Knitting Canadian man in Seoul

Calvin Phillips / Korea Times photo by Choi Kyong-ae

By Choi Kyong-ae

Calvin Phillips, a 56-year-old Canadian, has been knitting on the street of downtown Seoul near the Bank of Korea over the past four years.

On nice days, he stands or sits from 12 p.m to 5 p.m. knitting “like a fixture” in front of the central bank’s annex building in Myeongdong. People became familiar with him and often ask him directions.

In 2011, he came to Seoul from Japan where he had been teaching English since the late 1990s. He decided to stay here as he wanted to learn: “something Korean.”

“Before I go home, I wanted to take home something Korean, not a souvenir but a skill that’s typically Korean like Taekwondo or pottery,” Phillips told The Korea Times in a recent interview.

But what caught his eye was knitting, not Taekwondo or pottery.

At a Canadian embassy gala he attended five years ago, Phillips came across Kang Jae-seok, 71, a knitting craftsman. Attracted by Kang’s skills, he started working with Kang helping him to fill orders for scarves and hats.

“I was teaching in the daytime and knitting in the morning and the evening over a year. After a while, I had to make a decision. I couldn’t do both,” Phillips said. He quit teaching English to do knitting as he thought God put knitting in his hand though it was not something Korean.

Phillips came to learn knitting at an early age in middle school. Tunring his passion of knitting into a business came "all by accident.”

One of his long-term plans is to open a boutique in Canada specializing in hand knitted haute couture designs. After the opening of his boutique, he plans to return to Korea for a vacation.

“I am not interested in making commercial, or low-quality, things.” Many people say his products are expensive but he explains to them about the quality of the yarn. “It depends on consumers’ education,” he said.

He sells his hats made from imported yarn mostly from Italy at prices between 30,000 won and 100,000 won ($27-$90). He also supplies them to six shops across Seoul with the help of Kang. This means he doesn’t have time to prepare dinner, meet friends and travel the country.

Phillips seems to be “occupied” largely with knitting through this summer when he will “hopefully” leave Korea to return to his home country because his mother is 90 and his better half is waiting for him to return.

The dexterous man is still hungry in his passion for new things. On top of opening a boutique in Canada, he wants to add to his list of life skills he has learned from the art of cooking to the art of building his own solar home in Canada.

“Someday I also want to be able to get my hands on clay and painting. I am only 56 years old after all.”