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| Ironing clothes in the late 19th century / Robert Neff Collection |
By Robert Neff
A frequent observation by Western visitors to Korea in the late 19th century was the constant sound of tapping coming from most houses in the middle of the night. This was the sound of women ironing their clothing. According to Isabella Bird Bishop, the only sound that broke the stillness of the night in Seoul was the "regular beat of the laundry sticks." Horace Allen, an American missionary who arrived in 1884, echoed her sentiment when he wrote that "the musical rat-tat-tap of the Korean laundry was one of [the] most common nocturnal sounds" heard while he lived in Seoul.
The method of ironing was rather tedious. After the clothes were washed and dried at the river or stream, they were often stiffened and given more body with a starch made out of rice. They were then taken back home and, in the evening ― after dinner was made and a countless number of other chores were completed ― laid out on a flat board and then pounded with laundry sticks. These laundry sticks were described as looking like little baseball bats.
According to George Gilmore, an American teacher in Seoul in the late 1880s, "By the rate of the taps it can often be told whether the man of the house has one or two wives." That might not be quite true. Considering that prior to the mid-1890s, the streets at night belonged to the women, this was a perfect time for women to visit one another and to gossip together while doing the laundry.
These women would alternate their strokes, "beating with a rhythmic motion rather lulling in its effects," while a young girl would turn the cloth every so often.
For the men of the household, the sound of the laundry sticks may have helped them drift off to sleep, but for other men, the sound of those sticks and the whispered gossip of their neighbors' wives may have caused them to lose sleep.
Horace Allen told an amusing little anecdote in one of his books of a woman who discovered that her husband had taken a concubine. She "had become so enraged that while scolding him in tones audible to the whole neighbourhood she had worked herself into such a frenzy that she had pulled out handfuls of her own hair, and when [her husband] annoyed at the publicity given to his short-comings, had called her a name that bore a reflection on her ancestry, she had seized her ironing-stick and beat him over the head until he fell dead (unconscious)."
Not one to shy away from expressing his opinion, Allen added:
"The secluded women of China and Korea are certainly long-suffering, but when pressed too far they will turn and the fury into which they then work themselves is something awful to contemplate. The ironing-stick then becomes a reliance not to be despised and one of which the stronger sex may well stand in awe."
While the sticks may have had other uses, their primary use was for beating the cloth and transforming the common white cotton fabric into what resembled a dazzling white silk. Once the ironing was done, the clothes were then stitched back together. It was an endless task and women truly lived in Hell Joseon.
Robert Neff has authored and co-authored several books including, Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and Brief Encounters.
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