Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/83

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The Village.
71

There are no secrets in the village. Everybody knows everybody else's business equally as well as he knows his own, and, I have sometimes thought, much better.

In case of a fire in a village the people whose house is burning will do all they can to extinguish the flames, while their neighbors may be seen standing on the tops of their houses waving a pair of trousers in the air to keep the fire spirit from coming their way.

These villages are found not only along the main road, but they are to be found everywhere that farm lands can be obtained. Often a large village of several hundred houses is found away back in some valley where nothing of the sort would be expected.