Week 15 – Fan and ceramic painting at National Museum of Korea

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Allison Lai

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Allison Lai

<i>"Hello" in your host country's language:</i> ใ“ใ‚“ใซใกใฏ๏ผ <i>Home Institution (your U.S. University/College):</i> Baruch College, CUNY <i>Expected graduation year:</i> 2022 <i>Destination city & country:</i> Tokyo, Japan <i>Program provider:</i> Baruch College – Waseda University Exchange <i>Major/minor:</i> International Business / Japanese and Marketing <i>Demographics:</i> First-Generation, Asian <i>Future career aspirations:</i> To break into product management and international business! <i>Top 3 goals for your time abroad:</i> 1) Improve my Japanese speaking skills, 2) Immerse myself in the culture and practices, 3) Develop long-lasting relationships with amazing people during my travels.

During my time abroad in Seoul, I created a few events with the National Museum of Korea. These are fun and interesting cultural events where foreigners and students can learn about Korean culture while also making a beautiful souvenir.

I found the contact of the program lead for the National Museum of Korea and I reached out to schedule an event. The museum holds several events, such as fan-painting, ceramic plate and cup painting, scroll painting, hanko stamp making, and more events. Each are unique and fun experiences where you can make and express yourself while learning from the talented teacher.

The first event that I set up was the fan painting event where we painted on traditional Korean fans and we learned about the history, importance, and development of the fans. The teacher explained everything and we had a translator who helped translate everything into English. We had a class of 25 people and there were tables full of supplies and fans. We began sketching and we gained inspiration from colored images and finished fans on the table.

I sketched a white heron and peonies. Both have symbolic importance in Korean art and painting. I do not remember what. During the class, everyone painted something that they desired and afterwards we finished by stamping our fans with the National Museum of Koreaโ€™s hanko stamp! We kept our beautiful fans and used them for the hot spring and summer.

The other event was the ceramic painting event where we painted on clay plates with cobalt blue ink. I painted a dragon which represents authority. Again, there was a very interesting lesson from the teacher and she gave us inspiration for things to draw. She began showing us how to paint our plate.

Everyone painted their plates and we left the plates at the museum because they needed to fire the plates in the kiln to finish the plates. The ink looked black or grey, but when they are fired, the ink turns blue!

Overall, these fun events were very unique and we were so happy to have the experience to schedule classes that teach us about Korean culture while also participating in it ourselves. Each experience only cost 5,000 won each! If you are interested in scheduling such events with the museum, you should reach out to the museum and create a class. You need to have at least 25 people attending and there must be foreigners. Good luck!