Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/70

60 See the great, wide streets and the narrow, winding alleys. How they are crowded with white-robed, moving throngs, affording us a view that cannot be found in any other city in all the wide, wide world! Some of these objects are gentlemen on pleasure bent. Many of them are the hard-working coolies who know nothing but toil from day, to day, not even knowing a Sunday of rest, and making just enough to keep the wolf from the door and to buy tobacco enough to fill the long-stemmed pipe. The Korean must have his smoke, whether he has a sufficient amount of food or not. There among that moving multitude are many men and boys, with a sprinkling of women, who have walked for days and days, from all parts of the country, for just a little sight-seeing in Seoul, the greatest city in all the world — that is, in all the world of which they have any knowledge.

Everybody seems to have plenty of time and nothing to do except to see what is to be seen in the great capital. It is true the jinrikisha men move along as if they had started somewhere and expected to get there. But the jinrikisha is an innovation, and does not belong to the old order of things in Seoul. It came with the Japanese, and is now fast taking the place of the sedan chair. Then, too, there is that painted monster, the trolley car, that comes buzzing along every few minutes, compelling even yang-bans to quicken their steps and get off the track before something happens. These cars are owned and operated by the Korean-American Electric Company. The cars are run by Korean motormen and conductors, under the