HOUSEKEEPING, DIET, AND COSTUME.
Corean architecture is in a very primitive condition. The castles,
fortifications, temples, monasteries and public buildings cannot
approach in magnificence those of Japan or China. The country, though
boasting hoary antiquity, has few ruins in stone. The dwellings are
tiled or thatched houses, almost invariably one story high. In the
smaller towns these are not arranged in regular streets, but scattered
here and there. Even in the cities and capital the streets are narrow
and tortuous.
In the rural parts, the houses of the wealthy are embosomed in
beautiful groves, with gardens surrounded by charming hedges or fences
of rushes or split-bamboo. The cities show a greater display of
red-tiled roofs, as only the officials and nobles are allowed this
sumptuary honor. Shingles are not much used. The thatching is of rice
or barley straw, cut close, with ample eaves, and often finished with
great neatness.
A low wall of uncemented stone, five or six feet high, surrounds the
dwelling, and when kept in repair gives an air of neatness and imposing
solidity to the estate. Often a pretty rampart of flat bamboo or
rushes, plaited in the herring-bone pattern, surmounts the wall, which
may be of pebbles or stratified rock and mortared. Sometimes the
rampart is of wattle, covered with smooth white plaster, which, with
the gateway, is also surmounted by an arched roofing of tiles. Instead
of regular slanting lines of gables, one meets with the curved and
pagoda-like roofs seen in China, with a heavy central ridge and
projecting ornaments of fire-hardened clay, like the “stirrup” or
“devil” tiles of Japan. These curves greatly add to the beauty of a
Corean house, because they break the monotony of the lines of Corean
architecture.
Doors, windows, and lintels are usually rectangular, and are set in
regularly, instead of being made odd to relieve the eye, as in Japan.
Bamboo is a common material for window-frames.
The foundations are laid on stone set in the earth, and the floor of
the humble is part of the naked planet. People one grade above the
poorest cover the hard ground with sheets of oiled paper, which serve
as rugs or a carpet. For the better class a floor of wood is raised a
foot or so above the earth, but in the sleeping- and sitting-room of
the average family, the “kang” forms a vaulted floor, bed, and stove.
The kang is characteristic of the human dwelling in northeastern Asia.
It is a kind of tubular oven, in which human beings, instead of
potatoes, are baked. It is as though we should make a bedstead of
bricks, and put foot-stoves under it. The floor is bricked over, or
built of stone over flues, which run from the fireplace, at one end of
the house, to the chimney at the other. The fire which boils the pot or
roasts the meat is thus utilized to warm those sitting or sleeping in
the room beyond. The difficulty is to keep up a regular heat without
being alternately chilled or smothered. With wood fuel this is almost
impossible, but by dint of tact and regulated draught may be
accomplished. As in the Swedish porcelain stove, a pail of live coals
keeps up a good warmth all night. The kangs survive in the kotatsù of
Japan.
The “fire” in sentiment and fact is the centre of the Corean home, and
the native phrase, “he has put out his fire,” is the dire synonym
denoting that a man is not only cold and fasting, but in want of the
necessities of life.
Bed-clothes are of silk, wadded cotton, thick paper, and tiger, wolf,
or dog skins, the latter often sewn in large sheets like a carpet.
Comfort, cleanliness, and luxury make the bed of the noble on the warm
brick in winter, or cool matting in summer; but with the poor, the cold
of winter, and insects of summer, with the dirt and rags, make sleeping
in a Corean hut a hardship. Cushions or bags of rice-chaff form the
pillows of the rich. The poor man uses a smooth log of wood or slightly
raised portion of the floor to rest his head upon. “Weariness can snore
upon the flint when resty sloth finds the down pillow hard.”
Three rooms are the rule in an average house. These are for cooking,
eating, and sleeping. In the kitchen the most noticeable articles are
the ang-pak, or large earthen jars, for holding rice, barley, or water.
