower. The
last ten feet of the cylinders leaned away at an
angle from the almost perpendicular shaft. The
top of the column had an ornamental capital. I
could get no satisfactory explanation of the shaft.
In another spot we saw a small pagoda upon
whose shelves sat a number of little stone Bud-
dhas, some with heads and some without, but
all of them serene in posture. I glanced into
one of the monastery kitchens. Above one of
the huge cooking-places, painted upon the wall
in bright colors, was a kitchen god. He had
the look of a large well-fed Korean seated in
a chair withacouple of attendants beside him.
After tiffin my Korean friend proposed that
102 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

while our horses went around, we follow the
path over the brow of the mountain. A look
at the steep tremendous peak filled me with no
great enthusiasm. However we went. A slender
young monk put on a yellow-peaked sun-bonnet
and led the way. He had come but recently
from Seoul to take up the life of a monk, and the
poor fellow was evidently homesick. We had
been climbing some time when we came to
another monastery. Its calm, gilded Buddha sat
in a glass case. Here we had a change of guides.
He was a fat young monk, as merry as an early
spring robin. Up we zigzagged over a rugged
path. At the summit was another monastery in
whose court, strange to say, stood a Japanese
glass street lamp. Here I saw an elderly monk,
the first really ascetic Korean monk that I have
met. His head was shaven, his face looked thin
and worn, and his manners were charmingly
gentle. After a rest we took in the splendid
view. To the north and south were a profusion
of mountains. Southward we looked over nine
successive peaks. Westward the country stretched
in a comparatively unbroken level to the sea.

A third bright young monk led us down the
mountain to the large monastery at its foot, where
we were to spend the night. In the dim twilight
of the following morning we heard a tap-tap, tap-
tap, tap, tap, as the wooden part of the great
drum was struck. Then came the loud sound of
the drum. Next the boom of the great bronze
A VISIT TO A FAMOUS MOUNTAIN 103

bell, which sounded now and again during the
strange, monotonous chant of the monks that
followed. It all seemed very weird to one’s half-
wakened senses. Later we visited the famous
plain to which allusion has been made. Two
monks, one in the small yellow begging-hat,
shaped like a bowl, and the other in the ordinary
wide-brimmed, round-crowned, black monk’s
hat, who had occasion to goin the same direction,
showed us the way. Presently we found our-
selves climbing the mountain, green with bushes
and grass. We were entering by the western
approach. Not far from the top of the ridge we
saw a brook that slipped for fifty feet down a
slope of rock at an angle of forty-five degrees.
From here our path led down a valley which
furnished one of the roughest pieces of road that
Iever traveled. The brook that went with us
was falling all the time, and it was with the great-
est difficulty that we kept from following its
example. One of our party did rest for a time
in one of the puddles of the road. One of the
many cascades of the valley deserves particular
mention. To view it well required a visit in
one’s stocking feet. The wide brook dropped
with a sheer fall of twenty-five feet into an oval
pool that was green in color and of unknown
depth. The natives say that in the depths of the
pool sleeps a male dragon. Presently the rocky
road opened upon a great plain. As we traveled
through it we saw where the canal had been
104 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

begun that was to have crossed the city. Soon we
reached the place where huge cubes of stone lay
about the plain in careless disorder. These the
ancient king had cut and brought from the hills,
when he thought to build his city here. Under
almost every block of stone holes had been
scraped. It is said that the natives at one time
brought nails and placed them under the stones,
in the belief that by so doing they would be rid
of disease. But doubt having been raised as to
the value of the remedy, the nails were all dug
out and used. As we looked about, this place
was pointed out as the spot where the palace was
to have stood. And from yonder knoll the great
bell was to have tolled its warning that day was
done, and that the stream of life throbbing
through the great gates must rest until the mor-

row.
But what a site for a city! An enormous level

plain, amply sufficient to hold a great population,
wonderfully fortified by the hand of God in the
mountains that he built about it. To the north
were grand, rugged, mountain heads. To the
east and west more regular ridges. To the south
the plain opened out upon a chorus of peaks of
all heights and sizes. The east, north, and west
approaches would probably have been difficult.
But from the south the city would doubtless have
been easy of access. Had the founder of the
present dynasty placed his capital here, he could
have made for himself an almost impregnable city;
A VISIT TO A FAMOUS MOUNTAIN 105

but his choice of Seoul was undoubtedly wise, for
he gained thereby a capital of far more central
location.
CHAPTER VIII

THE FEAR OF DEMONS

The merit of the little poem, ‘‘Seein’ things,’’ by
that melodious singer of childhood’s thoughts,
Eugene Field, consists not in the scientific accu-
racy of the boy’s deductions, but in the fact that it
enables us to see the horrid phantoms of the night
through the eyes of the boy. In like manner,
please consider that this chapter is not an attempt
at a scientific investigation in the realm of demon-
ology, but simply an effort to let you view the
occult beings they so much dread from the point
of view of the average Korean.*

No one can understand the inner life of the great
majority of the Korean people who fails to take.
note of their attitude toward these demons. When
the Korean thinks of these beings no warm surge
of love and joy comes into his heart, as is the case
with the Christian when he is filled with the
thought of his Father in Heaven, but rather his
imagination peoples the earth, the sea, the sky,
the haunts of men and the wilderness with
myriads of spirits, five-sixths of whom are hate-

*For most of my knowledge upon this subject I am
indebted to the researches of Rev. G. H. Jones, Mrs. Gifford
and the late Dr. E. B. Landis.

106
THE FEAR OF DEMONS 107

ful, wicked, malicious, and the other one-sixth,
while better disposed, are capricious in the
extreme. These beings have it in their power,
he believes, to bring him material prosperity or
to injure him:and his family in a thousand dif-
ferent ways—such, for instance, as through the loss
of property, or sickness, taking frequently the
form known as ‘‘demon possession.’’ He can
never tell when he has offended one of these
beings, so he, and more especially his wife, live in
a constant dread that impels them to frequent
expensive offerings to appease their jealous anger.
Demon-worship takes no thought of the joys or
woes of a future life, presents not one induce-
ment to men to live more moral lives, but strikes
incessantly upon the one emotional chord of fear.
It has been estimated that demon-worship costs
the people of Korea two million five hundred
thousand dollars every year. In the city of Seoul
alone three thousand sorceresses ply their art, earn-
ing, on an average, fifteen yen a month apiece—
a very good living, indeed, according to Korean
standards. Thus some idea can be formed of the
hold this demon cult has upon the lives of the
people. It is undoubtedly che religion of the
country, as well as the oldest of all its beliefs.

To consider from the Korean point of view
these supernatural beings more in detail, they are
divided into two classes, each of which is again
capable of a further subdivision. The first and
larger class consists of malicious fiends and the
108 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

spirits of men who have died in poverty, or under
other painful circumstances, and now wander
about the world in cold, hunger and nakedness,
wreaking their spite on all who refuse to supply
their needs through offerings. The second class
embraces spirits of a kindlier nature and the
shades of men who in this life were prosperous
and influential The people believe that by
proper inducements in the form of offerings,
incense and prayers, they can buy off members of
the first class or prevail on others of the second
class to interest themselves in their behalf. Go
into the inner court of a Korean home and among
other evidences of spirit worship you would prob-
ably see the following fetishes or spirit ‘‘nests’’:
Somewhere out of doors in the court is visible a
bundle of straw set on some sticks or a shelf con-
taining a scrap of cloth or a bit of straw rope and
upon which on the offering days, the rst, 2d, 3d,
and 15th of the month, cooked food is placed.
This is the nest of the spirit of the site. Again,
in the shed room used for a kitchen, the fetish of
the kitchen demon may be seen in a piece of
cloth or paper fastened to the wall above the fire-
place. In the deep veranda attached to the side of
the great beam overhead are seen paper and rice,
representing the abode of the spirit of the ridge-
pole, who occupies rather a chief position among
the household spirits, and who is supposed to
bring to the home a measure of health and hap-
piness, and yet is unable always to ward off sick-
THE FEAR OF DEMONS 109

ness. At the approach of a contagious disease he
is said to flee from the premises and must be
coaxed back with proper ceremonies later on.
The rites attending the introduction or recall of
this spirit into a home have been thus described:
The house having been cleaned and a feast pre-
pared, the mutang, or sorceress, who has been
called for the occasion, starts out to hunt the spirit.
She ties a good-sized sheet of paper around an
oak rod, which she holds upright in her hand.
She may find the spirit just outside the house or
she may have to go some distance before he indi-
cates his presence by shaking the rod with so
much force that many men with their united
strength could not hold it still. He accompanies
the mutang as she returns to the house. Upon
their arrival great demonstrations of joy are made
that he has come to bless the family with his pres-
ence. The paper which was tied around the stick
is folded, soaked in wine, a few pieces of cash
slipped into it and then tossed against a beam in
the house, to which it adheres. Rice is thrown
up, some of which sticks to the paper, and the
spirit nest is complete. Smallpox creates great
ravages among the little folks of Korea, and par-
ents never count their infants among the number
of their children until they have had that disease.
They believe there is a smallpox devil, to whom
the name of Mama has been given, and whose
home they say is in the south of China. The
well-known symptoms break out upon a baby.
tro EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

At once a mutang is called, and under her direc-
tion they proceed to do the spirit reverence. The
parents bow low before the sick child and address
it continually in terms of the highest respect. If
the child survives, at the turn of the disease the
mutang is called again, a feast is prepared and
the smallpox devil is bidden adieu, with many
polite wishes for a prosperous journey to his native
land. This shows something of the inner life of
Korean homes. Every day in the month is con-
sidered fortunate for the doing of certain things
and unlucky for the doing of certain others, so
fettered are they by their superstitions.

Strangers in Korea have their curiosity aroused
by seeing here and there by the roadside a small
tree growing apparently out of the midst of a pile
of stones. To its limbs are attached all manner
of white rags, shreds of colored cloth and pieces
of paper, some of which contain written prayers.
Coolies going by spit at the pile. Old women
with little bundles of clothing tied to the tops of
their heads and astaff in one hand, pause and bow
reverently, rubbing together their palms. An
evil spirit dwells in the tree and it is considered
wise in travelers to show him some mark of atten-
tion, exhibited in these different ways. Food is
sometimes offered at these stone piles to wander-
ing hungry spirits. Here and there a great splen-
did tree is considered haunted. Sometimes upon
the crown of a mountain pass you will come upon
a spirit shrine. Within you will see colored pic-
THE FEAR OF DEMONS rit

tures. One is of an old man sitting on a tiger;
handsome women, apparently his wives, stand
about, and beyond are the pictures of retainers.
This is the shrine of a mountain spirit. The
people will point out to you pools, where great
writhing dragons are said to have their homes.
Near many a country village may be seen a rude
shrine where some great local spirit is worshiped
every three years, and the expenses of the festival
are defrayed by public taxation.

The priests and priestesses of this ‘‘unorganized
Shamanism’’ are blind men called pansus and
the women termed mutangs. If you could only for-
get the horrid meaning of it all, the dancing of
the mutang in her worship, in time to the beat of
the gong and the drum in the shape of an hour-
glass, would impress one as quite picturesque.
She is supposed to be under the control of a
spirit of influence in the realm of darkness, who,
for a consideration, can be induced to appease the
injured dignity of some malignant spirit who is
afflicting a household. She alsoclaims the power
to foretell future events. No matter what her
position in life, the call of a woman by a spirit to
become a mutang is considered irresistible. She
will make plenty of money, but at a high price;
for she becomes a social outcast, not on moral
grounds, but by reason of her vocation. The
pansu deals directly with the evil spirits, which
he drives away by repeating exorcisms from a
book handed down from the earliest ages, whose
112 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

words are meaningless at the present time. One
of his many pretensions is the’ bottling of a foul
spirit. Under ordinary circumstances it is only
necessary to offer some poor food, meanly pre-
pared and offered in coarse dishes, with an order
to cease their persecutions, which may be in the
form of sickness or mysterious manifestations, such
as unaccountable noises, unexplained fires in roofs,
the mysterious finding of sieves and articles of
clothing in the tops of trees. If this proves
insufficient, the fiend is called and is supposed to
manifest his presence by causing the small bit of
wood which has been placed on the floor in front
of the pansu, to dance in a most extraordinary
manner. The pansu chastises him severely with a
stick which he grasps in one hand, and drives him
into a wide-mouthed, empty bottle which he holds
in the other. When this is accomplished, which
is indicated by the piece of wood hopping in, the
bottle is corked, buried at a cross-roads and a fire
is built over the spot. These are some of the
methods employed by the pansus and mutangs.
Let us consider the attitude of the Korean
Christians, more especially toward what they
regard as cases of demoniacal possession. The
following is the naive account given by a Korean
Christian man living on the island of Kang-wha
to Mrs. G. H. Jones, which she inserted in one of
her annual reports to the. Northern M. E. Mission.
He was an eye-witness of the events he narrates:
“There was a man living in Sosa Sirimi on
 

Troninc Crorues.
THE FEAR OF DEMONS 113

Kang-wha, who has since removed to Chemulpo.
With his entire household he became a Christian,
and although he had not as yet received baptism,
he cast away all his idols and ceased from the
evil deeds of the past. On the eve of the ninth
day of the sixth moon his wife, though sick, had
no pain, yet her limbs became rigid like a dead
person and she was totally unconscious. Being
thus the whole night, we thought she had the
Asiatic cholera, and gave her medicine. When
daylight came she seemed to be better and we
concluded she had recovered. The next night
she had a return of the attack, going into convul-
sions and becoming unconscious. Three or four
persons were called in to rub her limbs and we
gave her medicine again and again. At daybreak
she recovered. This time we believed she was
entirely cured; but at about six o’clock in the
evening the attack returned. Her husband rubbed
her limbs. Three or four of the brethren were
present. In an hour she awoke and began to
gnaw her hands, so that her mouth was bloody.
Those standing by, using in fun the words
employed to drive out a dog, cried ‘Egai! Egai!’
and she began to bellow. Therefore all were
astonished and cried, ‘This is not cholera. A
devil has taken possession of her. We must
beseech the Lord to cast it out. Let us pray.’
Then the sick woman, with evident grief, began
to cry again. We inquired why she cried. She
answered: ‘You call mea devil; and say you will
114. EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

drive me away.’ Therefore we were sure it was
the devil. This being Friday evening and the
time when the women meet for prayer, all of the
sisters and some of the brethren ‘met at the sick
woman’s house, and reading Mark 5:1-20, with
one heart all besought the Lord, saying:, ‘Lord
‘ have pity on us. We are all sinners, and very
weak, and when the devil tries us, we are defense-
less. Oh, Lord, bring to pass what we, have
just read in the Bible. Make the devil to leave
this woman and go to his own place.’ As we
prayed the woman sat up and joined in our prayer.
And then when we sang, she sang with us. We
all exhorted her to have faith that the devil had
been cast out, and give no place to doubt; to
beseech the Lord to never again allow the devil
to disturb her. Then, praising God, we all. dis-
persed to our homes. From that time she was
entirely cured and to this day she is a whole per-
son, Thus the Lord favors us; but how many are
ignorant of his grace. The spirit of which she
was possessed is called Sai-pyol-sang, and is
very wicked. If one should serve it, it will be
difficult to eat food brought in from another
house, and if the attempt is made to eat without
first having prayed to the spirit, sickness will
result. It is also difficult to bring into the house
clothing. If a person brings a bright-colored
cloth into the house without first. acknowledging
the spirit, sickness will surely result. This family
having once worshiped the spirit and now propos-
THE FEAR OF DEMONS 118

ing to cast it away, received this trial; for on the
day the woman took sick, some new cloth had
been brought into the house, and the devil being
angered at thus being ignored punished his former
sldves.’’ Thus closed his narrative. Mrs. Jones
says that she supposes the physicians would pro-
nounce it a case of hysteria; but whatever this
may have been, the Christians feel that she was
healed by their prayers.

Certain it is that for many a Korean the aban-
donment of spirit-worship is one of the most
serious steps than can possibly be taken. Here
is an instance in point. A female inquirer who
felt it her duty to give up the worship, and doubt-
ing her own courage, called in Miss Ellen Strong
of our mission to help her destroy the imple-
ments of worship. At the appointed time she
came and found the woman looking deathly pale
and fairly sick from a sense of the seriousness of
the step she was about to take, and rather dis-
posed to give up the effort. It took considerable
persuasion upon the part of Miss Strong to get
up her courage to the point of action, and then
she had to take the initiative in the destruction of
the spirit ‘‘nests’” and the other utensils. Only
when the operations were well under way did her
hostess venture to take an active part in the pro-
ceedings. We are utterly unable to appreciate the
terror which, under such circumstances, must fill
the heart of a Korean woman who had lived
all -her life under the fear of the demons.

gees
116 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

The following extract from a report of Mrs. J.
S. Gale, made to one of the annual meetings of
our mission, admirably shows the change that
comes into the lives of Koreans when they pass
from demon-worshipers to followers of Jesus
Christ: ‘In the early spring’’ (1895) ‘‘Mrs. Kim
and Mrs. Kwon came to me, and they said their
husbands had been attending the men’s meetings
upon the hill, and they had heard that Jesus
Christ could cast out devils, and that was just
what they wanted him to do for them. Their
houses were full of evil spirits, they said. They
could not sleep for the strange sights and sounds.
Sometimes it seemed as if sand were dashed
against their windows, and again as if water were
being poured from one dish into another. Night
after night they had searched for the cause of
these disturbances, with no other result than to
find the cup-boards and dishes moving about the
house in a mysterious way, and large earthen
jars placed inside others which had such narrow
necks that none but supernatural power could
have gotten them in, and no one could get them
out. They had spent much time and money in
devil worship and sacrificing, hoping in that
way to get some peace. But things only grew
worse. Their husbands had heard at the meet-
ings that Jesus Christ could cast out evil spirits,
and if this was true, they wanted to know what
they must do in order to get him to cast them out
of their homes. We sat down on the rug and
THE FEAR OF DEMONS 117

spent most of the afternoon reading the Scripture
accounts of Christ’s power over devils. And they
were so glad to learn that ‘He is the same yester-
day, today and forever.’ They learned also how
the presence of the Holy Spirit in their homes
would be a safeguard against the Evil One. It
was not long before I heard that these women had
given up all sacrificing and devil-worship, and
were praying God tosend the Holy Spirit to dwell
with them. Soon they came to tell me that their
homes were all peaceful. No more strange sights
or sounds. No more sorcerers or exorcists. No
more fear or devil-worship. But such joy and
happiness as they had never known. They and
their neighbors were filled with awe and wonder
and wanted me to come and teach them more
about the Holy Spirit and Jesus.”’

