Anyone who has walked dirt roads knows this saying in the body. When rain comes, the yard and the paddy embankment turn to slop and the feet sink in. But once the rain stops and the sun comes out, the soaked earth dries into ground packed harder than before — water having seeped into the gaps between the grains and drawn them tight against one another. It was the same principle that led builders to sprinkle water as they tamped down a house site. The Standard Korean Dictionary glosses the proverb as "a saying for growing stronger after passing through some ordeal." What is worth noticing is that the proverb does not paint the rain as a welcome thing. Rain is still a nuisance, still mud underfoot. It says only that the ground the rain has passed over is firmer than it was. To console without prettifying what is endured — that is the restraint of this old sentence.