Each of them is big enough to hold a man easily. The second room,
containing the kang, is the sleeping apartment, and the next is the
best room or parlor. Little furniture is the rule. Coreans, like the
Japanese, sit, not cross-legged, but on their heels. Among the
well-to-do, dog-skins, or kat-tei, cover the floor for a carpet, or
splendid tiger-skins serve as rugs. Matting is common, the best being
in the south.
As in Japan, the meals are served on the floor on low sang, or little
tables, one for each guest, sometimes one for a couple. The best table
service is of porcelain, and the ordinary sort of earthenware with
white metal or copper utensils. The table-cloths are of fine glazed
paper and resemble oiled silk. No knives or forks are used; instead,
chopsticks, laid in paper cases, and, what is more common than in China
or Japan, spoons are used at every meal. The climax of æsthetic taste
occurs when a set of historic porcelain and faience of old Corean
manufacture and decoration, with the tall and long-spouted teapot, are
placed on the pearl-inlaid table and filled with native delicacies.
The walls range in quality of decoration from plain mud to colored
plaster and paper. The Corean wall-paper is of all grades, sometimes as
soft as silk, or as thick as canvas. Sa-peik is a favorite reddish
earth or mortar which serves to rough-cast in rich color tones the
walls of a room.
Pictures are not common; the artistic sense being satisfied 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.
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 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.
The staple diet has in it much more of meat and fat than that of the
Japanese. The latter acknowledge that the average Corean can eat twice
as much as himself. Beef, pork, fowls, venison, fish, and game are
consumed without much waste in rejected material. Nearly everything
edible about an animal is a tidbit, and a curious piece of cookery,
symbolical of a generous feast, is often found at the board of a
liberal host. This tang-talk (which often becomes the “town-talk”) is a
chicken baked and served with its feathers, head, claws, and inwards
intact. “To treat to an entire fowl” is said of a liberal host, and is
equivalent to “killing the fatted calf.”
Fish are often eaten raw from tail to head, especially if small, with
only a little seasoning. Ho-hoi, or fish-bone salad, is a delicacy.
Dog-flesh is on sale among the common butchers’ meats, and the Coreans
enjoy it as our Indians do. In the first month of the year, however,
owing to religious scruples, no dog-meat is eaten, or dishes of canine
origin permitted.
The state dinner, given to the Japanese after the treaty, consisted of
this bill of fare: two-inch squares of pastry, made of flour, sugar,
and oil; heaps of boiled eggs; pudding made of flour, sesame, and
honey; dried persimmons; “pine-seeds,” honey-like food covered with
roasted rice colored red and white; macaroni soup with fowl; boiled
legs of pork, and wine, rice or millet spirit with everything. It is
customary to decorate the tables on grand occasions with artificial
flowers, and often the first course is intended more for show than for
actual eating. For instance, when the Japanese party, feasted at Seoul
in 1646, first sat down to the table, one of them began to help himself
to fish, of which he was very fond. The dish seemed to contain a
genuine cooked carp basted with sauce, but, to the embarrassment of the
hungry guest, the fish would not move. He was relieved by the servant,
who told him that it was put on the table only for show. The courses
brought on later contained more substantial nourishment, such as fish,
flesh, fowl, vegetables, soups, cakes, puddings and tea. Judging from
certain words in the language, these show-dishes form a regular feature
at the opening of banquets. The women cook rice beautifully, making it
thoroughly soft by steaming, while yet retaining the perfect shape of
each grain by itself. Other well-known dishes are barley, millet,
beans, taro (potato cooked in a variety of ways), lily-bulbs,
sea-weeds, acorns, dai-kon (radishes), turnips, and potatoes. Macaroni
and vermicelli are used for soups and refreshing lunches. Apples,
pears, plums, grapes, persimmons, and various kinds of berries help to
furnish the table, though the flavor of these is inferior to the same
fruits grown in our gardens.
