The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-01-30
THE C0REANS.
THEIR QUEER DRESS AND
QUAINT HABITS PORTRAYED.
A Land in q State of Perpetual Sicsta
Their Pondcrous and Expan-
sive Hars-Secluded Females
oddly Dressed Hair.

Corea is peninsula of about the same
shape as Florida or Italy, and it hangs
down into the Pacific Ocean from the
northeast edge of China and the lower
eastern edge of Russian Siberia. Be-
Rtween it and China is the dirty, bolster
ous Yellow Sea, which takes a day and
night by steamer to cross, and its lower
coast is about an equal distance from the
western edge of Japan. 1t has 100
miles of sea coast and its western shores
are lined with bold rocky islands. 1t is
a land of mountains. A great chain
winds through it from north to south
and, going by the land in a steamer, Its
coasts look mountainous, bleak and bare.
Corea is the only land in the world
where the hacklnan does not flourish, and
there are no means of public conveyance
for hire. The mobiles go about in chairs,
ibut each owns his own chair or rides his
jown donkey, and the general means OF
ilocomotion from one place to another IS
! Mr.. Shank's mare.
J The scenes upon the streets of Seoul,
the capital, are those of another world.
The whole town seems to have laid OF
for rest, and its queer population takes
q perpetual siesta. What queer. looking
ANIMALS those are which squat and smoke
in couples or in dozens on the side or at
the corners of the streets. They might
be Chinese and they might be japanese,
but they ere better looking than either.
What gorgeous dresses some OF them
wear, and you look twice to see whether
the big sugar-loaf hats of rse-hair
which are fastened to their heads are a
natural part of their person or an article
of dress.
How many of them dress in white !.
and their long full gowns belly out at
the front and each of their legs looks
like baby in swaddling clothes. They
wear padded white stockings and the
shoes cf the rich are gorgeous in their
embroidered decorations. There is one
of them walking. He swings his arms
as he goes, and his pipe with its long
stem and small silver bowl hangs almost
to his knees in his smoking. What a
maze of bright colors and how gorgeous
are the delicate sky blues. the bright
pinks and the crushed strawberries which
come forth from these mud-walled
thatched huts. The contrast of colors is
striking and that of conditions is more
so. New shapes and colors strike your
ewes at every turn, and had Dean swift
lived here he would have had no excuse
for Gulliver The hats, are as different
as the men and each hat has its mean =
ing. Here comes a man in long gown
of gray hemp and his head has cover
ing of fnely-woven straw as big as O
sun umbrella which comes out and down
over the shoulders and makes him look
as though his hat was walking off with
him. You wonder what kind of an ami
NAL be is and you peek under as he
passes. He has little strap of gray
linen stretched between two sticks
which he holds before his face and you
see only his eyes and his forehead. This
is a mourner For three years after a
mans father or mother dies he is COM
PEELED to put on this garb. He
must not let his face be seen;
he dare not engage in festivities.
and he cannot marry. If, at the end of
this time or during it, another relative
dies, he is forced to mourn thee years
longer, and in this way would-Ee Bene-
diets are kept for nine years out of the
married state. From the number of
these hats on the streets death seems as
common in Corea as elsewhere, and the
syekle of old Time cuts down the
almond-eyed Corean quite as freely as
his straight.eyed brother.
These mourners' hats are the same as
those of the bull drivers. They are
merely of finer material. The bulls and
men are the beasts of burden of Corea,
ana coming up the wide street of the
capital you see many bullock harnessed
to rude carts, the wheels of which are
fastened together with pins, and which
are almost as rude as those sawed out OF
logs by our early pioneers. Corean hats
are by no means inexpensive. The stiff
sugar-loaf variety of black horse-hair
cost about SIG apiece when of the best
quality, and the Corean men spend more
time on the dress of their heads than
they do on any other part Of their bodies.
It is said that from 5000 to $500 are
sometimes invested in headgear, and
every Corean carries little oiled paper
conical cap which looks like an i'm
mense lamp shade closed at the top, and
which folds up like fan. When it
rains he carefully pulls this over his
horse hair hat and ties it under the
chin. have as yet seen no umbrellas
in Corea, and there were 20 waterproofs
in such shops as saw.
Coresn hair is as queer as are Corean
hats, and there is mere almost language
in hair dressing. Married men wear
their hair different from those unmarried,
and no matter what be his age. person
is not man in Corea until he has wife.
Boys and bachelors rank on the same
footing. They part their hair in the
middle, and it is braided in q strand
which hangs down the back. When the
>hey is married he has the right to cut OF
his hair, when it grows again he combs
it up into round hard knot on the
crown. This knot is as big around as
your wrist, and it stands straight up on
the crown of the head like handle,
which if the American indians could
hunt in Corea, would be bonanza in
scalping.
With their gowns and their long hair
thus parted in the middle the boys of
.gorea look like girls, aud the candy
sellers and venders, who carry their
goods around in little boxes slung be-
fore them by straps about the,r necks,
are often taken by travellers as the fair
girls of the country.
In Corea, however. the high-bred girls