Corea or Cho-sen: The Land of the Morning Calm

by Arnold Henry Savage Landor

When the children get to a certain age, the males are parted from the females, and the first are constantly in the company of their father, while the latter, as we have seen, share the dull fate of the mother. The first thing a male child is taught is love, deep respect, and obedience to his governor, and in this he is, as a general rule, a paragon. If the father be ill, he will lie by his side day and night, nursing him, and giving him courage; and if any misfortune befalls him, the duty of a good son is to share it with his genitor.

I cannot quite make up my mind on the point, whether the Corean child has a good time of it or not, and whether he is properly cared for, as there is much to be said on both sides of the question. Taken as a whole, the children of the noblemen and rich people, though strictly and even severely brought up, cannot, I think, be said to be ill-used; but the brats of the poorer people are often beaten in a merciless manner. I remember seeing a father furiously spanking a son of about five years old, who was pitifully crying so as to break one's heart, and as if that were not punishment enough, he shook him violently by his little pig-tail, and pounded him on the head with his knuckles, a performance that would have killed, or, at all events, rendered insensible nine children out of ten of other nationalities; but no, to my utter astonishment, the moment the father, tired of beating, retired into the house, the little mite, wiping his streaming tears with the backs of his hands and pulling himself together, quietly sat down on the ground, and began playing with the sand, as if nothing had happened!

"Well!" I remember saying, as I stood perplexed, looking at the little hero, "if that does not beat all I have seen before, I do not know what can!"

Yes, for hard heads and for insensibility to pain, I cannot recommend to you better persons than the Coreans. There are times when the Cho-sen children actually seem to enjoy themselves, as, for instance, during the month of January, when it is the fashion to have out their whipping- and spinning-tops. With his huge padded trousers and short coat, just like a miniature man, except that the colour of his coat is red or green, and with one or two tresses hanging down his back, tied with long silk ribbons, every child you come across is at this season furnished with a big top and a whip, with which he amuses himself and his friends, slashing away from morn till night, until, tired out by the exertion, he goes to rest his weary little bones by his father's side, still hanging on to the toys that have made his day so happy. The Corean child is quiet by nature. He is really a little man from the moment he is born, so far as his demeanour is concerned. He is seldom rowdy, even when in the company of other children, and, if anything, rather shy and reserved. He amuses himself with his toys in a quiet way, and his chief pleasure is to do what his father does. In this he is constantly encouraged, and those who can afford it, provide their boys with toys, representing on a smaller scale the objects, &c., used in the everyday life of the man. He has a miniature bow-and-arrow, a wooden sword, and a somewhat realistic straw puppet, which he delights in beheading whenever he is tired of playing with it and shooting his arrows into it. He possesses a fishing-rod, and on windy days relishes a good run with the large paper pinwheels, a world-wide familiar toy in infantile circles. Naturally, too, musical instruments, as well as the national means of conveyance, such as palanquins and wheel-chairs, have not escaped the notice of the Corean toy-manufacturer, who, it must be said, imitates the different objects to perfection in every detail, while, of course, considerably reducing them in size. Other various articles of common use in the household are also often reproduced in a similar way. The games that the children seem to enjoy most, however, seem to be the out-of-door ones. Kite-flying is probably the most important. Indeed, it is almost reduced to an art in Corea, and not only do small children go in for it extensively, but even the men take an active part in this infantile amusement. The Corean kite differs from its Japanese or Chinese relative in that it is very small, being only about twenty inches long by fourteen wide. Besides, instead of being flat on the frame, the Cho-senese kite is arched, which feature is said by the natives to give it a much greater flying capacity.