All kinds of condiments, mustard, vinegar, pepper, and a variety of
home-made sauces, are much relished. Itinerant food-sellers are not so
common as in China, but butcher-shops and vermicelli stands are
numerous. Two solid meals, with a light breakfast, is the rule. Opan,
or midday rice, is the dinner. Tai-sik is a regular meal. The
appearance of the evening star is the signal for a hearty supper, and
the planet a synonym for the last meal of the day. At wakes or funeral
feasts, and on festal days, the amount of victuals consumed is
enormous, while a very palatable way of remembering the dead is by the
yum-pok, or drinking of sacrificial wine. The Coreans understand the
preservative virtues of ice, and in winter large quantities of this
substance are cut and stored away for use in the summer, in keeping
fresh meat and fish. Their ice-houses are made by excavating the ground
and covering over the store with earth and sod, from which in hot
weather they use as may be necessary. These ice stores are often under
the direction of the government, especially when large quantities of
fish are being preserved for rations of the army in time of war. Those
who oversee the work are called “Officers of the Refrigerator.”
One striking fault of the Coreans at the table is their voracity, and
to this trait of their character Japanese, French, Dutch, and Chinese
bear witness. It might be supposed that a Frenchman, who eats lightly,
might make a criticism where an Englishman would be silent; but not so.
All reports concerning them seem to agree. In this respect there is not
the least difference between the rich and poor, noble or plebeian. To
eat much is an honor, and the merit of a feast consists not in the
quality but in the quantity of the food served. Little talking is done
while eating, for each sentence might lose a mouthful. Hence, since a
capacious stomach is a high accomplishment, it is the aim from infancy
to develop a belly having all possible elasticity. Often the mothers
take their babies upon their knees, and after stuffing them with rice,
like a wad in a gun, will tap them from time to time with the paddle of
a ladle on the stomach, to see that it is fully spread out or rammed
home, and only cease gorging when it is physically impossible for the
child to swell up more. A Corean is always ready to eat; he attacks
whatever he meets with, and rarely says, “Enough.” Even between meals,
he will help himself to any edible that is offered. The ordinary
portion of a laborer is about a quart of rice, which when cooked makes
a good bulk. This, however, is no serious hindrance to his devouring
double or treble the quantity when he can get it. Eating matches are
common. When an ox is slaughtered, and the beef is served up, a heaping
bowl of the steaming mess does not alarm any guest. Dog-meat is a
common article of food, and the canine sirloins served up in great
trenchers are laid before the guests, each one having his own small
table to himself. When fruits, such as peaches or small melons, are
served, they are devoured without peeling. Twenty or thirty peaches is
considered an ordinary allowance, which rapidly disappears. Such a
prodigality in victuals is, however, not common, and for one feast
there are many fastings. Beef is not an article of daily food with the
peasantry. Its use is regulated by law, the butcher being a sort of
government official; and only under extraordinary circumstances, as
when a grand festival is to be held, does the king allow an ox to be
killed in each village. The Coreans are neither fastidious in their
eating nor painstaking in their cooking. Nothing goes to waste. All is
grist that comes to the mill in their mouths.
They equal Japanese in devouring raw fish, and uncooked food of all
kinds is swallowed without a wry face. Even the intestines pass among
them for delicate viands. Among the poorer classes, a cooked fish is
rarely seen on the table; for no sooner is it caught than it is
immediately opened and devoured. The raw viands are usually eaten with
a strong seasoning of pepper or mustard, but they are often swallowed
without condiment of any sort. Often in passing along the banks of a
river, one may see men fishing with rod and line. Of these some are
nobles who are not able, or who never wish to work for a living, yet
they will fish for food and sport. Instead of a bag or basket to
contain the game, or a needle to string it upon, each fisher has at his
side a jar of diluted pepper, or a kind of soy. No sooner is a fish
hooked, than he is drawn out, seized between the two fingers, dipped
into the sauce, and eaten without ceremony. Bones do not scare them.
These they eat, as they do the small bones of fowls.
Nationally, and individually, the Coreans are very deficient in
conveniences for the toilet. Bath-tubs are rare, and except in the
warmer days of summer, when the river and sea serve for immersion, the
natives are not usually found under water. The Japanese in the treaty
expedition in 1876 had to send bath-tubs on shore from their ships.
