Shopofkorea guides
Palace Bookmarks and Minhwa Notebooks as Autumn Reading Gifts
Official product names are shown in Korean. Product pages are in Korean; prices are in South Korean won (KRW).
Choosing traditional stationery as an autumn reading gift lets you offer both reading and writing in one. A bookmark featuring a palace keeps the page of a book set aside for a moment. A minhwa notebook and an ochim notebook are there to write down thoughts that arise while reading.
There is no need to write only after finishing an entire book. You can simply keep the page marked by the bookmark and the impressions left in the notebook side by side. The next time you open the book, you can pick up both where you left off in the text and the thoughts you had at the time.
Add reading-and-writing stationery to your Chuseok greetings
When preparing Chuseok gifts, you may also find yourself looking for traditional stationery to accompany expressions of gratitude and visit greetings. These are items well suited to giving to someone who reads and keeps notes in autumn. Thinking of the reading time they already enjoy makes the gift's purpose more concrete.
The bookmark goes between the pages being read, and the notebook can be spread open beside the book. When palace architecture or traditional paintings are part of the picture, there is also a place for the eye to linger. It is a way of bringing Korean culture close to a familiar reading tool.
For someone who already reads and takes notes, these can become objects that let them continue doing what they already do.
Leave the image of a palace on the page you were reading
When you set a book down for a moment, you mark the page you will open next. The 금장책갈피- 인정전(창덕궁) (gold-plated bookmark featuring Injeongjeon, Changdeokgung Palace) adds the appearance of palace architecture to that spot. The metal plate has been given a gold-plating finish, and the form of Injeongjeon is rendered in fine lines. It measures 2.7 cm wide by 9 cm tall.
Injeongjeon at Changdeokgung Palace was the space where official ceremonies and the reception of foreign guests took place. Looking at the bookmark that captures that architecture, one can call to mind formality and hospitality. When presenting the gift, it would be nice to add a brief note about what Injeongjeon was. A small golden motif gains one more story.
There is also the 금장 책갈피 궁 5종 (gold-plated palace bookmark set of 5), which brings together several architectural designs. The set features symbols of palaces and the city fortress, including Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung, Gwanghwamun, and Sungnyemun. A chrysanthemum-knot decoration has been added to the gold-plated finish.
For someone interested in palaces and traditional culture, there is also the pleasure of looking at the designs. When reading several books in turn, a bookmark can be left in each one. It is a small tool for pausing to appreciate the architecture before returning to the sentence you were reading.
Write your autumn impressions inside a minhwa cover
If the bookmark holds your place in the reading, the notebook holds the thoughts that arose while reading. The 전통민화노트- 일월오봉도 (traditional minhwa notebook — Irworobongdo) is a paper notebook whose cover carries a motif from traditional painting. Minhwa (민화) refers to Korean folk painting. It measures 13 cm wide by 18 cm tall and weighs 70 g. It is worth considering as something to carry alongside a book for writing down impressions.
The Irworobongdo (일월오봉도, "sun, moon, and five peaks" painting) features the sun and moon, mountain peaks, waves, and pine trees. It is a painting that symbolizes the authority of the king and the order of the nation. The elements of royal court painting have been transferred to the cover of a notebook used in everyday life.
Korea's traditional patterns have been used in clothing, ceramics, embroidery, and metalwork. Designs modeled on nature were also imbued with wishes for good fortune or long life. Today, traditional iconography appears on objects handled frequently, such as notebooks. When you look at the painting on the cover and open the notebook, today's thoughts are placed beside an old painting.
Among the reviews left after purchasing this notebook is the comment: "I gave it as a gift to a university student and they love it. It was a great choice." This is the response shared by a buyer who gave the notebook to a university student. It is one example worth keeping in mind when thinking about stationery gifts for students.
Placing a notebook beside a book lets reading and writing continue in the same spot. Jotting down a memorable sentence and its page number means you can find it again even after the bookmark has been moved.
Continue writing your thoughts in a thread-bound notebook
The 샵오브코리아 전통오침노트-청색 (Shop of Korea traditional ochim notebook — blue) is a notebook made from paper and cotton thread. It is bound using ochim-jebon (오침제본), a traditional binding method in which five holes are pierced and the pages are sewn together with thread. Sturdy cotton thread is used stitch by stitch to recreate this old binding technique.
This notebook expresses tradition not only through imagery but through the method used to bind the book. At 19 cm wide by 26 cm tall, it is larger than the minhwa notebook introduced earlier. It suits the image of spreading it open on a desk and writing out reading impressions at length. It can stay close on days when a thought that began as a short note grows into many sentences.
The minhwa notebook has the painting on its cover; the ochim notebook has its thread-sewn binding. One carries traditional iconography, and the other continues the craft of making books in the old way. They are objects through which you encounter tradition in different forms while reading and writing.
Related pages include Notebooks and Bookmarks — Metal.
An autumn reading gift can hold the time the recipient spends with books. Mark the page being read with a palace bookmark, and leave thoughts in a minhwa notebook or an ochim notebook. It is a gift that keeps a book ready to be reopened and notes ready to be reread.