Corea: The Hermit Nation

by William Elliot Griffis

	Post Superintendents.	Relays.	Horses.
Kiung-Kei	6	47	449
Chung-chong	5	62	761
Chulla	6	53	506
Kiung-sang	11	115	1,700
Kang-wen	4	78	447
Wang hei	3	28	396
Ham-kiung	3	58	792
Ping-an	2	30	311
	40	471	5,362

Yet with this provision for locomotion, the country is very deficient in houses for public accommodation. Inns are to be found only along the great highways, and but rarely along the smaller or sequestered roads. This want arises, perhaps, not so much from the poverty of the people, as from the fact that their proverbial hospitality does away with the necessity of numerous inns. The Coreans have been so often represented, or rather misrepresented, [[288]]as inhospitable, fierce, and rude by foreigners, that to give an inside view of them as seen through information gathered from the French missionaries in Corea is a pleasant task. From them we may learn how much the white-coated peninsulars are like their cousins, the Japanese, and that human nature in good average quantity and quality dwells under the big hats of the Coreans. The traveller usually takes his provisions along with him, but he need not eat it out-doors. As he sits along the wayside, he will be invited into some house to warm his food. When obliged to go some distance among the mountains to cut wood or make charcoal, a man is sure to find a hut in which he can lodge. He has only to bring his rice. The villagers will cook it for him, after adding the necessary pickles or sauces. Even the oxen, except during the busy season, are easily obtained on loan.

The great virtue of the Coreans is their innate respect for and daily practice of the laws of human brotherhood. Mutual assistance and generous hospitality among themselves are distinctive national traits. In all the important events of life, such as marriages and funerals, each one makes it his duty to aid the family most directly interested. One will charge himself with the duty of making purchases; others with arranging the ceremonies. The poor, who can give nothing, carry messages to friends and relatives in the near or remote villages, passing day and night on foot and giving their labors gratuitously. To them, the event is not a mere personal matter, but an affair of public interest.

When fire, flood, or other accident destroys the house of one of their number, neighbors make it a duty to lend a hand to rebuild. One brings stone, another wood, another straw. Each, in addition to his gifts in material, devotes two or three days’ work gratuitously. A stranger, coming into a village, is always assisted to build a dwelling.

Hospitality is considered as one of the most sacred duties. It would be a grave and shameful thing to refuse a portion of one’s meal with any person, known or unknown, who presents himself at eating-time. Even the poor laborers, who take their noon-meal at the side of the roads, are often seen sharing their frugal nourishment with the passer-by. Usually at a feast, the neighbors consider themselves invited by right and custom. The poor man whose duty calls him to make a journey to a distant place does not need to make elaborate preparations. His stick, his pipe, some clothes in a packet hung from his shoulder, some cash in [[289]]his purse, if he has one, and his outfit is complete. At night, instead of going to a hotel with its attendant expense, he enters some house, whose exterior room is open to any comer. There he is sure to find food and lodging for the night. Rice will be shared with the stranger, and, at bed-time, a corner of the floor-mat will serve for a bed, while he may rest his head on a foot-length of the long log of wood against the wall, which serves as a pillow. Even should he delay his journey for a day or two, little or nothing to his discredit will be harbored by his hosts. In Corea, the old proverb concerning fish and company after three days does not seem to hold good.

As may be imagined, such a system is prolific in breeding beggars, tramps, blackmailers, and lazy louts, who “sponge” upon the benevolently disposed. Rich families are often bored by these self-invited parasites, who eat with unblushing cheek at their tables for weeks at a time. They do not even disdain—nay, they often clamor for—clothing as well. To refuse would only result in bringing down calumny and injury. Peddlers, strolling players, astrologers, etc., likewise avail themselves of the opportunities, and act as plundering harpies. Often whole bands go round quartering themselves on the villages, and sometimes the government is called upon to interpose its authority and protect the people.

Corea is full of Micawbers, men who are as prodigal as avaricious, who when they have plenty of money, scatter it quickly. When flush they care only to live in style, to treat their friends, to satisfy their caprices. When poverty comes, they take it without complaint, and wait till the wheel of fortune turns again to give them better days. When by any process they have made some gain by finding a root of ginseng, a bit of gold ore, a vein of crystal, what matters it? Let the future take care of itself. Hence it happens that the roads are full of men seeking some stroke of luck, hoping to discover at a distance what they could not find at home, to light upon some treasure not yet dug up or to invent some new means of making money. People forever waiting for something to turn up emigrate from one village to another, stop a year or two, and then tramp on, seeking better luck, but usually finding worse.

