Perang Dunia Timur. Jepang, Tiongkok, dan Korea/Bab 11

COREAN CHARACTERISTICS AND MANNERS OF LIFE.

Physique of the People—Rigid Caste System—Slavery—Guilds and Trade Unions—Position of Women—Nameless and Oppressed—Marriage and Family Life—Burial and Mourning Customs—Dress and Diet—Homes—Home Life—Children—Education—Outdoor Life—Music—Literature—Language—Religion.

The Corean people are mainly of a Mongolian type, though there is some evidence that there is a Caucasian element in the stock. They are a little larger and steadier of physique than the Japanese, or the Chinese of the south, more nearly approaching to the northern Chinese and even to the tribes in the northeast of Asia. Frequently individuals are met, with hair not quite black, and even blue eyes and an almost English style of face. The characteristics of the people are distinguished to advantage from that of their Chinese neighbors by the openness and frankness of their demeanor. The Coreans, even of the lower classes, are grave and sedate by nature, which, however, does not exclude a spirit of frank gayety shown on nearer acquaintance. They are thoroughly honest, faithful and good natured, and attach themselves with an almost childlike confidence even to strangers and foreigners, when once they begin to trust in their sincerity.

Firm, sure, and quick in his walk, the Corean possesses greater ease and a freer motion than the Chinese, to whom they are superior in height and bodily strength. On the other hand it cannot be denied that the Coreans rank considerably below the Chinese in cultivation of good manners, and they are wanting in that little polish which is not absent even among the lower classes of China and Japan.

The peculiarity of the Corean race and the difference between the same and the neighboring nations, shows itself mainly in the strict and rigid division of the castes which part the various ranks of the population of the peninsula from each other, showing some analogy to the caste institutions prevailing among the Hindus in India. There exists, however, this notable difference between the two, that while with the latter this separation is based upon 392religious principles and customs, no religious movement appears as its cause in Corea, where its origin seems solely attributable to political reasons, which have been maintained and kept up to our times by the government for reasons of its own. The forms of Corean society to this day are derived from feudal ranks and divisions. The fruit and legacy of feudalism are seen in the serfdom or slavery which is Corea’s peculiar domestic institution.

Speaking in general terms, society has four grades, following the king. These are the nobles and the three classes which come after them, in the last of which are “the seven low callings.” In detail the grades may be counted by the scores. In the lowest grade of the fourth class are “the seven vile callings,” that is, the merchant, boatman, jailer, postal or mail slave, monk, butcher, and sorcerer. The first and foremost rank, immediately after the king and the members of the royal family, who stand absolutely above and beyond these castes, is taken up by the so-called nobles, descendants of the old families of chieftains, who are again subdivided into two degrees, the civil and the military nobility. These two classes of nobles, in the course of time, had possessed themselves of the exclusive right of occupying public office. Following upon these we find the caste of the half nobles, numerically a very weak class, which forms the transition from the nobility to the civic classes. These also enjoy the right to fill certain offices from their ranks, principally those of government secretaries and translators of Chinese. After these come the civic caste, which consists of the better and wealthier portion of the city inhabitants. This class counts amongst its numbers the merchants, manufacturers, and most kinds of artisans. Next follows the people’s caste, which comprising the bulk of the people is naturally the most numerous of all and includes all villagers, farmers, shepherds, huntsmen, fishermen, and the like.

The nobles are usually the slave holders, many of them having in their households large numbers whom they have inherited along with their ancestral chattels. The master has a right to sell or otherwise dispose of the children of his slaves if he so choose. Slavery or serfdom in Corea is in a continuous state of decline, and the number of slaves constantly diminishing. The slaves are those who are born in a state of servitude, those 393who sell themselves as slaves, and those who are sold to be such by their parents in times of famine or for debt. Infants exposed or abandoned that are picked up and educated become slaves, but their offspring are born free. The serfdom is really very mild. Only the active young men are held to field labor, the young women being kept as domestics. When old enough to marry, the males are let free by an annual payment of a sum of money for a term of years. Outside of private ownership of slaves, there is a species of government slavery which illustrates the persistency of one feature of the ancient kingdom of Korai perpetuated through twenty centuries. It is the law that in case of the condemnation of a great criminal, the ban shall fall upon his wife and children, who at once become the slaves of the judge. These unfortunates do not have the privilege of honorably serving the magistrate, but usually pass their existence in waiting on the menials in the various government offices. Only a few of the government slaves are such by birth, most of them having become so through judicial condemnation in criminal cases; but this latter class fare 394far worse than the ordinary slaves. They are chiefly females, and are treated little better than beasts. Nothing can equal the contempt in which they are held.