Let me say, in closing this chapter, that it 1s
easy for us as Westerners to ridicule the supersti-
tions of the Koreans; but if we, in a spirit of
sympathy, assume for a time their angle of vision,
we can see that to them the fear of demons is the
cause of frequent and intense mental suffering.
CHAPTER IX

AN ADVENTURE ON THE HAN RIVER

It was at the time of the year when the streets
of Seoul were resplendent with little children
adorned, like Joseph of old, in ‘‘coats of many
colors.’’ It was the time when their elders, clad
in new garments of spotless white, went about
visiting their friends with Oriental effusiveness
of respect, and at the same time contracted indi-
gestion from eating so-called rice ‘‘bread”’ of. the
consistency of putty. In short, it was the Korean
New Year season of the year 1889. At perhaps
four o’clock of one bright, mild February after-
noon I strolled up to the dispensary at Dr. Her-
on’s house. The doctor’s salutation was: ‘‘Gifford,
don’t you want to go hunting at the river?’’ Now
Iam so uncertain a huntsman that the ducks all
laugh when they see me coming witha gun. I
saw little use of my going upona hunt. Buta
glance at the doctor’s tired face changed my
mind. The doctor was aman of such professional
conscientiousness that he little knew how to
spare himself. He had a dispensary at his home,
where he saw Koreans and foreigners in the
mornings; he was surgeon in charge of the royal

government hospital, where he spent his after-
118
AN ADVENTURE ON HAN RIVER i19

noons; he was physician to his majesty, liable to
calls at all hours; and added to this, he had
charge of the entiré foreign practice of Seoul.
His wife was then an invalid, confined to her béd,
and much of the care of the Presbyterian Mission,
then in its day of beginnitigs, rested upon his
shoulders. Yes, I wowld go with him, but to
skate, not tohunt. Two white horses were called
up, one which the doctor had purchased for his
wife, and the othe a loan to him from the king’s
stables, for the doctor had a Ténnesseean’s fond-
ness for horses. Two servants carried our accou-
trements.

A pleasant ride brought us to the vicinity of
Yong-san upon the river’s bank. Instead of
pausing here, however, we rode still farther up
the river to a cluster of houses whére lumber is
cut and timbers prepared, conspicuous from’ the
distance for a goodly tiled house and a clump of
splendid great beech trees. Arrived’ here ‘the
view was fine. Downward tothe steamet landing
the river swépt; with a bank that was a’ perfect
curve. In'the background rose the bluff, man-
tled to the véry top with the populous village of
Yong-san, in the center of which, like a bright
clasp, was set the red-brick Catholic Seminary.

We were soon off otit horses. The winter had
been mild, and to my disappointment such ice as
remained 'on the river looked too fragile for skat-
ing. The interest therefore all centeréd in the
hunt. .
1zo EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

There is a place near here in the river, especially
where the river bends, the surface of which, even
in the coldest winters when the ice in other places
has been eight or more inches thick, I have never
seen frozen over. Warm springs in the river
doubtless account for this; and here, all winter
long, waterfowls are feeding. At the water’s
edge below us was a row of large boats; beyond
was a shell of thin ice, and still beyond was open
water. Inthis open water was a succession of
groups of wild swans, ranged down the stream
like the linksof a chain. One group in particular
was not far away; and the doctor, eager for a
shot, threw off his overcoat, which he replaced
with a “‘turimachi,’’ or long white outer-gar-
ment borrowed froma Korean. While I hid my-
self behind a pile of brush, he craftily sauntered
down to the water’s edge, in the hope that the
birds might mistake him for an innocent-minded
native puttering among the boats. But no, the
swans, turning their graceful necks, gazed
warily at the doctor, and, taking alarm, quickly
glided out of range. But the doctor was a
man of spirit, and was not so easily to be outdone.
Presently he was hard at work, tugging at this
great boat, shoving that one with all his might.
But his efforts were in vain. The tide, so power-
ful along the coasts of Korea, was low in the river,
and the boats could not be floated; and in addi-
tion, most of them were partly embedded in ice.
A few moments later the doctor, some distance
AN ADVENTURE ON HAN RIVER 121

away, has founda skiff. He motions for me to
come. The boat is made of pine boards clumsily
tacked together. We have no business to enter it.
But the fever of the hunt is upon us, and we are
not disposed to be critical. In we clamber,
followed by two half-grown boys to row us. The
doctor’s handsome black dog sprang into the
water to follow us, but gesticulations and splash-
ings of the water induced her to swim back to the
shore. And now we are rapidly approaching the
flock that eluded us, the doctor in the prow and the
two lads erect and swaying to and fro as they
impel the boat by sculling in the peculiar native
fashion. Hope is vivid; but the wily swans, too,
are alert. They raise together, their pon-
derous wings pounding the water, and take their
flight to soar into the upper air. Failure only
urges the doctor on to seek the next flock farther
down the river. This flock, on being approached,
similarly took to flight; and the third, fourth,
and fifth flocks followed their example. Lastly
three or four ducks were started, and these, flying
somewhat nearer to our boat, the doctor ven-
tured to fire at them, though I believe without
disastrous effect upon the birds.

Then simultaneously the thought occurred to us
both, ‘‘It is almost time for the gates to close.’’
In those ante-bellum days, every night shortly
after sundown, with a bray of horns and boom
of base-drum, the guardians of the city’s peace
caused the great gates of the city to be closed,
122. EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

and then retired to rest in the comforting
delusion that all had been done that was neces-
sary to keep out of the capital any hostile foe, even
were he trained according to Western military
methods—a system, indeed, of about as much
practical efficacy as if a council of lambs should
decide to ward off the attacks of wolves by the
defensive use of their heels. The closing of the
gates, with certain other ancient and interesting
customs, has now passed out of vogue, to be siire,
but in those days it was certainly no joke for the
belated foreigner to find himself confronted of an
evening by the closed leaves of two great, fold-
ing, iron-clad gates. It involved the staying out-
side the city all night, or climbing the high, slip-
pery wall; but, be it whispered, the occasional jingle
of a string of cash operated like magic in swing-
ing open the portals, just as it was curretitly
rumored, though of cotirse most slanderously,
that a similar jingle, only in greater volume,
opened in the same magic way’ doors leading to
rank and place in the governmental world. Ina
word, we little relished the idea of climbing the
city wall after dark.

We must hurry. We could see the servants and
horses on the shore, but could we get to them?
A long field of ice lay between us and the bank.
There was nothing to do but to row back up the
river to our starting-place. The boys were not
rowing fast enough. We took the oarin turn and
rowed after the foreign fashion. But the oar
AN ADVENTURE ON HAN RIVER 123

being peculiar our efforts were clumsy, and not
unlikely the wrenching of the boat resulting
therefrom started the seams. Of a sudden we
became aware that considerable water had come
in through the bottom. By this time the boys
were rowing. We observe that the water is
coming in much faster. The boys are now swing-
ing at the sculling-oar with all their strength,
and with the prow headed for the ice. Now
and again, in their frantic endeavors, they drive
the boat into the ice, and the seams are opened
wider. Higher, higher creeps the water.' Then,
in a moment I can. never forget, I see the prow
pause for a moment, then sink out of sight under
the black, cold water. Neither of uscould swim.
Ina moment: down we all went. It all happened
in less time than suffices for the telling. My
thought, as I sank, was to grasp at the boat
when I came to the surface.

And now this is. our situation. We are on a
sand-bar in the very middle of the river. I am
standing in water up to my waist; the doctor is
in water up to his arm-pits, while only the heads
of.the. boys are visible. Natives told us afterward
that only a few feet on either side of where we
sank the water was deep enough to have drowned
us. Fortunately we were close to the ice. The
doctor was presently clambering out, his gun still
firmly. grasped in his hand. Next, the boys were
trying in vain toleap out-of the water. They were
in my way, as I came to where they clung at the
124 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

edge of the ice. SolI reached down till I could
grasp their baggy trousers and heaved them on
like logs, and presently we were all upon the ice.

A glance at the ice-field was not reassuring. It
was shell-ice with black air-holes all about us.
Our location was about half-way between Yong-
san and the hamlet with the beech trees. Those
on shore were aware of our peril. In after days,
when we could think of our misfortunes with
greater cheerfulness, the doctor, with that pecul-
iar, half-satirical twitch of his heavily mustached
upper lip, would tell of the tremulousness of my
tones as I called ‘‘Ossa, ossa’’? (hurry, hurry),
and I believe I responded that his voice had taken
on a hoarseness that was hardly natural. But if
we are frightened, the boys are terrified.
One is dancing about in a way that threatens to
break the ice. Expostulations are unheeded.
Only one thing remains: the doctor points his
empty gun at the frantic youth, with the command
to desist. Now force is an argument the validity
of which, from centuries of use, the average
Korean is prompt to recognize. The boy sub-
sides. Soon quiet settles upon our group as we
recognize that the men on shore are doing
all that can be done, and that we dare not move
about for fear of breaking the thin ice. The
doctor, in his white Korean coat, sits upon the ice
with his gun across his lap; I am kneeling with
my overcoat tucked under my knees; one boy is
standing erect and the other ladis seated. Night
AN ADVENTURE ON HAN RIVER 125

has now fallen, and from the overclouded sky
the full moon sheds a dim and hazy light. Nota
tipple stirs the water, anda deep quiet rests upon
the river. True, we hear faintly, from the hamlet
with the beech trees, the hum of voices, and
sounds that suggest the chopping of ice around
the ice-bound boats. As silent and motionless as
a group of statuary, we keep our several attitudes
for the space of an hour. The mental tension is
extreme.

Finally we observe that water to the depth of
an inch has come over the ice. The tide is com-
ing in! Now the water has risen to the depth of
two or three inches. Then we are conscious that
the cake upon which we are seated has broken
loose from the ice-field, and is turning around,
preparatory to floating down the river. Our
danger now is great, for should our frail raft
strike against an obstruction, we would inevitably
sink beneath the deep black waters.

But just then from an unobserved quarter, the
direction of the village of Yong-san, came the
sound of the plash of an oar. Through the dim
moonlight we discern a boat with five rescuers
approaching. The revulsion of feeling was strong.
But still we dreaded lest, by the ungentle striking
of the boat against the ice, we should be precipi-
tated into the stream. Under the doctor’s direc-
‘tions they reach the edge of the ice without mis-
hap. Along oar is extended toward us, which
we, beginning with the boys, grasp each in turn,
126 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

and, sliding, are pulled to the edge of the boat
and thus rescued. What ecstatic joy fills our
hearts!

Upon reaching terra firma,the servants bring the
horses. But to ride to Seoul from Yong-san in
our frozen garments is out of the question. The
doctor, full of resource, at once calls for Korean
clothes. They are soon brought. Wedonot stop
to enter a house, but under the dim moonlight, in
an apartment walled about with living heads, we
take off such garments as are wet or stiffened
with ice, and replace them with the baggy Ko-
rean clothes, even to the straw sandals. The
thought of the doctor’s sick wife at home lends
wings to his speed. In a moment he is ready and off
on hishorse. Our wet clothes are slapped together
promiscuously upon a carrier’s frame, and are
started ahead upon the back of a coolie. Formal
thanks to our benefactors are reserved for a later
time and a form more substantial than words.
Now, with the servant running beside, I set out at
arapid gait for the city, which brings again the
glow of warmth into my frozen limbs.

Arrived at the city wall, the horse and servant
must stay outside until the morning; and there
is nothing for me to do but to clamber up the
twenty feet of sheer stone wall. A man sent by
the doctor is waiting to accompany me over the
wall. Side by side he climbs with me, now draw-
ing back my Korean robe so that I shall not be
impeded, now guiding my hands to safe projec-
AN ADVENTURE ON HAN RIVER 127

tions. Near the top he hastens ahead and pulls
me over the wall. Thence a short, brisk walk
brings me to the doctor’s home, where I find him
already arrived and clothed in his usual attire.
Congratulations alternate with merriment at my
appearance, while underneath it all was deep
thankfulness for the Providence that had rescued
us from peril. The next morning the servants
who had accompanied us remarked that we were
‘tas men who had come back from the dead.’’
And I think they were correct. Two or three
days later the two boys came to see us, and they
reported that their mother, instead of rendering
thanks to such deities as she knew, had soundly
trounced them both, though for what reason they
did not state. But as we fed them with Korean
sweetmeats and gave them a proper amount of
cash, I think that we consoled them.
CHAPTER X

LEAVES OF MISSION HISTORY

With the exception of Thibet, which has its
missionaries, yet keeps them barred beyond closed
gates, Korea is the youngest of the missionary
countries. Rev. John Ross, of Moukden, although
a missionary to the Chinese in Manchuria, prior to
the time of the signing of the treaties, became
very much interested in the people of Korea
through men of that land whom he met in Mouk-
den, and who were able to converse with him
through written Chinese. With the information
thus acquired, he wrote a book in 1880, entitled
‘*Corea, its History, Manners and Customs.’’ He
also employed some of these men to translate the
entire New Testament into the Unmun. As a
pioneer version it was good; but it would have been
more available for use among the common people
had Mr. Ross himself been personally acquainted
with the language, so as to supervise the work of his
Korean translators. His very great interest in
the people was still further shown by his sending
across the border into the north of the country
Korean colporteurs with books; one of whose
number, Mr. Saw, started the now flourishing
work at Chang-yen in the Whang-Hai province,

128
LEAVES OF MISSION HISTORY 129

and later became one of the most valued helpers
our Presbyterian mission has ever possessed.

The American Protestant missionary authorities
were prompt to avail themselves of the oppor-
tunity, afforded them by the signing of the treaty
in 1882, to enter the ‘‘Forbidden Land.’’ In
the spring of 1884, J. W. Heron, M.D., received
appointment from the Northern Presbyterian
Board to go to Korea. His departure, however,
was delayed. In the summer of the same year
Rev. Dr. R. S. McClay, of the Japan Methodist
Conference, made a flying visit to Korea to spy
out the land. The first. Protestant missionary,
however, to enter the country with the view to
permanent abode was Dr. H. N. Allen, our present
U. S. Minister to Korea, who, with his family,
was transferred by the Presbyterian Board from
China to Korea in the autumn of 1884. Inacoun-
try where the martyrdom of the French fathers
and thousands of their fellows was still.fresh in
the memory, and where the prejudice against all
Western religions was still strong, the Doctor
found it convenient to lay more emphasis on the
fact that he was the physician of the foreign
legations than that he had come with the view to
opening Protestant missionary work. Dr. Allen’s
judiciousness, together with the éclat given him
by the royal favor, which was due to his success-
ful surgical treatment of the sword-cuts inflicted
upon Min Yong Ik, a cousin of the queen, in the
troubles of 1884, and which resulted in his
130 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

appointment as royal physician and surgeon in
charge of the government hospital, no doubt
materially smoothed the way for the labors of his
clerical brethren who shortly followed him. Ina
very material way it may be said that the gates
which long had been shut against the missionary
worker were opened at the point of a lancet. In
the spring of 1885, Rev. H. G. Underwood, of the
Presbyterian Mission, who had spent several
months in Japan studying the Korean language,
appeared upon thescene. He was known by the
authorities to be a clergyman, and as no objection
to his coming was raised by them, he was followed
in the summer by W. B. Scranton, M.D., and
family, and Rev. and Mrs. H. G. Appenzeller of
the M. E. Mission. Soon after came J. W.
Heron, M.D., and wife, and presently Mrs. M.
F. Scranton appeared to join her son and enter
upon school and women’s work. The reception
afforded by the nobility and common people alike
to these ‘‘visitors from the West,’’ who had
brought with them their wives and their belong-
ings, was an interesting compound of curiosity
and courtesy. The missionary, meanwhile, was
left to quietly push his work. That no conserva-
tive reaction should result, however, was more
than could be expected. In 1888 the ancient
canard, that has made so much trouble in China,
that the missionaries were stealing and killing
babies for medicinal purposes, created a tempo-
rary disturbance in Seoul; and about this time the
LEAVES OF MISSION HISTORY 131

authorities sought to restrict the so-called
‘*preselyting’’ done by the missionaries. It raised
a difficult question of conscience for us workers
on the field. No one thought seriously of aban-
doning our religious work. Some believed that,
like Peter and John under similar circumstances,
they should appeal to a ‘higher law’’; while
others thought it the part of wisdom to bend
temporarily before the storm, and pursue for a
time ‘‘quieter methods,” such, for instance, as
the omission of the singing of hymns from the
order of the church services. A year passed
away, and scarcely a ripple remained to tell of
the once perturbed waters. Unmolested, the
work went steadily and strongly forward, with
little of external history to record, until the
spring of the year of the war, when there occurred
the persecution of the Christians at Pyeng-yang,
to be narrated in another chapter. In October,
1895, occurred the Decennial of the Founding of
Protestant Missions in Korea, upon which occa-
sion a number of important papers were read.

It should here be observed that, in addition to
the two missions already mentioned, during the
course of the years other sister missions came to
their side, to join in the battle against heathen-
ism. In 1889 came Presbyterian missionaries
from far Australia; also in the same year Mr. M.
C. Fenwick, of Canada, of the ‘‘Korean Itinerant
Mission.’"’ In 1890, the genial Bishop C. J.
Corfe arrived from England, with the representa-
132, EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

tives of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel. Inthe same year appeared Dr. and Mrs.
R. A. Hardie, of the Y. M. C. A. mission of
Canada. In 1892 came our brothers of the
Southern Presbyterian Mission. In 1895 appeared
representatives of the training-school founded by
the late Dr. Gordon, of Boston. Their official
title is the ‘‘Ella Thing Memorial Mission,” and
they are Baptist in belief. In 1896, Rev. Dr. C.
F. Reid, the well-known Chinese missionary,
came as the advance-guard of the American
Methodist Mission, South.

We have a roll of honor in Korea—those who
have been summoned to a higher service anda
richer life in the realm beyond the grave. There
was Miss Anna P. Jacobsen, the trained nurse,
with all the splendid fire and courage of her
Viking ancestry; and Hugh Brown, M.D., full of
sturdy strength; and John W. Heron, M.D., the
soul of fidelity and honor—one whom all his
friends loved as strongly as a blood relation.
These were members of the Northern Presbyte-
rian Mission. There was also the Australian
Presbyterian missionary, Rev. John Henry Dav-
ies, who gave the promise of becoming the best
all-round missionary in the land; and the tall,
swarthy Presbyterian brother from Nova Scotia,
Rev. William J. McKenzie, the successful advo-
cate of native self-support; also William J. Hall,
M.D., of the Northern Methodist Mission, the saint-
liest man that ever crossed the shores of Korea,
LEAVES OF MISSION HISTORY 133

There has always been a marked spirit of
comity among the missionaries of Korea. The
Methodist and Presbyterian missions, founded at
about the same time, grew up together like two
children. . They had much the same experiences,
and in a number of ways they united their work.
The missions coming into the field at a later
period imbibed the same fraternal spirit; and the
whole work has thus far been conducted along the
lines of certain well-marked, though unwritten,
rules of comity. While the policy of the missions
was stillin a formative state, it was impossible for
all to see eye to eye, but in those days the lines of
cleavage ran nowhere near to the denominational
walls. For instance, this was the case at the time
when we were threatened with the transplanta-
tion of the ‘‘term question’? to Korea. This
controversy originated two hundred years ago
between the Jesuit and Dominican missionaries
in China. When the Protestant missionaries
came, they took up the controversy where the
others had left off, and for forty years their
scholars argued the question. They may be at
it yet, for aught that I know to the contrary.
The question is simply this: the Chinese, and the
Koreans too, recognize a supreme deity who, by
the Chinese, is called Shangti and by the Koreans,
Hananim, and of whom their conceptions are
pure, though very vague. The term question,
then, consists in whether or not it is allowable to
adopt as the name for God the term Shangti, or
134 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

Hananim, and explain our conception of Him by
the attributes we affirm of God. In Korea, rather
than bequeath to our posterity an endless debate,
the solution of the whole matter at which we
arrived was that we cease to look for uniformity,
and allow each person to use whatever one of
half a dozen available terms he preferred.

