Spring

Spring Arrives from the Ground Up In most parts of Europe and North America, spring arrives with colors. Green returns to grey fields, and snow recedes upwards. In rural Korea, spring arrives with taste. Before forsythias and azaleas burst into full bloom, and even before most trees sprout their leaves, the hillsides are already offering sustenance. This is the first thing that surprises foreigners visiting the Korean countryside in March and April: it’s the foraging culture. In the West, foraging for wild plants has become a specialized activity in recent years. It’s pursued by chefs, survivalists, and enthusiasts who take courses to learn what’s safe and unsafe. In rural Korea, it’s simply what people do in spring. Grandmothers who have done it for 60 years. Children learning by following them. Knowledge of which plants grow where, at what altitude, and in what kind of soil is passed down as naturally as recipes. ...

On Daeheung Farm, there is a spring that does not dry in winter. It was always there — a small ongdalsaem (옹달샘), a pool fed from underground. I enclosed it and named it Daeheung Spring (대흥샘). How It Was Built No magic, no machinery doing the fine work. Just time and mortar. A hired excavator traced the underground source and opened the ground around it. I ordered a marble coping — the rim that edges the basin — from a stone mason. Then I mixed and applied roughly 100 bags of 40 kg mortar by hand to seal the floor and walls of the basin. That is four tonnes of mortar, mixed and trowelled over several months. ...

The spring scene most visitors never see Korea has famous spring destinations. Jinhae, with its naval port and 360,000 cherry trees. Jeju, with its yellow canola fields. Seoul’s parks. These places are beautiful. They are also, in late March and April, extremely crowded. Mundeok-myeon (문덕면) in Boseong-gun is not famous outside the region. The Korean photographers who know it guard it, in the quiet way people guard places they love — by not talking about it too loudly. The valley fills with day-trippers from Jeonnam during peak blossom, but it has not yet appeared on international itineraries. This will change. For now, it is still possible to arrive on a Tuesday morning in early April and have Juam Lake, the cherry road, and the temple approach largely to yourself. ...