By union and organization it has come to pass that the common people and the serfs themselves in Corea have won a certain degree of social freedom that is increasing. The spirit of association is spread among the Coreans of all classes, from the highest families to the meanest slaves. All those who have any kind of work or interest in common, form guilds, corporations or societies which have a common fund contributed to by all for aid in time of need. Very powerful trade unions exist among the mechanics and laborers, such as hat-weavers, coffin-makers, carpenters, and masons. These societies enable each class to possess a monopoly of trade which even a noble vainly tries to break. Sometimes they hold this right by writ purchased or obtained from government, though usually it is by prescription. Most of the guilds are taxed by the government for their monopoly enjoyed. They have their chief or head man who possesses almost despotic power, even in some guilds of life and death.

One of the most powerful and best organized guilds is that of the porters. The interior commerce of the country being almost 395entirely on the backs of men and pack horses, these people have the monopoly of it. They number about ten thousand, and are divided by provinces and districts under the orders of chiefs and inspectors. They have very severe rules for the government of their guild, and crimes among them are punished with death at the order of their chief. They are so powerful that they pretend that even the government dare not interfere with them. They are honest and faithful in their business, delivering packages with certainty to the most remote places in the kingdom. When they have received an insult, or injustice, or too low wages, they “strike” in a body and retire from the district. This puts a stop to all travel and business until the grievances are settled, or submission to their own terms is made. Owing to the fact that the country at large is so lacking in the shops and stores common in other countries, and that instead fairs on set days are so numerous in the towns and villages, the guild of peddlers and hucksters is 396very large and influential. This class includes probably two hundred thousand able bodied persons who in the various provinces move freely among the people, and are thus useful to government as spies, detectives, messengers, and in time of need, soldiers.

The Corean woman has little moral existence. She is an instrument of pleasure or of labor, but never man’s companion or equal. She has no name. In childhood she receives indeed a surname by which she is known in the family and by near friends, but as she grows up none but her father and mother employ this appellation; to all others she is “the sister” of such a one or “the daughter” of so and so. After her marriage her name is buried, and she is absolutely nameless. Her own parents allude to her by employing the name of the district or ward in which she is married. When she bears children she is “the mother” of so and so. When a woman appears for trial before a magistrate, in order to save time and trouble she receives a special name for the time being.

In the higher classes of society etiquette requires that the children be separated after the age of eight or ten years. After that time the boys dwell entirely in the men’s apartments to study and even to eat and drink; the girls remain secluded in the women’s quarters. The boys are taught that it is a shameful thing even to set foot in the female part of the house. The girls are told that it is disgraceful even to be seen by males, so that gradually they seek to hide themselves when any of the male sex appear. These customs, continued from childhood to old age, result in destroying the family life. A Corean of good taste only occasionally holds conversation with his wife, whom he regards as being far beneath him. The men chat, smoke, and enjoy themselves in the outer rooms, and the women receive their parents and friends in the inner apartments. The men seek the society of their male neighbors, and the women on their part unite together for local gossip. In the higher classes, when a young woman has arrived to marriageable age none even of her own relatives except those nearest of kin, is allowed to see or speak to her. After their marriage women are inaccessible. They are nearly always confined to their apartments, nor can they even look out into the streets without permission from their lords.

397There is, however, another side. Though counting for nothing in society, and nearly so in their family, they are surrounded by a certain sort of exterior respect. They are always addressed in the formulas of the most polite language. The men always step aside in the street to allow a woman to pass, even though she be of the poorer classes. There is also a peculiar custom which exists in Seoul which exhibits deference to the comfort of the women. A bell in the castle is struck at sunset, after which male citizens are not allowed to go out of their houses even to visit their neighbors. Women, on the contrary are permitted the freedom of the streets after this time, consequently, as they are assured of safety, from seeing men or being seen by them, they take their exercise and enjoy the outdoors most heartily and freely at night.

