Experience everything of Korean traditional paper Hanji from Yeoju Hanji Culture Experience School
 
Our ancestors treasured Korean traditional paper ‘hanji’ as it was too laborious and required a hundred steps of processes to produce hanji, thereby gaining another name ‘hundred paper’. Unfortunately, the use of hanji has gradually reduced. To cope with this unfortunate situation, Yeoju Hanji Culture Experience School was established to preserve, develop and hand down the tradition to descendants.

‘Hanji’ is a Korea’s pride and one of the Korean traditional cultural assets.

Yeoju Hanji Culture Experience School, located in Jangan-ri, Jeomdong-myeon, Yeoju County, Gyeonggi Province, was established in 2009 with the goal of preserving and spreading ‘hanji’, a pride of Korea and a the Korean traditional culture asset. Yeoju Hanji Culture Experience School offers experience classes, exhibitions, and expert classes. Students ranging from kindergarten, elementary, middle, to high school students mostly visit here to directly experience how to produce hanji and to make a variety of household items with hanji.
 
Yeoju Hanji Culture Experience School has an exhibit room about how to produce hanji and where to use it. Visitors can see the history of hanji and the production process of hanji at a glance by following the guide.
 

Also, as the exhibition shows traditional craftworks, artworks, doll craftworks made from hanji as well as tools used to produce hanji in 1930s and traditional jars made from hanji and used in the Chosun Dynasty period, visitors can thoroughly understand about hanji. The experience school also sells such items to visitors.
 
“As hanji is made from fibers of paper mulberries and white mulberries in the Waebal Ddeuki (single screen straining method), the traditional production method of hanji, it still holds their natural textures,” explained one official from Yeoju Hanji Culture Experience School. “In addition, as it is made with cold and clear water in winter, the fibers are strained, providing stiff textures, and its strong and quality textures prevent the propagation of microorganisms such as bacteria.” He added.

“Accordingly, we still have a lot of paper-made books and pictures passed down from the Silla Dynasty era while western countries have only 1 or 2 paper items which have been only 300 ~ 400 years.” He added.
 
Various experience programs in operation

Experience classes are operated by reservation and offer various household items making programs using hanji. Kindergarten and school students mostly participate in the programs in groups, and parents with their kids often participate in on the weekends or during the vacation periods.
 
Experience classes are operated by reservation, offering programs of making a variety of household items such as jewel boxes, hexagon pencil cases, hand mirrors, paper fans, and square fruit trays which are actually used at homes. In addition, the classes instruct visitors to cut the pieces by hand or specialized tools, not by scissors or knives, so that they can feel distinctive textures of hanji’s fibers.Moreover, the school runs expert programs for people who want to learn traditional hanji craft,
and learners are offered systematic learning by the hanji craft instructors from ‘National Folk Museum of Korea’. After the expert courses, learners can hand down the superior traditional hanji craft and play a role in spreading it worldwide as the missionaries of Korean culture.
 
One of the foreigners who visited Yeoju Hanji Culture Experience School and participated in the experience program highly appreciated the superiority of hanji, saying “It is amazing that Koreans have made and used their own papers from a long time ago, and when I touched hanji, it was soft and lasting, and it has excellent quality.”

Meanwhile, Yeoju Hanji Culture Experience School was selected as leading facility in the hanji part of ‘Korean Culture 100’ led by Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism last year, and has been used as a repository for promoting the Korean cultures at home and abroad. It also dedicatedly participates in various regional events including ‘Event of Hangul Day’ so as to promote hanji.
 
Information
Address : 478, Jangan-ri, Jeomdong-myeon, Yeoju County, Gyeonggi Province
Phone : 031-886-0135~6
Homepage : www.yeojuhanji.com
Opening hour : Mon. to Sat. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. / Close on Sunday
Admission fee : Adults KRW 5,000, Teenagers KRW 4,000, Children & seniors KRW 3,000
(Different fees apply to a group with over 30 persons.)
 
◎ Article : Choi Yeon-hyee from WoORI Press corps / Photo : provided by Yeoju Hanji Culture Experience School
 
http://www.woorizine.or.kr/new/main.htm?mncode=147B&atc_code=147B41