Love for 'hanok' begets book

House in Changseong-dong, Jongno, Seoul / Courtesy of Kim Jong-keu

Park Na-ni

By Kwon Ji-youn

“Hanok, the Korean House” is a treasure for its author, Park Na-ni, as the writing process has given her a chance to look back on her life and understand Korean lifestyle.

“I had always been interested in traditional Korean houses and had spent quite some time introducing their superiority to acquaintances,” Park, 51, said.

“In this book, I wanted to illustrate hanok that Koreans call home today, not hanok that foreigners admire from the outside.”

“My research helped me realize that hanok are the essence of Korean lifestyle, and my encounters with the owners compelled me to look back on my own life and childhood,” Park said. It took her two years to publish the book.

The cover of “Hanok, the Korean House” / Courtesy of Tuttle Publishing

Park moved to Hawaii in 1972 when she was a third-grader but experienced no culture shock because the town in which she lived had been densely populated with fellow overseas Koreans. After graduating from the University of Hawaii, she went on to study at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and then worked as an illustrator at a publishing company.

"Hanok, the Korean House" gives readers a peek into a number of hanok homes that exist today, including the Jiwuheon (house of continuous learning), the Simsimheon (house where the heart is found), the Moto Hanok and the residence of former President Yun Po-sun.

Park, with the help of Prof. Robert J. Fouser of Seoul National University and photographer Lee Jong-keun, published the book to fill the holes that most other books on hanok had left agape. These books had focused on the beauty of hanok as architectural structures, but failed to take into account the lives that owners had thrown together inside these relics.

“It was by coincidence that I came to write this book,” Park said. “Two years ago, I visited my sister in Singapore, who introduced me to Tuttle Publisher Eric Oey. Oey had been busy trying to put together a book on hanok, but his writer had informed him that he was too busy to take on another book. So I asked him, why don’t I try putting this book together?”

But it wasn’t plain sailing. A good number of people, including a photographer, writer, editor and designer, would need to collaborate to ensure this book would reach out to the right people.

“Finding hanok and hanok home owners well-suited to our concept was difficult,” Park said. “And then I had to find a photographer and an English-writing author who would be able to articulate my intentions and objectives. At first, I asked Daniel Tudor to take care of the text, as he had written four books on Korea, but he had personal matters to attend to. Gratefully, I met Prof. Fouser only a few months before the books’ release date.”

Park and her team frequented each home for just a few photographs, but the photographs were most important, Park said.

Tuttle had also asked that the title of the book be revised because the word “hanok” was deemed too difficult to catch foreigners’ eyes. But Park insisted that the title include “hanok” because she wanted to familiarize the public with the word.

“The book is filled with my ideas and perceptions, but because such a large team worked together to write this book, it may be more appropriate to say that this book is not mine, but ours,” she said.