Tales of a Korean Grandmother (3 page)

KI JA'S
POTTERY
HATS

O
NE
afternoon, not long after the Ancestors' Feast, Halmoni and Ok Cha and the others in the Inner Court were startled by a great noise beyond the Middle Gate. The cries and shouts there brought the women out upon the little verandas and sent the small boys running into the Outer Court to see what was the matter.

"It was a fight, Halmoni," Yong Tu reported, coming back, breathless. "A fight between So, the stableboy, and that peddler robber who carried away one of the saddles the last time he came inside our gates. You should have seen them, Ok Cha. Each grabbed the other one by the topknot, and they would not let go. Oh, they were rolling about on the ground in the dust. But the peddler was getting the worst of the fight. It was Uncle Chong Yang who stopped them at last."

"There are far too many fights," Halmoni said, shaking her old head in disgust. "Our Emperor will have to bring back again pottery hats, like those of Ki Ja."

"Pottery hats, Halmoni?" Yong Tu asked, dropping down on the veranda step by his grandmother. He was still out of breath. Besides, he thought these curious words might mean a story.

"Wouldn't pottery hats break?" Ok Cha put in.

"Yé,
blessed girl, that is why it was decreed that all in the kingdom should wear them. I think it was when Ki Ja was emperor. Or it may have been during the rule of one of his forty descendants. At any rate, it was long ago when men were even rougher than they are today. In those days they were constantly fighting, pulling one another hither and yon by their topknots. Neighbor fought with neighbor. Band fought against band. Men swung their clubs if only to battle with a mosquito. It was not safe to walk abroad on city street or country road.

"So Ki Ja sent forth the order that every man must wear a broad pottery hat, made of baked clay. Two feet across it must be, and shaped like a mushroom so that it came well down over his ears. There was a reason for that too, but I'll speak of it later.

"On a light framework of straw the wet clay was spread smooth. Then the hat was put into a hot oven to bake hard, just like the . Of course the pottery hats broke easily, as Ok Cha has guessed. The slightest jar would send them flying off into the road where they would lie, broken in pieces. How could men fight with such hats on their heads?"

Yong Tu admired the tall hats, made of fine horsehair, which his father and uncles wore inside as well as outside the house.

"They might have taken them off," Yong Tu said practically.

"No, clever boy, that was against the law," Halmoni replied, smiling. "A pottery hat cost a very large sum to buy, but it cost a larger sum to lose one or break one. A man must not only pay a big fine but also go to prison and be well paddled if he broke his precious hat.

"The Emperor's scheme worked very well. With his topknot hidden safely under the great hat, and not daring to step outside his own courts without one, a man had no chance of taking part in a fight. Ki Ja's pottery hats brought peace once again to this unruly land."

"And the shape of the hats, Halmoni," Ok Cha reminded her grandmother.

"Hé,
that was good, too. The great round hats were shaped like a dome, like the mourner's hat Neighbor Yi has been wearing ever since his father rode the dragon to Heaven last year. So big they were that men could not come close enough to one another's ears to whisper in secret. The Emperor knew of plots being hatched to cause him much trouble. With such pottery hats he could be sure that his spies would hear all that went on.

"The people did not like these great burdensome hats, and they wanted to make them smaller," the old woman continued. "Yet I know one tale of how his great hat saved the life of a man. It happened in early spring when the river was still covered with its winter cloak of ice. A man walking across the ice stepped upon a thin place and fell through into the water. He would have drowned if his broad hat had not caught on the edges of the hole.

"Crowds gathered on the bank like ants running to feast on a fishbone. The man's son wrung his hands. He had started forward to pull his father out by his hat. But the village elder cried, 'Wait! Do not tug at his hat. His chin strap will break and he surely will drown.'

"The wise old man told the son to break through the crown of the big pottery hat so that he could grasp his father's topknot. Standing up stiff like a horn, it made an excellent handle. With a firm grip on the topknot the son was able to pull his father safely up out of the water."

"What happened to all those pottery hats, Halmoni?" Yong Tu asked when the old woman paused for a breath.

"Ai,
they were probably broken at last, or else turned upside down and used for storing rice or soybeans. To please their customers, the hatmakers first left off the clay covering upon the straw framework. Then they made the hats smaller and smaller, and lighter and lighter. And since men had by that time learned to live without fighting, the Emperor's pottery hat decree was withdrawn.

