Phyöng-yang has always been famous for the beauty and accomplishments of its gesang, singing and dancing girls, resembling in many respects the geishas of Japan, but correctly speaking they mostly belong to the Government, and are supported by the Korean Treasury. At the time of my two first sojourns in Seoul, about seventy of them were attached to the Royal Palace. They were under the control of the same Government department as that with which the official musicians are connected.
As a poor man gifted with many sons, for whom he cannot provide, sometimes presents one to the government as a eunuch, so he may give a girl to be a gesang. The gesang are trained from a very early age in such accomplishments as other Korean women lack, and which will ensure their attractiveness, such as playing on various musical instruments, singing, dancing, reading, reciting, writing, and fancy work. As their destiny is to make time pass agreeably for men of the upper classes, this amount of education is essential, though a Korean does not care how blank and undeveloped the mind of his wife is. The gesang are always elegantly dressed, as they were when they came to see me, even through the mud of the Phyöng-yang streets, and as they have not known seclusion, their manners with both sexes have a graceful ease. Their dancing, like that of most Oriental countries, consists chiefly of posturing, and is said by those foreigners who have seen it, to be perfectly free from impropriety.
Dr. Allen, Secretary to the U.S. Legation at Seoul, in a paper in the Korean Repository for 1886, describes among the dances which specially interest foreigners at the entertainments at the Royal Palace one known as the “Lotus Dance.” In this, he writes, “A tub is brought in containing a large lotus flower just ready to burst open. Two imitation storks then come in, each one being a man very cleverly disguised. These birds flap their wings, snap their beaks, and dance round in admiration of the beautiful bud which they evidently intend to pluck as soon as they have enjoyed it sufficiently in anticipation. Their movements all this time are very graceful, and they come closer and closer to the flower keeping time to the soft music. At last the proper time arrives, the flower is plucked, when, as the pink petals fall back, out steps a little gesang to the evident amazement of the birds, and to the intense delight of the younger spectators.”
The Sword and Dragon dances are also extremely popular, and on great occasions the performance is never complete without “Throwing the Ball,” which consists in a series of graceful arm movements before a painted arch, after which the gesang march in procession before the King, and the successful dancers receive presents.
Though the most beautiful and attractive gesang come from Phyöng-yang, they are found throughout the country. From the King down to the lowest official who can afford the luxury, the presence of gesang is regarded at every entertainment as indispensable to the enjoyment of the guests. They appear at official dinners at the Foreign Office, and at the palace are the chief entertainers, and sing and dance at the many parties which are given by Koreans at the picnic resorts near Seoul, and though attached to the prefectures, and various other departments, may be hired by gentlemen to give fascination to their feasts.
Their training and non-secluded position place them, however, outside of the reputable classes, and though in Japan geishas often become the wives of nobles and even of statesmen, no Korean man would dream of raising a gesang to such a position.
Dr. Allen, who has had special opportunities of becoming acquainted with the inner social life of Korea, says that they are the source of much heartburning to the legal but neglected wife, who in no case is the wife of her husband’s choice, and that Korean folklore abounds with stories of discord arising in families from attachments to gesang, and of ardent and prolonged devotion on the part of young noblemen to these girls, who they are prevented from marrying by rigid custom. There is a Korean tale called The Swallow King’s Rewards in which a man is visited with the “ten plagues of Korea,” for maltreating a wounded swallow, and in it gesang are represented along with mu-tang as “among the ten curses of the land.”
Dr. Allen, to whom I owe this fact writes, “Doubtless they are so considered by many a lonely wife, as well as by the fathers who mourn to see their sons wasting their substance in riotous living, as they doubtless did themselves when they were young.”
The house in which I had quarters was much resorted to by merchants for whom my host transacted brokerage business, and entertainments were the order of the day. Mr. Yi was invited to dinner daily, and on the last evening entertained all who had invited him. Such meals cost per head as much as a dinner at the St. James’s restaurant! Noise seems essential to these gatherings. The men shout at the top of their voices.
There is an enormous amount of visiting and entertaining among men in the cities. Some public men keep open house, giving their servants as much as $60 a day for the entertainment of guests. Men who are in easy circumstances go continually from one house to another to kill time. They never talk politics, it is too dangerous, but retail the latest gossip of the court or city and the witticisms attributed to great men, and tell, hear, and invent news. The front rooms of houses in which the men live are open freely to all comers. In some circles, though it is said to a far less extent than formerly, men meet and talk over what we should call “questions of literary criticism,” compare poetic compositions, the ability to compose a page of poetry being the grand result of Korean education, and discuss the meaning of celebrated works—all literature being in Chinese.