-
Daily Movement Patterns and Communication in Rural Korea
- Korean Studies
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 1, 1977
- pp. 223-241
- 10.1353/ks.1977.0009
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Daily Movement Patterns and Communication in Rural Korea Forrest R. Pitts UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII MANY specialists in human geography have turned their attention in the past decade to investigation of small-scale movement patterns, especially within cities (Goddard 1973; Wheeler 1972). Such studies are deemed appropriate in developing models of process such as intraurban migration. Parameter estimates derived from such studies are also useful in spatial simulation models. Morrill and Pitts (1967) pointed out a wide variety of ways in which such estimates of movement could be obtained. To the best of our knowledge this is the first rural-movements study made with close attention to daily activities and communication patterns. We chose the plains area of Cholla Pukto, near the relatively new city of Iri. Iri is not an old city in the Korean sense, having grown up at the junction of two rail lines built by the Japanese after 1905, where no city or village had previously existed. It had a population of 79,000 in 1967, when our survey was carried out. From a study by Seung-Gyu Moon, sponsored in 1965 by the Agricultural Development Council, four households in each of three settlements were selected as the respondent households. All three settlements were less than four miles distant from the center of Iri. Wönp'albong is a traditional yangban, or rural gentry, village. Moon described it as intensely conservative in outlook, late to accept any locally popular innovation, and proud of its background and long history. Ije is also one with yangban traditions, but its headman in 1967 was considered to be a benevolent autocrat in behalf of modernization. It was the richest of the three villages, with many amenities not found in the other two. Mansu is a village of commoners with more democratic ways, open to innovation. It had been, in the past, the poorest of the three, but in 1967 223 224FORREST R. PITTS was doggedly moving ahead economically and was proud of that fact. This survey used a questionnaire, designed primarily by Duane F. Marble, on daily movements and interpersonal contacts resulting therefrom. The questionnaire was based upon a very successful travel diary used in the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Korean version was discussed in conferences at Seoul National University's College of Agriculture at Suwön and was modified somewhat to fit the Korean rural scene. The translated questionnaire was given a field test at a settlement near Chönju city, well removed from the villages where it was applied in this survey. On the basis of the field test, Pitts and Moon made further revisions, and the final version (Table 1) was printed in Korean and English. Table 1. Korean Daily Movements Questionnaire, Summer 1967 Trip Number : Stop Number : About what time did you leave and return to your house? Where did you go? Place:Direction: Distance : X and Y Location Codes (*) Did you go alone or with someone? With someone [ ] Alone [ ] How did you travel?Travel Mode Code (*) What did you do there?Activity Code (*) Did you talk to anyone about things? Yes [ ] No [ ] if Yes: What is the age of the person? What is his or her occupation? Did you talk about farming practices?Yes [ Did you talk about homemaking?Yes [ Is the person talked to a relative?Yes [ Do you know his name, taikö, or shop name? Yes [ Had you ever met him or her before?Yes [ No[ ] No[ ] No[ ] No[ ] No[ ] Acquaintance Code (*) Note: (*) were coded after the interview was finished. Moon furnished the project with extensive data on the selected households, data which have been used in the multiple-regression runs reported on at the end of this article. During the survey, the husbands were interviewed by faculty members from Chönpuk National University and male graduate students from Seoul National University, while the wives were interviewed by female graduate students from Seoul National University. This interviewing structure fits in with ideas of propriety in Korean culture and accounts, in good part, for the accuracy and richness ofthe data obtained. After a one-day dry run on the questionnaire, designed to make the respondent familiar with the sorts of questions to be...