The first ten years of mission work, terminating
in 1894, the year of the war, was a period of
preparation. We were learning Korean, and, what
is still more important, Koreans. The prepara-
tion of a Christian literature had to be begun.
We had all the difficulties that usually attend
the process of getting our religion rooted in a
new heathen soil. The people at large were
invariably suspicious of us and our religion.
Now and then whole groups of men would show
an interest in our preaching; but because perhaps
their mercenary aims had not been satisfied, or
perhaps they lacked the moral courage to aban-
don their vices and heathen practices, their inter-
est was not permanent. But, on the other hand,
there were individuals and there were communi-
ties where the Gospel wrought a marked change
in lives. Such converts, under careful Bible
training, developed into excellent workers. Then
came the war, and since then, beginning with the
province in which Seoul is located and stretching
away tothe northern frontier, on the western side
of the peninsula, there is a section of country
where a marked forward religious movement has
LEAVES OF MISSION HISTORY 135

been in progress, and in which the active agents
have been largely the Korean Christians them-
selves.
CHAPTER XI

MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK

Some people are of the opinion that anyone will
do fora foreign missionary. Let us see. I have
sometimes thought that, considering the expert
knowledge which his circumstances from time to
time require of the worker in foreign lands, that
to be ideally prepared, the new missionary would
reach his field of labor at the age of sixty years. In
the first place, he must have a thorough collegiate
education; and then he certainly must secure his
diploma from the theological seminary. After
this, he might take a year or two of study in the
English Bible. And then, considering how well
the art of the physician prepares the way for the
acceptance of the message of the preacher, he
might take a course in the medical college.
Again, in the assignment of work, he is liable to
be put in charge of a boys’ school or ‘‘missionary
college”; and who thinks of teaching school in
these days of improved methods without a course
of study in some normal school? For his transla-
tion work, he must be a trained linguist. Again,
the native Christians are constantly bringing to
him new and intricate questions, soliciting his
advice, and the administrative work, which takes

136
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 137

so much of his time likewise calls for a judicially
trained mind; see how he would be benefited by
a course at the law school! In preaching to the
unconverted his audience is not composed of
intelligent heathen, as at home, but of heathen
densely ignorant of the Gospel; how, then,
should he know the most effective methods for
evangelistic preaching? From the number of his
native converts promising young men must be
selected and trained into preachers of the Gospel;
what an advantage to him to fill a professorship
in a theological seminary for a time! Then he is
liable to be made a treasurer of his mission or
station; several years’ service as a bookkeeper in
a bank would splendidly fit him for his position.
Moreover, houses must be built, and the chief
business of the native carpenter is to cheat him
by day and by night, so perforce the missionary
becomes his own contractor. How could the
prospective missionary better fit himself for a
very necessary part of his work, than by driving
nails through an apprenticeship under a compe-
tent builder? Again, the zeal of the contributors
at home must be fed with the fuel of a constant
stream of journalistic articles from the pen of the
man on the field; a period of training as reporter
on the ‘‘Daily Hustler’? would give him just the
literary style required for this portion of his
work. But, to speak in all seriousness, no moral
nor intellectual weakling will do for a foreign
missionary; and the more thorough his train-
138 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

ing and the broader his experience, the better
are his chances of success.

Let me here quote the admirable missionary
qualifications named by Dr. George Smith, at the
convention of Student Volunteers, at Keswick,
England, in July of 1893:

1. He should be conscious of the call of Christ
and the gift of the Spirit.

2. He should covet earnestly the possession of
the highest efficiency.

3. He must follow fully the rule of Christian
charity and good temper.

4. He must learn habits of order and business
ability, that will make him a wise steward of his
Lord’s money.

5. He must be sympathetic and loving toward
native graces.

6. He must give himself to unceasing prayer.

7. He must yield absolute submission to the
mind and will of God.

Allow me to add one word more; he must pos-
sess unquenchable patience.

With what interest do we look forward to the
coming of the new missionary. We expect him
to settle off-hand the questions that have per-
plexed us for years, upon the mere statement of
the difficulty. But, strange to remark, the Pres-
byterian Board in New York places such a value
upon his judgment that it will not let him vote
until he has lived for a year upon the field; and
its Korea mission has added the further require-
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 339

ment, that he can then vote only after having
passed successfully his first year’s examination in
the language. I shallalways remember the reply
of that prince of missionaries, the lamented Rev.
Dr. J. L. Nevius, of Chefoo, when, in answer to
a query of mine relating to some question of mis-
sion policy in the conduct of schools, he replied:
“If you had asked me that question twenty years
ago, I could have told you. NowlI do not know.”
In passing, let me pay a deserved tribute to the
memory of that great and good man. In the
spring of 1890, in the days when we, too, of the
Presbyterian Mission in Korea, were ‘‘young
missionaries,’’ Dr. and Mrs. Nevius paid a visit
to Seoul; and they so won our eager attention
with their loving and wise counsels, that, as the
result of their visit, our entire mission policy was
altered for the better.

We come now to organization. In Korea, two
types of mission organization prevail. In one
type all the authority and power are vested in
one man, the bishop. Such are the Roman Cath-
olic and English Church missions. The Metho-
dist Mission would probably cote under this class,
for certainly the Northern Methodist Mission is
visited yearly by a bishop from America, who
holds an annual conference and settles all impor-
tant questions of mission policy. A number of
the bishops, I may remark, have endeared them-
selves to the members of the foreign community
in Seoul by holding meetings open to the gen-
140 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

eral public, for the deepening of religious life. In
the intervals between visits, the authority resides
largely in a mission superintendent appointed
by the bishop, though considerable power adheres
in the general body of workers. The other type
of organization is that of control by the mission
itself, as exemplified in the Baptist and Presby-
terian missions. In the matter of church organi-
zation, to assist in the oversight of the native
work, our Methodist brethren are accustomed to
license yearly Korean local preachers and
exhorters. In the matter of church membership,
they have two classes, full members and proba-
tioners, with the further distinction that some
adult applicants receive baptism and some do
not, while in a state of probation.

The Northern, Southern, and Australian Pres-
byterian missions of Korea, with an independent
Canadian missionary, have combined their native
work under one church organization, to which
they have given the general name of ‘‘Jesus Doc-
trine Church.” The male members of these mis-
sions are organized into a ‘‘Council of Presbyterian
Missionaries,’’ which is the highest church court
we possess. In time this body will be trans-
formed into a presbytery, or synod, when our
Korean brethren become eligible for membership,
for as yet we have no ordained native ministers
and only one ruling elder. In a number of
churches Korean deacons have been ordained,
and in the course of time the other orders of
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 141

church officers will be set apart for their respon-
sible positions. In our entire church government
we have what might be termed a preliminary
organization. In localities where missionaries
reside the churches are governed by foreign
sessions, in which the Korean deacons have a
seat, with the privileges of the floor, but no vote.
The work in the country districts is organized
along the line of the so-called Nevius system.
From the circle of believers in a given village are
chosen one or two of the most suitable men, who
are called ‘‘leaders,’’ to whom are assigned the care
of the church services and the oversight of the be-
lievers, but without the power to administer the
sacraments. The West Gate Church of Seoul and
the church in the city of Pyeng-yang have both
a foreign session and a body of Korean leaders.
The country churches are visited periodically
by the missionary in charge, or his Korean
helper. Once a year a training-class is held at the
mission station, and the missionary invites these
leaders up for aterm of study in the Bible. In
the taking of members into the church, we find it
wise to use the utmost caution. When the session,
or itinerating minister with sessional powers,
feels reasonably sure that a given person is a
Christian, then, with certain public ceremonies in
the church, the man is enrolled as a ‘‘catechumen,”’
or applicant for baptism. He thereupon joins the
catechumen class, with a prescribed course of
study in the Bible and certain Christian books.
142 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

The general rule is that he wait at least six
months before he be given church membership.
The sessional examinations for admission to the
church—I can speak with certainty for Seoul—are
made very thorough, something between the
similar examination of candidates in the home-land
and the ordeal through which the young minister
passes when examined by his presbytery for the
licensure to preach. If the session feels satisfied
with the examination, he is baptized and taken
into the church; if the contrary is the case, he is
asked to wait fora time, until his grasp of the
truth is clearer, or, for instance, until he keeps
the Sabbath better or attends with regularity the
mid-week prayer-meeting.

Let us turn our attention to the work of the
medical missionary. There is no doubt that in
the early days of our Protestant missionary work
in Korea, the doctor and the teacher, but more
especially the doctor, did a preliminary work
which made possible the labors of their clerical
brethren. Let us watch a day’s work in the
Presbyterian hospital, under the charge of Dr. O.
R. Avison, in the buildings kindly loaned to the
mission by his majesty, who has in many ways
shown his appreciation of the missionaries’ aim
and work, as when, in an audience he accorded to
Bishop Ninde, of the Methodist church, early in
1895, he directly requested him to send more
missionaries. In the wards each morning, pray-
ers, with a suitable amount of religious teaching,
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 143

are conducted by the doctor. There is a pay
ward and a general ward. The foreign lady
nurse, with the aid of a corps of three or four
bright-faced Korean hospital assistants, attends to
the dressings of the patients. Perhaps a surgical
operation is on hand, over in the large operating
room, when the entire force must be present; or
the doctor calls the young: fellows above men-
tioned, who are also studying medicine with him,
into his room for a medical lecture. The after-
noon comes, and a group of men are seen outside
in the court or in the room provided for them,
waiting for the dispensary to open. A little bell
tinkles, and a man holding a strip of wood in his
hands, on which is marked a given number in
Chinese characters, arises and goes within to the
doctor, to be followed shortly by the man with the
next higher number. Presently, a clerical mis-
sionary or Korean helper joins the waiting group
to tell them that there is healing for their sin-sick
souls as well as for the ills of the body. A Chris-
tian bookstore adjoins the waiting-room. Tinkle,
tinkle, and another man goes inside. Let us go
with him. Inthe dispensary we find the doctor
and his assistants. The cases are disposed of
systematically and rapidly. Thename of the man
and the nature of his trouble go into the register.
If it be medicine that is required, a prescription
is promptly written and passed in to the youth in
the drug room. If a minor operation be neces-
sary, the instruments swiftly do their work. A
144. EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

nominal charge covering the cost of the medicines
is made in a number of the cases. And so the
afternoon passes in the effort to bring help to the
bodies and souls of a few of this world’s sick ones.

There is a women’s department of the hospital,
with a lady physician to meet the patients. But,
in considering this branch of the work, I am
going to take you to the women’s hospital of the
Methodist Mission, in the center of the foreign
settlement. We find Doctor Mary M. Cut-
ler in charge. Her small, but well-appointed
hospital nestles beside the street under the hill of
the large girls’ school. In addition to Korean
female assistants, some of whom are graduates of
the school, she has the help of missionary work-
ers, one a trained nurse and one a Bible worker.
To the hospital come the women, some in closed,
chairs and some on foot. Part of the work is
done in the hospital, and part in the homes of the
patients, and in both places we can be certain
that the Gospel truth is faithfully taught. The
diseases the doctors meet with are chiefly malaria,
indigestion, worms, skin diseases, eye troubles,
bone and joint diseases, consumption, venereal
diseases, smallpox, remittent fever, a species of
typhus fever called zmpiung, and occasionally
a leper is seen. The native doctors have their
herbs and mixtures, some of which are fairly
good. In their practice they frequently stick
needles into the flesh, and apply the burning
of the moxa to the skin; but of surgery they
KorEAN YounNG WomMEN.

 
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 14s

have absolutely no knowledge and it is here that
the foreign doctor makes his reputation.

There is one sharp distinction between the
heathen and the Christian spirit. The heathen
helps his relative or the member of his guild or
insurance society, who can be relied upon to help
him in turn in the hour of need; but for the poor
unfortunate whose only claim is the bond of a
common humanity, he does absolutely nothing.
On the other hand, the Christian, in the spirit of
the Good Samaritan, not merely looks with com-
passion upon the suffering stranger, but cares for
him as well, either as an individual or collectively
by the erection of hospitals and asylums of every
description. Here is an instance: A few years
ago, at certain seasons of the year, both inside
and outside of the west wall of Seoul, you might
have seen numbers of the sick and dying stretched
upon the ground. They were people afflicted
with contagious diseases, servants or poor people
occupying buildings in the compounds of more
prosperous Koreans, who had cruelly turned them
“into the streets to die. This is, however, no
longer the case; for Christian philanthropy has
provided, outside the west gate of the city, the
‘*Frederick Underwood Shelter,’’ where the out-
cast sick may resort for shelter and medical care.
In connection with this institution, Mrs. Dr.
Underwood conducts a dispensary.

What an arsenal is to an army, such the mission
press is tothe band of missionary workers. The
146 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

Tri-lingual press of the Methodist Mission,
founded by our large-hearted brother, the Rev.
F, Ohlinger, now returned to his former field in
Foochow, China, furnishes the American mission-
aries with the larger part of their missionary liter-
ature. They are able to print in English,
Unmun or Chinese, whence the mission press gets
its name. Without neglecting other forms of
work, there is a considerable literary activity on
the part of the missionaries. First and most
important is Bible translation. Engaged in this
work are the following Board of Bible Transla-
tors: Messrs. W. D. Reynolds, of the Southern
Presbyterian Mission; H. G. Appenzeller and
W. B. Scranton, of the Northern M. E. Mission;
M. N. Trollope, of the English Church Mission;
J. S. Gale and H. G. Underwood, representing
the Northern Presbyterian Mission. They have
translated the Gospels, Acts and about one half
of the Pauline Epistles. When a translator has
finished a given book of the Scriptures, he pre-
pares a blankbook with vertically ruled columns,
as many as there are translators, and in the right-
hand columns he writes his own translation. The
book is then handed around, and his colleagues
write, in the columns assigned to them, their
renderings of the text. It eventually returns to
the translator, who prepares his final copy in the
light of the suggestions of the others. The cost
of publishing is borne by the American and the
British and Foreign Bible societies. We are able
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 147
to use to a limited extent Christian literature
printed in Chinese, sent us from Shanghai, but
for the use of the common people we are obliged
to print in Unmun.

The Korean Religious Tract Society is another
of our institutions, which is undenominational in
character. This year it published some 37,000
books and leaflets. With the exception of a few
sheet tracts, the publications of the society are
sold by the missionaries, as a rule, at a nominal
price. It is believed that thereby the books meet
with better treatment. Many of the missionaries
in active work have translated a book or two,
but the most prolific translators are probably Mr.
Gale and Dr. Underwood. Each has prepared a
text-book and a dictionary, besides translating
parts of the Scriptures. Mr. Gale also published,
with funds raised by Rev. Dr. A. T. Pierson, a
translation of Pilgrim’s Progress; and Dr. Under-
wood has translated numerous tracts and hymns.
The Korean Repository, published monthly in
English, is a magazine that deals with Korean
topics, some of a missionary character, but for
the most part of asecular nature. The magazine
has been commended by journals both in America
and in the Far East for the bright, readable
nature of its contents, much of the credit for
which is due to the able editing of the Revs. H.
G. Appenzeller and George Heber Jones, of the
Methodist Mission. Two religious weekly news-
papers printed in Unmun, the one the ‘“‘Christian
148 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

News,” edited by Drs. Underwood and C. C. .
Vinton, the other the ‘‘Christian Advocate,’’ with
Rev. Mr. Appenzeller for editor, came into being
last winter.

I shall now ask my reader to draw upon his
imagination a bit, and in fancy we shall step
upon a magic carpet, like the enchanted objects
of which you have read in the ‘‘Arabian Nights’
Entertainments,’’ and together we shall fly hither
and thither about the country seeing how various
kinds of evangelistic work are done by the differ-
ent missionaries. Let us drop in upon Miss
Mattie Tate, of the Southern Presbyterian Mission
at Chun-ju, in the South, and observe her in her
women’s work. She has a room where she
receives her Korean women visitors. As we see
her, she has a group of women about her, all
sitting on the floor. Many are old acquaint-
ances; a few have come for the first time. The
elaborate introductions, with the inquisitive ques-
tions about age, etc., which they consider so
polite, are now over. The conversation has been
turned to religious topics, and she is teaching
them the truths of the dear old Bible. Now one
of the strangers breaks in with a question as to
the texture of her foreign dress. Another one fol-
lows with astory of hertroubles. Itis sohard for
her, a widow woman, to live; and cannot the
teacher help her? But other heads, bent in seri-
ous thought, show that the spiritual words of the
speaker have taken hold upon them, like the seed
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 149

that fellon good ground in the parable of our
Savior. The lady worker engaged in evangel-
istic labor among the women, a form of work which
the men, by reason of the customs of the country,
are unable to do, also visits in the home of the
women. She conducts one or two regular classes
of Bible study for their benefit during the week;
sits with them on the women’s side of the curtain
at church, and occasionally gets into her ‘‘chair’’
(a box-like contrivance, composed of a frame and
curtains, with a couple of parallel poles under-
neath forthe benefit of the coolies that carry her),
and with a Korean Bible woman she goes out to
teach the women in country villages.

We will now drop down into Fusan to watch a
winter training-class, such as Rev. W. M. Baird,
of our mission, used to conduct there before his
transfer to the more pressing work in the Pyeng-
yang region. The teacher sits on the floor at the
warm endof the room. Following Korean cus-
tom, certain men, who, on account of their birth
or knowledge, consider themselves superior to the
others, have seated themselves next tohim. Each
has before him a Chinese Testament or a Unmun
Gospel. Some have in front of them a note-book,
an ink-stone, a small stick of ink, and some little
brushes to take notes. They are studying one of
the Gospels. The exercise begins with a quiz on
yesterday’s lesson, and then the lecture on the
new chapter follows. These ‘‘leaders,’’ or if the
work be less advanced, interesting inquirers from
130 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

the country villages, have been specially invited
to come up to the station for a month’s or six
weeks’ study, and while the class is in session are
entertained at mission expense. There are two
or three lectures a day, studying the Bible asa
whole or in parts, and the missionary gives his
whole strength to the class while it is in session.
All due attention is paid to exegesis, but the main
emphasis is laid upon those scriptural truths which
tend to deepen spiritual life and make aggressive
workers. Much prayer also attends the gathering
of the winter class, and we all feel that this form
of work is one of the most profitable in which we
can engage.

