Among the poorer classes the families celebrate the birthday of the head of the family only, but among the noble and wealthy, each member of the family is honored with gifts and a festal gathering of friends. There are certain years of destiny noticed with extra joy and congratulations, but the chief of all is the sixty-first year. With us, the days of man are three score years and ten, but in the hermit kingdom the limit of life is three score years and one, and the reason is this: The Coreans divide time according to the Chinese cycle of sixty years, which is made up of two series of ten and twelve each respectively. Every year has a name after the zodiacal sign, or one of the five elements. The first birthday occurring after the entire revolution of the cycle is a very solemn event to a sexagenarian, and the festival commemorative of it is called Wan-kap. All, rich and poor, noble and vulgar, observe this day, which definitely begins old age, when man, having passed the acknowledged limit of life, must remember and repose. When it happens—a rare event—that the sixty-first anniversary of a wedding finds both parties alive, there are extraordinary rejoicings, and the event is celebrated like our “diamond weddings.” For both these feasts children and friends must strain every nerve, and spend all their cash to be equal to the occasion and to spread the table for all comers; for at such a time, not only the neighbors, but often the whole country folk round are interested. A silk robe for the honored aged, new clothes for themselves, and no end of wine and good cheer for friends, acquaintances, hangers-on, country cousins, and strangers from afar, must be provided without stint. Poems are recited, games and sports enjoyed, minstrels sing and dance, and recitations are given. All come with compliments in their mouths—and a ravenous appetite. All must be fed and none turned away, and the children of the honored one must be willing to spend their last coin and economize, or even starve, for a year afterward. It is often as dreadful an undertaking as a funeral pageant in other lands. In the event of the queen, royal mother, or king, reaching the sixty-first birthday the profusion and prodigality of expense and show reaches a height of shameful extravagance. All the prisons are opened by general amnesty, and the jail-birds fly free. An extraordinary session of examiners is held to grant degrees. In the capital all the grandees present themselves before the king with gifts and homage. In all the rural districts, a large picture of the king is hung up in a noted place. The chief magistrate, preceded by music and followed by his satellites, and all the people proceed to the place and prostrate themselves before the effigy, offering their congratulations. In the capital the soldiers receive gifts from the court, and the day is a universal holiday for the entire nation.