Marriage in Corea is a thing with which a woman has little or nothing to do. The father of the young man communicates with the father of the girl he wishes his son to marry. This is often done without consulting the tastes or character of either, and usually through a middleman or go-between. The fathers settle the time of the wedding, and a favorable day is appointed by the astrologers. Under this aspect marriage seems an affair of small importance, but in reality it is marriage only that gives one any civil rank or influence in society. Every unmarried person is treated as a child. He may commit all sorts of foolishness without being held to account. His capers are not noticed, for he is not supposed to think or act seriously. Even the unmarried young men of twenty-five or thirty years of age can take no part in social reunions or speak on affairs of importance. But marriage is emancipation. Even if mated at twelve or thirteen years of age, the married are adults. The bride takes her place among the matrons and the young man has a right to speak among the men and to wear a hat.

The badge of single or married life is the hair. Before marriage the young man who goes bareheaded, wears a simple tress hanging down his back. In wedlock the hair is bound up on the top of the head and is cultivated on all parts of the scalp. Young persons who insist on remaining single, or bachelors who have not yet found a wife, sometimes, however, secretly cut off their hair 398or get it done by fraud in order to pass for married folks and avoid being treated as children. Such a custom however is a gross violation of morals and etiquette.

On the evening before the wedding the young lady who is to be married invites one of her friends to change her virginal coiffure to that of a married woman. The bridegroom-to-be, also invites one of his acquaintances to do up his hair in manly style. On the marriage day in the house of the groom a platform is set up and richly adorned with decorative cloths. Parents, friends, and acquaintances assemble in a crowd. The couple to be married, who may never have seen or spoken to each other, are brought in and take their places on the platform face to face. There they remain for a few minutes. They salute each other with profound obeisance but utter not a word. This constitutes the ceremony of marriage. Each then retires upon either side; the bride to the female, and the groom to the male apartments, where feasting and amusement after fashions in vogue in Chosen take place. The expense of a wedding is considerable and the bridegroom must be unstinting in his hospitality. Any failure in this particular may subject him to unpleasant practical jokes. On her wedding day the young bride must preserve absolute silence both on the marriage platform and in the nuptial chamber. Etiquette requires this at least among the nobility. Though overwhelmed with questions and compliments, silence is her duty. She must rest mute and impassive as a statue.

It is the reciprocal salutation before witnesses on the wedding dais that constitutes legitimate marriage. From that moment a husband may claim a woman as his wife. Conjugal fidelity, obligatory on the woman, is not required of the husband, and a wife is little more than a slave of superior rank. Among the nobles the young bridegroom spends three or four days with his bride, and then absents himself from her for a considerable time to prove that he does not esteem her too highly. To act otherwise would be considered in very bad taste and highly unfashionable.

Habituated from infancy to such a yoke and regarding themselves as of an inferior race, most women submit to their lot with exemplary resignation. Having no idea of progress or of an infraction of established usage they bear all things. They become 401devoted and obedient wives, jealous of the reputation and well-being of their husbands. The woman who is legally espoused, whether widow or slave, enters into and shares the entire social estate of her husband. Even if she be not noble by birth she becomes so by marrying a noble. It is not proper for a widow to remarry.

The fashion of mourning, the proper time and place to shed tears, and express grief, according to regulations, are rigidly prescribed in an official treatise, or “Guide to Mourners,” published by the government. The corpse must be placed in a coffin of very thick wood, and preserved during many months in a special room prepared and ornamented for this purpose. It is proper to weep only in this death chamber, but this must be done three or four times daily. Before entering it the mourner must don a special suit of mourning clothes. At the new and full moon all the relatives are invited and expected to assist in the ceremonies. These practices continue more or less even after burial, and at intervals during several years. Often a noble will go out to weep at the tomb, passing days and nights in this position. Among the poor, who have not the means to provide a death chamber and expensive mourning, the coffin is kept outside their houses covered with mats until the time for its burial.

Though cremation is known in Corea, the most usual form of disposing of the dead is by burial. Children are wrapped up in the clothes and bedding in which they die and are thus buried. As all unmarried persons are reckoned as children their shroud and burial are the same. With the married the process is more costly, and more detailed and prolonged. The selection of a proper site for their tomb is a matter of profound solicitude, time, and money; for the geomancers must be consulted with a fee. The tombs of the poor consist only of a grave and a low mound of earth. With the richer class monuments are of stone, sometimes neat or even imposing, sometimes grotesque.

