A Village with Ten Years of Debt

Lee Jon-Sun and his crew after quarreling with a senior villager eventually left his house with a couple of empty glass bottles he had saved beneath the floor. They also went around other villagers’ homes, only to return with eggs and straw bags instead of money.

It was for a reason that Saemaul leader Lee Jong-Sun went around villagers’ homes and did what appeared to be extorting their money or belongings. The village head and Head of the Agricultural Cooperative Alliance had fled after using the villagers’ seals to steal money equivalent to over 200 sacks of rice. The villagers lost the will to live, having to sit on a pile of debt for money they hadn’t even touched. Like the Korean saying, “Once you burn yourself in hot water, you tremble at the sight of cold water”. The villagers resorted to drinking and gambling rather than accept the challenge to pay off their debt.

Gathering Money Like a Debt Collector Collecting Daily Payments

In 1976, Lee Jong-Sun knew he had found the answer while listening to the success story of Maeul Geumgo (Village Fund) at the Saemaul Leaders Training Institute.‘Maeul Geumgo is the way to get our village out of its ten-year debt.’ He and four other villagers who agreed with his vision immediately began working on establishing a Maeul Geumgo. Together, they explained to the villagers the advantages of having a Maeul Geumgo and gathered just 19 members, with whom they established Maeul Geumgo with an investment of 5,700 won.

Obstacles awaited almost immediately after their first step. Members who had promised at the time of the Maeul Geumgo’s launch to pay at least a single won every day soon lost their passion. With no money coming in, the person in charge of accounting for the fund went around knocking on the doors of the members’ homes to collect money. If they had no money to give, he would leave with eggs, straw bags or even empty glass bottles, selling them and depositing the money to their accounts each and every time. Some were so fed up with these daily visits, they waited with 20 days’ worth of money.

The results of tenaciously forcing money out of the villagers were unexpected. Members of the Maeul Geumgo began to find joy in investing small amounts of money, resulting in 54 members and 716,000 won in the fund after only four months. Among the villagers, there was a new-found enthusiasm, which led to industriousness and frugality. A sense of community built up among the villagers, and the village began to enjoy a friendly atmosphere.

The Power of Jomdori Savings

Saving small amounts of money originated from the tradition of “Jomdori”, referring to setting aside a handful of rice in a jar or a pot every time one cooks rice. In times of hunger, this practice was extremely difficult to follow, even for those with very strong willpower. Rice gathered this way was used as an offering to Buddha or for ancestral rites, or sometimes donated to those in need.

“Jomdori savings” applied this tradition of sharing with others even in difficult times, calling for saving a spoonful of rice each meal. A spoonful of rice set aside each meal for one month in a five-person household amounted to one day’s worth of savings.

The villagers made saving for the Maeul Geumgo a part of their everyday lives. They saved up by reducing transportation costs by walking, invested wages earned through group work and 30% of the money received for congratulatory or condolatory events in the fund, and exchanged profits from village stores into investments. Regardless of whether the harvest was bountiful or not, the villagers converted a part of their income into investments in the Maeul Geumgo. These efforts resulted in 83 members and 6,083,500 won of assets in the fund in October 1973, only three years after its launch.