A sipjangsaengdo folding screen, painted with ten separate wishes for a long life. Not everything painted on a sipjangsaeng screen is actually eternal. The sun burns out on a cosmic timescale…

Stand in front of a najeonchilgi box for more than a few seconds and something strange happens. The surface stops looking black. It starts looking wet, then blue, then violet, then gone again, a…

The Moment I Realized I'd Been Ignoring Half My Skin I spent years on a fairly careful skincare routine and treated my scalp like it wasn't skin at all. Shampoo, rinse, done, no differ…

I Rolled My Eyes at This Ingredient for a Long Time Someone told me their favorite serum was made from snail slime, and I genuinely thought they were joking. It sounded like the kind of ingred…

What Happens When Zen Leaves the Display Case The first pillar in this series stayed mostly inside glass cases and gallery pedestals, a bodhisattva's expression, a jar's asymmetry, a g…

Imagine Judging a Scholar by the Frog Sitting on His Desk Not his books. Not his calligraphy. The small, slightly ridiculous ceramic frog perched next to his inkstone, and what that one object…