Mourning is of many degrees and lengths, and is betokened by dress, abstinence from food and business, visits to the tomb, offerings, tablets, and many visible indications detailed even to absurdity. Pure or nearly pure white is the mourning color, as a contrast to red, the color of rejoicing. When noblemen don the 402peaked hat which covers the face as well as the head, they are as dead to the world, not to be spoken to, molested, or even arrested, if charged with crime. This Corean mourning hat proved the helmet of salvation to Christians and explains the safety of the French missionaries who lived so long in disguise under its shelter, unharmed in the country where the police were ever on their track. The Jesuits were not slow to see the wonderful protection promised for them, and availed themselves of it at once and always, both while entering the well-guarded frontier and while residing in the country.

Corean architecture is in a very primitive condition. The castles, fortifications, temples, monasteries, and public buildings cannot approach the magnificence of those of Japan or China. The dwellings are tiled or thatched houses, almost invariably one story high. In the smaller towns these are not arranged in regular streets but are scattered here and there. Even in the cities the streets are narrow and tortuous. In the rural parts the houses of the wealthy are surrounded by beautiful groves, with gardens circled by 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 honor. Shingles are not much used. The thatchings are rice or barley straw. A low wall of uncemented stone five or six feet high, surrounds the dwellings. The foundations are laid on stone set in the earth, and the floor of the humble is the ground itself. The people one grade above the poorest, cover the hard ground with sheets of oiled paper which serve as a carpet. For the better class a floor of wood is raised a foot or so above the earth.

Bed clothes are of silk, wadded cotton, thick paper, and furs. 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. In most families of the middle class, the “kang” forms the vaulted floor, bed, and stove. It is as if 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 does the cooking is thus used to warm those sitting or sleeping in the room beyond.

403Three rooms are the rule in an average house, and these are for cooking, eating, and sleeping. In the kitchen the most notable articles are the 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 cover the floor for a carpet, or tiger skins serve as rugs. Matting is common.

The meals are served on the floor on small low tables, usually one for each guest, but 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 tablecloths are of fine glazed paper and resemble oiled silk. No knives or forks are used; but instead chopsticks and what is more common than in 404China or Japan, spoons are used at every meal. The walls range in quality of decoration from plain mud to colored plaster and paper. Pictures are not known. The windows are square and latticed without or within, covered with tough oiled paper, and moving in grooves. The doors are of wood, paper, or plaited bamboo. Glass was till recently a nearly unknown luxury in Corea.

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. No trait of the Coreans has more impressed their numerous visitors than their love of all kinds of strong drink. No sooner were the ports of Corea opened to commerce than the Chinese established liquor stores, while European wines, brandies and whiskeys have entered to increase the national drunkenness. Although the Corean lives between the two great tea-producing countries of the world, he scarcely knows the taste of tea and the fragrant herb is little used on the peninsula.

The staple diet has in it much more of meat and fat than that of the Japanese, and the average Corean can eat twice as much as the Japanese. Beef, pork, fowls, venison, fish, and game are consumed without much waste and rejected material. Dog flesh is on sale among the common butchers’ meat. The women cook rice beautifully, and other well-known dishes are barley, millet, beans, potato, lily-bulbs, seaweeds, acorns, radishes, turnips, macaroni, vermicelli, apples, pears, plums, grapes, persimmons, and various kinds of berries. All kinds of condiments are much relished.

One striking fault of the Coreans at the table is their voracity. 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, mothers use every means to develop as elastic a capacity as possible in their children from very infancy. The Coreans equal the Japanese in devouring raw fish, and uncooked food of all kinds is swallowed without a wry face. Fish 407bones 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 need of soap and hot water has been noticed by travelers and writers of every nation. The men are very proud of their beards, and honor them as a distinctive glory and mark of their sex. Women coil their glossy black tresses into massive knots and fasten them with pins, or gold and silver rings.

Corea is famous as the land of big hats. Some of these head-coverings are so immense that the human head encased in one of them seems as but a hub in a cart wheel. In shape the gentleman’s hat resembles a flowerpot inverted in the center of a round table. Two feet is a common diameter, and the top, which rises in a cone nine inches higher, is only three inches wide at the apex. The usual material is bamboo, split to the fineness of a thread and woven. The fabric is then varnished or lacquered, and becomes perfectly weatherproof. The prevalence of cotton clothing, easily soaked and rendered uncomfortable, requires the ample 408protection for the back and shoulders which these umbrella-like hats furnish.