Let us next step off at Gensan, upon the east
coast of the country. We are in the native town.
It is a busy time of the day, and the streets pre-
sent an ever-changing picture of animated life.
But before one little building is gathered the larg-
est crowd. It is the street chapel of Rev. W. L.
Swallen, of our Presbyterian mission. This has
been his method of work: At a certain fixed hour
in the day he has ridden over on his wheel from
the foreign settlement. The windows and door
facing the street have been opened wide. Just
inside the door he and his helper, with possibly
another Christian or two, have taken their stand.
The old familiar strains of ‘‘Nearer, My God, to
Thee,” and ‘‘What Can Wash Away My Sins?”
joined to not unmelodious Korean words, have
rung out upon the street. In a very few minutes
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 151

a crowd has gathered, curious to know the mean-
ing of the unfamiliar sounds. On being invited
in, they have speedily filled the room and throng
outside about the windows and door. A word of
quiet prayer is uttered, and then the helper begins
an explanation. They are the believers in a doc-
trine that puts into the heart a joy whose most
natural expression is song. Then, to explain the
doctrine, he tells them of God and His attributes,
and how in His sight we all are sinners, and how
Christ died to take away our sin and makes us at
one with God. The majority of a street chapel
audience are the rawest kind of heathen. Their
creed might be summed up as follows: Get enough
to eat; get enough to wear; indulge all your
passions; honor your dead father; and keep the
devils from harming you. They find it hard to
understand our Christian terminology. The
heathen Korean knows the Supreme Being as
Hlananim, the ‘‘Lord of Heaven,”’ and he thinks
of Him vaguely as Providence, or God, as He is
revealed in Nature. But that this Being takes
note of his good or evil deeds seems never to have
entered his head. The devils he knows better.
The preacher speaks of ‘‘sin,’’ and he thinks he
is speaking of a fault, a mistake or a civil crime.
That he should repent of his sins to God is to him
an entirely new thought. He stumbles over the
atonement like a modern Unitarian. The
preacher speaks of ‘‘love to God,” and uses a term
containing a certain warmth; but the auditor
132 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

finds it hard to grasp the thought, because in
heathen usage the Koreans have no term expres-
sive of the love of an inferior for his superior, but
only a word that denotes profound respect. So,
in chapel-preaching, the speaker can take nothing
for granted, but must repeatedly explain those
fundamental truths which seem to us as clear as
the statement that two and two make four. It is a
form of preaching, too, that makes a man feel his
utter personal weakness, and throws him back
upon the power of God. The crowd in Mr. Swal-
len’s chapel is quiet and attentive in the main;
but it is hard to tell from the apathetic faces what
impression is really being made upon their hearts.
Now a drunken man creates a temporary disturb-
ance. Then a man in the crowd, by a flippant
jeer, raises a laugh which is quickly silenced by
the mentally alert helper. Still another man
asks a series of questions that show his honest
desire to know the truth. The helper finally
ceases, and Mr. Swallen and the Christians in
turn succeed him in the ‘‘scattering broadcast of
the seed upon the waters.’’

Now, upon the flying rug again, and we alight in
one of the business streets of Seoul. Rev. E. C.
Pauling, of the Baptist Mission, is standing
quietly at one side of the street. Under his arm
are anumber of tracts and leaflets. He opens one
and quietly reads to himself. Instantly a Korean
head straightens up and looks at him. Its owner
edges nearer. The foreigner seems to take no
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 153

notice; yet to all appearance unconsciously he has
begun to read aloud. This is too much for the
curiosity of the Koreans along the street, and in
a moment a crowd has gathered about him. This
is his opportunity, and he begins to preach much
as our friends in the street chapel did. His
helper presently relieves him. And then they
distribute a number of leaflets, and the helper
sells some books. This street-preaching, too, is a
form of the broadcast sowing of Gospel seed.

We now alight upon a commodious junk, going
down the Han River from Seoul, with a boatman
or two swaying from right to left at the great
sculling-oar. Ina cozy little cabin at one end of
the boat we find Rev. S. F. Moore, of our Pres-
byterian Mission. He zealously devotes his entire
time to one form or another of evangelistic work.
He has done considerable work among the butch-
ers, who occupy almost the lowest round in the
Korean social ladder, and is now on his way down
the river to visit his Christians in a number of
villages scattered along the shore.

Now, to see another form of teaching, which we
call ‘‘Sarang work,’’ we will return to the North
Chulla province in the south, this time to the
seaside village of Kunsan. Rev. W. M. Junkin,
of the Southern Presbyterian Mission, sits in his
sarang, a thoroughly Korean room, where he
sees his native guests. He and several Korean
men sit on neatly woven mats of straw spread upon
the comfortably heated floor. Mr. Junkin holds in

fs
154 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

his hand an Oxford Bible, and his helper has open
before him a copy of the Chinese Scriptures, ready
to render into the vernacular any passage he may
indicate. Although the Chinese Bible is a sealed
book to the common people, we missionaries, in
our preaching and teaching, read it constantly to
them through the eyes and lips of our helpers.
An easy, pleasant conversation is apparently in
progress. One man, with his hands clasped about
his slightly elevated knees, in a mild excitement
sits rocking to and fro as he talks. The ani-
mated discussion which we here behold has for
its theme the claims of the doctrines of the Chris-
tian religion upon the belief of men. In connec-
tion with the sarangs and street chapels, a number
of the missionaries have small Christian book-
stores which are conducted by their helpers.
Some Christian quinine-sellers also keep our books
in stock.

Back again to Seoul we fly. Just as we pass
through that magnificent piece of masonry, the
South Gate of the city, we behold Dr. W. B.
Scranton, the Superintendent of the Northern
Methodist Mission, mounted ona bicycle. Behind
him, led by a well-browned boy, smartly steps a
Korean pony, sleigh-bells jingling at his neck,
laden with a pack-saddle and a couple of evenly
balanced boxes filled with an assortment of
canned food, Christian books and clothing. Laid
on top, between the boxes, is a bundle of bed-
ding, with sundry parcels belonging to the Ko-
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 15s

reans of the party. Not far behind, at a comfort-
able pace, swing along his Korean helper and
cook. The doctor is just starting out upon a
country itinerating trip, to be gone for a month
or six weeks. In going to the country, some of
the missionaries travel in the popular Korean
way, on foot; some have a couple of light boxes
fastened to the pony’s pack-saddle, spread some
blankets above, climb to the top and ride away,
their feet dangling on either side the pony’s neck,
while the pony boy guides the craft; but perhaps
the greater number use wheels. The roads, I may
say, are frequently narrow bridle-paths. Some of
us have found it profitable for a doctor and min-
ister to travel together. Dr. Vinton and myself,
indeed, have joined forces in a number of itinera-
ting tours. The ladies sometimes make a similar
combination; as, for instance, Mrs. Gifford with
Miss G. E. Whiting, M.D. We try to look upon
our trips to the country asa kind of excursion,
and so it would be if the pure air and fine scenery
had the other things to match them. But one
finds it a little hard to carry out the illusion, for
instance, when sleeping in a stuffy room with five
varieties of vermin engaged in your vivisection,
three or four of the bones in your anatomy pro-
testing against the hardness of the hot, stony
floor, and your mind conscious of the fact that the
country is full of robber bands that have a way
of visiting the villages when they are least
expected. This is mentioned here only to show
156 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

that missionary labor, like every other form of
work in this world, has, in addition to a great
many pleasant features, a few things that one
could wish were otherwise. The doctor, while
on his country circuit, stops in each village where
he has work—at the house of one of the Chris-
tians, for two or three days, not paying board,
but making his host a ‘‘present’’ of money. The
days and nights are busily filled, preaching to the
unconverted, instructing the Christians, examin-
ing candidates and administering the sacraments.
As in other lands, we consider that in the country
villages we have perhaps our most hopeful field
of effort.

Let us consider briefly the private life of the
missionary. Wherever a group of missionaries
(possibly belonging to different missions) live,
they unite for the holding of religious services in
English. Thus in Seoul we have an organization
called the Union Church, which has a Sunday-
afternoon preaching service conducted by the
various ministers, in turn, in the chapel of the
Pai-chai college of our Methodist brethren, and a
Thursday-night prayer-meeting held in the differ-
ent missionary homes. Where there is a foreign
community of any size we are able to forget our
mission problems and cares in an occasional
gratification of our social natures. But the people
in the far interior, with only one or two foreign
families in the station, undoubtedly feel the loneli-
ness of their voluntary exile among alien peoples.
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 157

The missionaries in Korea, as a rule, live with the
same simplicity as ministers in the country vil-
lages of America, with the one exception that the
customs of the country require them to keep, at
low wages, two or three servants, the whole com-
pany of whom they would gladly exchange for
one strong, competent Bridget or Gretchen.
Remember, too, that this frees the missionary’s
wife to do a work among the women of her hus-
band’s church which he cannot do, or enables
her to help the mission cause in some other direct
way. In the matter of food, we can buy certain
meats and some fruits and vegetables on the field,
but we live for the most part out of tin cans and
barrels, shipped perhaps twice a year from
America. Our expensive fuel, burned in the
stoves we have imported, consists of pine wood,
a sooty Japanese coal, and bags of Korean hard
coal, mostly dust, which latter we mix with clay
and dry into coal-balls. A majority of the mis-
sionaries tithe their salaries for the benefit of the
mission work, while some give a much larger
proportion, especially in the days when our
brethren in the home-land are derelict in their
financial duty to the foreign-mission cause. In
spite of the depressing influence of their constant
contact with heathenism and their endless care of
‘‘babes in Christ,’’ a number of the missionaries
show a marked growth in spirituality.

A few words may be in order with reference to
our Korean inquirers and converts. Perhaps due
ts8 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA
tothe popular report that the French fathers, with
whom the people continually confuse us, now and
then interest themselves in the lawsuits of their
converts, men seek to attach themselves to us as
adherents, in the hope that by so doing they
may secure the aid, in their civil cases before the
magistrates, of the political influence which we,
as foreigners, are supposed to possess. But, as
they find that it is our mission policy not to take
up such cases, their interest soon disappears. Be
it noted, however, that occasionally men with
such ulterior aims, or those whose real motive is
the desire to get employment, develop into
genuine inquirers as the Holy Spirit, through the
Word of God, takes hold upon their hearts.

You may perhaps be under the impression that
it is an easy thing for a Korean to become a
Christian. If so, let me disabuse your mind.
From the moment the man decides for Christ, a
complete revolution in the tenor of his life begins.
One of the great daysfor the worship of ancestors
arrives, and on conscientious grounds he refuses
to join in the worship. Immediately he finds him-
self in trouble, and this is especially true if he
happens to belong to the Yangban, or aristo-
cratic class, whose claims to social superiority
depend so largely upon the universally strict
adherence to the system of Confucius, a corollary
of whose ‘‘five relations’’ has been the division of
all the people of the realm into two classes, the
gentlemen and the “‘low fellow.’’ To class pride
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 19

is added a measure of superstitious fear. Hence
our Christian finds himself opposed by the bitter
anger of the men of his family, and all his near
and distant relations, not to mention the dislike
and ridicule of the rest of the community. If
nearly all the members of the village happen to
be his relatives, we can imagine his hard lot.
Where a number of Christians live in the same
neighborhood, of course the conditions are not so
severe. One Yangban complained to me that giving
up ancestral worship made it almost impossible
for him to marry off his children in his own social
class. The Christian decides to burn the imple-
ments of demon-worship. At once he is assailed
by the tears and the imprecations of the female
part of his household. Suppose, in the days of
his heathen ignorance, he had contracted plural
marriage relations. He now has a very delicate
and painful duty to perform, in view of the
church law, framed in America, which requires
him to put away all his wives and offspring,
except the first wife and her children. Then, as
a man who refuses to follow the almost universal
customs of drinking and gambling, he is con-
sidered ‘‘peculiar.’’ If he is a merchant, Chris-
tian principle requires that he mend his ways to
a course of strict honesty in his transactions; and
that the step is a hard one, can be seen from the
fact that the delusion is common among Koreans
that the merchant who will not cheat and defraud
cannot do business. Then, if the Christian has
160 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

been following a sinful occupation, or one of
doubtful morality, he must give it up. The
observance of the Sabbath he also finds difficult
in a country where nearly every one lives from
hand to mouth, and all the rest of the community,
except the Christians, work or do business on
Sunday; and again, if he lives in the country,
where the fifth day market for his region falls
every now and then upon the Sabbath. One of
his minor difficulties is mental confusion over the
denominational differences of the various mis-
sions, which differences, I may say, many of the
missionaries seek to minimize in their teaching.
He is troubled, too, with certain things in the
Scriptures, in a way peculiar to the Eastern mind.
For instance, in the parable of the unjust steward,
Luke, 16th chapter, taking a very literal view of
the shifty procedure of the man, which is just
what a Korean would have done under the cir-
cumstances, he is confused with what to him is
the moral paradox of the passage.

You may like to know what changes for the
better we see in the lives of the Korean Chris-
tians. In view of the variations in character of
the church members in the home-land, it is super-
fluous that I tell you that we have weak Christians
and strong Christians. The two great temptations
for our converts are to dishonesty and immorality,
and occasionally one will fall. But, on the other
hand, I have known men to move away from
their native villages rather than resume the
MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK 161

ancestral worship. Women who have passed from
the bondage of the fear of demons to the joyous
freedom they experience in the love of Christ,
testify that they ‘“‘feel relieved of such a bur-
den’’; and that ‘‘it is almost as though they were
living in another world.’’ I know of homes that
are happier. The Korean brethren are quick to
notice the more exalted place the wife occupies
in the missionary home, with the result that their
own wives get better treatment.

Drinking and other bad habits are abandoned.
Men, for the sake of conscience, change their
occupations. For example, I remember one
Christian man, whom I met in Pyeng-yang, who
had formerly made an excellent profit from the
painting of pictures to be used in heathen wor-
ship, but having given up the business from a sense
of duty was at that time finding it difficult to
live. In Sabbath observance there is much
improvement. One young merchant, doing busi-
ness on borrowed capital, had toreturn the money
to its owner because he refused to keep open on
Sunday. But in his fidelity he was prospered, for
he soon secured from another man the money to
open across the street a still larger shop than
the one he had lost for conscience sake. In the
native Christians who study their Bibles—and is
it not true at home as well?—one can observe an
ennobling of character that is perceptible even in
the expression of their faces. One occasionally
sees revealed in them a simplicity of faith that is
162 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

touching. In one region in the north the Chris-
tians confidently declare that, when the cholera
was epidemic, as the result of prayer their fam-
ilies and in some cases their villages were spared
when all about them the people were dying.
According to their means, they are willing givers
to the Lord. They are warmly patriotic. They
take on readily an esprit de corps which makes
them aggressive workers for the salvation of other
Koreans. In the church services they are quiet
and reverent. There is something wonderfully
suggestive in the posture adopted by the Korean
Christians in prayer. Sitting as they do on the
floor of the church, when the time for prayer
arrives they bow their bodies forward till the
forehead or the hat-brim touches the floor. This
is a form of Oriental prostration. The Ori-
ental prostration suggests the thought not only
of profound reverence, but of complete submis-
sion to the will of the superior. While in that
position the superior can work what he will upon
the humble form before him. My reader, is not
that the mental attitude you and I ought to take
before God—completely surrendered, that Jesus
Christ may cleanse from the heart all its selfish-
ness and sin, and fill the place thus made empty
with His own blessed presence and the ‘‘more
abundant life’’?
CHAPTER XII

WHAT THE GOSPEL DID FOR ONE MAN

The following is the story told me by Mr. Mof-
fett, which serves to illustrate once again the
power of Christ’s salvation to change the lives of
men, whether their hue be yellow or white:

‘“When my helper, Mr. Han, first visited Pyeng-
yang to begin the preliminary work of opening
our station there, he took a stock of books and
stopped at an inn kept by a Mr. Chay, who,
besides being an inn-keeper, was also a broker,
selling upon commission whatever goods his
guests might bring. Mr. Han had known him
some years, having formerly stopped there when
traveling asa merchant. Han began preaching
to all in the inn and selling the tracts. Chay was
a tall, slender man, ‘‘hail fellow well met’’ with
everyone, given to loud talking, drinking, gam-
bling and a vicious life generally, always ready for
a joke and yet addicted to loud quarreling with
any and every one. Asan inn-keeper and busi-
ness man he was very shrewd and able, but was
always wasting his earnings in wine, gambling
and immorality, and he made his home very
miserable. He liked Han and listened to the
strange story he had to tell and wondered greatly

163
164 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

at his selling such nice-looking books at such a
low price. The truth, however, took not the
slightest hold upon him then, but simply because
Han was his guest, he used his influence to help
him sell the books, telling everyone that they
were good books. Later, when we visited Pyeng-
yang and sought to purchase property, Mr. Chay
acted as our agent and came into more intimate
contact with us, as we too made the Gospel our
daily subject of conversation. Mr. Saw, our
evangelist, who accompanied us, made a great
impression upon Mr. Chay, as he had never seen
a Korean who had the gentle spirit and the truth-
fulness which Mr. Saw displayed. Mr. Chay
attended the services we conducted on the Sab-
bath, not, as he has since said, that he cared at
all for the truth, but simply because, as our agent,
he wished to retain our goodwill. Contact with
the truth and with those who showed such earnest
zeal in proclaiming this truth, in spite of all the
ridicule and opposition heaped upon them, caused
him to begin to think, and then to listen, and then
_to read, and, much to his surprise, he found him-
self really interested and concerned. The Spirit
of God took hold upon him and he became a daily
student of the Word of God, being one of the most
constant attendants upon the Sabbath services
and the catechumen class. He met with the
most abusive ridicule and insult, and he had the
finger of scorn constantly pointed at him as he
walked the street between his inn and the chapel.
WHAT THE GOSPEL DID 165

Always an outspoken man, he met all this abuse
most bravely, and frankly confessed that he was
‘doing the Jesus doctrine.’ Old friends and com-
rades in evil conspired to make him again fall into
sin, visiting him and doing all they could to lead
him to gamble and drink.

‘‘His wife was thoroughly enraged when he
refused to sacrifice to the evil spirits of the house-
hold, and she begged him to ward off the great
evils she feared because of his failure to placate
those evil spirits. He had, through his faith in
Christ, become indeed a ‘new creature.’ He
had given up his adultery, drunkenness and gam-
bling, his fighting in the home and on the street,
and he had caused his home-coming, from day to
day, to become a pleasure to his wife and chil-
dren, instead of a cause for fear. While his wife
rejoiced in all this, such was her fear of the evil
spirits that she was distressed and angry when he
not only refused to take part in the sacrifice, but
urged the throwing away of all the baskets and
bundles of straw which represented the abodes
of these evil spirits.

