Late to the Game

First off, I know the Korean name for a Hackberry – it’s a 팽나무 (paeng namu). And how do I know that? Because I’ve been hunting trees for at least five years now. As a matter of fact, I can tell you exactly where four protected Hackberries are within 10 miles of me right now. They were some of the first trees I found when I started my hunts.

I can’t say that my interest in finding protected trees has waned lately. It’s just that I’ve found most of them. I used to plan entire rides around them, and I tell you, those rides were so much fun – so adventurous. I’ve got to get pretty far away to find them now – as demonstrated by my last two weekend rides: 79 miles about week and a half ago, and 75 just this last Saturday, both to see one of Korea’s rarer trees, the Lacebark Pine. There are fewer than ten in the whole country (I have reason to believe the true number is only five), and I’ve seen two now.  I know where three more are, and two of them are only about 40 miles away (in the heart of Seoul).  Interesting fact too (well, at least for me) – the Lacebark Pine I first visited was only 430 meters farther from my apartment as the crow flies than the one I visited last Saturday. So yeah – I live almost exactly between the two.

I bring this up because I just read an article in the Korea Times about a Hackberry that’s been made famous by the new Netflix hit K-drama “Extraordinary Attorney Woo.” People are starting to go check the tree out, and I think it’s pretty cool that they would appreciate something like that. I feel somewhat vindicated because I’ll be out riding with my friend Joon and I’ll always say “there’s a protected tree right over there on that hill” or “there’s a story tree just down this road” and I sometimes wonder if he thinks I’m crazy. But no – it’s something I love doing, finding protected trees. Especially when you know the history of the tree and of the area. Or when you understand that a lot of Korea’s trees were razed in a brutal war just over half a century ago. That makes these survivors all the more amazing to me sometimes.

I remembered today, too, that I hadn’t gone to see two stories east of me some distance. One is a 400-year-old pine tree, and the other is the story of strong-man competition among three men (one of the few stories that is not a tree). With the discovery of the Lost Story this past Saturday, these two stories should finish out Yi-ch’eon’s stories for me, and pretty much every story south of the Han River.

I’m happy that I’ll never run out of things to hunt on my rides. If it isn’t a tree, it’s a temple, or the birthplace of someone famous, or the site of a battle. But the trees are really my first love, and as much as I appreciate people realizing that too to some extent, I can’t help but think they’re a bit late to the game. We all are, actually.

[if you’re interested in Gyeonggi-do’s stories, you can find them here]

[All of the photos I’ve posted are from rides I’ve done within the last 6 months or so. I’ve got a lot more, and if you just search this blog for “tree” you’ll probably find them.]