Morning ablutions are made in a copper basin. The sponges which grow on
the west coast seem to find no market at home. This neglect of more
intimate acquaintance with water often makes the lowest classes “look
like mulattos,” as Hamel said. Gutzlaff, Adams, and others, especially
the Japanese, have noted this personal defect, and have suggested the
need of soap and hot water. It may be that the contrast between costume
and cuticle tempts to exaggeration. People who dress in white clothing
have special need of personal cleanliness. Perhaps soap factories will
come in the future.
The men are very proud of their beards, and the elders very particular
in keeping them white and clean. The lords of creation honor their
beard as the distinctive glory and mark of their sex. A man is in
misery if he has only just enough beard to distinguish him from a
woman. A full crop of hair on cheek and chin insures to its possessor
unlimited admiration, while in Corean billingsgate there are numerous
terms of opprobrium for a short beard. Europeans are contemptuously
termed “short-hairs”—with no suspicion of the use of the word in New
York local politics. Old gentlemen keep a little bag in which they
assiduously collect the combings of their hair, the strokings of their
beard and parings of their nails, in order that all that belongs to
them may be duly placed in their coffin at death.
The human hair crop is an important item in trade with China, to which
country it is imported and sold to piece out the hair-tails which the
Chinese, in obedience to their Manchiu conquerors, persist in wearing.
Some of this hair comes from poor women, but the staple product is from
the heads of boys who wear their hair parted in the middle, and plaited
in a long braid, which hangs down their backs. At marriage, they cut
this off, and bind what remains in a tight, round knot on the top of
the scalp, using pins or not as they please.
The court pages and pretty boys who attend the magnates, usually
rosy-cheeked, well fed, and effeminate looking youths, do not give any
certain indication of their sex, and foreigners are often puzzled to
know whether they are male or female. Their beardless faces and long
hair are set down as belonging to women. Most navigators have made this
mistake in gender, and when the first embassy from Seoul landed in
Yokohama, the controversy, and perhaps the betting, as to the sex of
these nondescripts was very lively. Captain Broughton declared that the
whole duty of these pages seemed to be to smooth out the silk dresses
of the grandees. Officials and nobles cover their top-knots with neat
black nets of horse-hair or glazed thread. Often country and town
people wear a fillet or white band of bark or leaves across the
forehead to keep the loose hair in order, as the ancient Japanese used
to do. Women coil their glossy black tresses into massive knots, and
fasten them with pins or golden, silver, and brass rings. The heads of
the pins are generally shaped like a dragon. They oil their hair, using
a sort of vegetable pomatum. Among the court ladies and female
musicians the styles of coiffure are various; some being very pretty,
with loops, bands, waves, and “bangs,” as the illustration on page 161
shows.
Corea is decidedly the land of big hats. From their amplitude these
head-coverings might well be called “roofs,” or, at least, “umbrellas.”
Their diameter is so great that the human head encased in one of them
seems but as a hub in a cart-wheel. They would probably serve admirably
as parachutes in leaping from a high place. Under his wide-spreading
official hat a magistrate can shelter his wife and family. It serves as
a numeral, since a company is counted by hats, instead of heads or
noses. How the Corean dignitary can weather a gale remains a mystery,
and, perhaps, the feat is impossible and rarely attempted. A slim man
is evidently at a disadvantage in a “Japanese wind” or typhoon. The
personal avoirdupois, which is so much admired in the peninsula,
becomes very useful as ballast to the head-sail. Corean magnates, cast
away at sea, would not lack material for ship’s canvas. In shape, the
gentleman’s hat resembles a flower-pot set on a round table, or a
tumbler on a Chinese gong. Two feet is a common diameter, thus making a
periphery of six feet. The top or cone, which rises nine inches higher,
is only three inches wide. This chimney-like superstructure serves as
ornament and ventilator. Its purpose is not to encase the head, for
underneath the brim is a tight-fitting skull-cap, which rests on the
head and is held on by padded ties under the ears. The average rim for
ordinary people, however, is about six inches in radius. The huge
umbrella-hat of bleached bamboo is worn by gentlemen in mourning. After
death it is solemnly placed on the bier, and forms a conspicuous object
at the funeral. The native name for hat is kat or kat-si.