"But even today our men's hats are designed chiefly to protect and cover up their precious topknots. That is why they wear hats inside, as well as outside, their own houses. So's topknot-pulling with the dishonest peddler shows what happens to persons who go about without hats."

Yong Tu admired above everything the tall black hats made of fine horsehair gauze, which were worn by his father and his uncles. He liked to lift them, because he never could believe hats could be so light. "They're no heavier than feathers," he used to say to Ok Cha. Indeed their father's hat weighed only a little more than an ounce.

On cloudy days the boy was often sent to fetch the rain cover for his father's horsehair hat. The slightest dampness would melt the stiffening of its crown which stood up so proudly. An oiled-paper pleated covering, shaped like a tiny tent, was kept tucked inside Kim Hong Chip's sleeve, whence it could be quickly pulled out when the rain came.

Yong Tu admired also the neat gauze skullcap his father wore under the hat, with his fine upstanding topknot rising through the hole in its top. Like most
yangbans,
Kim Hong Chip sometimes put a small silver pin in his topknot. That was to drive away evil spirits which might wish to grab it. Other times he wore in it a button of jade, amber, or turquoise.

The amber beads on the chin strap that held his hat firmly upon his dignified head were a sign of this man's importance. More ordinary men had only a narrow black ribbon tied under their chins.

Yong Tu never thought it strange that a boy of ten years, like himself, should wear a long braid down his back, like a girl. It never occurred to him to wonder why his father and his uncles should bother with long hair, which had to be combed and oiled with such care.

This boy looked forward to the time when he, too, would be old enough to marry and put his hair up in the honorable topknot. That would be a great day, a lucky day chosen by the soothsayer. All the family would gather in the Hall of Ceremonies. Kim Hong Chip, as Master of the House, would unbraid his son's long hair. He would then comb it upward, giving it a firm twist and tying it tightly with string. The horsehair cap would be put on, and in his new long white coat, Yong Tu would bow before the tablets of the Ancestors. Then they, too, would know that he had become a man. There would be feasts for the Ancestors and for the family and friends who came to congratulate him.

If anyone had asked Yong Tu why a topknot was so important, he would have just looked surprised and would have answered, "It is the custom." That was reason enough in this land of Korea where people had followed the ways of their ancestors for more than four thousand years.

WHY THE DOG
AND
THE CAT
ARE
NOT FRIENDS

O
NE
warm autumn afternoon sounds of barking from the Outer Court drifted to the veranda where Ok Cha was helping her grandmother sort pine seeds for the New Year cakes.

"I have a riddle for you, Halmoni," the little girl said.

"My ears are open, Jade Child," the old woman replied, smiling fondly down upon her favorite granddaughter.

"Here it is then. Who in this house first goes forth to welcome the coming guest?"

"Would it be your father, the Master of our House?" Halmoni asked thoughtfully, pretending she had never heard this old riddle before.

"No, Halmoni, it would not be Abuji. The Master of this House greets his guests only when they have entered the Outer Court." Ok Cha was delighted because her grandmother did not guess the answer at once.

"Would it be Pak, the gatekeeper?" Halmoni asked, wrinkling her smooth, old, ivory-colored brow, as if she were puzzled.

"Oh no, Halmoni. Shall I tell you? Well, it is Dog!"

"To be sure it is Dog." The Korean grandmother nodded her dark head. "Dog is the true gatekeeper of our house."

Most of the day, and even at night, this shaggy shepherd, which everyone inside the Kim courts called "Dog," lay half way through the doghole cut in the bottom of the bamboo gate. With his head thrust through the opening, he was the first to see and give warning of approaching visitors.

Dog took his duties as gatekeeper much more seriously than old Pak, who slept most of the time in the door of the servants' houses just inside the gate. Of course, now and then he went out into the street to hunt bits of food that might have been thrown out there by the neighbors. Or he sometimes left his post to bark at a bird or to chase a stray cat.

It was this last pastime that brought Dog now racing through the Middle Gate and into the Inner Court. Around the tall pottery water jars went the black cat with the brown dog at her tail. Over and under the seesaw they flew, and into the corner where Yong Tu and his cousins were busy making kites for the New Year flying.

