Pictures are not common; the artistic sense being satisfied [[265]]with scrolls of handsome Chinese characters containing moral and literary gems from the classics, or the caligraphic triumph of some king, dignitary, or literary friend. To possess a sign-manual or autograph scrap of Yung, Hong, or O, the three most renowned men of Chō-sen, is reckoned more than a golden manuscript on azure paper.
The windows are square and latticed without or within, and covered with tough paper, either oiled or unsized, and moving in grooves—the originals of the Japanese sliding-doors and windows. In every part of a Corean house, paper plays an important and useful part.
Very fine Venetian blinds are made of threads split from the ever-useful bamboo, which secures considerable variety in window decoration. The doors are of wood, paper, or plaited bamboo. Glass was, till recently, a nearly unknown luxury in Corea among the common people. Even with the nobles, it is rather a curiosity. The windows being made of oiled or thin paper, glass is not a necessity. This fact will explain the eagerness of the people to possess specimens of this transparent novelty. Even old porter and ale bottles, which sailors have thrown away, are eagerly picked up, begged, bought, or stolen. An old medicine-vial, among the Coreans, used to fetch the price of a crystal goblet among us. The possessor of such a prize as a Bass’ ale bottle will exhibit it to his neighbor as a rare curio from the Western barbarians, just as an American virtuoso shows off his last new Satsuma vase or box of Soochow lacquer. When English ship captains, visiting the coast, gave the Coreans a bottle of wine, the bottle, after being emptied, was always carefully returned with extreme politeness as an article of great value. The first Corean visitor to the American expedition of 1871, went into ecstacies, and his face budded into smiles hitherto thought impossible to the grim Corean visage, because the cook gave him an arm-load of empty ale-bottles. The height of domestic felicity is reached when a Corean householder can get a morsel of glass to fasten into his window or sliding-door, and thus gaze on the outer world through this “loophole of retreat.” This not only saves him from the disagreeable necessity of punching a finger-hole through the paper to satisfy his curiosity, but gives him the advantage of not being seen, and of keeping out the draft. When a whole pane has been secured, it is hard to state whether happiness or pride reigns uppermost in the owner’s bosom. [[266]]
Candlesticks are either tall and upright, resting on the floor in the Japanese style, or dish-lamps of common oil are used.
Flint and steel are used to ignite matches made of chips of wood dipped in sulphur, by which a “fire-flower” is made to blossom, or in more prosaic English, a flame is kindled. Phosphorus matches, imported from Japan, are called by a word signifying “fire-sprite,” “will-of-the-wisp,” or ignis-fatuus.
Usually in a gentleman’s house there is an ante-room or vestibule, in which neighbors and visitors sit and talk, smoke or drink. In this place much freedom is allowed and formalities are laid aside. Here are the facilities and the atmosphere which in Western lands are found in clubs, coffee- and ale-houses, or obtained from newspapers. One such, of which the picture is before us, has in it seats, and looks out on a garden or courtyard. On a ledge or window-seat are vases of blossoms and cut flowers; a smaller vase holds fans, and another is presumably full of tobacco or some other luxury. Short eave-curtains and longer drapery at the side, give an air of inviting comfort to these free and easy quarters, where news and gossip are exchanged. These oi-tiang, or outer apartments, are for strangers and men only, and women are never expected or allowed to be present.
The Ching-ja is a small house or room on the bank of a river, or overlooking some bit of natural scenery, to which picnic parties resort, the Coreans most heartily enjoying out-door festivity, in places which sky, water, and foliage make beautiful to the eye.
There are often inscribed on the portals, in large Chinese characters, moral mottoes or poetical sentiments, such as “Enter happiness, like breezes bring the spring, and depart evil spirit as snow melts in water.” Before a new house is finished, a sheet of pure white paper, in which are enclosed some nip, or “cash,” with grains of rice which have been steeped in wine, is nailed or fastened on the wall, over the door, and becomes the good spirit or genius of the house, sacrifices being duly offered to it. In more senses than one, the spirit that presides over too many Corean households is the alcohol spirit.
The Corean liquor, by preference, is brewed or distilled from rice, millet, or barley. These alcoholic drinks are of various strength, color, and smell, ranging from beer to brandy. In general their beverages are sufficiently smoky, oily, and alcoholic to Western tastes, as the fusel-oil usually remains even in the best products of their stills. No trait of the Coreans has more impressed [[267]]their numerous visitors, from Hamel to the Americans, than their love of all kinds of strong drink, from ale to whiskey. The common verdict is, “They are greatly addicted to the worship of Bacchus.” The Corean vocabulary bears ample witness to the thorough acquaintance of the people with the liquor made from grain by their rude processes. The inhabitants of the peninsula were hard drinkers even in the days of Fuyu and Kokorai. No sooner were the ports of modern Chō-sen open to commerce than the Chinese established liquor-stores, while European wines, brandies, whiskeys, and gins have entered to vary the Corean’s liquid diet and increase the national drunkenness.
Strange as it may seem, the peasant, though living between the two great tea-producing countries of the world—Japan and China—and in the latitude of tea-plantations, scarcely knows the taste of tea, and the fragrant herb is as little used as is coffee in Japan. The most common drink, after what the clouds directly furnish, is the water in which rice has been boiled. Infusions of dried ginseng, orange-peel, or ginger serve for festal purposes, and honey when these fail; but the word “tea,” or cha, serves the Corean, as it does the typical Irishman, for a variety of infusions and decoctions. With elastic charity the word covers a multitude of sins, chiefly of omission; all that custom or euphony requires is to prefix the name of the substance used to “cha” and the drink is tea—of some kind.