‘*He put to her this pointed question: ‘Which
will you have me do: be a Christian and be as I
am, sober, loving and true to you, or worship
evil spirits, and get drunk, lead a vile life, gamble
and make my home-coming a terror to you and
the children? Then she would plead with him
not to go back to his old habits, but yet to join in
the sacrifices. The poor woman did not know her
166 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

own mind. One day she would bless Mr. Han
and me, and callus her best friends, because of
the great reform in her husband; the next day
she would break out into the most bitter cursing,
declaring that we had no business to come there
and prevent her husband from offering sacrifice
to the evil spirits and to his ancestors. Mr.
Chay’s brothers, too, did not know just what posi-
tion to take; they cursed him for leaving off the
ancestral worship, but rejoiced in his reformation.
For months he was subject to all kinds of temp-
tations. At times he fell. But as he grew in
knowledge of Christ, his faith became stronger,
and it was touching to hear him tell of his going
into the inner quarters of his house and kneeling
in prayer for strength to resist the temptations
which came upon him so often through the day.
A touching incident may here be mentioned
which will reveal also the difficulties with which
the Korean Christians have to contend and like-
wise the gradual process by which they come to
realize the sinfulness of sin, while at the same
time it will show how their habits are so fastened
upon them that they do not realize the possibility
of leading an entirely holy life:

“‘One day he came rushing into my room, not far
from his inn, saying that he had just run away
from a crowd of his former friends who were try-
ing to make him drink. First hetold them he
was not well; but they would not listen to that.
Then he said it would make him sick to drink, as
WHAT THE GOSPEL DID 167

his stomach was paining him; but this they
regarded as no excuse. Then he said he was now
a Christian and could not drink. But with that
they seized him by the hair and, ridiculing him
and abusing him for adopting the foreign reli-
gion, attempted to make him drink with them as of
old. He at last agreed, but said he had an engage-
ment just then and would be back in a few min-
utes to drink with them. Rushing out, he came
into my room, telling me of the occurrence and
the way in which he had gotten away from them
and avoided drinking. I rejoiced with him in his
determination not to yield, but called his atten-
tion to the fact that he had lied to them and that
he must not commit one sin in order to avoid
another. He looked very queer and quickly ex-
claimed: ‘Oh! I have got to lie.’ , Then I
showed him the sinfulness of lying and, again, look-
ing very queer as the realization of the sin came
over him, in connection with his own conviction
that he could never get away from his old evil hab-
its without lying, he exclaimed: ‘Well, it zs wrong
to lie; and I will quit after New Years. But I
must lie until then.’ Mr. Chay was one of the
first seven men received into the church in Pyeng-
yang and has since then become constantly more
interested and has lived an increasingly consist-
ent life, contributing liberally and working most
zealously to make known to others the truth which
has done so much forhim. He places Christian
books in his inn and urges all guests to read and
168 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

buy, and wherever he goes in the city or surround-
ing country, he constantly invites friends and
acquaintances to listen to the Gospel. His influ-
ence in his own family constantly grew, although
they, at the time of the persecution, when he was
arrested, bound with the red cord used for tying
criminals and threatened with death, as well as
afterward, when an official, who was a friend of
the family, called him privately and warned
him to give up Christianity upon fear of death,
again greatly urged him to give up his belief or
flee. When the threats of persecution were
renewed, he and another of the Christians fled to
the country and, after wandering around for one
whole night in the rain, in constant dread lest at
any point on the road they might meet an officer
seeking their arrest, they talked the matter over
and Mr. Chay said: ‘Here! If God intends that
we shall die, we cannot escape by fleeing. We
might as well go back and take whatever comes,
leaving it all to Him.’ The next day they
returned, came in to see me and said to the little
band of Christians, who knew of their flight, that
they were ready to give a reason for the faith
that was in them and to take the consequences.
The war came on and Mr. Chay took all his family
and that of his brother to a mountain village,
where he made known the truth very clearly, and
where his own faith and peaceful life in the midst
of trouble and threatening gloom brought his
older brother and his wife to a saving faith
WHAT THE GOSPEL DID 169

in Christ. His wife, having lost all her desire to
worship the evil spirits and continue the ances-
tral sacrifices, formed one of the first groups of
women to be received into the church after Mrs.
Lee joined the station. In the mountain village
where they took refuge there are now fifteen or
more Christians meeting every Sunday, although
Mr. Chay and his family have long since returned
to the city.

““Mr. Chay is one of the best-known Christians
in Pyeng-yang, and his marked reformation has
done much to commend the Gospel to the people
of that vicinity.”
CHAPTER XIII

EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL

The scope of this chapter will deal with a vari-
ety of educational institutions that flourish within
the sweep of the medizeval walls of Seoul, which
fall like widely draped festoons from the peaks of
the North and South mountains. Imagine your-
self, please, in a factory wherea planing-machine
and three or four circular saws are tearing the air
into shreds with their din. You can then form
some conception of the noise of a native Korean
schoolroom when the pupils are conning their les-
sons. Let ustake a look into such aschool. Perhaps
a dozen bright-faced lads are sitting cross-legged
upon the floor, their Chinese books laid before
them. The upper parts of their bodies are sway-
ing violently, each with his own time and motion,
some from side to side, others forward and back,
and all of them vociferating, in every pitch of
voice, the lesson assigned forthe day. In con-
trast with all this movement and din is the quiet
form of the school-master, sitting at the end of
the room where the flue-heated floor is the warm-
est, on his head a crown-shaped, horse-hair hat,
his nose surmounted by a pair of scholarly gog-
gles, with a book before him, and in his hand a

170
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 171

rod; and now and again his stentorian tones
mingle with the shrill trebles as he hurls in a
word or two of correction. This is the ordinary
Korean school.

From early dawn till the sun goes down these
lads drone away, now studying aloud, now writing
the characters, now reciting to the master the
contents of the Chinese classics, filled with the
lore of the ancient sages and a pseudo-history,
but with scarcely an idea to lead them to under-
stand the world in which they live in the present
year of Our Lord.

Anyone who knows the Korean people, even in
the most superficial manner, must be aware that
there is something radically lacking in the time-
honored system of education of the country.

I would by no means condemn it as an utter
failure. Let no one beguile himself into thinking
that the educated Koreans are a dull class of peo-
ple. The study of the Chinese classics has much
the same educational value for the Korean that a
classical course in Latin and Greek has for a
student in the Occident. Theeffort to master the
difficult language is in itself a mental discipline.
The writings of Confucius and Mencius, as a sys-
tem of mere ethics, together with much that is
defective and a disproportioned stress laid upon
the virtue of filial piety, contain also much that
is undoubtedly beautiful and true. Then again, to
such an extent have the Chinese words and
phrases imbedded themselves in the native
172, EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

speech, that no Korean can obtain a mastery of
his own language without a preliminary study of
the Chinese. But, when all has been said, the
popular education of Korea leaves very much to
be desired. The best way to judge of a system is
to examine the finished product of that system.
Let us consider, then, the average educated Ko-
rean. He has a certain mental brightness and
polish. His memory is noticeably welltrained. He
seems, indeed, to be much like a mill fairly well
fitted to grind, but with no worthy content upon
which to grind. He has, in a measure, the intel-
lectual power of a man, with the actual knowledge
of achild. And the discouraging feature of his
case is that he has, in many instances, become so
self-conceited that Socrates himself could not con-
vince him of his ignorance. He is color-blind to
everything modern. His eyes are set on the past,
especially the Chinese past. He is a slave to the
traditions and customs transmitted from antiquity.
His thinking has no breadth nor originality. But
the fault is moral as well. Among people of his
own station in life he displays a ceremonious
politeness that is certainly charming But do
not fora moment be deceived. There is very
little heart in it. What Korean unreservedly
trusts another Korean? And for the man below
him in social rank he has all the contempt of a
Brahmin. Again, he hasa false pride which leads
him to starve rather than do a stroke of honest
manual labor. The ruling principle of his life is
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 173

apt to be a selfish individualism, which leaves in
his heart but little room for a disinterested public
spirit, or atrue love of his neighbor. Two things
the naturally bright and in many respects inter-
esting people of Korea especially need, and which
the present system of education certainly fails to
give them, are a broader intellectual view and a
deepened moral sense. Their present system of
intellectual and moral training then, needs evi-
dently much to supplement it. The Chino-Jap-
anese war, in a number of respects, deep-soil
plowed the life and institutions of Korea. One of
the institutions which early disappeared was the
Koaga, or royal examination, heid periodically
through the spring and fall, when the streets used
to be filled with country scholars, all aspirants for
literary degrees. These literary titles were, in the
ante-bellum days, greatly prized, largely no doubt
because the rank thus obtained was believed to
furnish a stepping-stone toward the acquisition of
government office, the suzmmuim bonum of the Ko-
rean scholar. But with the passing of the Koaga
and a change in the methods of government
appointments, it may be questioned whether much
of the incentive to the acquisition of an education
of the time-honored variety has not also passed
away. It maybe further queried, if this be true—
that the interest in education is waning through-
out the country—What other educational forces are
there at work, whose influence can be counted
upon to stimulate in some measure this flagging
174 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

interest in all education; and can they be said to
give promise of supplying the lacking elements
mentioned above, a broadened mental outlook or
a deepened ‘moral sense? The answer is that
there are three classes of schools whose influence
radiates from the capital—government vernacular
schools, government schools for the study of for-
eign languages, and missionary institutions of
learning, all of which aim to impart nineteenth
céntury knowledge and, in varying degrees, seek
the moral culture of their students. Let it be
understood that in this chapter we are viewing
conditions that existed in the late spring of 1896,
at which time the author, pencil and note-book
in hand, made a tour of the schools and collected
the data here presented. Referring now to the
first class of government schools mentioned, the
writer’s information was largely derived from Mr.
T. H. Yun, the then Acting Minister of Education,
who later became a member of the embassy sent
to represent Korea at the coronation of the ‘‘Czar
of all the Russias.’’ It may be remarked in pass-
ing that his experience and Christian education in
a foreign land seemed to have peculiarly fitted
Mr. Yun for usefulness in the position he then
held. These schools came largely into being
during the so-called ‘‘reform era.’’ The scheme
of education embraces a system of primary schools,
with a normal school for the training of the teach-
ers. The normal school, located in Kyo-tong,
was organized in 1895 with a Japanese instructor
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 175

in charge. Two Korean teachers at the time of
my visit were guiding their studies.*

The subjects taught consisted of history (Ko-
rean and universal), simple arithmetic, geography,
Chinese and Unmun composition, and the Chi-
nese classics. Candidates for admission to the nor-
mal school must be able to read and write Chinese
and the age limits range between eighteen and
twenty-five years. The aim was to accommodate
fifty pupils, fed and lodged at government
expense. It was expected that, after order was
restored in the country, with teachers drawn from
this normal school, primary schools would be
started in each of the provincial capitals of the
country. Already there existed in the city of
Seoul five flourishing primary schools. With the
exception of one which numbers about 150, the
average number of scholars enrolled in each of
the schools is 100. The monthly wages paid are
as follows: for a normal school-teacher, forty yen;
for a primary school-teacher, fourteen yen.

Referring now to the second variety of schools
for the study respectively of Japanese, French,
Russian and English, the Japanese school, located
in Kyo-tong, has been in existence since 1890.
It is in charge of the genial Mr. I) Nagashima, a
graduate of Tokyo University and a teacher of
five years’ experience in Japan. Associated with

*May 1, 1897, there was a change in management
and the Rev. H. B. Hulbert, who will be mentioned later,
became the principal of the normal school.
176 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

him is Mr. M. Oya, a graduate of the Kanagawa
Normal School, and they have one Korean assist-
ant. The students are divided into two classes,
and number forty. The average age is nineteen,
ranging from sixteen to thirty years. The studies
embrace the learning of Japanese, the study of
Western branches through the medium of the
Japanese, and physical drill. The writer heard
one day the advanced class read in concert, in
alternation with the teacher, and to judge by the
sound the reading was remarkably fluent and
accurate.

The French and Russian schools are located in
the spacious school property at Pak Tong, south-
east of the palace. These schools are among our
most recent acquisitions, the Russian school
having been opened May soth and the French
school about the first of January, 1896. In charge
of the Russian school is Mr. N. Birukoff, late
captain of light artillery in the Russian army;
and the teacher of the French school is Mr. E.
Martel. Both have had experience in private
teaching. They have each a Korean assistant.
The students in attendance at the Russian school
are thirty-six; in the French school thirty-four;
the average age in the Russian school is twenty-
two, ranging from sixteen to forty; in the French
school seventeen, ranging from fifteen to thirty
years. The study in these schools is yet largely
linguistic, but western branches will be rapidly
introduced in the respective languages taught.
 

 

TOILERS OF THE FIELDs.
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 177

Daily physical drill is given the pupils of both
schools under the superintendence of members of
the Russian legation guard. These schools, al-
though so recently established, are in a flourishing
condition, and with a bright class of pupils, and
excellent instructors, a highly successful career
may be anticipated for them.

English education in Seoul had its origin in Mr.
T. E. Hallifax’s School for Interpreters, which,
from the year 1883, was held for a period of three
years in the Foreign Office. The pupils numbered
thirty-five and their ages ranged from fifteen to
thirty. Very good work was done, as is evi-
denced by the fact that fifteen former members
of the school now hold positions in the various
ports. Inthespring of 1885 General John Eaton,
the well-known commissioner of education, in
compliance with a request to the U. S. govern-
ment from his majesty, received instructions from
the government to secure three suitable men, who
should repair to Korea to take charge of a govern-
ment school for the teaching of English” His
choice fell upon three students in Union Theolog-
ical Seminary, New York City, two of whom were
about to graduate, Rev. G. W. Gilmore of Prince-
ton, ’83, Rev. D. A. Bunker, Oberlin, ’83, and
Rev. H. B. Hulbert, Dartmouth, ’84. The gov-
ernment school was organized September 23,
1886. Each teacher had a Korean interpreter.
As soon as practicable Western studies were intro-
duced, which were taught through the medium of
178 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

English text-books, In addition to the ordinary
elementary studies, the elements of international
law and political economy were taught. The
pupils enrolled were about one hundred. Two
examinations of the school were held before his
majesty, at one of which the writer had the honor
of being present.

As the result of the work of the school a num-
ber of good men were turned out, one of whom is
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, another is Secre-
tary of Legation at Tokyo, and a third is assistant
Postmaster in the Korean postoffice at Chem-
ulpo. Capable, earnest work was done by the
instructors; but in some respects the school did
not prosper as it deserved, for his majesty’s good
intentions were frustrated, after the fashion of
those ante-bellum days, by the peculating officials
connected with the school, who diverted to the
extent of their ability the funds of the institution
to their private use, so that, becoming dis-
heartened, first Mr. Gilmore, then Mr. Hulbert,
and finally Mr. Bunker resigned and returned to
America, the last two metioned, however, coming
back later as members of the Methodist Mission.
We come now to another stage in the history of
the Royal English School. Mr. W. du F. Hutchi-
son was engaged from the fall of 1893 in teaching
English upon the island of Kang-wha, in con-
nection with the school for naval cadets. In the
late fall of 1894 he was transferred to Seoul to
fill the vacancy made by the departure of Mr.
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 179

Bunker, in the English school at Pak Dong. He
brought with him a score of his former pupils;
four old scholars of the Pak Dong school were
added, and the government sent still others,
aggregating sixty-four students. The Royal
School continued at Pak Dong till the first of 1895,
when the school property was turned temporarily
into police barracks, and the school was trans-
ferred to its present quarters in the telegraph
office in front of the palace, just west of the
offices of the Department of Agriculture. Highly
creditable work has been done by the school, as
was evidenced by the excellent written exami-
nation papers prepared in June of 1896. The teach-
ing force consists of Mr. Hutchison, Mr. T. E.
Hallifax and three Korean assistants. These
three assistant teachers receive each a monthly
payment of from twenty to twenty-five yen. The
number of pupils is one hundred and three, with
a daily average of ninety-two. It may be remarked
in passing that an indication of the discipline of the
school was seen when the writer, on a very rainy
day, visited the school and found the entire body of
pupils in attendance. Their averageage is nine-
teen years, ranging in fact from sixteen to twenty-
eight years. The branches taught consist of a study
of colloquial English, reading English, English
composition, arithmetic, grammar, writing, trans-
lation to and from English and Chinese, also the
same with Unmun and English, and lessons in
general knowledge in the form of practical talks.
18 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

Physical training is imparted by a sergeant from
the English legation guard, in the form of march-
ing, calisthenics, and a drill with staves, known
technically as the ‘‘Swedish physical drill.’’ By
the time my visit to the Royal School was made,
Mr. Yun had been succeeded as Minister of Edu-
cation by a Mr. Sin, a deeply dyed conservative,
who was destined, however, not to remain long in
office, and a very decided clash between the
minister and the school was in progress over the
wearing by the pupils of a neat foreign uniform,
consisting of a jacket, trousers and a cap of white
duck cloth with red trimmings. Suffice it to say
that the scholars won the day. The aim of the
school is to turn out men with a good general
knowledge, in addition to proficiency in the use
of English.

Still another class of schools is deserving of our
attention—institutions under missionary auspices.
The first to claim our attention is a school which,
strictly speaking, does not belong in this class, but
on account of other features connected with the
plan of which it is a part, it may properly be
mentioned here. The latest arrival in the edu-
cational field of Korea is the school established
April 16, 1896, by representatives of the ‘‘Jap-
anese Foreign Educational Society.’’ The con.
tributors to this society are Japanese Christians and
non church-members, the majority of which body,
however, are members of evangelical churches.
The location of the school is on the western edge
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 181

of Chin-go-kai, immediately behind the site of
the new Japanese consulate. The teachers are
Messrs. K. Koshima and M. Zingu, both of whom
are graduates of the Doshisha College at Kyoto,
and have been for two years students in the
theological seminary of the same institution. They
have for their assistants two Koreans who speak
Japanese. The students in attendance are fifty-
eight, who are divided into three classes. The
average age is twenty-three, ranging from ten to
thirty-eight years. The curriculum includes a
limited study of the Chinese classics, also Unmun
composition, the learning of Japanese, and the
study of Western learning through the medium of
the Japanese; and further, a weekly lecture is
delivered, through an interpreter, on scientific
and religious subjects. No direct religious teach-
ing forms a part of the course of study on account
of the mixed nature of the society founding the
school. But the teachers are Christians, with a
missionary purpose; and the plan and hope is
that, later, men will be sent to work with them
who shall give their entire time to religious work
and the establishment of churches. That such
an enterprise should be undertaken at allis a strik-
ing indication of the fact that Christianity has
become native to the soil of Japan.