"Wori! Wori!
Dog, come here," Yong Tu called severely. And the boy joined in the chase, finally catching the excited dog by the neck and holding him tight until the black cat got away to safety in the Garden of Green Gems, beyond the women's houses.

These children did not have much sympathy for the cat, but Yong Tu was afraid the animals might spoil his precious kite-making materials which were spread out on the ground. The Kims liked Dog because he was such a good watchman. But he was in no way an indoor pet like the dogs of Western lands. This black cat, which often crept over their wall, was very wild. Once Ok Cha had tried to pet it, but the cat would only growl, spit at her, and scratch.

"Why do dogs and cats fight so, Halmoni?" the little girl asked, looking up from her tray of pine seeds.

"My grandmother used to tell me a story about that," Halmoni said. "And I'll tell it to you." Somehow Yong Tu and his cousins must have guessed their grandmother was beginning a story. Before she was well started, they had brought their papers, their bamboo sticks, and their glue-pots and set up their little kite factory at her feet.

"The dog and the cat in my tale lived in a small wineshop on the bank of a broad river beside a ferry, my children. Old Koo, the shopkeeper, had neither wife nor child. In his little hut he lived by himself except for this dog and this cat. The tame beasts never left his side. While he sold wine in the shop, the dog kept guard at the door and the cat caught mice in the storeroom. When he walked on the river bank, they trotted by his side. When he lay down to sleep upon the warm floor, they crept close to his back. They were good enough friends then, the dog and the cat, but that was before the disaster occurred and the cat behaved so badly.

"Old Koo was poor, but he was honest and kind. His shop was not like those where travelers are persuaded to drink wine until they become drunk and roll on the ground. Only one kind of wine was sold, but it was a good wine. Once they had tasted it, Koo's customers came back again and again to fill their long-necked wine bottles.

"'Where does Old Koo get so much wine?' the neighbors used to ask one another. 'No new jars are ever delivered by bull carts at his door. He makes no wine himself, yet his black jug is never without wine to pour for his customers.'

"No one knew the answer to the riddle save Old Koo himself, and he told it to no one except his dog and his cat. Years before he opened his wineshop, Koo had worked on the ferry. One cold rainy night when the last ferry had returned, a strange traveler came to the gate of his hut.

"'Honorable Sir, he begged Koo, 'give me a drop of good wine to drive out the damp chill.'

"'My wine jug is almost empty,' Koo told the traveler. I have only a little for my evening drink, but no doubt you need the wine far more than I. I'll share it with you.' And he filled up a bowl for his strange, thirsty guest.

"The stranger on leaving put into the ferryman's hand a bit of bright golden amber. 'Keep this in your wine jug,' he said, 'and it will always be full.'

"Now, as Old Koo told his dog and his cat, that traveler must have been a spirit from Heaven, for when Koo lifted the black jug, it was heavy with wine. When he filled his bowl from it, he thought he had never tasted a drink so sweet and so rich. No matter how much he poured, the wine in the jug never grew less.

"Here was a treasure indeed. With a jug that never ran dry, he could open a wineshop. He would no longer have to go back and forth, back and forth, in the ferryboat over the river in all kinds of weather.

"All went well until one day when he was serving a traveler, Koo found to his horror that his black jug was empty. He shook it and shook it, but no answering tinkle came from the hard amber charm that should have been inside.

"'Ai-go! Ai-go!'
Koo wailed. 'I must unknowingly have poured the amber out into the bottle of one of my customers.
Ai-go!
What shall I do?'

"The dog and the cat shared their master's sadness. The dog howled at the moon, and the cat prowled around the shop, sniffing and sniffing under the rice jars and even high up on the rafters. These animals knew the secret of the magic wine jug, for the old man had often talked to them about the stranger's amber charm.

"I am sure I could find the charm,' the cat said to the dog, 'if I only could catch its amber smell.'

"'We shall search for it together,' the dog suggested. 'We shall go through every house in the neighborhood. When you sniff it out, I will run home with it.'

"So they began their quest. They asked all the cats and dogs they met for news of the lost amber. They prowled about all the houses, but not a trace could they find of their master's magic charm.

"'We must try the other side of the river,' the dog said at last. 'They will not let us ride across on the ferryboat. But when the winter cold comes and the river's stomach is solid, we can safely creep over the ice, like everyone else.'

