Korean Traditional Paper Art

July 17, Sunday – BJun, Eileen, Ryan and I went to a temple in Nopo-Dong for their 86th monthly event, Korean Traditional Paper Art. We took a subway from Naengjeong to Nopo-Dong. Nopo-Dong is the last subway station of line 1. We changed line at Seomyeom. It took us around 1 hour to reach there.

Beside the Nopo-Dong subway station is Busan Bus Terminal. As we have some free time left before the shuttle bus at 1pm, we had lunch at Lotteria. The air-conditional was not on at that time and it was hot inside. The service was not good as well. It was a big mistake for me to order “hot squid burger” as it was really spicy. It was a really painful experience >__< The others had “rib sand” lunch set.

As we a new to the place, we were clueless on the location to wait for the shuttle bus. We accidentally took a shuttle for another event to a stadium near by. As we were aboard on the bus, we were curious why almost the whole bus was filled by senior citizens. We arrived at the stadium, realized that we were actually taking the wrong bus. We saw a few police cars as we were attempting to walk back to the bus station. We waived at them, hoping that they would stop and showed us the directions to the bus terminal, but they did not seem to bother and drove pass us. This was the first time that we were lost without anything as guidance. None of us remember the temple name and the old folks nearby do not understand English. Luckily, we managed to catch a taxi at a traffic junction and got ourselves back to the bus terminal.

Shortly after we reached the terminal, we met a China guy who was looking around for the shuttle bus as well. He had been to the temple before and knew where to wait for the bus. Well, it was a shuttle van rather than a shuttle bus. We met a few other foreigners there, such as Gregory and his mother. He was a lecturer in a university and has been in Korea for 3.5 years. He will be going back to America soon.

Nopo-Dong’s main activity is farming. We were able to see many vegetable fields along the way. The temple is surrounded by green scenery, with many trees, flowers and vegetables. It is a very nice place indeed. The event was held outdoor. There were tables and mat beneath the trees. The arrangements reminded me of the sittings for kindergarten students as they are having art classes. This paper art activity was different from what we imagined. Some expected it to be like an exhibition whereas I expected to be like folding animals and stuff with papers. But, we all got it wrong.

At first, we registered ourselves and were seated. We were given a set of stationeries and a fan without any design. We thought that we were about to do some paintings on the fan as a brush was provided each. But, we were actually going to tear off the Korean traditional paper given to us into pieces with shapes and then glue it on the fan to form a picture or art. These papers are different from normal color papers. Different parts of the paper are of different color, such as a dark green color paper will have some part with slightly darker or lighter green color. Before the activity started, Gregory told us that we were to follow the instructions given by the teacher closely. He even told us that he got scolded by the teacher by adding extra pedals to the flowers. The flower was supposed to have 8 petals and he made it with 9 petals instead. The paper is very thin, with different color tone and as we tore it off, there were something different to it. The sides being torn out become a bit fury. It was a fantastic feature of the paper that made great master piece. The arts are simple but it looks like as if it is alive. This event was sponsored by the Buddhist association

After the activity, we were provided with some desserts(watermelon cubes with soda and some Korean “kuih”) before having the group photo session. Then, we had a walk around the area. It is really nice as the whole place is covered by carpet grass, trees and flowers. The place is well maintained. We took some photos there before departed back to the bus terminal. Then, we took the subway back.

p/s: will upload the photos later.