The representatives of the ‘‘Société des Mis-
sions Etrangéres,” of Paris, have in the city of
Seoul and its immediate vicinity three varieties of
schools, an orphanage, two boys’ schools and a
182 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

theological seminary. The orphanage was organ-
ized by the French fathers in 1883 in Myeng-
tong, with ten Korean assistants. In 1888 the
oversight of the school was transferred to the
Sisters of the Community of St. Paul of Chartres.
In 1890 the orphanage was moved by the Sisters
to their present commodious quarters, north of
Chin-go-kai, the Japanese settlement. The
expenses of the institution are chiefly defrayed
by the Society of Ste. Enfance, of Paris. The
children received are almost entirely orphans
whose parents have had no connection with the
Catholic Church. Connected with the school are
five French sisters, one Chinese sister, also Ko-
rean novices ten, fostulantes ten, and aspirants
nine. In the school are sixty boys, with ages
ranging from five to thirteen years, eighty-nine
girls of the same ages, thirty-nine small children
from two to five years old and fifty-four infants,
making a total of 242 children. The older girls
study Unmun, learn the church catechism and
various forms of prayer, and are instructed in
sewing and general housework. The larger boys
study Unmun, read stories selected from the Bible,
and learn the catechism and various forms of
prayer. Formerly these boys were taught to
make mats, pouch-strings and cigarettes, but
three years ago the plan was abandoned as unprofit-
able. The younger children are taught verbally
forms of prayer. When the girls arrive at an age
of from thirteen to fifteen years they are married
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 183

to the children of adherents. Boys thirteen years
old are adopted by members of the church in the
city and country, and learn farming or one of the
trades; or, assuming their own support, become
servants or enter some trade. The object of the
school is to train into good Catholics these unfor-
tunate children, bereaved of a parent’s protection.

Referring now to the two boys’ schools men-
tioned above, one of them, opened in 1883, is
located on the northern edge of Chin-go-kai; the
other, opened in 1893, is connected with the
French fathers’ place at Yak-hyon, outside the
. south gate of the city. Each consists of twenty-
five boys, under aKoreanteacher. Their average
age is ten, ranging from five to fifteen years. In
these schools the boys are taught to read and write
Chinese and Unmun, with a limited study of the
Chinese classics. Inthe Unmun they are taught
the catechism and forms of prayer. The scholars
are all catechumens or church members. The
aim of the schools is to provide a native and reli-
gious primary education for the children of the
members of the church. The theological semi-
nary, now located three milesfrom the city, on the
bluff by the river, at Yong-san, was organized in
1854 or 55 in the village of Chyei-tchou in the
Kang-won province, under the title of ‘‘Pai-ron
Hak-tang.’’ In 1866, the year of the great mas-
sacre of the French fathers and their disciples, the
school was broken up. In the dark years that
followed, the efforts put forth by aspirants to the
184 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

priesthood to secure a priestly education are inter-
esting. In 1871 one such student, crossing over
from Korea, sought the theological school at Cha-
ling in Lao-tung, Manchuria, where eight years
later he died. Three other youths, who, for three
years, had been studying with priests in conceal-
ment in Korea, were in 1880 sent across the border
to this school in Cha-ling. In 1882 they were
removed to Nagasaki, Japan, where their num-
bers were gradually increased by the arrival of
other students, who came from Korea in groups
of twos and threes. In 1883 this band of students
was sent to Penang in the Straits Settlements,
where they remained until 1891 or ’92, when,
on account of sickness, they returned to Yong-
san, their number being then twenty-four. In
the meantime in Pu-ung-kol, a small Catholic vil-
lage near Won-ju, in Kang-won-to, a Latin school
had been opened in 1885. This was removed to
Yong-san in 1888, where the large brick seminary
building was erected which opened its doors in
1891. There are at present in charge of the theo-
logical seminary, Fathers Rault and Bret; and
under them are one Korean sub-deacon and a
Korean teacher of Chinese. The present number
of students is twenty-three. Their average age
is nineteen, ranging from fourteen to thirty-two
years. The studies of the seminary are grouped in
three consecutive courses, these courses being in
Latin, philosophy and theology; but the students
are divided into four classes. New students are
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 185

admitted to the school every four years, who enter
upon the studies of the Latin course. These new
students are presently divided into two divisions,
the brighter students forming an advanced class
with a four-years’ course, while the others pursue
a course of seven years in the same studies.
Graduates from the Latin course take a course of
one year in philosophy. Then they study theology
for three years or until they can pass the required
examinations that are held semi-annually. In the
Latin course, in addition to the study of Latin,
there are taught arithmetic, geography, history,
natural philosophy and music. In the philosophi-
cal course there is the study of metaphysics, logic,
ethics and theodicy. The studies in the theological
course consist of dogmatics, moral theology, study
of the Bible, and training in the ritual of the
church. Throughout the entire seminary course
the Chinese classics are studied daily. The object
of the school is to train suitable young men to
enter the orders of the priesthood.

The girls’ school of the Presbyterian Mission
(north) came into being with a group of little girls
Mrs. Bunker gathered about her in 1888. Mrs.
Gifford, at that time Miss M. E. Hayden, arrived
in the late fall of the same year, and at once took
them under her care. She wassucceeded in 1890
by Miss S. A. Doty, who, with the exception of
one year, has remained the superintendent of the
school ever since. She was joined in 1892 by
Misses E. Strong and V. C. Arbuckle, who, two
186 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

years later, left the school; the former on account
of ill-health, and the latter in order to take up
the work of nursing in the government hospital.
The location of the girls’ school was formerly in
the foreign settlement, but the fall of 1895 saw
them domiciled in their new home at Yon-mot-kol
(‘‘Lotos pond district’’), two miles away from the
former site, on the eastern side of the city.
With a plant of buildings far better suited to the
needs of the institution, the outlook for the school
is bright. A girls’ school in Korea is something
more than a school. It is an evangelistic center
which attracts to it Korean women from the region
round about. So, connected with the school, isa
chapel where women are daily met for religious
teaching and a dispensary, visited periodically by
Dr. Whiting. Among the girls themselves
a Christian Endeavor Society exists. The
number of pupils consists of twenty-eight board-
ers and one day scholar. The average age of the
_ girls is twelve, ranging from eight to seventéen.
As for the teaching force, Miss Doty is in charge,
with Miss K. C. Wambold, newly arrived, pre-
paring herself to joininthe work. The assistants
are two Koreanwomen. Thentwice a week Miss
Strong drills them in kindergarten work. Also
twice a week Mrs. Gifford has the older girls in
Old Testament historical studies. Now a word or
two on the studies taught. At first the little girls
were set to singing the Chinese characters; but
this was presently given up and now all the
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 187

instruction is conveyed through the medium of
the Unmun. In addition to the studies mentioned
above, the girls are taught the reading and writ-
ing of Unmun, arithmetic, geography and study
of various Gospels and religious books printed in
the Unmun. Perhaps the most interesting fea-
ture is that the little girls are given a systematic
and thorough training in all the work pertaining
to a Korean household. The writer has seen
specimens of their needle-work, more especially in
the line of Korean embroidery, which were excel-
lently done. The aims of the school are to first lead
them to become Christians—not only so, but active
Christians, well grounded in the faith, and with a
good mental training, that they may be made self-
reliant, ready to cope with the situation in which
they find themselves placed, whatever it may be.

Passing now to schools for youth connected
with the Presbyterian Mission, the first to
be established was the medical school opened by
Dr. Allen in the fall of 1885, with a proper amount
of appliances, including a skeleton that has been
frightening people ever since its arrival in the
country. The school was located at the govern-
ment hospital. The medical instruction was
imparted through the medium of the, English;
and assisting in the school were Doctors Heron and
Underwood. On the departure of Dr. Allen to
America, in 1887, the nature of the institution was
changed to that of a school for the teaching of Eng-
lish, and so continued for the space of two years.
188 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

The present ‘‘Yasu Kyo Hak-tang’’ (‘‘Jesus
Doctrine School’’), located in Chong-tong, the
foreign settlement, was instituted by Dr. Under-
wood in the spring of 1886, in the form of an
orphanage, modeled on the plan of those well-
known institutions in England. The instruction
was in English, Chinese and Unmun. In 1890,
when Dr. Underwood returned temporarily to
America, the plan of the institution was materially
changed under the superintendence of Mr. Mof-
fett. You may or you may not be aware that there
are two excellent sides to the question of the
advisability of teaching English in mission schools.
Without going into the merits of the question,
suffice it to say that from that time all the teach-
ing in the school has been through the medium of
the Chinese and Unmun. The nature of the
school also was changed from an orphanage toa
day and boarding school for boys. In 1893 the
charge of the school passed into the hands of the
present superintendent, Rev. F. S. Miller. The
number of the pupils is fifty-five, with a daily
average of forty. Eight are fed and clothed by
the school, but partially support themselves by
manual labor. The average age is thirteen, rang-
ing from nine to seventeen years. The regular
teaching force consists of Mr. Miller, with one
Korean teacher and two assistants. On various
days in the week supplementary teaching is sup-
plied by Mrs. Miller, Mr. Bell and Dr. Vinton.
Let us glance at the course of study. There are
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 189

the reading and writing of the Chinese and
Unmun. There is a limited study of the Chinese
classics, followed by a study of the Bible and
Christian books in the Chinese. In Unmun a
number of Christian books are studied, physical
and political geography, arithmetic, physiology,
history of the Christian Church, and training in
singing. Drill in marching is given by a mem-
ber of the U. S. legation guard. Some of the
lads who are fed and clothed contribute to their
support by sawing lumber; others assist in the
government hospital and the dispensaries; still
others do janitor work. It is worthy of mention
that the lads at the hospital are being given a
medical training by Dr. Avison. The aim of the
school is to furnish a strongly Christian general
education. Some of the boys are very aggressive
little Christian workers, selling Christian books to
men on the streets and telling them about Jesus.
I noticed one day a group of men standing beside
the street listening quietly and with evident
respect. The center of the group was a school
boy with a roll of books under his arm, telling
them in his imperfect way what it was to become
a Christian. The plan is to make the school in
Seoul supplement Christian primary schools in
the country and out-stations, developing it into
anormal and high school,* to which the gradu-

 

* At the annual meeting of 1897, it was decided to tem-
porarily close the Presbyterian boys’ school and release Mr.
Miller to do evangelistic work in the Whang-hai province,
where the pressure is so great.
igo EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

ates of the primary schools may be sent; it should
also be mentioned that at the house of Rev. S.
F. Moore, of the Presbyterian Mission, is a pri-
mary Christian school where some twenty boys are
under instruction. F

The Presbyterian Mission has also in mid-winter
a month’s or six weeks’ training class for reli-
gious workers, chiefly from the country.

Let us now turn to the M. E. school known by
the poetical name given it by his majesty—the
‘‘Ewa Hak-tang”’ or ‘‘Pear-flower School.” This
school for girls was organized in June, 1886, by
Mrs. M. F. Scranton, and was moved into its
commodious quarters on the hill in the foreign
settlement in November of the same year. Mrs.
Scranton tells of the prejudice she had to over-
come in those early days; for people were afraid
to put their children into the school, because they
thought they would never see them again. When
Mrs. Scranton took her furlough, in 1891, the
school passed under the care of Miss L. C. Roth-
weiler, who had been with her since 1887. Later
arrivals at the school were Mrs. G. H. Jones (née
Miss Bengel) in 1891, Misses J. O. Paine and L.
E. Frey, and Mrs. Dr. Follwell (formerly Miss
M. W. Harris), in 1893. The teaching force con-
sists of Miss Paine, who has been in charge since
1893, and associated with her, Miss Frey. The
Korean assistants are one woman and three pupil
teachers. Certain days in the week also Mrs.
Bunker teaches.them fine sewing and embroidery,
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 10%

and Mrs. Hulbert trains them in vocal music.
The pupils number forty-seven boarders and three
day-scholars. The average age is twelve years,
with ages ranging between eight and seventeen
years. English and Unmun are the media through
‘which knowledge is imparted. Elementary West-
ern branches are taught in English; certain West-
ern studies and religious literature are studied in
Unmun. English is optional and is taught to per-
haps one third of the girls. The domestic econ-
omy of the school is interesting. In addition
to the training in sewing and embroidery,
native, and foreign, mentioned above, the clothes
of all are made and cared for by the older
girls. Then the school is divided into eight
groups according to their rooms, each under a
leader and sub-leader, who turn-about , two weeks
at a time, clean rooms and schoolrooms and
assist in the culinary department. The leader in
each case is made responsible for all that goes on
in the room. ‘The capacity of the school building
was already too small. In the fall it was planned
to open a Chinese department; and instrumental
music would be taught in the future to a few.
The aim of the school is to give a thorough Chris- —
tian education and to make them better Korean
women.

Let us turn now to another institution of the
Methodist Mission, the ‘‘Pai Chai College,’’ so
named by his majesty in 1887, the meaning of
the title being ‘‘Hall for the rearing of useful
192 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

men.’”’ With the exception of one year, Rev. Mr.
Appenzeller has been in charge from the time of
its institution in 1886. There have been on the
teaching force at various times in the past Revs.
G. H. Jones, F. Ohlinger, and W. A. Noble. A
fine brick building was erected in 1887, in the for-
eign settlement, at a cost of $4,000. In March,
1895, the Educational Department of the Korean
Government expressed the desire to place a num-
ber of pupils in the institution; and an agreement
was entered into whereby pupils up to a limit of
200 could be sent to the school by the govern-
ment. It was stipulated that not only their
tuition, but also the salaries of certain tutors, in
the ratio of one tutor to every fifty pupils sent,
should be paid from the national treasury. The
present teaching force consists of Mr. Appenzeller
as principal; in charge of academic department
Mr. Bunker; and of Korean assistants three tutors
in English, and three in Chinese. Dr. Philip
Jaisohn also delivers lectures to the school once a
week. The institution is divided as follows: into
a Chinese, an English, and a theological depart-
ment. As tothe number of students, there are
106 in the English and 60 in the Chinese depart-
ment. In the theological department, under the
charge of Mr. Appenzeller, there were six students
in attendance at the last session. The average
age of the pupils in the Chinese department is
twelve years; inthe English department, eighteen
years. The studies taught in the English depart-
EDUCATION IN THE CAPITAL 193

ment are reading, grammar, composition, spelling,
history, arithmetic, and the elements of chemis-
try and natural philosophy. In the Chinese depart-
ment there are taught the Chinese classics ad
infinitum, Sheffield’s Universal History, also in the
Unmun certain religious works. The attendance
at chapel is compulsory. An Epworth League
exists in the school. The pupils are drilled
by a member of the American legation guard and
have come out in a neat school uniform of white
duck cloth, trimmed with red and blue stripes.
The aim to establish an industrial department has
been kept in mind from the outset. Some time
since the attempt was made to open a depart-
ment for the manufacture of brush pens and straw
sandals, The superintendent once explained to
the writer the result of the experiment. He said
that he had remarked that men who bought the
pens his scholars made never came back for any
more. With Oriental politeness they explained to
him that the pens were excellent, only they would
not write. He thought it must have been some-
thing the same way with the shoes. At all events
it was not long before his shoe and pen factory
went into bankruptcy. However, later efforts
were more successful. It is said that the idea of
founding the ‘‘Tri-lingual Press’’ by the M. E. Mis-
sion, originated largely from the desire to devise
employment for students who were being gratui-
tously fed. Impecunious students now earn their
living in a variety of ways. Students are em-
194 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

ployed as personal teachers, to do scribal work and
to care for the rooms. The ‘‘Korean Repository”
is printed, with one exception, entirely by boys
from the school. Foreign binding has been done
by students; and as for Korean binding, in the
bindery in the basement of the school, established
the previous fall, twenty boys find employment.
As evidence of their efficiency it may be
stated that from December to June, 1896, over
50,000 volumes have been bound by them. The
aim of the institution is education per se—a
liberal education.

Two Christian primary schools for boys are
also conducted by the M. E. Mission, one at San-
tong and one immediately inside the East Gate.

A writer in the ‘Korean Repository’ has
expressed the opinion that of all the things Korea
greatly needs at the present moment, a true edu-
cation of heart and mind is what she needs the
most; and in the foregoing pages some idea may
have been formed of the forces which, combined,
have been seeking to supply that need.
CHAPTER XIV

BUILDING OF THE WEST GATE CHURCH

It is a widely-recognized principle among the
missionary workers in foreign lands, and among
all the mission board secretaries, that the ideal
toward which, so far and so fast as it is practica-
ble they shall aim to conduct their work, is a
condition of affairs in which the native church
becomes rooted in the soil of the local country.
One phase which has in recent years received
much attention has been the effort to make the
native churches self-supporting in their finances.
Two things have rendered this difficult. One is
the fact that in some countries the work has been
started with the other policy, the churches being
built and the salaries of the native ministers
being paid, wholly or in large part, with foreign
funds; and, having begun on this plan, the effort
to shift the financial burden to native shoulders
has been resisted by the native congregations.
But a still more serious difficulty has been the
great comparative and actual poverty of the
church members, few of whom come from the
classes that possess means.

In Korea, the youngest of mission countries,
we are making an honest attempt in the direc-

195
196 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

tion of self-support. The ministers’ pay has not
become a practical question, because as yet we
have ordained none. In the matter of church
building, however, we are able to make a report
of progress. Allow me tospeak of certain church-
building operations that came under my own
observation; and to properly tell the story I shall
need to mention briefly some of the earlier history
of the church. The first Presbyterian Church in
Seoul was organized by Rev. Dr. Underwood,
and from the time of his temporary return to
America, on account of the health of Mrs. Under-
wood, the superintendence of the church work
fell to various others of us clerical men in con-
junction with Mr. Saw, the evangelist. The
meetings of the church were held in an “L”
shaped building upon Dr. Underwood’s com-
pound in the foreign settlement. In those early
days the regular church attendance was not large,
and probably a majority of those present were
those attached to us in some manner—as teach-
ers, servants, or school children. The first efforts
to raise money among the church attendants came
from themselves, when, following the Korean cus-
tom, they organized among themselves an associa-
tion for the loaning of money, with the view to
mutual help at the times of weddings or funer-
als, which are so costly for Koreans. As we
thought such an organization was best conducted
as a private enterprise, we took no ecclesiastical
notice of it. Later we organized a church collec-
BUILDING OF THE CHURCH 197

tions committee, composed of two Koreans and
one foreigner. As they slipped off their shoes
outside and rattled the Korean cash, bulky in
amount and small in value, into the soap box by
the door, they slightly disturbed the meeting, but
in the interest of education in church-giving we
were quite willing to be disturbed. As the years
passed by our church attendance grew, and in
1895 Mrs. Gifford, who was at that time in charge
of the work among the women of the church,
complained that the space on the women’s side of
the curtain would no longer hold the female con-
gregation, and she urged that a new church be
built. The members of the Northern and South-
ern Presbyterian missions took up the plan, and
a committee consisting of Dr. Underwood and
Mrs. Gifford was appointed to secure pledges and
build the church with foreign funds, as it hardly
seemed possible that much financial help could be
expected from our Korean brethren. Ground had
been bought not far from the foreign settlement,
on a wide street just inside the West Gate of the
city, and the buildings on it had been removed,
when news came to us that the Korean Chris-
tians at Chang-yen, a country district perhaps one
hundred miles northwest of Seoul, had built a
church that had cost them forty yen and fully
that amount of labor, under the inspiration of the
lamented Rev. W. J. McKenzie, a strong believer
in native self-support, then living in their midst.
Courage was therefore given us to try what a
198 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

couple of the Southern brethren had previously
advocated—to put the burden of the erection of
the church upon the shoulders of the Korean
Christians. I happened at that time to be the
pastor of the Chong Dong church, and I con-
ducted a mid-week prayer-meeting for men every
Wednesday noon. On one particular Wednesday
it was arranged that at the close of the meeting a
business meeting of the church should be held.
Dr. Underwood was called down to the sarang,
and I, partly as pastor and partly representing
Mrs. Gifford, joined with him in conducting the
meeting. I can see the picture now. The slid-
ing doors which divided the sarang into sections
had been taken out. We sat at one end. The
Korean men formed a long double line, as they
sat cross-legged along the sides of the room.
What interesting work they made in following our
parliamentary rules in the conduct of the meet-
ing! The plan that they should undertake the
erection of the church building seemed to impress
them favorably. They cheerfully elected, with
the few parliamentary stumbles above mentioned,
a Korean committee, consisting of Deacons Hong
and Ye, who were to act jointly with the commit-
tee of foreigners. Dr. Underwood and I, think-
ing that we had accomplished all that could be
done for some time, were about to close the meet-
ing, when Deacon Ye deliberately made the
remark that the building operations had better
begin right away. My own mind at once reverted
BUILDING OF THE CHURCH 199

to the great Catholic cathedral, over in the city,
since completed, whose unfinished brick walls had
stretched towards the sky ever since my arrival in
the country, and I pictured a similar fate for the
building whose construction it was proposed to
begin with only a few cash in the treasury. Dr.
Underwood and one Korean voiced our sentiment
when they urged that the money first be raised.
But no, Mr. Ye thought they had better begin at
once, and what was more remarkable, the rest of
the men in the room quite agreed with him. And
so it was voted.

