Korea (Hamilton)/Chapter 10

The Koreans are an agricultural people, and most of the national industries are connected with agriculture. More than seventy per cent. of the population are farmers; the carpenter, the blacksmith, and the stonemason spring directly from this class, combining a knowledge of the forge or workshop with a life-long experience of husbandry. The schoolmaster is usually the son of a yeoman-farmer; the fisherman owns a small holding which his wife tills while he is fishing. The farming classes participate in certain industries of the country; the wives of the farmers raise the cotton, silk, linen, and grass-cloth of the nation, and they also convert the raw material into the finished fabrics. The sandals, mats, osier and wooden wares which figure so prominently in Korean households, are the work of the farming classes in their leisure moments. The officials, the yamen runners, the merchants, inn-keepers, miners, and junk-men are not of this order, but they are often closely connected with it. The Government exists on the revenue raised from agriculture; the people live upon the fruits of the soil; Korean officials govern whole communities given over to agricultural labour. The internal economy of the country ​has been affiliated for centuries to the pursuits and problems of agriculture. Koreans are thus instinctively and intuitively agriculturists, and it is necessarily along these lines that the development of the country should in part progress.

It is impossible not to be impressed by a force which works so laboriously, while it takes no rest save that variety which comes with the change of season. The peaceable, plodding farmer of Korea has his counterpart in his bull. The Korean peasant and his weary bull are made for one another. Without his ruminating partner, the work would be impracticable. It drags the heavy plough through the deep mud of the rice-fields, and over the rough surface of the grain lands; it carries loads of brick and wood to the market, and hauls the unwieldy market cart along the country roads. The two make a magnificent pair; each is a beast of burden. The brutishness, lack of intelligence, and boorishness of the agricultural labourer in England is not quite reproduced in the Korean. The Korean farmer has of necessity to force himself to be patient. He is content to regard his sphere of utility in this world as one in which man must labour after the fashion of his animals, with no appreciable satisfaction to himself.

Originally, if history speaks truly, the farmers of Korea were inclined to be masterful and independent. Indications of this earlier spirit are found nowadays in periodical protests against the extortionate demands of local officials. These disturbances are isolated and infrequent, for, when once their spirits were crushed, the farmers developed into the present mild and inoffensive type. They submit to oppression and to the cruelty of the Yamen; they endure every form of illegal taxation, and they ruin themselves to pay "squeezes," which exist only through their own humility. ​They dread the assumption of rank and the semblance of authority. Their fear of a disturbance is so great that, although they may murmur against the impositions of the magistrate, they continue to meet his demands.

At the present day the farmer of Korea is the ideal child

of nature; superstitious, simple, patient and ignorant. He is the slave of his work, and he moves no further from his village than the nearest market. He has a terrified belief in the existence of demons, spirits and dragons, whose dirty and grotesque counterfeits adorn his thatched hut. There are other characteristic traits in this great section of the national life. Their capacity for work is unlimited; they are seldom idle, and, unlike the mass of their countrymen, they have no sense of repose. As farmers, they have by instinct and tradition certain ideas and principles which are excellent in themselves. To the wayfarer ​and stranger the individual farmer is supremely and surprisingly hospitable. A foreigner discussing the peculiarities of their scenery, their lands, and the general details of their life with them, is struck by their profound reverence for everything beyond their own understanding, and their amazing sense of the beautiful in nature. The simplicity of their appreciation is delightful. It is easy to believe that they are more susceptible to the charms of flowers and scenery than to that of woman.

At rare intervals the farmer indulges in a diversion. Succumbing to the seductions of market day, after the fashion of every other farmer the world has ever known, he returns to the homestead a physical and moral wreck, the drunk and disorderly residuum of many months of dreary abstinence and respectability. At these times he develops a phase of unexpected assertiveness, and forcibly abducts some neighbouring beauty, or beats in the head of a friend by way of enforcing his argument. From every possible point of view he reveals qualities which proclaim him the simple, if not ideal, child of nature.

