한국인들도 잘 모르는 한국문화체험했다?! [남원시가 짱 좋음!] 🇰🇷

We are now on our way to Namwon, Jeollabuk-do. One of the things that Dan and I love most about living in Korea and making content here is getting to find out more about Korean culture, the history and the traditions. Today we're finding out about Ochil. Hello, my name is Aram Kim and I'm a writer from Ochil. We're going to be having a go and experiencing Ochil for ourselves, but first our skin can have a negative reaction to the lacquer, so we have to be super careful and make sure we're covered up. Dan, what have you got me into? I feel like I'm going into surgery, bro. You're getting a surgery, right? Are you getting a surgery or are you getting a surgery? Ochil is the traditional Korean practice of lacquering homemade wooden items, particularly household and kitchen items such as cups, bowls and cutlery. Coming from the natural pigment in lacquer trees, the practice and tradition of Ochil is particularly prevalent in the city of Namwon. You scrape it out and put it in a container and there's only a small amount, so it's very expensive. It's one of the biggest trees in Namwon. Biggest tree? Yes. Wow. So, just to get this right, we're varnishing the wood stuff. That's the word. With wood bark. Yeah. That's crazy. I didn't think of that at all. That's like a paradox. That's amazing. And it's traditionally done by hand. Since the lacquer cannot be mass-produced and the process of lacquering can take several weeks for a single wooden item, Ochil lacquered products are highly valued with some exclusively viewed as pieces of art. The material itself is prized for its supposed timeless quality in that, unlike paint, it does not fade and instead remains vivid and resplendent over time. It is also believed to protect and preserve the wood that it covers. Wow. Amazing, isn't it? Oh, it's really soothing. Oh, man. This stuff is so soothing. It's very healing. Yeah. I don't have enough hair, mate. I used to. Believe me. But they cut it off and they're now using it for a paintbrush. Wow. This is really therapeutic. Yeah, it really is. I love this kind of stuff. I love when we come to Korea and we get to do these kind of opportunities to experience the culture. Yes. We always end up doing something therapeutic that we didn't expect, but I would never have expected to be doing this. Exactly. So cool. You know, when you're doing this, you can really see the dense and thickness of the varnish. Really cool. Do you know what's kind of cool about this? Like when you get a commercial product that you make in a factory, they all look exactly the same. Yeah. But literally every chopper is going to look different. And painted. And varnished. Yeah. Like each one is going to be... This is very different than mine. How have you done that? Case in point. I feel like I'm in some kind of gang. What do you mean? I'm going to do my hand. Like pulling it apart to hold this up. It's interesting. It starts to gather around this top bit. Like you leave it for a moment. It starts to like go thick around the edge. A little tick. Yeah. You know, the therapy of painting makes you be extremely present just doing one thing. I agree. And there's something very, extremely satisfying about that. There's not a lot of things that we have that we can do that really forces you into the present moment. Yeah. Last night I was doing painting with Anu. We were painting an overturned egg carton to make it look like dinosaur volcanoes. Oh, I love that. And I was literally enjoying it so much. Anu stopped doing it and I just like carried on. Because it is therapeutic and it's very calming. Yes. Wow. That was such an amazing experience. It just so happens, it's the second time I've seen Anu do this. So of course, after our experience, we couldn't miss checking out how the pros do it. So we headed down to Ansukseon Yeongchangil Yeojeong. As you can see, the intricacy, the craftsmanship, the quality and the color of these products, absolutely amazing. It was so beautiful to be able to walk around and see such amazing pieces on display. Oh man, today has been great, hasn't it? In Seoul, it's hard to experience and feel the traditional Korean culture and history. But today, we were able to feel a lot of it and experience it ourselves, so it was great. I hope we can come back and really experience some more stuff here. I feel like, as we say often on this channel, we're scratching the surface. I don't know what's around the corner. If we have more time, I'd love to explore. So maybe we can get invited back here or we can just come and do some stuff. I would absolutely love that. That would be amazing. It's good. It's been great, mate. Thanks, bro. What a privilege to do this. I know. It really is. Namwon, which we visited, was beautiful during the day, but more beautiful at night. This has been Namwon, a city of Korean culture and the future industry.