^ :5V5 ^ ' The Women of Korea Rev. Paul S. Crane “He being dead yet speaketh” “His works do follow him” PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OP FOREIGN MISSIONS NASHVILLE. TENNESSEE EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT The Women of Korea Rev. Paul 5. Craue Mokpo, Chosen, Asia, September 10, 1918. My dear friends and co-laborers: You cannot imagine how I appreciate your writing me again and assuring me anew of your sympathy and supporting prayers. Noth- ing succeeds, out here at least, like having a strong prayer band co-operating with us in the home land. I fear we are forgotten all too often these days when other calls are so loud and so much more attractive to the majority than ours. I am going to give you some information this evening about the women of Korea, their estate and their hope; and I hope you can use some of it in a program on Korea during this year. The Women of Korea The women of Korea — what a vast subject I have before me and what clouds immediately begin to gather! For the estate of the women here is the most overshadowing you can imagine. In any country the estate of the woman who is preordained to be born to suf- fering of body, mind and heart, the woman who has not placed her anchor on the Rock of Ages, is certainly pitiable; but here we see her condition emphasized by the growth of sin until it has gone to seed and her face has no smile, nor her heart either. Let us go into a home and watch her from her girlhood, or from her infancy and see who of us covet her condi- tion, or, on the other hand, come to her rescue. A Korean Girl Baby A man with many sons is that much more blessed than a man with none out in Korea. [ 2 ] If the baby is a boy, there is great rejoicing, but if it is a girl, she is not only an unwelcome guest from the day of her birth, but a slave to those over her all her days. The father hides his face in shame and sorrow when it is pronounced that a girl has been born to him: and he doesn’t mind telling anyone that he is an unhappy man on account of it. The day was when he could hill her if he chose. At times now, he may take her to the front door of a rich man's house and leave her there until the man or woman of the house heai-.s the cry and comes out and takes the little one in, not knowing the father or mother of his charge. Into such an atmosphere the little treasure comes, unappreciated and unwelcome. This is but the beginning of sorrows. Not long ago I heard of the sickness of the girl baby of the man who works our gardens and does other outside work. I inquired into it and found that his five months old baby girl was simply starving to death owing to the departure of its mother to Japan in search of “a job which paid big wages, and little work to do." After she got there they would not let her come back and the father and grandfather of the little baby (though both professing Christians have had the old heathen ideas ground into them so long that they haven’t changed yet), w-ere just leaving the baby to starve. We got after them about it and they only replied: "Why, it's only a girl; who ever heard of taking care of a girl baby?” fc^o we put the child in the hospital and paid for its food and it is now well and strong and growing in spite of the neglect of the parents. Child Life She will probably find her way into our school, for girls here have unusual advantages. But suppose she were a little heathen girl. Then let us follow her in our mind to the day of her death. Day by day as an infant she [ 3 ] might be seen running the streets unclothed whether summer or winter. As soon as she can walk she is big enough to go almost any- where unattended. She plays with anything she wants, screams at the top of her voice if she can’t have anything she might w'ant, eats anything in the way of food that she might find in the little roads, gets imposed upon and teased by older children, at times is injured, w'ith none to help or sympathize unless an especially tender-hearted playmate happens to come by. Thrown with boys and girls from just any kind of family wdiose homes might be in the same neighborhood, she might be ex- pected to learn all kinds of talk and acquire all kinds of habits which any parents in Amer- ica would consider themselves disgraced to have their children learn. Things we consider sacred and private are the topics of daily con- versation among them, w’hile their language and habit of thought is trained to be vulgar from the home outwards, and we are con- stantly shocked at how^ lightly and jestingly the most highly cultured Korean speaks of those things which we consider a shame to speak of in public. Even the adult Christians have not so far growm entirely above these modes of thought and speech. If we could take this little girl right here and place her in one of our girls’ schools, the remainder of my description would be entirely dilTerest. I must leave her for the present out in the heathen world, untouched by the gospel story and under the absolute control of all the