Korea

by A. Hamilton

NOT ONE WHIT EUROPEANISED

The man, who did so much to make a success of the Korean Customs has also effected the wonderful repairs of the capital. The new Seoul is scarcely seven years old, but Mr. McLeavy Brown and the Civil Governor, an energetic Korean official, since transferred, began, and concluded within four weeks, the labour of cleansing and reconstructing the slimy and narrow quarters in which so many people lived. To those, who knew the former state of the city, the task must have appeared Gargantuan. Nevertheless, an extraordinary metamorphosis was achieved. Old Seoul, with its festering alleys, its winter accumulations of every species of filth, its plastering mud and penetrating foulness, has almost totally vanished from within the walls of the capital. The streets are magnificent, spacious, clean, admirably made and well drained. The narrow, dirty lanes have been widened; gutters have been covered, and roadways broadened; until, with its trains, its cars, and its lights, its miles of telegraph lines, its Railway Station Hotel, brick houses and glass windows, Seoul is within measurable distance of becoming the highest, most interesting, and cleanest city in the East. It is still not one whit Europeanised, for the picturesqueness of the purely Korean principles and standards of architecture has been religiously maintained, and is to be observed in all future improvements.

The shops still cling to the sides of the drains; the jewellers’ shops hang above one of the main sewers of the city; the cabinet and table-makers occupy both sides of an important thoroughfare, their precious furniture half in and half out of filthy gutters. A Korean cabinet is a thing of great beauty. It is embossed with brass plates and studded with brass nails, very massive, well dovetailed, altogether superior in design and finish. The work of the jewellers is crude and unattractive, although individual pieces may reveal some artistic conception. In the main the ornaments include silver bangles, hairpins and earrings, with a variety of objects suitable for the decoration of the hair. The grain merchants and the vegetable dealers conduct their business in the road. The native merchant loves to encroach upon the public thoroughfares whenever possible. Once off the main streets of the city, the side alleys are completely blocked to traffic because of the predilection of the shopkeepers upon either side of the little passages to push their wares prominently into the roadway. The business of butchering is in Korea the most degraded of all trades. It is beyond even the acceptance and recognition of the most humble orders of the community. The meat shops are unpleasantly near the main drains.

A SIDE ALLEY

There are innumerable palaces in the capital, but as His Majesty very frequently enlarges his properties, there is the prospect of other buildings being adapted to his Imperial use. The precincts of the Palace always afford opportunities for foreigners to become familiar with the features of the many Ministers of State. In their anxiety to advise their sovereign, they wrangle among themselves, or plot and counterplot, and fight for the cards in their own hands, irrespective of the fate which their jealousies may bring down upon their country. At all hours processions of chairs are seen making for the palace, where, having deposited their masters, the retinue of retainers and followers lounge about until the audience is over. Then, with the same silent dignity, the Ministers are hurried away through the crowds of curiously hatted and clothed people who scarcely deign to notice the passing of the august personages.

The officials are elegantly superior in their manner and appearance. The distinction in the costumes of the different classes is evinced perhaps by the difference in their prices. The dress of a noble costs several hundred dollars. It is made from the finest silk lawn which can be woven upon the native looms. It is exceedingly costly, of a very delicate texture, and cream colour. It is ample in its dimensions and sufficiently enveloping to suggest a bath gown. It is held in place by two large amber buttons placed well over upon the right breast. A silken girdle of mauve cord encircles the body below the arm-pits. The costume of any one individual may comprise a succession of these silken coats of cream silk lawn, or white silk lawn, in spotless condition, with an outer garment of blue silk lawn. The movement of a number of these people dressed in similar style is like the rustle of a breeze in a forest of leaves. The dress of the less exalted is no less striking in its unblemished purity. It costs but a few dollars. It is made from grass lawn of varying degrees of texture or of plain stout calico. It is first washed, then pounded with heavy sticks upon stones, and, after being dried, beaten again upon a stock until it has taken a brilliant polish. This is the sole occupation of the women of the lower classes, and through many hours of the day and night the regular and rhythmic beating of these laundry sticks may be heard.