The wardrobe of the upper classes 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. They are of pink, blue, and other rich colors. The official robe is a long garment like a wrapper, with loose baggy sleeves. There are few tailors’ shops, the women of each household making the family outfit. The underdress 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. The females wear a petticoat over this garment, so that the Coreans say they dress like western women, and foreign-made hosiery and undergarments are in demand. 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 white dress of the Corean makes his complexion look darker than it really is. Footgear 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. Small feet do not seem to be considered a beauty, and the foot binding of the Chinese is unknown in Cho-sen.

Judging from a collection of the toys of Corean children, and from their many terms of affection, and words relating to games and sports, festivals and recreation, and nursery stories, the life of the little ones must be pleasant. In the capital and among the higher classes, children’s toys are very handsome, ranking as real works of art. They have many games played by the little ones quite similar to those of our own babies, and they delight in pets, such as monkeys and puppies.

At school the pupils study out loud and noisily, according to the method all over Asia. Besides learning the Chinese characters and the vernacular alphabet, the children master arithmetic and writing. The normal Corean is fond of his children, especially of sons, who in his eyes are worth ten times as much as daughters. Such a thing as exposure of children is little known. The first thing inculcated in a child’s mind is respect for his father. All insubordination is immediately and sternly repressed. 409Far different is it with the mother. She yields to her boy’s caprices, and laughs at his faults and vices without rebuke, while the child soon learns that a mother’s authority is next to nothing.

Primogeniture is the rigid rule. Younger sons at the time of their marriage, or at other important periods of life receive paternal gifts, but the bulk of the property belongs to the oldest son, on whom the younger sons look as their father. He is the head of the family, and regards his father’s children as his own. In all eastern Asia the bonds of family are much closer than among Caucasian people of the present time. All the kindred, even to the fifteenth or twentieth degree, whatever their social position, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, officials or beggars, form a clan or more properly one single family, all of whose members have mutual interests to sustain. The house of one is the house of the other, and each will assist to his utmost, another of the clan to get money, office, or advantage. The law recognizes this system by levying on the clan the taxes and debts which individuals of it cannot pay, holding the clan responsible for the individual. To this they submit without complaint or protest. Instead of the family being a unit, as with us, it is only the fragment of a clan, a segment in the great circle of kindred. The Coreans are fully as clannish as the Chinese, and in this lies one great obstacle to Christianity or to any kind of individual reform.

China gave her culture to Corea and Corea passed it on to Japan. If we may believe Corean tales, then the Coreans have possessed letters and writing during three thousand years. It is certain that since the opening of the Christian era the light of China’s philosophy has shone steadily among Corean scholars. In spite of their national system of writing, the influence of the finished philosophy and culture of China has been so great that the hopelessness of producing a copy equal to the original became at once apparent to the Corean mind. The culture of their native tongue has been neglected by Corean scholars. The consequence is that after so many centuries of national life Corea possesses no literature worthy of the name.

At present Corean literary men possess a highly critical 410knowledge of Chinese. Most intelligent scholars read the classics with ease and fluency. Penmanship is an art as much prized and as widely practiced as in Japan, and reading and writing constitute education. Corea has most closely imitated her teacher, China, in the use of education. She fosters education by making scholastic ability as tested in the literary examination, the basis of appointment to office. This civil service reform was established by the now ruling dynasty early in the fifteenth century. The Corean child, neglecting his own language, literature, and history, studies those of China and the philosophy of Confucius, so that his education is practically that of the young man in China. The same classics are studied and the same attention is paid to memory cultivation. The competitive examinations too are very similar to those of China, and corresponding degrees are granted. The system of literary examinations, which for two or three centuries after its establishment was vigorously maintained with impartiality, is at present in a state of decay, bribery and official favor being the causes of its decline.

The special schools of languages, mathematics, medicine, art etc., are under the patronage of the government, but amount to very little. The school of astronomy and the choice of fortunate days for state occasions is for the special service of the king. There is also a school of interpreters, charts, law, and horology.