members of her family who happen to be older than she, w'hether that one be parent or brother or sister. A Korean Girl’s Marriage Day by day her amusements are exceedingly limited and the only plan w’hich is being ar- ranged for her by those over her is an early marriage to someone with money and influence. [ 4 ] Let us say she has reached the age of twelve. The parents have taught her nothing of how to read and given her no advantages of education whatsoever; and now she must have a husband found for her. It may be two years or more before the youthful mate which satisfies the parents is found. Then his parents are con- sulted and the whole arrangement is made without any regard whatever to the wishes of the child. Needless to say, she is to be “mar- ried off.’ her real parents releasing every further claim to her. Go back to them if she is unhappy? She cannot, unless her father-in- law wants to get rid of her. The day of her wedding has come, and the thoughts that naturally occupy the mind of a young lady about to take such a step are verily intensified to the fullest power of the imagination to conceive a gloomy future. What is there of joy before her? God only knows: and she doesn’t know God. The only object of her worship from her infancy has been her ancestors, in the yearly sacrifice be- fore their graves, and her only source of com- fort is — I do not know. I cannot conceive of any. Can you? But the great day having ar- rived, there is no escape, so she must submit. To disobey here would be as serious as that of a girl in Syen Chun just a month ago. Her mother was a professing Christian, but hadn’t thrown out this heathen idea yet; and she wanted her daughter to marry a heathen man of wealth. She, being a Christian, refused to do so. She was only about fourteen years of age. Having constantly refused, her mother determined to force her to. So she tied her to a post and had her beaten severely, then left to think the matter over. A playmate, hear- ing her cries, ran to her relief ard secretly cut the cords, freeing her companion. The frightened girl ran into the underbrush nearby and finally escaped to the Christian girls’ school, where she was in hiding from her par- [ 6 ] ents when last I heard. This particular girl may escape the rod and have a happier future; but the little heathen of whom I am writing knows nothing of any such refuge. The Wedding Day The wedding day is always a day of great feasting and costs more than any other custom in Korea, the funeral feast coming next. All the friends and acquaintances of the family, the beggars and loafers of the streets and any- one else who wishes, come to the feast for food and strong drink and a “good time,” as the men of heathendom around the world see pleasure. After all have gathered, and waited a few hours, a cry comes from without saying that the bridegroom is coming, and all are re joicing, for the feast will now be spread and the hunger of the impatient crowd will be sat- isfied. But alas, it is a false report. After several false reports, it is announced with great shouting that the bridegroom has actual- ly come; but instead of the bridegroom it is a man with a bundle on his back, tied there with fancy ribbons. He brings this in and lays it at the bride’s feet. It is the chest full of tokens from the man she has never seen perhaps, her husband-to-be. You would think she would open it with something of the enthusism of an American bride-elect, but never. She can see nothing, for long ago her eyelids have been pasted shut with pieces of paper glued over them, a sign of modesty. Although her wed- ding day is here she shall not see the man to whom she is to give herself until at least three days after she is married to him, when he is to take her home with him. No, the friends mere- ly open the chest and announce to her the dif- ferent garments her husband-to-be has sent her. and she is not supposed to smile or move a muscle but should stand like a statue, un- moved by the rejoicing of her friends, if she is to be modest. In the box, also, are to be [ 6 ] found a few pieces of charcoal and some pep- pers which have been dried. And what on earth are they for? Why, they are to be hung up on a straw rope across the front gate of their new home, when her first child is born. If the child is a boy, both charcoal and peppers are to be strung up on the rope, but If it Is only a girl, the charcoal is to be strung up as men' tinned. “My, how thoughtful he was to send these,” remarks some of the friends standin^; by. “And what a good grade of charcoal It is,” remarks another; and so goes the con- versation for a while. Then the crowd wait around until some get tired, and would sleep if they had a place. The Ceremony But at last the announcement is made that the bridegroom comes and it is true this time; so the brothers of the bride rush out to meet him and engage with his attendants in a kind of sham battle, saying, “You shan’t go in and tal;e off our lovely sister; we need her too much.” to which he and his friends