“Why do you feed all these idle tramps, who come calling at your door, and you a poor man?” I once asked of my host.
He replied, “It’s custom, and for my life I can’t get out of it.” “What about these dolmens set up all through these valleys here like tables of the gods; what do they mean?” “They were set up by the Chinese invader, thousands of years ago, to crush out the ground influence that brought forth Korean warriors.”
“You mean that they have stifled out the life of the nation for all these centuries?” “Yes.” “Then why don’t you roll them off and get back your lost vigor?” “Oh, that’s no use now, never do.” “As it was, is now, and ever shall be,” is the only reply.—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”
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Custom, Disregarded—See [Pilot, Need of].
CUSTOM, FORCE OF
Dr. Harlan P. Beach says:
In China there are customs which are more important than etiquette. I met a man who had been shaking from head to feet “You have had chills and fever, haven’t you?” I said sympathizingly. He came very near taking my head off, because there is a special god who runs chills and fever, and if he hears a man has chills and fever and is getting over it, he will give him another shake. I had gone against their deadly custom. Another incident of the same sort happened one day when a doctor of divinity saw a cheap sedan chair and bought it. A millionaire globe-trotter used it that day for sight-seeing, and when he reached the missionary compound, he exclaimed, “I have been outrageously treated by the heathen. The whole city was out laughing at me. As soon as I appeared, every man rushed out of his shop, and the streets were in an uproar.” The doctor of divinity asked his native teacher for an explanation. Now, a teacher is never supposed to smile from one day’s end to another, but that dignified teacher, glass, goggles, and all, doubled up with laughter when he saw the chair. “You really must excuse me,” he said, “but that kind of a chair is used only in funeral processions for the spirit of the dead to ride in.” It was as tho a man should ride through our city sitting up in a hearse.
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Custom Upheld—See [Experience a Hard Teacher].