Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/271

Rh Sunday. — Sunday or any day corresponding to it is entirely unknown in our village life. There is no day set apart for rest and worship which can be compared with our Sunday. The fact is, there is no week by which time is measured; but time is counted by the moon, the year being divided into twelve or thirteen moons, as the case may be. With every new moon comes the first day of the moon (or month, as we would say); then in order follow the second, third, and so on till the new moon comes around again. New Year's day is the great holiday of all the year, at which time all the village people don their best clothes and give themselves up to feasting and frolicking according to the traditions that have been handed down through the ages. This season of feasting and cessation from, ordinary labors lasts from the first to the fifteenth day of the first moon. There are other days which are set apart during the year for ancestral worship and other feasts, but none mean to the unchristianized Korean what Sunday means to us.

Home. — There is no word in the Korean language for that something which we call home. Absolutely nothing that carries the meaning contained in our word "home" can be found in the language. There is a reason for this, and that reason is the fact that the idea does not exist. There are houses, and those houses are occupied by families; but those sacred relations which are absolutely indispensable to the home are not found where the gospel has not gone. The exalted place occupied by the men and the low place assigned to the women make it impossible for that unity in the family