reply, “We shall take her,” and the latter always conquer, strange to say, for the threats of the bride's family is all a bluff, a mere pretense; and I wonder how disappointed they would be if the groom would turn around and say, “Well, I will not take her.” There would probably be a real fight then. But after the battle is over, in comes the groom and his party. He rides a little Korean mule, and he has on a very pe- culiar hat, that I cannot describe, a strange robe and boots that are unique. These all baffle description, so I hope to be able to show you some real ones when I come home. He comes up to the bride’s father and bow’s very low, and then the bride is brought out and the couple stand at opposite ends of a table which I will now describe in brief. At one end of this table is a rooster and at tbe. other a hen. These are typical of fruitfulness. Also, at both ends are empty beer bottles with green switches of bamboo in them, typical of “the green things of life.’’ If the chickens happen to get loose, as they did on one oc- casion of which I know, two dried fish are put at opposite ends of the table, for there must be some representative of animal life on that table. While they stand there at opposite ends of that table, she, with face covered with huge sleeves made for the purpose, and he in his hideous looking uniform, some attendant brings out a wooden goose, which is the em- blem of fidelity. The groom bows to it three times and then the bride nine times, showing that she consents to be three times as faithful as he. I dare say she will be truer to her j)romise, through fear, if nothing else, than he; though he may bring into his home in after >ears as many wives as he please or as many concubines, she can never have but one hus- band while he lives, unless he casts her off, and then it is most probable that no one will have her. If he makes life too bard for her, she must simply endure it without a murmur; for should she run away, he could pursue her and, catching her, cut her nose off that the world might know that she was disgraced for- ever, since she committed the unpardonable sin of leaving her husband. The “lord-gentle- man” (for that is the Korean word for a man) can do as he pleases, provided he does not incur the displeasure of his father. His habits are none of his wife’s business. The Wedding Journey After the wedding, the groom goes back to his home and waits from three to ten days before returning for his wife, whose face he has not yet seen. When he comes, he brings a chair which is covered like a decorated box, which chair is borne by four men, by means of long poles on each side. She enters this box-like carriage and is carried. Just before she goes. [ 8 ] she IS supposed to cry like her heart would break, indicative of her unwillingness to leave her father’s home; and did she know what she was probably going to, she would probably have no difficulty in performing this task quite well. All the way to her new home, she is to say nothing to her husband or to anyone, any more than she is to see anything, so these same sleeves are covering her face until she gets to her fahter-in-law’s home, where she comes out and bows to him and all the male adults of the home, whose servant she is to be. Then, for the first time, the groom sees the bride which he has brought. Cases have been known where brides have frozen to death in these carriage-chairs in bitter weather, rather than tell her husband she is cold; and such v.’omen are held up as examples of the noblest and most modest and proper wives. One woman is especially respected because she didn’t speak to her husband for two years after her wedding. I suppose this is astonishing to some of our American wives. Two Months of Silence In any case, the .bride is not supposed to speak to her husband for two months. At no time is she to go on the street with him or speak to him should she meet him on the street. If there is a feast or picnic or wedding feast in the neighborhood or far away, he goes and she must stay at home. I know of abso- lutely no amusement or diversion that is given to the old time Korean women of today. The men and boys have a little fun, but if the girls, of from 14 years old up to their death, have any amusement provided for them at all, I have not heard of it. If a gentleman visits her home, she must go out into a cold room while the guest comes into the warm with the men and has a good time. She is not called again unless to do some service or other. [ 9 ] A Baby Girl a “Curse” After months of such slavish existence, she may be “blessed” with a boy baby. If so, all well. Or she may be “cursed” with a girl baby. If so, life is miserable for both; and, unless a boy is born to them later, she is fit tor nothing but to be cast off, if the husband sees fit. The day the child is born. If the mother, who has no attending physician or lielp, lives, she will rise to see the string of charcoal or charcoal and peppers, as the case may be, on the front gate. So she lives and so she dies; and, if