Although the Chinese language, writing and literature form the basis of education and culture in Chosen, yet the native language is distinct in structure from the Chinese, having little in common with it. The latter is monosyllabic, while the Corean is polysyllabic, as is the Japanese which the Corean closely resembles. No other language is so nearly affiliated to the Japanese as is the Corean. The Corean alphabet, one of the most simple and perfect in the world, consists of twenty-five letters, eleven vowels and fourteen consonants. They are made with easy strokes in which straight lines, circles, and dots only are used.

As in Japan, so in Corea three styles of languages prevail, and are used as follows: Pure Chinese without any admixture of Corean, in books and writings on science, history and government, and in the theses of the students and literary men; in the books composed in the Corean language the vernacular syntax 413serves as the framework, but the vocabulary is largely Chinese; the Corean book style of composition which is written in the pure Corean language. Every one in Corea speaks the vernacular and not Chinese.

The books which have been written in Corean, are chiefly primers or manuals of history, books on etiquette and ritual, and geography. There are also a few works of poetry written in the vulgar dialect.

In passionate fondness for music the Coreans decidedly surpass all other Asiatic nations. Their knowledge is indeed primitive, however, not superior to that of their neighbors, and their instruments are of rude workmanship and construction. The principal of these instruments are the gong, the flute, and the two-stringed guitar, combining to make a music anything but harmonious. They always sing in falsetto, like the Chinese, in a monotonous and melancholy manner. The Coreans however possess a musical 414ear, and they know how to appreciate and like to listen to foreign music very much, while the Chinese have not the slightest idea of harmony, and placing our music far below their own, look down upon our art with something like a feeling of pity.

The fibres of Corean superstition, and the actual religion of the people of to-day, have not radically changed during twenty centuries in spite of Buddhism. The worship of the spirits of nature and the other popular gods is still reflected in superstition and practice. The Chinese Fung Shuy, which in Corean becomes Pung-siu, is a system of superstition concerning the direction of the everyday things of life, which is nearly as powerful in Corea as in the parent country. Upon this system, and perhaps nearly equal in age with it, is the cult of ancestral worship which has existed in Chinese Asia from unrecorded time. Confucius found it in his day and made it the basis of his teachings, as it had already been of the religious and ancient documents of which he was the editor. The Corean system of ancestral worship presents no feature radically different from the Chinese. Confucianism, or the Chinese system of ethics, holds about the same position that it does in China. Taoism seems to be little studied.

In Corean mouths Buddha becomes Pul and his “way” or doctrine Pul-to or Pul-chie. The faith from India has made thorough conquest of the southern half of the peninsula, but has only partially leavened the northern portion where the grosser heathenism prevails. The palmy days of Corean Buddhism were during the era of Korai, 905 to 1392 A.D. In its development, Corean Buddhism has frequently been a potent influence in national affairs, and the power of the bonzes has at times been so great as to practically control the court and nullify decrees of the king. As in Japan the frequent wars have developed the formation of a clerical militia, able to garrison and defend their fortified monasteries, and even to change the fortune of war by the valor of their exploits. There are three distinct classes or grades of the bonzes or priests. The student monks devote themselves to learning and to the composition of books and to Buddhist rituals. Then there are the mendicant and traveling bonzes who solicit alms and contributions for the erection and maintenance of the temples and monastic establishments. Finally the military 415bonzes act as garrisons, and make, keep in order, and are trained to use weapons. Even at the present day Buddhist priests are made high officers of the government, governors of provinces, and military advisers. In the nunneries are two kinds of female devotees, those who shave the head and those who keep their locks. The vows of the latter are less rigid. Excepting in its military phases, the type of Corean Buddhism approaches that of China rather than of Japan.

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 person 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. 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 to any person, known or unknown, who presents himself at eating time. Even the poor laborers at the side of the roads are often seen sharing their frugal nourishment with the passer-by. The poor man making a journey does not need elaborate preparations. At night, instead of going to a hotel, 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 bedtime a corner of the floor mat will serve for a bed, while he may rest his head on 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.

It is evident after this glance at the history, the conditions, and 416the customs of the Coreans, that they have many excellent qualities, which require but the leavening influence of Christianity and western civilization to make them worthy members of the family of nations. It is quite possible that the influence of the Japanese-Chinese war, in its ultimate results, may reach this desirable consummation.