Traditional Society of Korea
Korean society is divided into several grades or classes. At the head of the nation stands the Emperor and the Imperial clan, which has held sway over the nation for…
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
Population and Society
From Korea: The Land People and Customs by George Heber Jones, 1907.
Korean society is divided into several grades or classes. At the head of the nation stands the Emperor and the Imperial clan, which has held sway over the nation for over five hundred years. The Emperor is an absolute monarch, whose every word is law. He is assisted in government by a cabinet of Ministers of State and a Privy Council.
The government is confined largely to the one arm of the Executive, as there is no Legislature, and while Courts of Law exist at the capital, judicial functions, as well as those of revenue collections, are exercised by the executive officers sent by the Emperor into the provinces.
There are thirteen provinces, each presided over by a governor, and three hundred and forty-two districts or counties, presided over by prefects. The Isle of Quelpart is a separate jurisdiction, presided over by an imperial deputy and three prefects. There is an army, small but well regulated and organized, with a number of distinguished men connected with it. Korea has no navy. No such thing as a popular election is known in Korea. All public officers are appointed by the Emperor, while the lower grades of employees of the government are subject to the appointees of the Emperor. A primitive form of supervision exists in the hamlets of the country and the wards of the city, in which the people may suggest a choice, but the appointment lies with the prefect.
Foreigners from America, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan played an honorable part in assisting the government of Korea in various capacities. In the official, commercial, and private life of the foreign community in Korea the West has been represented by men of the highest character, and the relations among themselves and with the Koreans have been pleasant and harmonious.
The population of Korea is estimated among the people themselves to be 20,000,000. This is a great exaggeration, probably 12,000,000 being a conservative estimate. Next to the Imperial clan, in the social scale are the Yang-ban, or the nobility, who fill all the offices, enjoy special privileges and prerogatives, and are the absolute rulers of the land. With them are the literati, whose position is an honorable and respected one.
Then come the middle class men, who make up the real bulk of the population, and are farmers or merchants, or occupy the clerical offices in the government. At the bottom of the scale are the coolies or laboring classes, consisting of several grades, the lowest being the butchers, and above them in rank the Buddhist priests, monks, and nuns, who in their turn are outranked by the serfs or household slaves. Actors are also regarded as in social disgrace, and classified somewhere between the butchers and monks. Labor of all kinds is regarded as a badge of disgrace, and the fear of it rests like a nightmare upon Korean gentry who make any social pretensions.
The main occupation of the nobility is either "running" the government, or being run by it. There are two political parties in Korea—the Ins and the Outs. The Ins regard themselves as orthodox, and consider the Outs traitors. The literati as a class have high ideals, and have given to the entire range of Korean life a literary trend.
It is no exaggeration to say that though the Koreans may not be a nation of scholars, they are certainly a nation of students. They are eager to learn, quick to comprehend, strong to retain, and it is a delight to be associated with them in the capacity of an instructor.
They reverence their teachers, whom they classify with their officials and parents in their respect. This devotion to literary studies and ambition to be educated is not confined to the literary classes, but among the lower classes the same intense desire for education manifests itself, and out of them sometimes come men of great mental superiority. In study a Korean will not spare himself. A favorite motto is, "Tie your top-knot to the ridge pole," the Korean equivalent of "Burning the midnight oil."
It is said of one of their most famous prime ministers that when, at the age of eighty, he retired from active life, he journeyed to the early home which he had not seen since his boyhood. After visiting the house in which he was born, he went to the school room in which he was educated, and taking the switch with which the boys are disciplined, he set it against the wall and then gravely got down on his knees and made three obeisances to it, saying, "The rod made me a man."
Jones, George Heber. Korea; The Land, People, and Customs. Jennings and Graham, 1907.
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