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What's left in rustic county after 'ginseng rush'
“Father, the Breadwinner”: A farmer harvests commercial ginseng on his farm in Geumsan, South Chungcheong Province in this 1992 photo. He ensured his children were fed and educated with the income he earned from selling ginseng. / Courtesy of Yang Hae-nam
By Kang Hyun-kyung
'Capturing Winds' narrates boom and bust of commercial ginseng farms in Geumsan
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Rye fields in a snug place surrounded by low mountains are a common sight in South Chungcheong Province's rustic county of Geumsan, once famous for four-year-old premium ginseng.
Local ginseng farmers grow rye to make their farmland suitable for ginseng production. They destroy the rye crop when the grains are ripe for harvesting. The following year they sow and destroy the crop again. The fallen rye crops and remnants fertilize the soil and make it moist enough to create good living conditions for various microbes.
Once the barren soil becomes fertile, farmers plant ginseng seeds there and cultivate the crops for a period of four years.
“Once the ginseng is harvested after four years of cultivation, the soil becomes drained,” Yang Hae-nam, a Geumsan-based poet and photographer, said during a recent Korea Times interview. He recently released a poetry-photography book titled “Capturing Winds.”
As a local born and raised in the region, Yang, 55, said he is familiar with the role of rye fields in improving soil for commercial ginseng production.
“Soil of ginseng farms becomes so bad that no crops, other than rye, can be grown there,” he said. “People say farmers grow ginseng for four years. But the actual cycle of ginseng production takes six years of work because soil needs a two-year break to fully recover.”
“Capturing Winds” is Yang's second photo-essay book consisting of 94 photos and poems about his hometown and its neighboring counties. Each photograph is paired with a poem.
The photo-poetry tells the past and present of the rustic county which was once home to booming commercial ginseng farms. Its glorious past, however, is long gone and the agricultural business is on a downward spiral for various reasons since it reached its peak in the 1990s.
Yang said he had visited the same rye fields dozens of times for his photography project until he got the shot that was included in his second photo-essay book under the same title of the book.
“While watching the rye blown around by the winds during my field trip there, I thought the crops were just like me. I'm not a trailblazer-like person who achieves certain things against all odds. Rather I try to follow the way of the world, thinking that's how I was created. The rye that I captured in my photo was like me. When winds blow, things are moved, without resistance,” he said.
In the photo-essay, the narrator likens winds to a wayward creature pushing around rye of its own accord. Realizing it cannot change the course of action of the formidable external force, the rye lets the winds change its direction as it wishes.
Poet-photographer Yang Hae-nam / Courtesy of Yang Hae-nam
Yang is a proud local. He says his hometown has a lot to offer, and farmers and their rustic lifestyle are just some of the discoveries that await those who explore the region.
Spending his entire life so far in his hometown, the multi-talented artist has captured the essence of the farmers and iconic scenery of Geumsan and its border counties, such as Jinan and Jangsu counties of North Jeolla Province, over the past four decades.
His pairing of photography and poems gives readers a portrait of Korea's rural county dealing with the fallout of urbanization.
Young people had moved away to the cities for jobs, leaving the county filled with old farmers.
The demographic characteristic has created a unique medical zone; pediatricians are difficult to find because there are few children. Meanwhile the county has plenty of orthopedists because aging farmers suffer from various orthopedic diseases due to labor-intensive farm work.
Yang's photo-essay book tells the story of the rise and fall of Geumsan as a hub for the commercial ginseng business.
During their peak days, ginseng farmers were able to assemble quite a fortune and get their children a university education. The booming agribusiness created a spillover effect into related industries. Blacksmiths who produced the agricultural instrument, called “sam-gwang-ee” which is used to harvest ginseng, also benefited from Geumsan's booming commercial ginseng business.
Sam-gwang-ee is an instrument resembling a weed whacker that is used to harvest ginseng. It has three long winding iron blades.
Demand for the instrument was high as farmers and herbalists in other cities and towns found it useful in their work.
The good old days for commercial ginseng farmers, however, disappeared due to heavy competition, falling consumption and alternative products.
Yang's 2015 photo “The Last Sam-gwang-ee” featuring a blacksmith couple working on the agricultural instruments narrates the grim reality they face.
This is our last sam-gwang-ee project // Production is over not because the work is physically tough // But because it's a losing business // If we produce more, we suffer growing deficits // Chinese products are cheaper than ours, the price of which is probably less than half of ours // Even though we make it, it's not sold // Many Geumsan farmers became rich thanks to our product // We're happy for them
“Farmer-Artist”: A ginseng farm in Geumsan is seen in this 2016 photo. Poet-photographer Yang Hae-nam likened the farm to a work of art, calling it the best installation art he has ever seen. / Courtesy of Yang Hae-nam
The wax and wane of commercial ginseng production is evident in another of Yang's photos capturing merchants and visitors at the traditional market held in Geumsan every five days on dates ending in the digits 2 and 7.
The photograph taken in 1993 shows the bustling marketplace crowded with vendors selling agricultural products to visitors. People from all across the country came there in search of commercial ginseng.
“Back then, Geumsan market was one of the nation's three largest markets. Premium commercial ginseng had attracted vendors from all around the country. An estimated 1,000 merchants sold various types of agricultural and herbal products, including ginseng. The market was flourishing,” Yang said.
“Now the number of merchants has drastically decreased to a tenth or so, with only about 100 merchants in the marketplace.”
Some of the photos in “Capturing Winds” were taken 30 years ago.
Asked why he chose to publish photography and poems taken and written so long ago, he said those old photos are worth revisiting.
“I take notes about my photo project of the day once I get back home. I take them back afterwards whenever I think of the project and rewrite as my thoughts go on,” he said. “I keep repeating this until I feel that it's time to publish.”
Like his other book projects, he said producing “Capturing Winds” was tough, but this time he found it tougher than his previous projects. “I came to hear my inner voice while working on the book project. I asked myself if I was stuck in the past and my photo-poem is no more than what happened in the past and has no value to revisit. This thought haunted me all during the book project,” he said.
Born in 1965 in Geumsan, Yang is a poet, documentary photographer and collector of movie posters and other movie-related items. He has published many books, including the critically acclaimed book “Faces of Movies: Yang Hae-nam's Collection of Korean Film Posters” (2019).