Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/109

Rh there are several boys in the family that one or two of them are selected to go to school, while the others must work to support the family and grow up without being able to read. There is one peculiar thing about boyhood in this country, and that is, it is short of duration and continueth not. There is no waiting for the long-drawn-out twenty-one years in order to be a man in this country. The matter of becoming a full-fledged man does not depend on years, but is a matter to be decided on its merits by the parents or guardians of the subject in hand. The badge of manhood is none other than the topknot, which is made by combing all the hair to the top of the head and making it into a coil about an inch and a half in diameter and four or five inches high. From the time the boy's hair is long enough it is plaited into a straight braid and left hanging down his back. When the time comes for him to be engaged to marry, his topknot is put up, and from that time forth he is recognized as a man. This usually takes place between the ages of ten and twenty, though he is not likely to be so old as twenty.

In order to understand our village boy, I must tell you that the Korean language has three forms of speech, known as low, middle, and high talk. The low forms are used in addressing children and servants, the middle to friends and equals, and the high to superiors and old people. As long as a boy wears his hair plaited and hanging down his back he is addressed in low talk. His age has nothing to do with, the form of speech, but the style of his hair settles that. It some-