Foray into the wide world of forest science

On my third day in Jinju, Dr. Jo helped me get my phone fixed at LG, and told me not to underestimate the provinces (kind of a Korean version of states back home), which is essentially everywhere but Seoul. I had tried repeatedly in Seoul to get help at many different phone centers but no one was able to help so I was desperate enough to make an emergency trip back to Seoul just to retrieve a used Korean phone (there are other details that involve sim card expiration but they only make sense to foreigners living in Korea). Instead, the young man at LG in Jinju spent a few minutes inputting the APN and after almost a month without data, I was set! Which was great, because then I could stay longer, and look up words on my Korean dictionary app in real time. Among other things. We were then free to visit Jinju inside its original great walls, but as I gave up on telling these stories in order, that is for another post. After lunch, we went to the National Institute of Forest Science to meet Dr. Lee, who is a senior research scientist there, and were able to walk its grounds.

After the requisite introductory visit to the chief of the Forest Biomaterials Research Center and receiving very generous gifts, we went outside and Dr. Lee pointed out the industrial papermill across the river. It purchases pulp so doesn't stink and pollute the way that mills that process their own fiber do.

This was later on in our walk and only a sliver of the land they have set aside for bamboo research plots. I haven't transcribed all of my notes but there's a lot about how you need to thin the plants every year, and the different methods to mark the ones that need to be cut down when (color versus number, so many different system options).

Early on, they pointed out different lacquer trees and tore leaves for me to smell and in general it was lovely to be amidst so much green in very early March, as that's not the season back home for so much growth. We then got to the part where small raised beds of bamboo of many different species lived, and Dr. Lee laughed at my attempt to photograph labels, because we'd never finish the walk. Too many species here to capture on an introductory jaunt.

Eventually we got to tour the inside of the buildings, and this is out of order but the place that made my jaw hinge open for a while: a fully-equipped hanji studio. I mean...at least two of everything. It would be boring to most so I won't show all of the equipment but wow. I think of how hard I worked to get a hanji studio off the ground back home, and how much time and labor and money it entailed, and then I see a space that is easily 20x more expensive and so well equipped, but laying empty. Too many times on this trip have I wanted to weep.

And cry for different reasons. In this case, when the studio was first inaugurated, Shin Hyun-se came to make paper and after he left, the people in charge of cleaning up didn't know what they were doing. So precious screens like this bal were left to rot. Nooooooooo!!

This would be the fourth vat, set up for ssangbal or gadeum tteugi that is halfway mechanized, where slurry from the container above washes onto the screen to provide the same amount of fiber each time.

Two knife beaters, of course. How I wish I could take one of these home!

And a bunch of different press options.

These are the heated stainless drying plates. Not pictured are the wood drying frames (well you can see a tiny sliver in the upper right hand corner of this pic), but one major thing I learned from Dr. Jo is that Koreans probably did not use wood planks to dry hanji until the Japanese occupation! More likely, they dried on walls and also on the ground for certain papers that would later be hammered.

There is an entire museum here that Dr. Jo founded when he used to work here. Most of the artifacts he himself found and collected, and this is only a tiny portion of the collection. This display is of objects made out of bamboo.

Dr. Jo is pointing out more bamboo facts, which I still need to transcribe. Inside the glass are preserved bamboo shoots for both types of bamboo in this particular display.

I mentioned hammering, the dochim process of smoothing and compacting hanji. Here are mallets and the surface upon which you'd hammer cloth, which can be adapted to beat hanji. I want a full set but they are not so common and the main surface is heavy.

Some of my favorite brushes! Back home I have one that Richard very kindly gifted to me years ago.

I told you that there was so much more than what was in the museum...and this is still only a sliver of what is in storage! Dr. Jo is pointing out some of what is on the very top of the shelves: more bal teul, or frames for the screens for making hanji. Again, he collected so much of these objects and sadly had retired from the job before fetching all of the pieces that he actually owned. Now he can't come back to get them or he'd be caught for stealing his own stuff.

Of the many, many objects, I always love finding the jiseung ones.

And am always happy to say hi to more wedding ducks/geese.

The large gathering rooms at the institute are all covered in real wood paneling and designed to be attractive not only visually but by scent.

I've forgotten which tree it is that they used for the scent, but it's very distinctive and you notice as soon as you enter.

Okay, this part I cannot properly explain. There were SO MANY labs. And I had no clue what was going on, so I will be useless in that regard. But they're all related to the project that Dr. Lee is working on related to dak (paper mulberry) cultivation and growth in Korea and they all cost a TON of money.

These machines are to test paper.

I forgot/haven't transcribed all my notes.

This is some kind of extractor and I saw some of the steps prior to this but mostly love seeing glass vessels in motion.

I felt like I was back in middle or high school as Dr. Lee explained how you apply different substances to the paper and watch where each element precipitates. There were many, many more machines and equipment and extremely expensive stuff that also separated substances. Here and there in the labs I was able to see some of the researchers I had met the prior day while at Lee Sang-ok Traditional Hanji, where they were sorting, weighing, and gathering bark.

This was a very exciting series of small rooms, where for the first time in Korea, they are attempting to grow dak from culture.

From a little tiny bit of leaf, they are seeing how these plants can grow.

It has not been easy but also not a total failure.

The success stories of the bunch! I wish I could have explained more of what was going on but then there would be 30 more pictures and then me attempting to explain scientific things that I don't actually understand. So this is all for now, but it was not even close to the end of this particular day. More on that later.