Tales of a Korean Grandmother. Frances Carpenter

of Green Gems behind the women's houses. Ok Cha knew the Inner Court was far safer for girls than the city streets with their crowds of rough men.

      Ok Cha, Yong Tu, and their grandmother, as well as the other people in this story, lived many, many years ago. That was before western ideas and new ways of living came to this Asiatic land of Korea. Because it had long refused to let foreign traders or travelers land on its shores, Korea was nicknamed the "Hermit Kingdom." A hermit among the nations it was, shut off to itself like a frog in a well and knowing almost nothing of the great world beyond its seacoasts.

      "Our 'Little Kingdom' is like a bone between two dogs," Halmoni used to explain. "Mighty China, to the north and west, and strong Japan, to the east, would like to swallow it up." She told her grandchildren that by sending thousands of bags of rice and boatloads of rich silk each year to China, their land bought its freedom to live in peace. Thus it bought also the help of China in keeping away its greedy neighbor, Japan. It was only when Japan became so much stronger than China that it was able to conquer Korea. Halmoni would have been sad indeed if the blind fortuneteller she so often consulted had foretold the long sad years when her land was to be under Japanese rule. These were to last until Korea was set free by World War II.

      Some say Korea's ancient name of Chosun means "Land of Morning Calm." Others like better "Land of Morning Brightness." In a household like that of the Kims, there were, in those times, many bright days and many calm days, like this Day of the Ancestors.

      But it was never really quiet in the Inner Court of the rich Kim household. There was the constant rat-a-tat-tat of the ironing sticks in the hands of the maidservants. In this land the women, as well as the men, wore chiefly garments of white grass linen—short white jackets and long white trousers or very full white skirts. The boys and the girls had similar clothes of gayer hues—pale blues, bright greens, and rosy pinks. There was always something to be washed clean and pounded smooth on the flat oblong ironing stones.

      There were always sounds, too, coming out of the kitchen. Just now twigs and leaves were being stuffed into the fireplace there, to keep the rice water boiling and to make sure plenty of hot air would flow out from the stove under the floors of the houses. The travelers would be hungry and cold. When they dropped down to rest, they must feel the warmth of the stone floors through the smooth oiled-paper coverings.

      "What is it that has only one mouth and yet has three necks?" This was a riddle about the kitchen fireplace which Ok Cha liked to ask. The firebox was the mouth, of course. The three necks were the flues which brought heat from the firebox out under the floors and thus warmed the houses.

      The great city bell was booming its evening warning when the Master of the House was lifted down from his pony. Yong Tu and the other boys ran at once to the Inner Court to bring their mothers and Halmoni the flaming autumn leaves they had picked out on the hills, and to tell them of the day's doings.

      But the women were busy making ready the evening meal for their husbands and sons. Large bowls were heaped high with steaming rice. Smaller bowls were being filled with bean sauce, fish, and the savory pickle called kimchee. All these bowls were arranged on tiny low tables, to be set down on the floor near each hungry man. For drinking, there were bowls of steaming rice water. In Korea, in those days, cows were raised for drawing plows or carrying loads, not for giving milk.

      Only when the menfolk had been fed, and the women and girls had themselves eaten, did the family begin to move across the Inner Court to Halmoni's apartment. The Hall of Perfect Learning, the room where the Master received his men guests, was larger. The Hall of the Ancestors was finer. But Halmoni's room was the true center of the Kim household. From her place, here in the Inner Court, she directed the lives of all of her family. Because of her age, and because they loved her so much, she was the true head of the House of Kim.

      As was the custom of those times, three of her sons had brought their brides to live in the Kim family courtyards. Here all their children were being brought up. There was ample room for them all, for the houses of the Kims were among the richest and most spacious in all the capital city of Seoul. Their curving tiled roofs stood out proudly in the sea of grass roofs of the more ordinary houses.

      The plaster walls of the Kim houses were smoother, and their fine paper windows let in more light, than those of its neighbors. In few other homes in Seoul were there more handsome brassbound clothing chests, more elegantly embroidered screens, nor more scholarly wall writings. Halmoni specially treasured the thick tiger skins which had covered the official sedan chair of her dead husband.

      In the Master's Hall of Perfect Learning, behind little panels in the walls, there were precious books and rolls of white paper upon which poems had been set down with the skillful brush strokes of scholars.

      "Always, Yong Tu, there have been poets and scholars in our family," Halmoni sometimes said to her grandson. "Next it is you who must bring such honor to our house. Like your grandfather and your great-grandfather, you must learn to make the golden words flow off your rabbit-hair brush. You must become a paksa like them, a true 'master of wisdom.' To be a paksa is to mount the dragon of good luck, blessed boy. One day you, too, shall pass the Emperor's examinations. You, too, shall win high office, fortune, and fame."

      Each day the old woman helped Yong Tu with his lessons. Halmoni knew how to read and write unmun, the "people's language," whose words were formed with the letters of the Korean alphabet. But by helping her own sons and her grandsons, she had learned also many of the sayings of the old Chinese scholars. The stories Halmoni told the children often sounded as fine to them as the poems their father wrote in his Hall of Perfect Learning.

      It was Halmoni who had chosen the poetic names of her grandchildren. Ok Cha loved her name which meant "Jade Child," for everyone knew that smooth gleaming jade is the most precious of stones. Yong Tu was proud to be called "Dragon Head," because a dragon is the most splendid of all the beasts and his name was sure to bring good luck.

      Yong Tu was glad he did not have a name like that of his baby brother, whom Halmoni called "Little Pig." That name was only for his baby years, to be sure. It was chosen to fool the spirits into thinking he was not worthy of being carried away. Later it would be changed to a more honorable title, perhaps "Fierce Leopard" or "Great Mountain."

      When the pipes were lighted and everyone was squatting at ease on mats on the warm floor, Kim Hong Chip began to tell Halmoni about the events of the Ancestors' Feast.

      "Our grave mounds are well placed," he began. "The sun falls upon them from the south, and the hills lead to them like the waving back of a dragon. No 'spying peak' peers down upon them over the ridge. The hills opposite stand up straight and firm, like men set there to protect them. The Honorable Ancestors' spirits should be well pleased, and good luck should live with us."

      Their duty to their ancestors was even more important to Koreans than the honor they paid their living parents. The Kims all believed that each person who "mounted the dragon to Heaven" took only one of his three souls with him. A second dwelt in the grave mound. A third rested in his little white wooden tablet in the ancestors' apartment in the family courts. On the appointed days of the year, the Master, with his oldest son at his side, knelt in this Tablet House. They bowed their heads to the floor, saying the family prayers. The need for sons to carry on these ceremonies for the ancestors was one reason why boys in Korea were thought to be so much more important than their sisters.

      Ok Cha and Yong Tu always jumped to do their father's bidding. They stood in awe of this dignified man, whose word was law in their house. He never paid much attention to them nor showed how much he loved them, for that would be boasting.

      The children ran quickly also when their grandmother called, but that was because they liked so well to be with her. Their greatest pleasure was to sit by her side and listen to the strange tales she brought forth from the treasure house of her memory.

      Halmoni knew by heart stories about the ancient Chinese teacher, Confucius. She could tell of the adventures of the good Buddha, who lived long ago in India, over the mountains far beyond China. But the stories her grandchildren liked best were about the spirits and animals of their own land—the fierce tiger kings of the mountains, the good river dragons, and the tokgabis, mischievous little elves who hid under