"Thus it was that one winter morning the dog and the cat crossed the river to the opposite side. As soon as the owners were not looking, they crept into the houses. The dog sniffed round the courtyards, and the cat even climbed up on the beams under the sloping grass roofs. Day after day, week after week, month after month, they searched and they searched, but with no success.

"Spring was at hand. The joyful fish in the river were bumping their backs against the soft ice. At last, one day, high up on the top of a great brassbound chest, the cat smelled the amber. But,
ai,
the welcome perfume came from inside a tightly closed box. What could they do? If they pushed the box off the chest and let it break on the floor, the Master of the House would surely be warned and chase them away.

"'We must get help from the rats,' the clever dog cried. They can gnaw a hole in the box for us and get the amber out. In return, we can promise to let them live in peace for ten years.' This plan was all against the nature of a cat, but this one loved its master and it consented.

"The rats consented, too. It seemed to them almost too good to be true that both the cats and the dogs might leave them alone for ten whole peaceful years. It took the rats many days to gnaw a hole in that box, but at last it was done. The cat tried to get at the amber with its soft paw, but the hole was too small. Finally a young mouse had to be sent in through the wee hole. It succeeded in pulling the amber out with its teeth.

"'How pleased our master will be! Now good luck will live again under his roof,' the cat and the dog said to each other. In their joy at finding the lost amber charm, they ran around and around as if they were having fits.

"'But how shall we get the amber back to the other side of the river?' the cat cried in dismay. 'You know I cannot swim.'

"'You shall hold the amber safely inside your mouth, Cat,' the dog replied wisely. 'You shall climb on my back, and I'll swim you over the river.'

"And so it happened. Clawing the thick shaggy hair of the dog's back, the cat kept its balance until they had almost reached their own bank of the stream. But there, playing along the shore, were a number of children, who burst into laughter when they saw the strange ferryman and his curious passenger. 'A cat riding on the back of a dog! Ho! Ho! Ho!' they laughed. 'Ha! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Ho! Just look at that.' They called to their parents, and they came to laugh, too.

"Now the faithful dog paid no attention to their foolish mirth, but the cat could not help joining them in the fun. It, too, began to laugh, and from its open mouth Old Koo's precious amber charm dropped down upon the river bottom.

"The dog shook the cat off his back, he was so angry, and it was a miracle that the creature at last got safely to the shore. In a rage the dog chased the cat, which finally took refuge in the crotch of a tree. There the cat shook the moisture out of its fur. By spitting and spitting, it got rid of the water it had swallowed while in the river. The cat dared not come down out of the tree until the angry dog had gone away.

"That, so my grandmother said, is why the dog and the cat are never friends, my dear ones. That is why, too, a cat always spits when a strange dog comes too near. That is why a cat does not like to get its feet wet."

"But what about the amber charm and poor Old Koo?" Ok Cha asked anxiously.

"It was that dog who finally saved the fortunes of the old wineshop keeper," Halmoni explained. "First, he tried swimming out into the stream to look for the amber. But it was too deep for him to see the bottom. Then he sat beside the river fishermen, wishing he had a line or a net like theirs that would bring up the golden prize he sought. Suddenly from a fish that had just been pulled out of the water, the dog sniffed amber perfume. Grabbing that fish up in his mouth before the fisherman could stop him, he galloped off home.

"'Well done, Dog,' said Old Koo. 'There is only a little food left under our roof. This fish will make a good meal for you and me.' The old man cut open the fish and, to his surprise and delight, the bit of amber rolled out.

"'Now I can put my magic charm back into the jug,' Koo said to himself. 'But there must be at least a little wine in it to start the jug flowing again. While I go out to buy some, I'll just lock the amber up inside my clothes chest.'

"When Koo came back with the wine and opened the chest, he found that instead of the one suit he had stored in it, there were now two. Where his last string of cash had been, there were two strings. And he guessed that the secret of this amber charm was that it would double whatever it touched.

"With this knowledge Koo became rich beyond telling. And in the gate of his fine new house he cut a doghole for his faithful friend, who had saved him from starving. There, day and night, like our own four-footed gate guard, the fat dog lay watching in peace and well-fed contentment. But all through his life he never again killed a mouse nor made a friend of a cat."