During the many months of my stay in Korea I spent some days at a wayside farmhouse, the sole accommodation which could be obtained in a mountain village. The slight insight into the mode of life of the farming peasant which was thus gained was replete with interest, charm and novelty. Knowing something of the vicissitudes of farm life, I found the daily work of this small community supremely instructive. Upon many occasions I watched the farmer's family and his neighbours at their work. The implements of these people are rude and few, consisting of a plough, with a movable iron shoe which turns the sods in the reverse direction to our own; a spade, furnished with ​ropes and dragged by several men; bamboo flails and rakes, and a small hoe, sharp and heavy, used as occasion may require for reaping, chopping and hoeing, for the rough work of the farm, or the lighter service of the house.

During the harvest all available hands muster in the fields. The women cut the crop, the men fasten the sheaves, which the children load into rope panniers, suspended upon wooden frames from the backs of bulls. The harvest is threshed without delay, the men emptying the laden baskets upon the open road, and setting to with solemn and uninterrupted vigour. While the men threshed with their flails, and the wind winnowed the grain, six, and sometimes eight, women worked, with their feet, a massive beam, from which an iron or granite pestle hung over a deep granite mortar. This rough and ready contrivance ​pulverises the grain sufficiently for the coarse cakes which serve in lieu of bread.

POUNDING GRAIN Beyond the bull and the pig, there are few farm animals in the inland districts. The pony and the donkey are not employed in agricultural work to the same extent as the bull. This latter animal is cared for more humanely than the unfortunate pony, whose good nature is ruined by the execrable harshness with which he is treated. The gross cruelty of the Korean to his pony is the most loathsome feature of the national life.

Irrigation is necessary only for the rice, which yields fairly abundant crops throughout Central and Southern Korea. To the north, rice makes way for millet, the great supplementary food of Korea. Elsewhere paddy-fields abound, and the people have become adepts in the principles of irrigation and the art of conserving water. Rice is sown in May, transplanted from the nurseries to the paddy-fields in June, and gathered in October. In times of drought, when it is necessary to tide over the period of distress, the fields are used for barley, oats and rye which, ripening in May and cut in June, allows a supplementary crop to be taken from the fields. The fields are then prepared for the rice. The land is ​inundated; the peasant and his bull, knee-deep in water, plough the patches. Beans, peas, and potatoes are planted between the furrows of the cornfields, the land being made to produce to its full capacity. The crops are usually excellent.

The fields differ from the farms in China, where the farmers, preferring short furrows, grow their crops in small sections. The long furrows of the Korean fields recall Western methods, but here the analogy ends. The spectacle of these well-ordered acres is a revelation of the earnest way in which these down-trodden people combat adversity. In many ways, however, they need assistance and advice. If it were prudent to accomplish it, I would convert the mission centres of the inland districts into experimental farm-stations, and attach a competent demonstrator to each establishment.
CARRYING PRODUCE TO MARKET

The Koreans hold rice, their chief cereal, in peculiar honour. They state that it originated in Ha-ram, in China, at a period now involved in much fable and mystery—2838 B.C. to 2698 B.C. The name, Syang-nong-si, itself means Marvellous Agriculture. The name was doubtless given at a later time. The first rice was brought to Korea by Ki-ja in 1122 B.C. together with barley and other cereals. Before that time the only grain raised in Korea was millet. ​There are three kinds of rice in Korea, with a variety of sub-species. First, that which is grown in the ordinary paddy-fields. This is called specifically tap-kok, or paddy-field rice. It is used almost exclusively to make pap, the ordinary boiled rice. Then we have chun-kok or field-rice. This is so-called upland rice. It is drier than the paddy-field rice, and is used largely in making rice flour and in brewing beer. The third kind is grown exclusively on the slopes of mountains, and is a wild rice. It is smaller and harder than the other kinds; for this reason it is used to provision garrisons. It will withstand the weather. Under favourable circumstances, lowland rice will keep five years, but the mountain rice will remain perfectly sound for quite ten years.

