Rise & Grind: Time to Make that Paper

    We had the opportunity to learn about several South Korean crafts while visiting the city of Jeonju, about a two hour train ride southwest of Seoul.  One highlight of our time there was a “Hanji” or papermaking class. If you’ve been reading closely, it was everything the fish cake making experience was not.

Considering we do not speak Korean, signing up was a bit tricky but we benefited from having several days in Jeonju.  We had visited a public craft center and museum, and on our way out, Karen stopped by a paper lantern shop. She was so taken with the pretty lanterns that she struck up a conversation via Google translate with the artisan who works there. He mentioned that there were papermaking classes in the building across the street, and we were able to sign up for one the next morning!

We ended up taking the class on a Saturday morning and had two other fellow classmates: elementary school-aged brothers native to Jeonju (chaperoned by their parents). Compared to us, they were naturals at papermaking and churned out consistent sheets that put ours to shame. Here are some of the key steps we learned:


1. Hanji is made from mulberry tree pulp (see above).  The mulberry trees are harvested at one year of age, soaked in water (with some other additives we don’t remember), beaten into a pulp, and left to dry and bleach in the sun.


2. Once the mulberry pulp is brought to a paper factory, a small amount is dissolved in water. It gives the water a milky look.

3. Next, a segmented bamboo mat (much like a sushi making mat), is fixed inside of a wooden frame.



4.  Just after stirring the mulberry pulp water, you dip the bamboo mat into the water and shake the frame back and forth in multiple directions. As the water strains through the mat, a thin layer of mulberry pulp is left.

 




This is the hardest step that requires the most technical skill! If you do not shake the frame well, your paper will not come out even. In addition, it is important to dump the remaining water once it is mostly pulp. Otherwise a snot-like blob of pulp will settle on your paper and your sheet will be lumpy and uneven. Finally, we left it to our teacher, but the amount of mulberry pulp dissolved in the water will determine the thickness of your sheet of paper. We ran into an issue where our original sheets were too thin and had to dissolve more pulp into the water.





5. The wet paper is flipped off of the bamboo mat and left to dry. Normally it takes a full day for the paper to dry, but the facility we were at had a paper suction device to quickly remove excess water. Our sheets were also then left to dry for an additional hour on a heated steel plate.

We walked away from the experience with a newfound appreciation for paper and six precious pieces of our very own Hanji.  Now we have to figure out an occasion special enough to use them for…


But wait... there's more! This craft center offered dozens of other paper crafts to chose from, so we opted to make a paper doll keychain.  Here's Matt working diligently next to the others.






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