South Korea's traditional master craftsman draws crowds with 'style and taste' exhibition

A special exhibition by a corporate CEO who is also a nationally designated traditional master craftsman is drawing attention in Ulsan, showcasing fermented pastes he developed by reducing the salt content of a family recipe passed down through generations.

Park Hae-yang, a designated traditional master craftsman and CEO of Jisan Housing Co. and Baeksang Industrial Development Co., is holding the special exhibition "Style and Taste: The Elegance of Jisan, the Flavor of a Mother, Becoming the Health of Humanity" at the It's Room industrial culture gallery in Sinjeong-dong, Nam-gu, Ulsan, through Aug. 31. The show is an extended run of an exhibition that closed Aug. 14.

The exhibition offers a glimpse into how one entrepreneur — who built multiple businesses while carrying forward a family culinary tradition — has woven the memory of that tradition into everyday life and the modern food industry.

Park researched the traditional doenjang his grandmother and mother had made in his hometown of Andong, developing a low-sodium powdered doenjang with reduced sodium chloride and elevated lactic acid bacteria content. He received a patent for the product in July 2018. That same year, the Korea Traditional Master Craftsmen Association certified him as a traditional master craftsman in the field of low-sodium doenjang — only the second person from the Ulsan area to receive the designation.

"Even while hiding across the country during the student movement in my college years, I longed for the taste of my mother's fermented paste," Park said, describing the chive doenjang, gochujang and other products he developed. "In the process of learning the secret recipe, I came to feel firsthand the greatness of our traditional fermented pastes, and after years of research, I also received efficacy approval from the US Food and Drug Administration."

Park is known throughout his business career for smiling and never losing his temper with employees — an attitude he said he learned from the mother who passed down her fermented paste recipe. "My mother taught her thoughtless sons, who had turned away a beggar who came to our door one morning, saying: 'He is our home's first guest. A person must live like a person. That is not the way,'" he said. "Those words became the philosophy of my life."

That humanistic outlook has extended into Park's life as an essayist and poetry reciter. The exhibition also features nine books he has written — including works that use wit to explore life's wisdom, among them titles that translate roughly as "History of Silence," "365 Days: Life Is Bread Dough" and "The Age of Men's Downfall" — along with his personal art collection.

Yun Hye-jin, director of It's Room Gallery, said the exhibition had been extended after word of mouth drew a steady stream of visitors since it opened in June. "Particularly, many foreigners visiting the nearby Sinjeong traditional market have also been stopping by," she said, adding that the gallery has prepared powdered doenjang in stick-shaped plastic pouches — which can also be brewed as a tea — along with complimentary coffee coupons for guests.