Korean Rice Chests

I've been doing some research on different pieces of Korean furniture knowing that hanji was such a big part of what they would use. I came across the article below describing the shape of the Korean rice chest. I've see these replicated in Hanji pieces and was wondering about the unusual shape of this piece of furniture.

It use to be a very important part of furniture in a Korean kitchen as the holder of the staple food in their diet. Rice along with kimchi was, and still is, the basis of their three meals a day. The solid rice chest was generally made of pine but never decorated as a reminder of the importance of it's presence in the home.

I've been working on a hanji designed piece. ........ mine is decorated though, as it is much smaller than the original chests and it could be used on a desk or a sideboard to store tea bags or spices.

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Lotus symbol in Korean culture .....

In traditional Korean Hanji art you can see many different designs of plants, animals, letters and insects. I'm sure you've wondered what they all symbolise as they are repeated so often and in many different ways. In this post I just want to take a brief look at the lotus plant and what it symbolises for the Korean people. I've used this design on a few articles but I never really knew the full meaning of what it represented until I started doing some research for my book. Even though many of us aren't Korean we can still use these designs and in so doing, translate a deeper meaning to our articles. Here are a just a few of my favourites from the easiest to the more difficult to cut out. The lotus flower symbolises creation, birth, liveability and reproduction and therefore it's one of the most important symbols in both Korean culture a...

The Buddhist symbol, Hanji & Korean culture ....

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Online Hanji paper store, in English .....

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