she should die before he does, it is most proper for him to marry again in at most a year, but usually after six months. The strangest part about it is that the women all seem to think just as the men do about it, they too do not want a girl baby; and even when they become Christians, it takes generations to get the thought of the curse of the girl baby out of their minds. Our nurse and cook show all kind of partiality to our little boy, while they do not scruple to tell you that boys are lots nicer than girls. If no boys are born to her, God pity her. It is all the better if she has two or ten or a dozen boy babies, but bel- ter if none are girls. Daily Toil. But let us follow her through her routine and closely circumscribed life. Every day is alike, as she knows no Sunday, no rest day and no Christmas or other day of rejoicing for her; so we w’ill describe but one of her miser- able days in her new home. She is the first one who gets up in the morning, if she is of the average home, and starts the fire which warms the room and cooks the breakfast in the way I have already described. We hear her before day breaks pounding in the old stone mortar, the food, which is crushed under many blows of the pestle. Or we hear her threshing out the rice as the wind blows the chaff away; for [ 10 ] they still follow the crude method, used in Palestine centuries before Christ, for separat- ing grain from husk after beating. Then, after the lordly gentlemen have dined, she eats her morsel alone or as her mother-inlaw, whom she also serves, is finishing her feast, she may be allowed to sit down with her. During these days, cold or hot, she is seen at a nearby stream or spring washing the family clothes by placing them on a rock and pounding them until all the water is out and then wetting and pounding them again. There is nothing on her head or feet, though the summer sun beat down with terrific heat or the winter's snow and icy north winds blow the thermometer down below freezing. She then takes the clothes home for ironing, which is done by placing them on smooth rock and beating them very rapidly for a long time. Or she may put some burning charcoals into a skillet and use the bottom of it for a smoothing iron, if the clothes are fine and small, like ribbons. As night draws on she must prepare the third meal of the day, no matter what time of night the men may come in. So, on any night we can see her outside the room feeding the fire under the cooking pot with dried straw or pine tops, as the gentlemen sit within enjoying the heat and rest and smoking their little pipes. It might be cold, but there she is, her sweet, sad face looking down into the burning embers and, perhaps, thinking, or more probably not, but simply dreaming or letting her mind do what it might. What has she to think of? She can’t read or write and she never gets to go to the neighbor’s homes for a friendly visit or a feast or other good time like the men. The wonder to me is that her mind doesn’t dry up. And, I say it with deep feeling, most of them have; and the missionary who seeks an avenue of approach or a point of contact with such a benighted soul has a task that God must do for him, though through him, or rather her; [U] for the lady missionaries are the only ones who dare talk with her. I w'ould give much to be able to unfold to you the pitiful condition of those thousands and millions of minds and hearts of the women of Korea. But I cannot; I can never know them in this world from more than hearsay or testimony of the ladies who have labored among them. Difficulties of Reaching Her With the Gospel Just here, again, suppose a faithful Bible woman comes up and talks with her of the Light and Life and Love of Jesus Christ! The chances are, she will have to explain to her the meaning of all these terms, for she knows nothing of either from experience. Say hope to her, and she is probably bewildered or will laugh in your face at the idea for her ever hav- ing any hope. So a long, hard task and good opportunity for the exemplification of Christ’s patience awaits our Bible woman. She may get the point and long for more light. But when will she ever hear of that Jesus again? The busy Bible woman goes on, little thinking that she has made any more impression on her than on hundreds of others who hear her me.s- sage and do not believe. She cannot get to that home again soon, if, indeed, she ever gets there again. Or, if she returns, she may not have an opportunity to speak to the poor soul. But let us suppose that this poor woman re- ceives the light and finds a way to get to church with a neighboring Christian woman who comes by for her. Should she believe and w’ant to become a Christian, will her hus- band or heathen father-in-law or mother-in-law permit? God only knows. They may forbid her to go to church, little thinking that they are bringing the curse of her blood upon their head. Or they may permit it until the Sab- bath comes, when she refuses to. wash the clothes or do other unnecessary work. Then