Dr. Underwood was called to the country about
that time; so the burden of seeking to carry
.through the plan came upon the Korean commit-
tee and myself. Deacon Hong, also my helper,
being gifted with mechanical ability, was put in
charge of the construction; while Deacon Ye and
I undertook to raise subscriptions. We canvassed
every member of the church, then the members
of the two or three little churches that had
recently swarmed into other parts of the city,
then a couple of Christian officials whom we knew.
The same was done among the women of the
church. But to carry the plan through it was
absolutely necessary that the Korean men in the
church should contribute work. But this was
hard for many of them, as they considered them-
selves to belong to the gentleman class, and
thought they would lower themselves should they
labor with their hands. So, by way of example,
z0o0 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

I put on my old clothes and worked three after-
noons at various forms of coolie work. One day
it was shoveling dirt in grading the church site.
A Korean shovel, you know, consists of an iron-
shod wooden spade, with a handle six feet long.
Into its wooden sides are bored holes, and two
long straw ropes are inserted. Then three or
more men take hold of the two ropes and the
shovel handle, and while the man at the handle
guides the operations, they vigorously heave the
dirt. Another day the work was the braiding of
straw ropes. The third day we pounded broken
tiles and stones into the holes into which the
foundation stones to support the wooden pillars
were to be inserted. This was done with a
boulder to which were attached a dozen straw
tropes. Men and boys took hold of the ropes and
straightened out asin tossing with a blanket; at a
signal they relaxed, and the stone fell like a trip-
hammer. Koreans turn this work into a frolic,
by heaving the stone in time to the chanting of a
chorus that is sung responsively to the solo sing-
ing, usually improvised, of one of their number.
The men of the church took hold of the work in a
very gratifying manner, as did the small boys in
the school, who, after school hours, helped in all
ways possible to them—for instance, scouring the
streets of the city for broken tiles and stones.
When skilled labor was required, Mr. Hong called
in a carpenter and the men worked under his
instructions. I believe it became necessary to
BUILDING OF THE CHURCH 201

pass around the subscription paper a second
time.

A very curious thing occurred. One morning
early a visitor called upon me. He proved to be
a tall, elderly man, who occasionally attended
our meetings. His errand was to tell me that a
friend of his, living in the country, had heard
from him about the building of the church, and
wished to make a contribution. An hour later
Mr. Hong came in. He told me that timbers for
the frame work of the church were coming that
day, and that they needed just twenty yen to
complete payment for them. I then told him of
the man who was coming at 10 o’clock that morn-
ing to contribute just exactly that amount,
twenty yen, tothe work. Promptly at the hour
named Mr. Shin, a perfect stranger to us all, put
in his appearance. Two or three of the Korean
brethren and myself met him in a room adjoining
the church site. Twenty silver yen were taken
from a roll and deposited in our midst on the
floor. He had brought along also a couple of
packages of tobacco as a present to the commit-
tee in charge of the work; but they decided, I
believe, to sell it and turn the proceeds into the
building fund. We talked with him a long time,
instructing him in the way of salvation, and before
we parted he knelt and prayed for the forgiveness
of his sins. I gave him some Christian books, |
and he went to his home in the country. I have
since seen him once or twice, and I could never
20oz2 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

discover that there had been any ulterior motive
in what he did. I could never explain this singu-
lar event in any other way than that God had, in
answer to prayer, put it into this stranger’s heart
to bring us just the amount that was needed. In
this connection let me remark that many of us
missionaries have learned to count upon prayer as
just as practical a factor in our work as the prep-
aration of our financial estimates.

Mrs. Gifford and I, being transferred to the
eastern side of the city to look after religious
work in the neighborhood of the girls’ school, Dr.
Underwood resumed the pastorate of the Chong
Dong church; and the latter half of the church
building operations was done under his superin-
tendence, in co-operation with the Korean com-
mittee. With the coming of the rainy season
appeared the scourge of Asiatic cholera; and
building operations being suspended on account of
the rains, Dr. Underwood took the entire force of
Christian men over to help him, Mrs. Underwood
and Dr. Wells in their improvised cholera hos-
pital, at the ‘‘Shelter,’’ outside the city. It wasa
time when a majority of the missionaries in Seoul
devoted themselves to the care of the sick and
the dying. As the result of their untiring exertions
and the skillful use of salol, the Doctors Under-
wood and Wells saved 66 percent. of the patients
in their hospital, The Korean Christians, at the
end of their noble and perilous service, were
generously remembered by the government; and
BUILDING OF THE CHURCH 203

a large part of what was given them they turned
into the church-building fund. But still there
was not enough money. Then those church
members who were employed by missionaries as
teachers, in addition to all they had previously
given secured from their employers an advance
of one month’s wages, which they were to repay
in installments, and this they turned into the
treasury. I know of some of the extra efforts
and the sacrifices that Korean Christians made in
order to raise this building fund. Women did
sewing in order to raise money. One Christian,
outside of working hours, painted a sign-board for
a chapel, and pawned his spectacles. One woman,
working asa servant ina foreign family at the
rate of four yen, or two of our dollars, a month,
for several months contributed fully a fifth of
her wages. Her employer expostulated with her
for giving so much; but the woman said that
it was a pleasure for her to give all that she could
for the work. The church, when built, was a
rectangular, tiled-roof building, in thorough
Korean style, with a row of pillars and a partition
running up through the middle of the church as
far as the pulpit platform, to separate the men
and the women. It holds between two and three
hundred people. Here are held the preaching
services, Sabbath School and mid-week prayer
meeting. The contributions of the Korean Chris-
tians amounted to fully five hundred yen, and,
since the yen is worth about fifty cents of our
204 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

money, equal approximately to $250. Probably
an equal value in labor was freely given. This
is better understood when you remember that $4
of our money per month is a high average for
the wages earned by the men of the church.
The total contributions of this church for the
year 1897 have amounted to $203.55 (yen). And
that they are as earnest on the spiritual side of
the work as they are in looking after its material
interests is seen in the fact that they have them-
selves been teaching eighteen catechumen classes
in the city and suburbs, and have been conduct-
ing regular, active work in eight or more vil-
lages within a radius of thirty miles from
Seoul. This surely is a good record for one
church.

Other circles of believers have done well also.
The Chang-yen church, referred to above, have
since doubled the size of their church building.
In the regions about Pyeng-yang twenty-three
small churches have been built or adapted from
existing buildings; also in the southern part of
the Whang Hai province and in the vicinity of
Seoul eleven more have been prepared, all
with money and work contributed by the Kor-
eans. Perhaps a dozen Christian primary schools
are supported in part from native funds; and the
Koreans are paying the salaries of certain of their
number, who go about the country adjacent to
Pyeng-yang and Seoul as colporteurs. The rec-
ord of the Methodist brethren is also good; for
BUILDING OF THE CHURCH 205

their Korean Christians in Seoul also raised seven
hundred yen, which they combined with foreign
funds in the erection of a large brick church,
with a foreign exterior, located in the middle of
the foreign settlement. But what has touched
me most, revealing as it does in the Korean
believers the depth of that Christ-like compassion
for need and suffering outside of its own circle,
and that looks for no advantage in return—the
same motive which impels you, the givers to for-
eign missions, to send the beneficent Gospel to
them, and a motive for which you will look in
vain in a purely heathen community—was their
conduct at the time of the late famine in India.
The ‘‘Repository’’ and ‘‘Independent’’ make men-
tion of it. The ‘‘Christian News,’’ published in
Seoul, at the close of a graphic account of the ter-
rible famine, intimated the willingness of the editor
to forward any contributions sent to him. The
response from the Korean Christians was hearty
and immediate. The Presbyterian churches of
Seoul raised some sixty odd yen. The Metho-
dists and Presbyterians of Pyeng-yang sent fully
as much more. The Christians of Chang-yen
also took up acollection, to which the ‘‘Reposi-
tory” for May alluded as follows: ‘‘Some of the
women, not having ready cash with them, took
the rings of their fingers, as no less than eight
solid silver rings were among the contributions
sent to Seoul. These rings were sold and netted
twenty-seven yen and fifty sen—making a total
206 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

of over eighty-four yen contributed by this con-
gregation to the starving ones in India.”’

In the face of facts like the foregoing, I sup-
pose the critics of missions will continue to shake
their heads and moan, ‘‘Foreign missions are a
failure. The native converts are all ‘rice Chris-
tians,’’’
CHAPTER XV

A REMARKABLE FORWARD MOVEMENT

The name of the city of Pyeng-yang, under
half a dozen forms of spelling, is now world-
famous as the scene of one of the most decisive
battles in the recent Chino-Japanese war. It is
by far the most important city in the north of
Korea, located perhaps 180 miles to the north of
Seoul, upon the Tatong River, and said to have
had in the days before the war a population of
100,000 people. Its history carries us back to the
times of Samuel the judge, when the Chinese
statesman Keja made the site of the city of Pyeng-
yang his home, and became the founder of Korean
civilization. One gets a curious composite
impression of ancient and modern history in vis-
iting the grave of Keja, situated just north of the
city. Upon the top of a knoll the semi-globular
grave, with a low, tiled stone wall half surround-
.ing it, and stone images and a sacrificial slab
in front of the mound, remind one of a far
antiquity; while the wooden shrine below the
knoll, with its walls scarred and perforated in
every direction by the bullets of the battle which
raged over the site, is very much in evidence of the

recent past. During the making of the nation
207
208 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

the capital of the country had a wandering life,
the most ancient of whose sites, however, was the
city of Pyeng-yang. In later days and until the
present, the city has been the provincial capital
of Pyeng An Do, the most northwestern of the
eight provinces into which the country, until
recently, has been divided. Again, the city is by
far the most important commercial center in the
north of Korea. The people are handsome,
spirited, energetic, with much force and strength
of character, which makes them a power either
for good or evil. Indeed, in the past, Pyeng-yang
had the reputation for being the wickedest city in
the country; one evidence of which was the fact
that the city was famed the whole country over
for the number of its fair but frail dancing-girls,
whose numbers, it is said, have not infrequently
been recruited from the more important and
influential families of the city. How cruelly the
poor city has been punished, however, is evi-
denced by the great swaths of vacant-house
sites here and there visible within the ancient
walls, where the homes of the people were razed
to the ground by the war. Yangbans, or the
aristocratic-leisure class, are rare in the city and
region. Roman Catholicism has made nothing
like the impression in this region that it has in the
southern provinces.

There are a number of view points from which
it would be interesting to consider quite at length
the city of Pyeng-yang; but sufficient, I think,
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 209

has been mentioned to indicate the importance of
the city as a strategic point from which to do
religious work. Asarather wonderful religious
movement has sprung up in this northern section
of the country, it will be well to confine our
attention to the opening of missionary work in
Pyeng-yang and its vicinity.

In the early days of the Presbyterian Mission
(North), Dr. Underwood, on one or two occasions,
accompanied by Mr. Appenzeller of the Metho-
dist Mission, made six different visits to the city,
while on his way to and from Eui-Ju, in the
northwestern corner of the country, where he
had work started. On each of these occasions
he spent some time in preaching and selling
Christian books; and at one time he had a couple
of colporteurs located in Pyeng-yang. I may
further mention that in those days Mr. Appen-
zeller also had a helper living in the city. Upon
the departure of Dr. Underwood to America, in
the spring of 1891, the work in the north fell to
the portion of Rev. S. A. Moffett. Fora couple
of years Mr. Moffett made spring and fall trips
to Eui-Ju, spending some time on each occasion
in Pyeng-yang. By 1892 the Presbyterian Mis-
sion had reached the conclusion that Pyeng-yang,
in preference to Eui-Ju, was the center where
eventually they hoped to open their station for the
work in the north; and accordingly in the sum-
mer of that year Mr. Moffett located his helper,
Mr. Ham Sok Chin, there to do preliminary
a10 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

work. Mr. Moffett’s policy was to win his way
in gradually.

In February, 1893, property was secured for
Mr. Han, with rooms that could be occupied
upon their visits by Mr. Moffett and Rev. Graham
Lee, who had joined him as a colleague in this
northern work. The Methodist Mission, in the
person of W. J. Hall, M.D., also bought build-
ings at the same time. While the people of the
city showed a friendly disposition, the city magis-
trate and his underlings disliked the presence of
foreigners, and consequently stirred up trouble.
Messrs. Moffett and Lee thought it wise to give
way before the storm, returned the property
bought for their helper outside the city, and
quietly withdrew. But it was not long before
their helper, Mr. Han, had again bought prop-
erty, this time inside the East Gate, near the
present site of the Pyeng-yang church, where, in
the fall of the same year, Mr. Moffett quietly
returned to spend the winter, this time being
quite unmolested by the officials of the city.

The winter was spent by Mr. Moffett and his
helper in daily work, which could hardly be called
preaching so much as familiar conversation with
individuals or groups of men wherever they met
them, whether in Mr. Moffett's room, where most
of the work was done, or upon the streets in and
around the city. And the especial themes to
which the conversation was ever brought around
were what the Bible has to say on sin and the
A FORWARD MOVEMENT ari

personal need of salvation through Christ. And
it is worthy of note, as one explanation of the
wide spread of Christian work throughout that
northern region, from Pyeng-yang as a center,
that of those who became Christians, many,
whether from precept or example, quickly adopted
the spirit and methods of Mr. Moffett and ‘his
helper in the constant, aggressive ‘‘hand-picking”’
of souls. Let it be observed that the Holy Spirit
ever continues to bless the faithful, persistent,
personal presentation of the teachings of the Bible
upon these great themes of sin and salvation
through the blood of Christ. There was also a
wide sale and distribution of Scriptures and other
Christian books. This time, in short, was a
period of widespread seed-sowing. Nor was this
all. Mr. Moffett now commenced the systematic
and careful instruction of a group of ‘‘catechu-
mens,’’ or applicants for baptism, that began to
gather about them as the result of their evangel-
istic work. In January, 1894, Mr. Moffett had
the joy of receiving into the church by baptism
seven men, and at the same time formally enroll-
ing as catechumens two others, one of whom, a
.Mr. Han, from Anak, in Whang Hai Do, the
next province to the south, I shall have occasion
to mention again in referring to the spread of
the work into the northern part of that province.
These men began at once to tell others what
they had learned of the Gospel truth. The last
of April Mr. Moffett returned to Seoul.

4
212 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

About the 7th of May, 1894, Dr. Hall, of
the Methodist Mission, with his wife, his little
boy and his household goods, arrived in Pyeng-
yang, and moved into the house he had previously
purchased. The second night after their arrival
began the persecution ever memorable in the
history of the workin Pyeng-yang. Seven of the
native Christians were holding their regular
prayer-meeting in the evening in the room of
Mr. Moffett’s helper, Mr. Han, when into their
midst strode a number of official servants of the
magistracy and proceeded to beat them, one of
the servants using a ragged piece of cord-wood.
They then produced the red cords used for the
tying of criminals, and pinioned their arms
behind their backs. They stated that the order
had come from the king to kill them all for being
Christians. Then they started with the party for
the city prison, taking with them from the house
next door the man who had sold to Mr. Han the
house then occupied by him. On the way all were re-
leased with the exception of Mr. Han and the former
owner of the house, whom they threw into prison.