Next in importance to rice come the different kinds of pulse, under which heading is included all the leguminous plants, the bean and the pea family. That Korea is well provided with this valuable and nutritious form of food will be seen from the fact that there are thirteen species of round beans, two kinds of long bean, and five varieties of mixed bean. Of all these numerous assortments, the "horse-bean" is by far the most common. It is the bean which forms such a large part of the exports of Korea. It is supposed by Koreans to have originated in North-Western China, and derives its name from the fact that it is used very largely for fodder. One variety only may be regarded as indigenous—the black-bean—and it is found nowhere else in Eastern Asia. Of the rest, the origin is doubtful. The horse-bean grows in greatest abundance in Kyöng-syang Province and on the island of Quelpart, though of course it is common all over the country. The black-bean flourishes best in Chyöl-la Province. The green-bean, oil-bean, and white-cap bean ​flourish in Kyöng-keui Province. The yellow bean is found in Hwang-hai Province; the South River bean appears in Chyung-chyöng Province; the grandfather-bean (so called because of its wrinkles) grows anywhere, but not in large quantities. The brown-bean and chestnut-bean come from Kang-won Province.

It would be difficult to over-estimate the importance of these different species of pulse to the Korean. They furnish the oily and nitrogenous elements which are lacking in rice. As a diet they are strengthening, the nutritious properties of the soil imparting a tone to the system. Preparations of beans are as numerous as the dishes made from flour; it is impossible to enumerate them. Upon an average, the Koreans eat about one-sixth as much pulse as rice. The price of beans is one-half that of rice; the price of either article is liable to variations. There are varieties which cost nearly as much as rice.

The common name for barley is po-ri; in poetical parlance the Koreans call barley The Fifth Moon of Autumn, because it is then that it is harvested. The value of barley to the Korean arises from the fact that it is the first grain to germinate in the spring. It carries the people on until the millet and rice crops are ready. Barley and wheat are extensively raised throughout Korea for the purpose of making wine and beer. In other ways, however, they may be considered almost as important as the different kinds of pulse. The uses of barley are very numerous. Besides being used directly as farinaceous food it becomes malt, medicine, candy, syrup, and furnishes a number of side-dishes. Wheat comes mostly from Pyöng-an Province, only small crops of it appearing in the other Provinces. Barley yields spring and autumn crops, but wheat yields ​only the winter crop. The poor accept wheat as a substitute for rice, and brew a gruel from it. It is used as a paste; it figures in the native pharmacopœia, and in the sacrifices with which the summer solstice is celebrated.

Oats, millet, and sorghum are other important cereals in Korea. There are six varieties of millet; the price of the finer qualities is the same as that obtained for rice. One only of these six varieties was found originally in the country. Sorghum is grown principally in Kyöng-syang Province. It grows freely, however, in the south; but is less used than wheat, millet, or oats in Korea. A curious distinction exists between the sorghum imported from China and the native grain. In China, sorghum is used in making sugar; when this sugar-producing grain arrives in Korea it is found impossible to extract the sugar. Two of the three kinds of sorghum in Korea are native, the third coming from Central China. Oats become a staple food in the more mountainous regions, where rice is never seen; it is dressed like rice. From the stalk the Koreans make a famous paper, which is used in the Palaces of the Emperor. It is cultivated in Kang-won, Ham-kyöng, and Pyöng-an Provinces.

The Korean is omnivorous. Birds of the air, beasts of the field, and fish from the sea, nothing comes amiss to his palate. Dog-meat is in great request at certain seasons; pork and beef with the blood undrained from the carcase, fowls and game—birds cooked with the lights, giblets, head and claws intact, fish, sun-dried and highly malodorous, all are acceptable to him. Cooking is not always necessary; a species of small fish is preferred raw, dipped into some piquant sauce. Other dainties are dried sea-weed, shrimps, vermicelli, made by the women from buckwheat flour and ​white of egg, pine seeds, lily bulbs, honey-water, wheat, barley, millet, rice, maize, wild potatoes, and all vegetables of Western and Eastern gardens; even now the list is by no means exhausted.

Their excesses make them martyrs to indigestion.