Hapjukseon is a traditional Korean hand-held fan made of thin bamboo strips. Although they appear simple, folding fans require between 140 and 150 manual steps. In this video, we discover the 350-year-old Korean traditional hapjukseon making process performed by master craftsman Kim Dong-sik. His family has been practicing the craft for about 140 years. He is the fourth generation of hapjukseon artisans. Traditional paper fan making is generally quite hard, intricate, and painstaking. It takes about a week to create one single Hapjukseon, combined with sophisticated hand-carving techniques. When he was just 14 years old, master Kim started learning how to make hapjukseon from his maternal grandpa Rah Hak-cheon, who used to make folding fans for King Gojong in the late Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). Hapjukseon is believed to have been invented during the Goryeo Kingdom a thousand years ago. During that time, they were used mainly by the king and his officials.
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Timestamps 1:26 - Carving the bamboo interior 3:12 - Shaping the fan 4:38 - Types of Korean fans 5:29 - Making a Hapjukseon
Making hobjakson, a type of traditional Korean fan,
starts with bamboo.
And artisans have to split the bamboo
and thin it down again and again
until it's carved down to 3 tenths of a millimeter.
When those thin strips get glued together and bound,
that's when the fan becomes incredibly strong,
making it one of the most durable fans ever.
Kim Dong-shik uses a 350-year-old technique today.
passed down through his family
to make Korean fans that were historically reserved
for royalty.
It takes 4 to 5, 8 to 10-hour days to make just one fan.
The first step is softening the bamboo
by boiling it and leaving it out to dry
for up to 2 weeks before the bamboo reaches Kim's workshop.
This is when the splitting begins.
Dry bamboo would break easily,
so the strips are softened a second time in boiling water.
Wearing thimbles that protect his fingers,
Kim pulls out the strips from the hot water.
Then he carves out the bamboo interior with custom knives
that a blacksmith made to fit his hands exactly.
He strips it down further
so it's thin enough to be see-through.
Kim shaves the edges of the thin bamboo strips
and uses the traditional material, isseonglass, as glue.
Isseonglass is a gelatin made from a fish's bladder.
Gluing these outer strips together
is what makes hapjukseon one of the strongest fans,
as others are not reinforced this way.
The reinforcement creates a long-lasting frame,
so while the paper part of hapjukseon
may need to be replaced, the frame will endure.
He wraps the pieces together,
making sure it's as tightly bound as possible
and lets it dry for at least half a day.
While that dries, he prepares the wooden part
of the frame handle using a hammer.
Then he whittles down a piece of bamboo into a screw
to connect the ribs of the fan.
This traditional method has since been replaced
by using metal.
At this stage, the unfinished fan is called a sabuk,
and he inserts it into a frame for shaping.
Using a refining knife, he creates a nice curve.
Once he gets the desired shape,
he'll go back to the fan handle,
shaving and smoothing it out.
Kim uses the traditional method of a hot iron
to add a design to the frame, inner spokes,
and edges of the fan.
Now that the framework is ready,
Kim uses a blade to take out a chunk from the spokes,
creating space for the paper.
A traditional Korean paper called hanji
gets folded and cut with precision to the fan size.
Glue is spread out before he taps the fan ribs
gently and evenly across it.
He carefully applies the paper,
folding it for each one of the ribs.
Fans for the royal family had 50 ribs,
and fans with 38 ribs like this one were for nobility.
Afterward, it may be left plain or decorated
by a painter or calligraphy artist.
There are two types of Korean fans,
a rigid round fan called tansun
and a folding fan called cheopsun.
Tansun was used by ordinary people,
while cheopsun, a type of folding fan,
was reserved for the royal family and high-ranking nobility.
While they were popular until the mid-1970s and early 80s,
they declined as people sought more modern ways
to keep cool, like air conditioners and electric fans.
AI or UAM,
Creating a single fan used to involve
the hands of six workers,
but many have left the field due to low pay.
And now, Kim is one of the few craftsmen
making them from start to finish.
He was recognized as a master-level fan maker in 2015
by South Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration.
Six generations of Kim's family
have made this traditional fan,
from his great-grandfather to his 20-year-old grandson.
Yes, that's right.
My family has been doing this for a long time,
but it would be a shame to end it here.
And everything in the fan family
becomes a bubble in a day.
So I told my son,