The same night some one brought word to Dr.
Hall that about one o’clock a. Mm. someone had
knocked on the window of his helper, Mr. Kim
Chang Sikie, saying that the Doctor had called him.
Mr. Kim promptly opened the door, when he was
seized, beaten and carried off to prison. The
owner of the house bought by Dr. Hall was also
seized and imprisoned the same night, and the
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 213

following forenoon one of the Methodist Chris-
tians was also arrested. Early that morning Dr.
Hall went to see the governor, but was told that
he was sleeping. Going to the prison, he found
the men with their feet stretched apart and
fastened in stocks, in such a manner as to cause
them intense pain. The doctor telegraphed the
situation to Seoul. During the day the prisoners
were beaten and money or promissory notes to
considerable amounts were extorted from them
by the brutal jailers. A paper came from the
officials ordering Dr. Hall out of his house.
Later in the day the doctor again sought an
interview with the governor; but he refused to
see him or grant him any protection. In the
course of the afternoon came telegrams stating
that the English and American legations (Dr.
Hall was a British subject) would require the
Foreign Office to order the release of the men and
the granting of protection to Dr. Hall and his
family. Then a runner from the magistracy
appeared, demanding the paper brought by him
in the morning from the officials ordering Dr.
Hall out of his house. They saw they had gone
too far in assuming jurisdiction over a foreigner.
The Doctor refused to give it. The runner
stamped about in a rage, and finally seized Dr.
Hall’s servant by the top-knot, beat him, kicked
him, and ordered him taken to prison. The
Doctor then let him have the paper, and the man
went away satisfied.
214 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

Night settled down over that harassed mission-
ary home and the group of tortured, bleeding
Christians in the filthy prison, and what earnest
prayers must have risen to God that night for
deliverance. In the course of the evening crash
came a great stone through the paper window of
Mrs. Hall’s room. But we are told that God so
put his peace into those missionary hearts that
they had refreshing sleep. In the morning the
water-carriers were forbidden to bring water to
Dr. Hall’s house. A lying report came to them
through an official servant that a telegram had
come from Seoul stating that the American and
English ministers had seen the king, and as the
result of the interview, among other things, the
order had been sent to the governor to behead all
the Christians. Dr. Hall, on visiting the prison,
found that this much was true—the prisoners had
been removed to the death cell, where criminals
soon to be executed are confined. All day they
were threatened, beaten and tortured in the
stocks. They tried to make Kim, Han and the
other Christians renounce their Christianity; but
with the faith of the martyrs they steadily refused.
Then to Dr. Hall came the rumor that the gov-
ernor, who, on account of his being a member of
the powerful Min family, to which the queen
belonged, did not fear punishment, was about
to telegraph to the capital that these men were
all Tong Haks, or members of the rebel party
then rising throughout the country.
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 215

In Seoul all this news, as it was telegraphed,
was very disquieting to the missionary com-
munity; and at five o’clock that afternoon a
special prayer-meeting of Methodist and Presby-
terian missionaries met at the house of the Rev.
Dr. Underwood. In the meantime energetic
action was being taken by the legations. The
British Consul-General, Mr. C. T. Gardiner, now
in China, a diplomat of thirty years’ experience
in that land, strongly backed by the former able
American minister, Mr. J. M. B. Sill, brought
heavy and repeated pressure to bear upon
the Foreign Office, demanding the immediate
release of the employes and Christians, and
the missionaries had barely gotten home to
their suppers from that prayer-meeting when the
glad news came over the wires that the prisoners
had been released. The next morning at day-
break Mr. Moffett and Mr. McKenzie, with chairs
and extra coolies, started for Pyeng-yang, to
travel night and day. But to take up the thread
of the story in Pyeng-yang. The night previous,
while the men were still in prison, word came
summoning them before the acting-magistrate of
the city. Apparently it meant that they were
to be executed. They were brought before him
and made to kneel in his presence. He ordered
them to renounce their connection with the for-
eigners, and to revile the name of God. The two
house owners, who made no pretensions to Chris-
tianity, gladly complied; and one Christian, who
216 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

had not known the truth long, abjured his faith
under the terrible ordeal. But the two Christian
helpers, with the faith of a Paul and a Stephen,
refused to do so. Instead of being led without
the city to their execution, however, after being
beaten they were released. As they started to
go an official servant, who had been one of the
prime movers in the persecution, set up the cry,
“They are all Christians, and no matter if they
are killed.’” Thereupon the whole pack of
yamen-runners started after them with stones.
Two of the Christians escaped down side streets
and were not pursued; but Mr. Kim, Dr. Hall’s
helper, was stoned all the way home, and stag-
gering into the presence of Dr. Hall, sank to the
floor nearly lifeless. Mention should be made
here of a school-teacher by the name of Ye, who
was at that time living in a village ten miles out
from the city. He was a Christian and a friend of
Mr. Han, the helper. While the persecution was
at its height word came to him of what was
transpiring in Pyeng-yang, and he immediately
declared his intention of going into the city. His
friends protested that should he do so he was
liable to be killed. ‘‘I cannot help it,’’ was his
reply. ‘Mr. Han is my friend, andI am going
in tohelp him. If Mr. Han dies and the need
should exist, I will die with him.’’ But by the
time he reached the city the prisoners had been
released. In Soon-an, some eighteen miles
north of the city, there previously had been a
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 217

class of twenty inquirers. When news of the
troubles in progress reached there, all but three
men renounced what little faith they had, and these
three hurried into the city to learn the truth
regarding the disquieting rumors. As these
men afterward did a notable work, mention will
be made of them further on.

After the release of the prisoners things becaine
quiet. Messrs. Moffett and McKenzie presently
appeared upon the scene and entered upon an
investigation of the affair. The authorities were
temporarily cowed. Dr. Scranton, of the Metho-
dist Mission, arrived later, and Dr. Hall and fam-
ily, under the instructions of the British Consul-
General, withdrew with him to Seoul. Mr.
McKenzie also took his departure. Few people
outside of the Christians were coming to see Mr.
Moffett and his helper.

It was drawing into the heat of June and the
yamen-runners were still muttering their threats,
when, partly to get a change from the stifling
city, partly to look after country work, and partly
to see what would be done by the authorities in
his absence, Mr. Moffett paid a visit of a week to
Anak, in the next province south, where he stayed
holding meetings at the house of Mr. Han, men-
tioned above as a promising catechumen. After
his return the people about the magistracy, find-
ing that no further notice had been taken in Seoul
of their maltreatment of people in the employ of
the foreigners, became emboldened, and threat-
218 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

ened openly to kill all the Christians in Pyeng-
yang as soon as Mr. Moffett left, and sometimes
going so far as to threaten the life of Mr. Moffett
himself.

About this time came the opening of the
Chino-Japanese war. The news of the occupation
of the capital and the taking of the palace by
Japanese troops created a perfect panic among
the citizensof Pyeng-yang. The Christians alone
were calm and went boldly about the city urging
men to put their trust in God. People kept com-
ing to Mr. Moffett for the news. Women
thronged the quarters of helper Han’s family as a
refuge from their fears. It was so quiet and
peaceful there, they said, while outside all was
wailing and confusion. This peaceful frame of
mind of the Christians made a considerable
impression upon the people of Pyeng-yang. It
was now becoming really dangerous for Mr.
Moffett to be away from the capital; but so long
as the threat of death hung over the Christians,
he felt it wrong to leave them. The American
minister now brought such pressure to bear upon
the Foreign Office that the authorities in Pyeng-
yang were compelled to refund all the money
that had been extorted from the prisoners and
all the expénditures necessitated in telegraphing
and in special trips to and from the capital,
amounting to 500 yen (about $250), which
amount was paid by Governor Min; and a form
of punishment was inflicted upon the three men
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 219

most guilty, or their substitutes. This broke the
back of the opposition, and no more threats
were heard. News of this vindication of the
tights of the missionary and his employes spread
all over the country, and, if the expression may
be allowed, stock in his religion showed an
upward tendency.

Soon after this the Chinese army poured into
Pyeng-yang. The position of Mr. Moffett had
become precarious. Although he did not know
it, only a short time previous Rev. James Wylie,
a Scotch Presbyterian missionary, had been mur-
dered in Manchuria by these same troops. He
remained close in his room. His servant brought
in word that Japanese heads were impaled
above the city gates, and all with their hair cut,
even to Korean Buddhist priests, were being
beheaded on suspicion of being spies. Presently
the Korean Christians held a prayer-meeting,
and at its close adjourned in a body to urge Mr.
Moffett to leave the city, as his presence there
was now no longer necessary to their safety.
That night he called in the Chinese telegraph
operator, who knew him, and through his media-
tion procured an interview with the Chinese gen-
eral, as the result of which the general gave
orders to put up a notice granting protection to
the ‘‘Christian chapel,’’ and detailed a squad of
soldiers who escorted him on his way to the capital
and incidentally seized a city farther south, from
which point the party proceeded unattended.
220 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

Mr. Moffett’s first contact with the Japanese
lines nearly proved disastrous. His party was
crossing a stone bridge in the dusk of the even-
ing, when suddenly out of a neighboring house
rushed four Japanese soldiers, who in an instant
of time, with a click, click, click, click, brought
to bear their guns upon the party. Needless to
say, the company stopped short, in danger of
being shot for Chinese scouts. The faces of the
guard wore a look of astonishment, over the
barrels of their guns, as the tall form of Mr.
Moffett, crowned by a tall, white, pith hat,
loomed up out of the chair in which he had been
riding. A parley was held. Their officer was
called, and then his interpreter, who happily
proved a Japanese druggist from Pyeng-yang,
who knew Mr. Moffett. As the result of his
mediation a pass was procured which enabled
the party to proceed through the lines in safety
to Seoul.

His remaining thus with the Christians in
Pyeng-yang until the last moment, while person-
ally dangerous to himself, was no doubt in the
end a help to the work, inasmuch as it gave Mr.
Moffett a powerful hold upon the affections of
those for whom he had ventured so much.
From the time of the occupation of Pyeng-yang
by the Chinese troops a large portion of its citi-
zens fled to the country, among others the fam-
ilies of Christians. These few Christians, in
preparing their loads to go by boat, or making up
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 221

the packs they were to sling upon their backs,
invariably put in a parcel of Christian books.
Then, in the villages to which they went, they
followed the method they had seen pursued in
Pyeng-yang, and preached the Gospel to every
man they met, with the result that in those vil-
lages a number of people were converted, and
still more became inquirers. Nor was this all.
The three men mentioned above as inquirers in
Soon-an, eighteen miles north from the city,
went out preaching the truth in the villages all
around their home; and a Mr. Ye, of Pyeng-
yang, who died subsequently of cholera, having
taken refuge, with his family, from the alarms of
war with Mr. Han, of Anak, in the Whang Hai
province, seventy miles from the city, he, in com-
pany with Mr. Han, went all through the region
round about proclaiming the message of the
Gospel. From the work done at this time in
these two regions to the north and south of
Pyeng-yang began the movements which have
added so many believers and inquirers in the
villages of those respective districts.

Fifteen days after the battle, Messrs. Hall, Lee,
and Moffett returned to Pyeng-yang. A pitiful
sight met their eyes. Large portions of the city
had been laid waste; on the plains round about
and here and there through the city were strewn
the dead bodies of Chinese soldiers and horses.
Mr. Moffett’s quarters they found had been looted
by Japanese, while Dr. Hall’s property and goods
222 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

were intact, having been protected first by the
Chinese and latterly by a Christian Japanese
doctor, whom they found in possession. The
Japanese troops still occupied the city. The news
of the arrival of the missionaries spread through
the surrounding country in an incredibly short
space of time, and large numbers of men with
nothing but a little bundle slung over their backs
came flocking into the city, invariably paying first
a visit to the missionaries and inquiring, ‘‘Is it
safe?’’ and ‘‘What isthe news?’’ before returning
to their ruined homes. For some time thereafter
the movements of the missionaries were watched
with breathless interest, and the day they
returned to Seoul a large number of men packed
up their little bundles and left the city, too, so
timorous were they and such confidence did they
place in the judgment of the foreigner. The
missionaries were astonished at the heartiness of
the welcome they received upon this visit from
Koreans of every class. Even men who had
before opposed them now showed a friendly spirit.
Previously, the attitude of mind of the people of
the city had been rather distant and suspicious;
but now, in the light of the sufferings they had
experienced during the war, their eyes were
opened to recognize the disinterestedness of the
missionaries. Universally they seemed to have
come to believe that they were the friends of the
people, persons in whom they could put their
trust, and from that day to this the missionaries
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 223

have experienced nothing but the utmost cordi-
ality in Pyeng-yang upon the part of the Koreans.
The change of attitude was especially noticeable
in the inquirers who from this time kept coming
to them in ever-increasing numbers. It is, per-
haps, needless to say that the fullest advantage of
their opportunities was taken by both the mission-
aries and the Christians in pressing home the
truths of the Gospel. During their visit in Sep-
tember, 1894, Messrs. Lee and Moffett repur-
chased the property which gave them such an
excellent location and ample building space out-
side the city gate, and which, as mentioned above,
they had returned to the original owners a year
before. After a stay of one. month in the
pestilential city, the party returned to Seoul, and
it was on the Japanese transport steamer going
back that the noble-hearted Dr. Hall developed
typhus fever, from the effects of which he passed
to his reward a few days after his arrival in the
capital.

Messrs. Lee and Moffett returned in January,
1895. This marked the permanent settlement of
the station in Pyeng-yang, although it was not
until May of the following year that, suitable
quarters having been prepared, they were joined
by Mr. Lee’s family, when women’s work received
an impetus through the coming of Mrs. Lee, and
meetings for women were begun. Mr. Moffett
and Mr. Lee now settled down to their regular
work, which consisted of daily informal conver-
224 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

sation with inquirers, instruction of Christians,
the holding of regular services, wide circulation of
Christian literature and frequent journeys to the
surrounding country in following up the work of
native Christians and gathering in the fruits from
their seed-sowing. From that time until the pres-
ent the spread of the spirit of inquiry through the ©
city and in ever-widening circles throughout the
surrounding country has been something remark-
able; and one of the mostinteresting features has
been that each new convert has been seized with
the spirit of the movement, and from the time of
his conversion has become an active agent in
the spread of the truth among his neighbors and
friends. And so the work has grown until the
mission workers in the station find their strength
taxed to the utmost for the proper guidance of
the movement and the suitable instruction of the
inquirers. To be sure, the station has grown
somewhat; but the reinforcements are mostly
new missionaries, handicapped by their lack of
knowledge of the language. Since the summer
of 1895 they have had for a colleague J. Hunter
Wells, M.D., who, in his commodious hospital,
by his medical skill, has added material strength
to the work. Last year they were joined by Rev.
N. C. Whitmore, and the bride of Dr. Wells;
and this year by Rev. W. B. Hunt and Miss
Margaret Best, and the pressure of the work was
felt to be so great that this fall Rev. and Mrs.
W. M. Baird were detached from other work and
 

 

 

A Dispray oF Brass Ware.
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 225

sent to Pyeng-yang. All this looks to the open-
ing of new stations in closer contact with the out-
lying work. Nor have our brethren of the
northern Methodist Mission been idle; for their
mission station in Pyeng-yang has been reopened,
with Dr. and Mrs. E. D. Follwell and Rev. and
Mrs. W. A. Noble in charge.

In was in December, 1895, that Messrs. Lee and
Moffett were holding their winter class of a month
for the training of their leaders from the country
villages, and of the helpers of the missionaries,
and were taking them through a couple of the
books of the New Testament, seeking at the
same time to ground them in the faith and to
stimulate their zeal for Christian work. Mrs.
Isabella Bird Bishop, the distinguished traveler
and authoress, happened at that time to visit
Pyeng-yang, and what she saw of the winter
class and of the Christian work in general in the
city made a deep impression upon her. She has
thus expressed herself with her gifted pen:

‘‘T am bound to say that the needs of Korea, or
rather the openings in Korea, have come to occupy
a very outstanding placeinmythoughts. * * *
The Pyeng-yang work which I saw last winter,
and which is still going on in much the same way,
is the most impressive mission work I have seen
in any part of the world. It shows that the
Spirit of God still moves on the earth, and that
the old truths of sin, judgment to come, of the
divine justice and love, of the atonement, and of
226 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

the necessity for holiness, have the same power as
in the apostolic days to transform the lives of
men. What I saw and heard there has greatly
strengthened my own faith.

‘‘Now a door is opened wide in Korea, how wide
only those can know who are on the spot. Very
many are prepared to renounce devil-worship and
to worship the true God if only they are taught
how, and large numbers more who have heard
and received the Gospel are earnestly craving to
be instructed in its rules of holy living. * * *

“T dread indescribably that unless many men
‘ and women experienced in winning souls are sent
speedily, the door which the church declines to
enter will close again, and that the last state of
Korea will be worse that the first.’’

Since the visit of Mrs. Bishop to Pyeng-yang, in
the winter of 1895, when what she saw impressed
her so much, the work of the church in that city
has had a still more remarkable development.
The membership within that time has increased
many fold, and the church building has had to be
enlarged four times to meet the needs of the
growing congregation, which is now so large that
the preaching services for the men and women
on the Sabbath have had to be held separately
of late, simply because the edifice will not con-
tain them all at one and the same time. Secre-
tary Robert E. Speer and Mr. W. H. Grant,
making a tour of our Presbyterian missions, in
the summer of 1897 visited Pyeng-yang, and care-
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 227

fully studied the work. Mr. Speer has thus
expressed the impressions that were made upon
him: “‘After making all the necessary qualifica-
tions to cover the superficial, imitative and secular
Christians, and those who have come to Christ
without knowing what it means and who will drop
away when they learn; after making these reser-
vations, I am ready to say that I met in few
places in the world Christians so eager and intel-
ligent, with such fresh spiritual experiences, with
such simple, practical faith, with minds so alert
and quickened by the Gospel. Our stay at
Pyeng-yang was very much like a week or fort-
night at a summer Bible school in America.
Every day, helpers unpaid by the mission came in
from the country to tell of fresh progress and
new congregations. There were no requests for
financial help. * * * The day we left Pyeng-
yang, thirty or forty of the native Christians
went with us through the rain many miles into
the country. We besought them to return home.
‘No,’ they said, ‘you have come many thousands
of miles to see us; itis a small matter that we
should walk a few miles with you.’ And so they
went with us until we came to a little thatched
church by the roadside, where, in the drizzling
rain they held a farewell meeting for us, thank-
ing God for our visit, and commending us to His
love and care. It made us feel like Paul and his
company, when the elders of Ephesus came down
to take farewell of them at Miletus; and when a
228 EVERY-DAY LIFE IN KOREA

turn of the road hid the little company from our
sight, we went on our way, thanking God, and I
frankly say with new faith and courage. It did
me more good than all the books on apologetics I
had ever read.”

To understand the growth and present status of
the work in the north of Korea, a few statistics
may be in order. In the’ spring of 1894, in
Pyeng-yang and its vicinity there were 10 bap-
tized members of the church, with perhaps 40
catechumens. To the annual meeting of the
Presbyterian Mission in October, 1895, there
were reported an addition of 21 baptized mem-
bers and 180 catechumens, with two church build-
ings, one wholly and one partially provided by
the Korean Christians, also two more churches
under way. In October, 1896, for the same
region there were reported to the mission an addi-
tion of 136 baptized members and 480 catechu-
mens,

Including the work in the extreme north,
centering in Eui-Ju, the enrollment of the whole
station in the same year, 1896, was 207 members
and 503 catechumens, with 22 preaching-places
and contributions from the native congregations
amounting to 325 yen. Seven more church build-
ings were provided wholly or with slight help by
the Korean Christians. In September, 1897,
reports from the station showed further advance
as follows: There were 377 members and 1,723
catechumens, also 69 preaching-places, and a
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 229

partial report of money contributed amounting to
517 yen. Also 14 newchurch buildings had been
provided, through the efforts of the Korean
Christians. One word of Scripture explains this
whole movement:

‘““‘Tue GOSPEL IS THE POWER OF GOD UNTO SAL-
VATION.”’
 

 

 

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9681 ‘VAUON AOA SOILSILVLS

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APPENDIX B.

STATISTICS OF THE NORTHERN PRESBYTERIAN Mission, 1897.

 

  

    

Meeting Places .......... waubbseedeencocvasseceuseedavensveccoonuuacss Tor
Communicants

Catechumens sccsssecacvsisasseswessecancsenc’

Added by Confession (11 MOMths)....cccccscssssseresereene « 347
Sabbath: Schools: :,: :ccscs..cssvsstedcsancvencssecevescovsseteveswiees 18
Sabbath-school Scholars..............s008 aiscteasaiscucanenstesade 1139
Church Buildings..............ssccceees : 38
Separate School Buildings 7
Students in Special Bible Training ....... Wi Baeeadriwecnsanees 101
Boys in Boarding Schools .........ssssssssccccecceneeeeeerereeees 35
Girls in Boarding Schools ...........ccsssscsesereneceseecesveones 38
Day Schools .......sccscscsccssresccosssssecesecenensnssecseovasssenes 15
Boys in Day Schools........0:.+0 141
Girls in Day Schools...........ccscccscecssseeenssereeeeeee “iiseteus 25
Christian Pupils in Schools...........ccccesseseecessceeeesseeeeees 33
United During Eleven Months .......cesceccsss sresneeeseeeees 16

Total Native Contributions (partial report)...$971.12 (yen)
KOREA _ MISSION

 

 

 

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Mission stations are underlined thus Fu-san.

John Bartholomew & Co.Edin®