The usual material is bamboo, split to the fineness of a thread, and
woven so as to resemble horse-hair. The fabric is then varnished or
lacquered, and becomes perfectly weather-proof, resisting sun and rain,
but not wind. The prevalence of cotton clothing, easily soaked and
rendered uncomfortable, requires the ample protection for the back and
shoulders, which these umbrella-like hats furnish. In heavy rain, the
kat-no is worn, that is, a cone of oiled paper, fixed on the hat in the
shape of a funnel. Indeed, the umbrella in Corea is rather for a symbol
of state and dignity than for vulgar use, and is often adorned with
knobs and strips. Quelpart Island is the home of the hatters, whose
fashionable wares supply the dandies and dignitaries of the capital and
of the peninsula. The highest officers of the government have the cone
truncated or rounded at the vertex, and surmounted by a little figure
of a crane in polished silver, very handsome and durable. This
long-legged bird is a symbol of civil office. “To confer the hat,”
means as much to an officer high in favor at the court of Seoul as to a
cardinal in the Vatican, only the color is black, not red. It is Corean
etiquette to keep the hat on, and in this respect, as well as in their
broad brims, the hermits resemble the Quakers. Marriage and mourning
are denoted also by the hat.
A variety of materials is employed by other classes. Soldiers wear
large black or brown felt hats, resembling Mexican sombreros, which are
adorned with red horse-hair or a peacock’s feather, swung on a swivel
button.
Suspended from the sides, over the ears and around the neck, are
strings of round balls of blue porcelain, cornelian, amber, or what
resembles kauri gum. Sometimes these ornaments are tubular, reminding
one of the millinery of a cardinal’s hat.
For the common people, plaited straw or rushes of varied shapes serve
for summer, while in winter shaggy caps of lynx, wolf, bear, or
deer-skin are common, made into Havelock, Astrachan, Japanese, and
other shapes, some resembling wash-bowls, some being fluted or
fan-like, winged, sock-shaped, or made like a nightcap. Variety seems
to be the fashion.
The head-dress of the court nobles differs from that of the vulgar as
much as the Pope’s tiara differs from a cardinal’s rubrum. It is a
crown or helmet, which, eschewing brim, rises in altitude to the
proportions of a mitre. Without earstrings or necklaces of beads, it is
yet highly ornamental. One of these consists of a cap, with a sort of
gable at the top. Another has six lofty curving folds or volutes set in
it. On another are designs from the pa-kwa, or sixty-four mystic
diagrams, which are supposed to be sacred symbols of the Confucian
philosophy, and of which fortune-tellers make great use.
The wardrobe of the gentry consists of the ceremonial and the house
dress. The former, as a rule, is of fine silk, and the latter of
coarser silk or cotton. These “gorgeous Corean dresses” are of pink,
blue, and other rich colors. The official robe is a long garment like a
wrapper, with loose, baggy sleeves. This is embroidered with the stork
or phœnix for civil, and with the kirin, lion, or tiger for military
officers. Buttons are unknown and form no part of a Corean’s attire,
male or female, thus greatly reducing the labor of the wives and
mothers who ply the needle, which in Corea has an “ear” instead of an
“eye.” Strings and girdles, and the shifting of the main weight of the
clothing to the shoulders, take the place of these convenient, but
fugitive, adjuncts to the Western costume. There are few tailors’
shops, the women of each household making the family outfit.
Soldiers in full dress wear a sleeveless, open surcoat for display. The
under dress of both sexes is a short jacket with tight sleeves, which
for men reaches to the thighs, and for women only to the waist, and a
pair of drawers reaching from waist to ankle, a little loose all the
way down for the men, and tied at the ankles, but for the women made
tight and not tied. The females wear a petticoat over this garment, so
that the Coreans say they dress like Western women, and foreign-made
hosiery and under-garments are in demand. Although they have a variety
of articles of apparel easily distinguishable to the native eye, yet
their general style of costume is that of the wrapper, stiff, wide, and
inflated with abundant starch in summer, but clinging and baggy in
winter. The rule is tightness and economy for the working, amplitude
and richness of material for the affluent classes. The women having no
pockets in their dresses, wear a little bag suspended from their
girdle. This is worn on the right side, attached by cords. These
contain their bits of jewelry, scissors, knife, a tiger’s claw for
luck, perfume-bottle or sachet, a tiny chess-board in gold or silver,
etc. Besides the rings on their fingers the ladies wear hair-pins of
gold ornamented with bulbs or figures of birds. Many of them dust pun,
or white powder, on their faces, and employ various other cosmetics,
which are kept in their kiong-tai, or mirror toilet-stands; in which
also may be their so-hak, or book containing rules of politeness.