Strolling companies of mountebanks, players and musicians, in numbers of five, six, or more, abound in Chō-sen. They wander up and down through the eight circuits, and, in spring and summer, [[290]]earn a precarious and vagabond livelihood. Their reputation among the villagers is none of the best, being about on a par with that of the gypsies, or certain gangs of railroad surveyors of our own country. They often levy a sort of blackmail upon the people. They are jugglers, acrobats, magicians, marionette players, and performers on musical instruments. Some of them display an astonishing amount of cleverness and sleight of hand in their feats. In the villages crowds of gaping urchins are their chief spectators, but in the large cities they are invited to private houses to give exhibitions and are paid for it. When about to begin a performance, they secure attention by whistling on the nail of their little finger. On the occasion of the anniversary of some happy event, a public fête day, a marriage or a social company, the lack of what we call society—that is, social relations between gentlemen and ladies—is made up, and amusement is furnished by these players, engaged for an evening or two. The guests fully appreciate the “hired music,” and “best talent” thus secured for a variety entertainment. The company of one class of these “men of society,” or pang-tang, a kind of “professional diner-out,” is so desirable that several are taken along by the ambassadors to China to amuse them on their long and tedious journey, especially at nights. The chang-pu are character-comedians, who serenade the baccalaureates that have passed successfully the government examinations. They play the flute and other instruments of music, forming the escort which accompanies the graduate on his visits to relatives and officials. A band of performers is always attached to the suite of ambassadors to China and Japan, or when visiting a foreign vessel.

A character common to Corea and Japan is the singing-girl, who is also a great aid in making life endurable to the better class of Coreans, whose chief business it is to kill time. The singing-girl is the one poem and picture in the street life of the humbler classes, whose poverty can rarely, if ever, allow them to purchase her society or enjoy her charms and accomplishments. Socially, her rank is low, very low. She is herself the child of poverty and toil. Her parents are poor people, who gladly give up their daughter, if of pretty face and form, to a life of doubtful morals, in order that she may thereby earn her own support and assist her parents. She herself gladly leaves the drudgery of the kitchen, and the abject meanness of the hovel, to shine in the palace and the mansion. Her dress is of finest fabric, her luxuriant [[291]]black hair is bound with skill and grace, her skin is whitened by artificial cosmetics as far as possible, and with powder, paint, and pomatum, she spends much of her life before the looking-glass, studying in youth to increase, and in womanhood to retain, her charms. At home, she practises her music, occasionally enlivening a party of her humble neighbors. As she passes along the street, fresh, clean, bright, and pretty, she may dispense smiles for popularity’s sake, but her errand is to the houses of the wealthy, and especially to the official, who, for his own amusement as he dines alone, or for his friends in social gathering, may employ from two to twenty geishas (as the Japanese call them). Most Corean cities have these geishas, who form themselves into a sort of guild for fixed prices, etc. Often they organize complete bands or choirs, by which music may be had in mass and volume. At a feast they serve the wine, fill and pass the dishes, and preside generally at the table. When eating has fairly begun, they sing (chant), play the guitar, recite in pantomime or vocally, and furnish general amusement. The dancing is usually not of an immoral character. Such a life, however, amid feast and revel, wine and flattery, makes sad wreck of many of them, morally and physically. A large proportion of the most beautiful girls become concubines to wealthy men or officials, or act as ladies of the chamber (brevet wives) to young men and widowers. Not a few join the business of prostitutes with that of musicians. Nevertheless, it is quite possible for a respectable family to enjoy a pleasant and harmless evening by the aid of the lively geishas. Of course, Seoul is the chief headquarters of the fairest and most accomplished geishas, who are, as a class, the best educated of their sex in Corea.

The theatre, proper, does not seem to exist in Corea. The substitute and nearest approach to it is recitation in monologue of certain events or extracts from the standard or popular histories, a single individual representing the successive rôles. The histrionic artist pitches his tabernacle of four posts in some popular street or corner. He spreads mats for a roof or shade from the sun in front, and for a background in the rear. A platform, and a box to squat on, with a small reading-desk, and a cup of gingery water to refresh his palate, complete his outfit.