Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/135

Rh they so desire. In Korea, as elsewhere, it takes a woman a long time to get old.

The women who have to work cannot always be covered with hats and veils, and so must appear open-faced as do women in other countries. But even then they usually look straight ahead, never turning their eyes from the path they are following. Custom requires that men shall look the other way when women are passing in front of them. I now remember being in the country some years ago, and while waiting by the roadside near a village there were several women, engaged in carrying vegetables from a near-by field, who must pass near where I was sitting. One of the men who was traveling with me told me that it was very bad for me to stop so near the road while the women were passing that way. I then noticed that the men traveling with me had all left the road some little distance and stood with their backs toward the women as they passed.

These village women are to be seen everywhere working in the fields, and often doing the most menial and distasteful labor. The washing is no small part of a woman's toil in this land of white clothes. They are compelled to rip the winter garments apart and take the cotton out before the washing is done. They have no tubs nor boilers. The clothes after being ripped apart are soaked in a solution of lye (they have no soap), and are then carried out to the nearest stream, or it may be to the village well, where they are placed on a flat stone and beaten with a paddle till they are clean. The washing being over, the