Corea or Cho-sen: The Land of the Morning CalmLandor, Arnold Henry Savage
History
Corea or Cho-sen: The Land of the Morning Calm
Landor, Arnold Henry Savage
Korea -- Description and travel
Married men, on the other hand--and ninety-nine per hundred are married
in Cho-sen--wear their hair done up in a most wonderful fashion. It is
not as long as that of bachelors, for it is cut. It is combed, with the
head down, in the orthodox fashion, as women do, I suppose, when they
comb it by themselves, and then passing the left hand under it, along the
forehead, it is caught close to the head just about the middle of the
skull. This being satisfactorily done, what remains of the hair above the
hand is twisted round into the shape and size of a sausage, which then
remains sticking up perpendicularly on the top of the head, and which, in
the natural order of things, goes by the sensible name of top-knot.
Occasionally a little silver or metal bead is attached to the top of the
knot, and a small tortoiseshell ornament fastened to the hair just over
the forehead. This completes the married man's hair-dressing, with which
he is always most careful, and I must say that the black straight hair
thus arranged does set off the head very well. The illustration shows the
profile of a married man of the coolie class, who, of course, wears the
hair dressed just like the others, it being a national custom; only the
richer and smarter people, of course, wear it more tidily, and, probably,
not quite so artistically. Besides, the better class of people are not
content with the process of beautifying themselves which I have just
described, but surround the forehead, temples and back of the head with a
head-band, a curious arrangement made of woven black horse-hair, which
keeps the real hair tight under it, and not only prevents it from being
blown about, but forms a more solid basis for the wonderful hats they
wear. The nobler classes, upon whom the king has bestowed decorations in
the shape of jade, gold or silver buttons, according to the amount of
honour he has meant to accord them, wear these decorations, of all
places, behind the ears, and fastened tight to the head-band.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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