Korean Works & Days

by Richard Rutt

A visitor may never know a land as well as its denizens do, but that visitor sometimes will see things that the residents cannot. In other words, with distance comes perspective, as in this account of rural Korea in the 1950s from the view of a sensitive and inquisitive foreign village priest. A farmer's almanac of a specific place and time, this book records the seasons, the harvest, the customs of the people, and conversations with local Confucian scholars.

205 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1978

About the author

Cecil Richard Rutt CBE, was an English Roman Catholic priest and a former Anglican bishop.

Rutt spent almost 20 years of his life serving as an Anglican missionary in South Korea, a country for which he developed a deep affection. He was perhaps the last of the line of scholar-missionaries, beginning with James Scarth Gale, Homer B. Hulbert, George Heber Jones and the Anglican bishop Mark Napier Trollope who laid the foundations of what is now known as Korean studies. Some years after he retired as an Anglican bishop, Rutt was one of several Anglicans received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1994. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest the following year and spent the closing years of his life in Cornwall.

Reviews

[Ocean G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Rutt was a Catholic (and Anglican: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard...) priest who lived in Anjung, Korea, and in this book he recorded the village life he witnessed and which, unbeknownst to him (or maybe he had an inkling), would pretty much disappear within a few decades.

This book, written in 1964, is choc full of many little tidbits about old Korean traditions and ways of life. Like how the older men would grow their pinky fingernails out, witnessing the exchange of poetry and wordplay (using Chinese characters).


It also seems pretty critical of the "kye" rotating credit system, which is interesting since the last book I read about it (Yogong: Factory Girl) seemed to be in favor of it.

Some other interesting points:
Hearing how Suwon was back then
"This is the kind of village where they understand all twelve flavours in an ox's head"
"On the 7th day of the 7th moon they celebrate the star Vega under the name of the Spinning Maiden" (this must be the Qixi festival)
"Chuseok's Korean name is Han-gawi" (I Never knew this)
"Like most Korean villages, ours has a chop-house run by a family of Shantung Chinese"
The festivals were fascinating, and probably don't exist anymore ("dance and wrestling festival")
No mentions of Taekwondo, but it mentions traditional Korean wrestling, which reminded me of Sumo wrestling (or more like Schwingen, as we had back in Switzerland)
He mentions a memorial for Sin Suk-chu, who I had never heard of before (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Su...)
"Korea knows no tea" - Interesting statement (p. 144)
The naming conventions are fascinating, and I don't remember encountering nearly this many issues in the 1990s (then again, I was in Seoul)
"I know a high school boy who did not even know his mother's surname until I told him" (p. 149)
One man refused to pronounce a certain character correctly because it was the personal name of the first King of the Joseon dynasty.

Some books he mentions that I would like to read in the future:
J.R. Moose: "Village life in Korea" (1909)
J.S. Gale: "Korean sketches" (1899)

[Donna DeGracia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. First, because it brought back so many memories of the years I spent growing up in a village similar to, and not too far from, the village Rutt wrote about and second because it was one of the few books written about Korea by a foreigner that actually got it right. Richard Rutt is a scholar who took the trouble to understand the language, the nuances, and the culture. He is devoid of the entitled arrogance and judgmental attitude of many others. I learned a lot about the origins and meanings of some of the rural customs I observed as a child. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand what life in a rural Korean village was like in the late 1950s. Some of my friends who were Peace Corps volunteers to Korea in the 1970s read this book in preparation for their time in Korea and found it quite helpful

[Malachi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compellingly written from a completely bizarre perspective. Missionary living in Korea so obviously some strong stances on things like Buddhism and shamanism (both are scams) but provides a lot of interesting detail about annual festivals and things like that.

Was struck by the odd digression that he inserted about how the lives of women in the Korean countryside were actually great. “Sure when they go to their in laws house they are expected to cook and clean for them, but it’s what they’ve been doing all their lives” doesn’t, to me, sound like the winning argument he thinks it is.

Anyway, it’s not research, more of a primary source document so saying that the stance on things is weird is honestly irrelevant. Read it for the detailed descriptions of festivals and harvest season, as well as poetry competitions.

[Seoyoung]

Great, great look into old korean life. Tries very hard to be respectful and when I talked ab it with my mom she was like, yeah, in many ways the older ways were so much easier. Learned so much about what i take for granted from my culture because of his outside look into it

[Apryl Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

(1.12.1993), It was good to read this again after 4 ½ years. More of the anecdotes seem relevant than when I was living in the ‘global village’ of the Intercon[tinental Hotel, Seoul.]