Tales of a Korean Grandmother. Frances Carpenter

       "Always, Yong Tu, there have been poets and scholars in our family," said Halmoni. "They were true masters of wisdom who won high office at court."

       Yong Tu admired the tall hats, made of fine horsehair, which his father and uncles wore inside as well as outside the house.

       Ancient Korean warriors swallowed medicines made of powdered tiger bones to give them more strength and courage.

       Sim Chung's face was as smooth as a piece of ivory carving. Her brows had the curves of a butterfly's wings.

       Yong Tu and his cousins were getting ready to take part in the New Year kite-flying contest.

       The seesaw was in constant motion during the New Year holidays. The girls, standing upright upon it, were tossed higher and higher into the air

       The girls were playing blindman's buff in the Garden of Green Gems.

       The mourners they knew went about crying, "Ai-go! Ai-go!"—they did not look as though they would ever wish to sing again.

       It was a splendid fair, with clowns and dancers who ran along straw ropes high up in the air.

       The Emperor gave Yo a post at his court and the right to wear a peacock feather in his hat.

       Ok Cha's mother threw over her head a long, bright green silken coat for her walks outside the bamboo gate.

       Yong Tu missed his good games out in the courtyard. He was just learning to kick the shuttlecock with the side of his foot.

       Ok Cha seldom had a turn now on the swing in the Inner Court.

       The mare smelled the tiger's skin and galloped away.

       Ok Cha's favorite war story was about Nonga, the singing girl, who danced the Japanese General into the deep river.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENT

      THE popular folk tales which have been adapted in this book have been collected from many sources. Among these special mention should be made of the early English-language periodicals, The Korean Repository and The Korean Review, and of the writings of the missionaries, teachers, and travelers in Korea during the last decades of the nineteenth century, as follows: Corea, the Hermit Nation by William Elliot Griffis; Korean Tales by Horace Newton Allen; Life in Corea by W. R. Carles; Korea and Her Neighbors by Isabella Bird Bishop; the works of James S. Gale; the articles and books of Homer B. Hulbert; Korean Games by Stewart Culin.

      Much valuable material was found in the early writings of the author's father, Frank G. Carpenter, who visited Korea first in 1888, and with whom she herself traveled there in the days before that unhappy country was annexed by Japan.

      The author also wishes to express gratitude to Pyo Wook Han, Korean scholar and critic, for assistance in checking the accuracy of her pictures of family life in Old Korea.

      THE

       HOUSE

       OF

       KIM

      THE Korean grandmother sat comfortably on the soft tiger-skin rug, enjoying the autumn breeze that drifted in through the open door of her apartment. She puffed contentedly at her long pipe while she watched two of her granddaughters playing on the seesaw out in the walled courtyard. The girls were laughing and squealing as they stood upright, one on each end of a board laid across a firm sack of earth. Their long, bright-colored skirts flew like banners in the wind. Their jet-black braids, tied with little red bows, swung back and forth as they jumped up and down so as to toss each other high into the air.

      But again and again the old woman's dark eyes were turned away from their play. They sought instead the gateway on the far side of the Inner Court, beside the long, low building which housed the men of the Kim family and which protected the women's quarters from the outer entrance court. Like the little girl who stood just outside her door on the narrow veranda, the woman seemed to be listening for some special sound.

      "The men should be coming home, Halmoni," the child said, retying the red ribbons that fastened the short green jacket above her long, very full rose-colored skirt.

      "Yé, they should be returning, little Ok Cha," her grandmother replied. "The sun has dropped down behind our garden wall. The evening bell soon will be struck. The great gates of the city will swing together. If the Master of this House does not make haste, he and the others will spend the night on the highway."

      It had seemed strange all day to Ok Cha, with her father and her uncles, her brothers and her boy cousins, all gone from the walled courts of the Kim household. It was the time of the autumn Feast of the Ancestors, when prayers and thanksgivings must be offered at the family grave mounds out on the hills that encircled their city of Seoul. And, of course, only menfolk were important enough to take part in such a ceremony.

      That morning, at sunrise, a little procession had gone forth from the bamboo gate. Leading it was Kim Hong Chip, father of Ok Cha and oldest son of this Korean grandmother, whom everyone called "Halmoni." Ever since his father's death, Kim Hong Chip had borne the important title, Master of the House. In all family ceremonies he was the leader.

      Kim Hong Chip was a fine-looking, dignified man. On this day he was clad as usual in a spotless white jacket and white baggy pantaloons tied neatly about his ankles above his thick-soled quilted shoes. Over all he had on his best long green coat that gleamed like silk in the sun. Through the meshes of his tall black hat of woven horsehair his trim topknot showed, standing straight up through the opening of his black gauze skullcap.

      As befitted the master of a yangban, or noble family such as the Kims, he rode out of the city, perched on a sturdy little Korean horse. A servant trotted along beside him, at hand to steady his portly, well-fed body over the rough places in the narrow country road. Another servant ran ahead, shouting loudly to the less important wayfarers, "Make way! Make way! A great man comes!"

      Halmoni's younger sons and grandsons, dressed just like the Master, hurried to keep their places in the procession. By their topknots it was easy to tell which ones were married, for each boy and bachelor in Korea then wore his well-oiled black hair in one long braid down his back.

      Last of all came the menservants, with brooms to tidy the grave site and with loads of wine, rice cakes, and puddings to please the ancestors' spirits. Later, when the prayers all had been said, these good things pleased also their descendants, who picnicked upon them in the family pavilion near by.

      "It is good to be born a boy like Yong Tu," Ok Cha said wistfully, coming to sit down at her grandmother's side. The little girl envied her brother—not because he was the oldest son of their father and thus one day would become, like him, Master of the House, but just because Yong Tu was a boy. He could do so many things that were not permitted then to girls in Korea. He could walk on the street. He could picnic on the hills in the spring, or fly kites out there when the winter winds blew. He could even go with his father or the servants to buy toys in the markets and stores of the city.

      Ok Cha, now that she was a full eight years old, would not be allowed to set foot outside the Inner Court. She would not see the city streets except through the curtains of the sedan chair in which she might go visiting with her mother. When she was married, she would only exchange the Inner Court of her father's house for that of her husband.

      It was not that the little Korean girl was unhappy. These were the customs all over her land. Omoni, her busy mother, and Halmoni always found ways to occupy and amuse themselves in the Inner Court. Oh, it was pleasant there, and one could play also in