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COLLECTING PLACES IN SOUTH KOREA.
1) Rivers : Actually all rivers are cadidates for collecting places,though several rivers and streams are famous among most Korean and some Japanese collectors.Famous rivers are the following:
2) Seaside : You can collect stones that can be suseoks almost every seaside.especially southeastern coast of Korean Peninsula is the best place for colecting badadol.Ulsan,my home city ,is located in the center of this area. 3) Mountains or Mountain Valley for sanseok : Collecting places which were formerly famous ,now are almost closed.
YANGSEOK FOR AGING SUSEOK (YANG means NURTURING) and CLEANING HINTS Newly collected suseok generally need watering,hand rubbing,and exposure to the sun.Young stones (SHINSEOKS) are not good enough for displaying,in aspects of their surface patina and color.The process of aging a stone is called "Yangseok" and it is time consuming process. Methods for aging suseok can be classified as following : 1) watering with exposure to the sun:if you want to display a suseok on the Suban, you had better expose stones under the sun and regularly spray stones with water.Time for yangseok is usually dependent upon the surface quality of stones.Stones with strong or hard surface need relatively long period of time for yangseok.Time for yangseok can be up to 10 years. 2) Rubbing stones : Stone that you want to put on the daezwa can be nurtured by rubbing for long time. If you want to shorten the time for yangseok with this method ,you can apply a small amount of plant oil on the surface of stones and rub the surface again and again by hand or a piece of thick cotton cloth. However, rubbing stones with bare hand for long time is better for good color and patina. 3) Covering with mosses: When a stone shows a very beautiful scenery but has too light colors , you may cover the stone with very thin layer of mosses.
The Cleaning Process : For Badadol (Haeseok) or most of stones found in rivers , I simply rubbed stones with a sponge in addition of small amount of detergent to remove all contaminants as vegetable and mosses.But for Sanseok ,I have to use hand brushes made of steel to clean mud coverings from stones.Usually cleaning the mud coverings is very difficult as you know.We have several collecting places for Sanseok in Ulsan area and I have several small stones of this genre, but I don't like to collect them any more,because oxygenated mud covering. For some Kaangdol (river stone),especially for kaangdol found in Taewhakaang, I need to remove mud inclusions generally from furrows or depressions,which can be valleys,caves or ponds.For example, you can still find small amount of mud inclusions in the stones shown to FIG 10 and 11 ,and Hosooseok found at the first picture in the Appendix. To remove mud ,I usually use a sharp needles to avoid break of stone.Removing the mud inclusions is easy in most cases,and make me a bit excited,because a stone can have much better scenery such as deep valleys or ponds after this process.
It was very hard to remove oxygenated muds from these stones by only brush.In these cases,I used weak acid,because they themselves are acid-resistant.We can still collect this kind of stones in the same place,though many collecting places for Sanseok are now closed,but I don't anymore want to collect more stones from there,clinig process is too hard.
DISPLAYING STONE . 1) Displaying with Suban : We want to display suseok that is classified as Kyungseok in the suban filled with usually sands,or water especially for the island-shaped stone.However it is quite dependent upon collector's preference. In my case, I prefer Daezwa for Kyungseok of which surface has very strong and shows special patina or luster.Moreover,since I don't have enough space for the subans,I prefer daezwa for displaying stones. 2) Displaying with Daezwa: Stones that are classified as others than Kyungseok are usually put on the daezwa.We don't want to make luxurious daezwa for stone,because the luxurious daezwa itself may attract viewer's point too much and therefore it can make the view point of a stone scattered.However you can put a very beautiful and luxurious stone,for example a beautiful Mooniseok, on the relatively luxurious daezwa.You don't need to make daezwa by yourself for your suseok in Korea,because many suseok shops supply customized daezwa with relatively low cost.In Ulsan city of which population is around a million,several suseok's shops are waiting for collectors to order daezwa or buy stones. Whadae for formal display of suseok : Whadae is kind of basement for suban and daezwa and can be replaced by oriental type of small desk.At club or society exhibition,we put our stones in daezwa or suban on the whadae.
Magazines,Museums,Shops & Others for Korean Suseok Collectors and Culture We have 3 monthly magazines for suseok collectors only and several magazines for bonsai ( Bunjae in Korean pronounciation) and suseok. Several Private Museums constantly show their suseok possessions. You can easily find suseok shops in Korea, especially around famous collecting places like Ulsan city and Namhankaag area.They show and sell their own suseok-collections and material for collecting and showing suseoks.However you have to be careful ,if you want to buy expensive stones from shop that you don't know well. Some ill-minded stone sellers cheat their Gagongseok as Zayunseok (natural stone), and it is very difficult to tell the differences between gagonseok and zayunseok . If you will visit famous Korean Gardens such as secrete garden,you can see Garden Stone (Zungwonseok) that was originally found very long time before.
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