Traditional Korean Economy
The main occupation of the people is agriculture, the Koreans being a nation of farmers, with the spirit, the good points and the weaknesses of a farming people. They have…
Location: North Korea, South Korea
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 It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
Economy
From Korea: The Land People and Customs by George Heber Jones, 1907.
The main occupation of the people is agriculture, the Koreans being a nation of farmers, with the spirit, the good points and the weaknesses of a farming people. They have strong physiques, and readily endure long hours of labor and exposure to the elements.
Their power to carry loads is surprising. They have invented a rack, which they hang on their backs by straps over the shoulders, supporting it on the hips, and upon this rack a Korean has been known to carry a bale of cotton goods, weighing five hundred pounds, for a mile. They have only the crudest farming appliances, and farms are limited largely to small holdings.
As there are no native banks, the nobility and the wealthy men of the land usually invest their fortunes in farm land, which is worked on shares by the farming classes. Renting for a cash stipend is unknown. An estate is made up of a large number of these small holdings, presided over by a steward representing the grand seigneur.
Business is greatly handicapped by lack of confidence, the native rates of interest ranging from two per cent to ten per cent a month. In Seoul there are wealthy and powerful guilds of various merchants who have stalls where they show their goods.
Such a thing as a store, as understood in Western lands, is unknown in the native cities. Small shops may be found in some of the larger walled towns, and at the open ports, where native products,—wooden, brass, and iron ware, articles of apparel, household utensils, mixed with foreign importations such as piece goods, kerosene oil, cigarettes, umbrellas, and matches, may be purchased.
Often, however, the entire stock in trade will not be worth more than fifteen or twenty dollars. In many of the smaller towns the shops open only once each five days, for shopping is done by the people usually on market days. These occur each fifth day and are held at central points, to which hucksters resort with such goods as they can carry on their backs or on a pony.
To these marketplaces come the farmers with their products, including chickens, fruit, and bulls, and it is surprising to see the amount of business thus done. As many as twenty thousand people will be in attendance during market days in some of the thickly populated regions.
Native life in Korea is on a very simple and primitive basis, and far behind that of their neighbors in China and Japan. The manufactures of Korea, like their natural resources, await development. The commercial outlook is certainly very good, for here we have a nation of 12,000,000 people, strong of physique, sturdy in many of their characteristics, yet docile under sympathetic control, diligent by nature, quick to learn, and needing only instruction, the removal of an oppressive government and the rise of a generation free from the hurtful views which prevail concerning the dignity of labor, to become one of the most prosperous and progressive peoples of the Far East.
Jones, George Heber. Korea; The Land, People, and Customs. Jennings and Graham, 1907.
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