comes the crisis; it may be a threat and, if she [ 12 ] is determined, a beating or an expulsion from the home for anyone to have who wants her. But the most likely thing is that she, in her weak faith will succumb and do the work. Needless to say, it is harder to reach her later. She must be born ajgain in every spiritual sense of the word, and this time bjarn to endure any kind of pain of body or mind which her lordly rulers may take pleasure in bestowing upon her. Let me ask right here, not what would Jesus do; for this I know quite well, but, what would you do? Hopeless Death I wish I could present her from here on as a child of God, but to finish my story, she re- mains a heathen. Would you say she had heard and had rejected the truth, even though she had heard a sermon or two? Would you call her evangelized? Maybe so, it is far more than the multitudes get. But I wish she might have been placed in one of our Christian schools in her early girlhood instead of being married off so soon. Had she been, her future would have been as different as night and daj'. But it is her lot to live and die a heathen. The mother of children, the slave of her hus- band’s family, is now called to take her de- parture. Without hope or comfort, physical or mental, she tremblingly crosses the bar, with no pilot to guide her through the vast un- known. She has left her husband for sure, but a worse thing than his finding her has come upon her. Her lot would have been hard enough had she been cast out from her hus- band’s presence to wander in a hard world for anyone to claim. Had her husband died and left her a widow, she is disgraced as one whom the spirits despise, and she becomes the tool of any man who passes by, unless, perchance, her life has caused a spark of love to be kindled in the bosom of her “in-laws.” who would then protect. But what is her lot when [ 13 ] cast upon an unknown sea, which is as bound- less as eternity? Whose shall she become now? I leave you to answer the question. Who Is Responsible? But I ask you one more question; Upon whose head rests her blood? Who needs to be delivered from blood-guiltiness? Is it the father-in-law? Well, it is easy to say that. But who bears the burden of his soul’s bond- age? And why had the mother-in-law not come *to the daughter’s aid? Because she, too, was a slave and still is and will be forever, a slave to the customs and fears and supersti- tions of her race, yes; but worse, far worse, a slave to the arch-enemy of the souls of the human race. Whose fault is it? The Bible woman’s or the missionaries? Perhaps so, but it may be otherwise. It is very possble that she is but one of a million in Korea, who see but a spark of light in the midst of a dark night, which vanishes in a moment never to return again. And why does she have no more oppor- tunities, why does not one get her and teach her, as the child she is throughout life, the Way, the Way of life? If you want me to an- swer my own question, it is simply this: The harvest ndeed is plenteous, but the laborers are few.” Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the har- vest, that he send forth more laborers into His harvest.” The missionary and the helper and the Bible woman may work on and on here for a generation or more and not touch all even for a five minutes hearing of the Word. But more laborers can touch more than a few. Mokpo, for instance, is calling for another evangelist, several native helpers and more Bible women. We want more help for the girls’ school in the form of a foreign woman, and more money for support of more girls and for more buildings. Trace her life back from the school to the home, even though it be a heathen home. She has strength of character. [ 14 ] She didn’t even know the meaning of the word before she came into the school. She has faith in a Lord who answers prayers and delivers those in trial too great for them to bear. She leads a Christian life and often her heathen parents are forced to respect her character and even to respect her wishes. Add to this the Christian education of the men who are to make the future husbands and you have a Christian home in the making. Will you have a share in this task? Thank God you have; and pray that He give you more of a part in making the Kingdom of Light and Truth and I>ove in a land where darkness, falsehood and hate, slavery and despair have ruined lives and determined destinies of countless millions of sweet, pitiable girls through many, many gen- erations. The blood of your sister calleth unto thee from the ground. Will you hear her? Will you answer? Praying God’s richest benediction upon you and your work for Him, while the years are rolling by, I am. Yours in Christian fellowship, PAUL S. CRANE. Note: The foregoing letter was sent to me by Rev. Joseph Rennie, of Greenwood, Miss,, and is published in this form that its useful- ness may be enlarged. The letter was written to friends in Mr. Crane’s home church at Carrollton, Mississippi. J, I. A. [ 15 ] service Printing Co., Nashville