[39] The Seoul Christian News, a paper recently started, gave its readers an account of the Indian famine, with the result that the Christians in the magistracy of Chang-yang raised among themselves $84 for the sufferers in a land they had hardly heard of, some of the women sending their solid silver rings to be turned into cash. In Seoul the native Presbyterian churches gave $60 to the same fund, of which $20 were collected by a new congregation organized entirely by Koreans. I am under the impression that the liberality of the Korean Christians in proportion to their means far exceeds our own.
[40] The American Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE HAIR-CROPPING EDICT
The year 1896 opened for Korea in a gloom as profound as that in which the previous year had closed. There were small insurrections in all quarters, various officials were killed, and some of the rebels threatened to march on the capital. Japanese influence declined, Japanese troops were gradually withdrawn from the posts they had occupied, the engagements of many of the Japanese advisers and controllers in departments expired and were not renewed, some of the reforms instituted by Japan during the period of her ascendency died a natural death, there was a distinctly retrograde movement, and government was disintegrating all over the land.
The general agitation in the country and several of the more serious of the outbreaks had a cause which, while to our thinking it is ludicrous, shows as much as anything else the intense conservatism of pung-kok or custom which prevails among the Koreans. The cause was an attack on the “Top Knot” by a Royal Edict on 30th December, 1895! This set the country aflame! The Koreans, who had borne on the whole quietly the ascendency of a hated power, the murder of their Queen, and the practical imprisonment of their King, found the attack on their hair more than they could stand. The topknot is more to a Korean than the queue is to a Chinese. The queue to the latter may be a sign of subjugation or of loyalty to the Government and that is all, and the small Chinese boy wears it as soon as his hair is long enough to plait.
To the Korean the Top Knot means nationality, antiquity (some say of five centuries, others of 2,000 years), sanctity derived from antiquity, entrance on manhood socially and legally, even though he may be a child in years, the assumption of two names by which in addition to his family name he is afterwards known, and by which he is designated on the ancestral tablets, marriage is intimately bound up with it, as is ancestral worship, and as has been mentioned in the chapter on marriage, a Korean without a Top Knot, even if in middle life, can only be treated as a nameless and irresponsible boy. In a few cases a Korean, to escape from this stage of disrespect, scrapes together enough to pay for the Top Knot ceremonies and the mang-kun, hat, and long coat, which are their sequence, though he is too poor to support a family, but the Top Knot in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is only assumed on marriage, without which the wearer has the title of “a half man” bestowed on him!
The ceremonies at the “Investiture of the Top Knot” deserve a brief notice as among the most important of the singularities of the nation. When the father and family have decided that a boy shall be “invested,” which in nearly all cases is on the verge of his marriage, men’s clothes, the hat, mang-kun, etc., are provided to the limits of the family purse, and the astrologers are consulted, who choose a propitious day and hour for the ceremony, as well as the point of the compass which the chief actor is to face during its progress. The fees of the regular astrologer are very high, and in the case of the poor, the blind sorcerer is usually called in to decide on these important points.
When the auspicious day and hour arrive the family assembles, but as it is a family matter only, friends are not invited. Luck and prosperity and a number of sons are essential for the Master of the Ceremonies. If the father has been so blessed he acts as such, if not, an old friend who has been more lucky acts for him. The candidate for the distinction and privileges of manhood is placed in the middle of the room, seated on the floor, great care being taken that he faces the point of the compass which has been designated, otherwise he would have bad luck from that day forward. With much ceremony and due deliberation the Master of the Ceremonies proceeds to unwind the boy’s massive plait, shaves a circular spot three inches in diameter on the crown of his head, brings the whole hair up to this point, and arranges it with strings into a firm twist from two and a half to four inches in length, which stands up from the head slightly forwards like a horn. The mang-kun, fillet, or crownless skullcap of horsehair gauze, coming well down over the brow, is then tied on, and so tightly as to produce a permanent groove in the skin, and headaches for some time. The hat, secured by its strings, is then put on, and the long wide coat, and the boy rises up a man.[41] The new man bows to each of his relations in regular order, beginning with his grandfather, kneeling and placing his hands, palms downward, on the floor, and resting his forehead for a moment upon them.
He then offers sacrifices to his deceased ancestors before the ancestral tablets, lighted candles in high brass candlesticks being placed on each side of the bowls of sacrificial food or fruit, and bowing profoundly, acquaints them with the important fact that he has assumed the Top Knot. Afterwards he calls on the adult male friends of his family, who for the first time receive him as an equal, and at night there is a feast in his honor in his father’s house, to which all the family friends who have attained to the dignity of Top Knots are invited.
The hat is made of fine “crinoline” so that the Top Knot may be seen very plainly through it, and weighs only an ounce and a half. It is a source of ceaseless anxiety to the Korean. If it gets wet it is ruined, so that he seldom ventures to stir abroad without a waterproof cover for it in his capacious sleeve, and it is so easily broken and crushed, that when not in use it must be kept or carried in a wooden box, usually much decorated, as obnoxious in transit as a lady’s bandbox. The keeping on the hat is a mark of respect. Court officials appear in the sovereign’s presence with their hats on, and the Korean only takes it off in the company of his most intimate friends. The mang-kun is a fixture. The Top Knot is often decorated with a bead of jade, amber, or turquoise, and some of the young swells wear expensive tortoise-shell combs as its ornaments. There is no other single article of male equipment that I am aware of which plays so important a part, or is regarded with such reverence, or is clung to so tenaciously, as the Korean Top Knot.