The general type of costume is that of China under the Ming dynasty. To
a Chinaman a Corean looks antiquated, a curiosity in old clothes; a
Japanese at a little distance, in the twilight, is reminded of ghosts,
or the snowy heron of the rice-fields, while to the American the Corean
swell seems compounded chiefly of bed-clothes, and in his most
elaborate costume to be still in his under-garments.
Plenty of starch in summer, and no stint of cotton in winter, are the
needs of the Corean. His white dress makes his complexion look darker
than it really is. The monotonous dazzle of bleached garments is
relieved by the violet robes of the magistrate, the dark blue for the
soldiers, and lighter shades of that color in the garb of the middle
class; the blue strip which edges the coat of the literary graduates,
and the pink and azure clothes of the children. Less agreeable is the
nearness which dispels illusion. The costume, which seemed snowy at a
distance, is seen to be dingy and dirty, owing to an entire ignorance
of soap.
The Corean dress, though simpler than the Chinese, is not entirely
devoid of ornament. The sashes are often of handsome blue silk or
brocaded stuff. The official girdles, or flat belts a few inches wide,
have clasps of gold, silver, or rhinoceros horn, and are decorated with
polished ornaments of gold or silver. For magistrates of the three
higher ranks these belts are set with blue stones; for those of the
fourth and fifth grade with white stones, and for those below the fifth
with a substance resembling horn. Common girdles are of cotton, hemp
cloth, or rope.
Fans are also a mark of rank, being made of various materials,
especially silk or cloth, stretched on a frame. The fan is an
instrument of etiquette. To hide the face with one is an act of
politeness. The man in mourning must have no other kind than that in
which the pin or rivet is of cow’s horn. Oiled paper fans serve a
variety of purposes. In another kind, the ribs of the frame are bent
back double. The finer sort for the nobility are gorgeously inlaid with
pearl or nacre.
A kind of flat wand or tablet, seen in the hands of nobles, ostensibly
to set down orders of the sovereign, is made of ivory for officers
above, and of wood for those below the fourth grade.
Another badge of office is the little wand, half way between a toy whip
and a Mercury’s caduceus, of black lacquered wood, with cords of green
silk. This is carried by civil officers, and may be the original of the
Japanese baton of command, made of lacquered wood with pendant strips
of paper.
Canes are carried by men of the literary or official class when in
mourning. These tall staves, which, from the decks of European vessels
sailing along the coast, have often looked like spears, are the
sang-chang, or smooth bamboo staves, expressive of ceremonial grief,
and nothing more.
As the Coreans have no pockets, they make bags, girdles, and their
sleeves serve instead. The women wear a sort of reticule hung at the
belt, and the men a smoking outfit, consisting of an oval bag to hold
his flint and steel, some fine-cut tobacco, and a long, narrow case for
his pipe.
Foot-gear is either of native or of Chinese make. The laborer contents
himself with sandals woven from rice-straw, which usually last but a
few days. A better sort is of hempen twine or rope, with many strands
woven over the top of the foot. A man in mourning can wear but four
cords on the upper part. Socks are too expensive for the poor, except
in the winter. Shoes made of cotton are often seen in the cities,
having hempen or twine soles. The low shoes of cloth, or velvet, and
cowhide, upturned at the toe, worn by officials, are imported from
China. Small feet do not seem to be considered a beauty, and the
foot-binding of the Chinese is unknown in Chō-sen, as in Japan.