Asia Focus

Masha Iwatate is a Japanese restaurant consultant who is crazy about Korean style - and not, she says, because she has been married to a Korean for 10 years. No, it is because she loves natural beauty that defies convention. “I admire the nature-friendly concept that blurs the boundary between nature and home,” she says. “An example is the open main floor in traditional Korean houses".

She uses brass vessels as rice bowls and a traditional wooden box as a tea table, so she can’t understand why Koreans will not use old household items that are great in both design and function in their daily life - scooped wooden dishes, brass vessels and earthen pottery. In December, Tuttle Publishing of the U.S. will bring out her coffee-table book “Korean Style,”.

Korean traditional paper 

One proviso: don’t even think about decorating your home in Korean style if you have lots of stuff. If you want the style, throw some of it away. However nice your knickknacks are, they will hurt the eye unless they are in their proper position. If you think that the house looks barren with some items gone, just paper one wall of the living room with a Korean traditional design pattern to create a new mood. Iwatate uses Korean traditional paper or bamboo shades as blinds and curtains. “Instead of curtains, decorate a glass wall to a balcony or side door to a multipurpose room with Korean traditional paper,” she recommends. “All you have to do is to apply glass adhesive and paste the paper. When it gets dirty, you can just spray water on it to remove it.”

If you have a kimchi refrigerator on the veranda because the kitchen isn’t big enough, hang a bamboo blind on the window. “It not only improves the interior but also blocks the sunlight,” she says. She usually buys traditional decorating material at shops around the Cheonggye Stream and Dongdaemun Market.

Small traditional objects

Iwatate says small traditional objects make lovely decorations. She likes to make bamboo lamps by putting a light bulb in the long woven bamboo cylinder called jukbuin or a “bamboo wife,” and wrap it with Korean traditional paper of various colors. The lids of earthenware can be turned into fishbowls for tropical fish, which is suitable for decorating a balcony or and can serve as a natural humidifier. Old brass braziers are perfect for putting flowerpots on. Some ramie cushions on the sofa will enhance the traditional beauty. Traditional octagonal plates can be used as picture frames, and defective earthen pots as an umbrella stand.

The places Iwatate is most familiar with in Seoul are Janganpeyong and Dapsimni, where traditional furniture shops are clustered. There, she can not only buy old traditional furniture 20-30 percent cheaper but also find old materials easily. She is using a wooden rice chest and a cedar chest she bought there as a dressing table and a tea table. She sometimes buys an assortment of earthenware as containers for spices, tea and rice. Stone cookers are a recent hot item. They make the dining table look nice when set with silver spoons and chopsticks.

Source: Digital Ilbo Shosun

Written: by LuisB