Buying a Treasure from a Treasure

I’m an instrument junky. I only play a couple poorly, but in my world they are beautiful objects of inspiration.

Every place has its distinct music, and the instruments that make those sounds are evocative cultural treasures. Wandering down Jogno-ro I was drawn to one of these treasures. The Taepyeongso is a traditional Korean trumpet. It sounds fairly ghastly, a metallic tooth wrending squawk and is often associated with martial music and military signals.

In Seoul stores seem clustered by specialty: Jewelry stores crowd one neighborhood, camera stores another, instrument purveyours another, and so forth. The area around the Jongno 3 sam ga metro station is the epicenter for traditional instruments, as far as I can tell, including the store named Yeunak and its lovely trumpets.

This particular trumpet is wonderfully inlaid, heavy, and hand made by the elderly instrument maker tending the cramped store. It was expensive for a souvenir, cheap for a handmade traditional instrument. I fell in love with the shop keeper as well, who wrestled with the credit card machine till I agreed to go get cash, then he won Izzy over with the gift of a traditional Korean knot unlike any we’d seen at any of the usual souvenir stops.

It wasn’t until I got back to the hostel and we inspected his business card that we realized HE is also a treasure. Quite literally. The government of Korea honored Hyun-kon Kim as Korean Intangible Cultural Treasure No. 42 for his contribution to the art of traditional instrument making. I’ve never met a cultural treasure before, but he seemed to fit the part quite well. Suddenly the craftsmanship of this simple trumpet is explained as is the casual, almost dismissive flick of his wrist when he intoned that he had crafted all the string and wind instruments lining the walls. If music is the force, he’s a jedi master. Sometimes it’s the people who are quite literally the treasure in your day.

~Ano