The hair is dressed differently by single and married men. If unmarried,
they adopt the queue; when married, they put up their hair and twist it
into a conical mass upon their heads, keeping it in place by a woven
horsehair band, which completely encircles the forehead and base of the
skull. A few, influenced by Western manners, have cropped their hair.
This is specially noticeable among the soldiers on duty in the city,
while, in compliance with the orders of the Emperor, all military and
civil officials in the capital have adopted the foreign style. Boys and
girls, the queerest and most dirty little brats, are permitted up to a
certain age to roam about the streets, to play in the gutters, and about
the sewage pits in a state of complete nudity—a form of economy which
is common throughout the Far East. The boys quickly drift into clothes
and occupations of a kind. The girls of the poorer orders are sold as
domestic slaves and become attached to the households of the upper
classes. From their subsequent appearance in the street, when they run
beside the chairs of their mistresses, it is quite evident that they are
taught to be clean and even dainty in their appearance. At this youthful
age they are quaint and healthy looking children. The conditions under
which they live, however, soon produce premature exhaustion.
Despite the introduction of certain reforms, there is still much of the
old world about Seoul, many relics of the Hermit Kingdom. Women are still
most carefully secluded. The custom, which allows those of the upper
classes to take outdoor exercise only at night, is observed. Men are,
however, no longer excluded from the streets at such hours. The spectacle
of these white spectres of the night, flitting from point to point, their
footsteps lighted by the rays of the lantern which their girl-slaves
carry before them, is as remarkable as the appearance of Seoul by
daylight, with its moving masses all garmented in white. A street full
of Koreans aptly suggests, as Mr. Henry Norman, M.P., once wrote, the
orthodox notion of the Resurrection. It cannot be denied that the
appearance of both men and women makes the capital peculiarly attractive.
The men are fine, well-built and peaceful fellows, dignified in their
bearing, polite and even considerate towards one another. The type shows
unmistakable evidences of descent from the half savage and nomadic tribes
of Mongolia and Northern Asia and the Caucasian peoples from Western Asia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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