Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/142

124 will be a sort of trash pan or box into which the remains of the pipe are emptied after each long-drawn-out smoke. The fact is that about all the time lost between smokes is just the small division that is required to reload the pipe. The stone floor is covered with a straw mat, which serves at the same time for chairs and desks. These rooms are usually only eight feet square, with no windows except the doors, which answer for both doors and windows. The ventilation is not always just what the board of health might desire; in fact, when the doors have been shut and the teacher smoking for several hours it may be truthfully said that the atmosphere in that room is a little close.

The teacher takes his place in the seat of honor, which is always the warmest spot on the stone floor, just over the place where the fire has been built for the purpose of warming it. The position assumed by him is the most comfortable known to Koreans, sitting tailor fashion; while the boys are required to take the most polite attitude, which is something between kneeling and sitting on their own feet. In this position, with their books spread out on the mat in front of them, they are ready to take up the work of the day. It should be kept in mind that everything in this country is bottom side up and wrong end foremost; so the books of these young students begin at the back instead of the front, the lines run from top to bottom on the page instead of from left to right as in out books. There are no A B C's to bother the heads of little people, but in their stead there are unknown thousands of these curiously and wonderfully made Chi-