The Journal, page 3
A place to learn about hanbok and Korean celebrations, at your own pace.
Page 3 of 9.
- Bay Area
Where Korean Lives in the Bay
Who lives where Drive 92 east from Half Moon Bay on a September afternoon and you cross into the Peninsula's Korean-American weight class without noticing. San…
- Korean Culture
Where to Wear Your Hanbok Here
Saturday morning at H Mart in Daly City tells you most of what you need to know. The Korean grandmothers are there before eight. The ajummas are already…
- Korean Culture
What the Street Cart Remembers
Why Korean street food matters The cart sits on the corner of a Seoul side street. A grandmother in a padded vest turns 어묵 skewers in a shallow steel pan…
- Hanbok Guides
What Your Child Will Outgrow Beautifully
The one-year-old on the floor was pulling at the goreum on his coral 저고리, fascinated by the two long ties. His grandmother caught his hand gently…
- Korean Culture
Appreciation, Appropriation, and the Honest Answer
The short answer A friend, not Korean, texted last Chuseok from a rented hanbok in Bukchon. She asked, gently, if the photo was okay to post…
- Hanbok Guides
The Pieces a Hanbok Asks For
A tray of hanbok accessories might hold five 노리개, a pair of jokduri, a small enamel binyeo, and one 가체 wig braided decades ago for a paebaek in Seoul. A bride…
- Korean Culture
Is Hanbok Always Silk? No.
The basic definition A first-time client once asked whether hanbok was always silk. It is not. Her wedding piece was ramie, chosen for a…
- Hanbok Guides
The Eighty Dollar Polyester Isn't Hanbok
A customer opened the box on her kitchen counter three days before her cousin's wedding. The chima came out folded flat, the polyester creased in stiff…
- Korean Culture
The Diaspora Is Keeping It Alive
The diaspora story On a Saturday morning at a small Korean church in Oakland, a mother helps her four-year-old daughter into a saekdong jeogori. It is Chuseok…
- Hanbok Guides
The Wedding Hanbok Plan, In Order
The second look is the one most couples underestimate. The white dress and tuxedo get months of attention. The hanbok, which the couple wears for the paebaek…
- Korean Culture
Sixteen Hundred Years of Korean Cloth
Three Kingdoms (57 BC to 668 AD) In a fourth-century Goguryeo tomb, a mural shows a figure in a short front-tied jacket and loose trousers. In a 2026 Seoul…
- Recipes
What We Cook When We Miss Home
What Korean comfort food means It is late. The rice cooker beeps. Mrs. Lee cracks an egg into a small pan, tears a sheet of 김 into strips, and drops a spoon of…
- Korean Culture
The Most Direct Line Home
A photograph arrives in Eric's inbox around Chuseok most years. A customer at her grandmother's grave in a soft mint hanbok she commissioned six months…
- Korean Culture
Meeting His Family for the First Time
What is generally expected The invitation lists a paebaek followed by dinner. His mother mentioned that his grandmother will be there. You have a closet of…
- Hanbok Guides
What to Wear on Seollal Morning
Seollal morning is red and coral and saekdong. The mood is not the muted persimmon of autumn 추석. It is the bright saturated palette of a new year, of children…
- Korean Culture
The Table Set for the Ancestors
What jesa is The low table is laid on the death anniversary of a grandfather. Rice sits to the west, soup to the east, a photograph of the deceased at the…
- Recipes
Why Korean Food Begins With Time
The three foundations Three earthenware jars sit on the back porch. 김치 in the cold one, 된장 in the middle, gochujang curing on the warm side. Youngsook lifts a…
- Hanbok Guides
How Eric Tells Customers to Fold It
Eric gets the same text every January, usually from someone whose child just outgrew a Seollal 한복. The photo shows a red wine stain on white silk, or a hem…
- Korean Culture
The Korean Word For What You Already Feel
What jeong means The ajumma at the corner store slips an extra bag of anchovies into your order at checkout. You did not ask. She does not comment. Over…
- Hanbok Guides
How the Hanbok Got Its Shape
A friend once asked Eric why hanbok looks the way it does. He answered by pointing to a small photograph on his mother's wall. His grandmother in a spring…
- Korean Culture
The Korean Art of Reading the Room
What nunchi means You walk into a Seoul dinner and your host's face is one degree too flat. The joke you had ready stays in your throat. You pour the next…
- Hanbok Guides
What My Father Wore to His Sixtieth
Eric's father wore a deep indigo 남자 한복 to his 환갑 in Sunnyvale. Grey silk 바지, quiet stitching, no ornament. He looked like he had always dressed that way. Three…
- Korean Culture
What Do The Colors Mean?
Obangsaek, the five cardinal colors Set the table for Chuseok and the colors sort themselves. Persimmon on white porcelain. A dark navy runner folded once. A…
- Hanbok Guides
Yes, You Can Wear It
A bride-to-be in Palo Alto texts Eric on a Tuesday. Her fiancé's family is Korean, the paebaek is in eight months, and she does not want to walk in wearing…