The string is wound round a framework of wood attached to a stick, which latter revolves in the hands or is stopped at the will of the person who flies the kite. It is generally during the north winds that the kites are flown, and it is indeed a curious thing during those days to watch regular competitions, fights, and battles being fought among these paper air-farers. As soon as the kite is raised from the ground and started in the orthodox way, the tactics used by the Corean boy in his favourite amusement become most interesting. He lets it go until it has well caught the wind, and by sudden jerks given to it in a funny way, knocking and clapping the thread-wheel on his left knee, he manages to send the kite up to a very great height. Hundreds and hundreds of yards of string are often used. When high enough, sailing gaily along among hundreds of other kites, it is made to begin warlike tactics and attack its nearest neighbour. Here it is that the Corean shows his greatest skill in manoeuvring his flying machine, for by pulls, jerks, and twists of the string he manages to make his kite rise or descend, attack its enemy or retreat according to his wish. Then as you break your neck watching them, you see the two small squares of paper, hundreds of yards above you in mid-air, getting closer to one another, advancing and retreating, as would two men fighting a duel; when, suddenly, one takes the offensive, charges the other, and by a clever coup de main makes a rent in it, thus dooming it to a precipitous fall to the earth. Thus victorious, it proudly proceeds to attack its next neighbour, which is immediately made to respond to the challenge; but this time kite number three, whose leader has profited by the end of kite number two, keeps lower down than his adversary, gets round him in a clever way, and when the strings meet, by a hard pull cuts that of kite number one, which, swinging slowly in the air, and now and then revolving round itself in the air, gently descends far away from its owner, and is quickly appropriated by some poor kiteless child, who perhaps has been in company with many fellows, watching and pining for hours for such a happy moment. Pieces of broken glass are often tied to the string at intervals, being of great help in cutting the adversary's cord.

The people of Cho-sen seem to take as much interest in kite-flying as the Britisher does in racing. The well-grown people bet freely on the combatants, and it is not an uncommon thing for the excitement to reach such a pitch that the battle begun in mid-air terminates with sound blows in less aërial regions.

It is quaint to see rows of children with their little red jackets, standing on the high walls of the city, spending hours in this favourite amusement. They have barely room to stand upon, as the wall is hardly more than a couple of feet wide, and it was always a surprise to me that, amid the constant jerking and pulling the young folks were never precipitated from their point of vantage to the foot, which in many places would be as much as thirty feet in height. I have watched them for hours in the expectation of seeing one of them have an accident, but unfortunately for me they never did!

The little girls under ten years of age are exceedingly pretty. With the hair carefully parted in the middle and tied into two tresses at the back, a little green jacket and a long red skirt, they do indeed look quaint. You should see how well-behaved and sedate, too, they are. It is impossible to make one smile. You may give her sweets, a toy, or anything you please, but all you will hear is the faintest "Kamapso," and away she runs to show the gift to her mother. She will seldom go into fits of merriment in your presence, but, of course, her delight cannot fail to be at times depicted in her beaming eyes. She is more unfortunate than her brother in the number of toys she receives, and though her treatment is not so very severe, she begins from her earliest years a life of drudgery and work. As soon as her little brain begins to command her tiny fingers, she is compelled to struggle with a needle and thread. When her fragile arms get stronger she helps her mother in beating the clothes, and from the moment she rises to the time she goes to rest, ideas as to her future servility, humility, and faithfulness to man are duly impressed upon her.

As in Japan, so in Corea, a custom prevails of adopting male children by parents who have none of their own. The children adopted are generally those of poorer friends or of relations who chance to have some to spare. When the adoption is accomplished, with all the rules required by the law of the country, and with the approval of the king, the adopted son takes the place of a real son, and has a complete right of succession to his adoptive father in precedence to the adoptive mother and all the other relations of the defunct.

The Corean boy begins to study when very young. If the son of a rich man, he has a private tutor; if not, he goes to school, where he is taught the letters of the Corean alphabet, and Chinese characters. All official correspondence in Corea is done with Chinese characters, and a lifetime, as everybody knows, is hardly enough to master these. The native Corean alphabet, however, is a most practical and easy way of representing sounds, and I am not sure but that in many ways it is even more practical than ours. I will give the reader the opportunity of judging of this for himself by-and-by (see chapter xiii.). Arithmetic is also pounded into the little heads of the Cho-sen mites by means of the sliding-bead addition-board, the "chon-pan," a wonderful contrivance, also much used in Japan and China, and which is of invaluable help in quick calculation. The children are made to work very hard, and I was always told by the natives that they are generally very diligent and studious. A father was telling me one day that his son was most assiduous, but that he (the father) every now and then administered to him a good flogging.