Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/161

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The Village Farmer.
135

yet for carrying heavy burdens it is by far the best device that I have seen in any part of the world.

Our farmers have a very interesting custom of helping one another with their work. It is no unusual sight to see two or three dozen men, boys, and sometimes women at work in the same little field. This does not mean that they are all employed by one farmer, but it means that they are helping each other. They will work out one man's farm to-day, and to-morrow they will do another, and so on till all who are interested have their fields worked out in turn.

It has been said over and over again by travelers in Korea that they "are a lazy lot." I want to say just as many times over and over again that this is not true. I can readily see how this impression would invariably be formed by one who spends only a few weeks in this country, and that mostly around the open ports. Let that same man come and live with me among the farmers for a few years and study conditions as they are, not as they seem to be, and I am sure that he will agree that I have told the truth on this subject. The globe-trotter comes to Seoul, and in the morning he gets up and has his breakfast about nine o'clock, and then walks out to see the city. He finds things rather quiet — in fact, altogether dull, as compared to what he is accustomed to in the homeland. There are not many people on the, streets, and those who are move as if they had all day to get to the next corner; so he looks at them and reaches the conclusion that they are all lazy. If he had been up and out at four o'clock this morning, he would have