Sending a Sipjangsaeng Minhwa Desk Clock to My Professor in Japan

It was about a week before Teachers' Day. I make a point of sending at least a small greeting every year to the professors I have here in Korea, but this year there was one more person on my mind: the professor who supervised me when I was studying in Japan. Even after coming home, we exchanged the occasional email, but I had never once sent a proper gift.

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When it actually came to choosing something, I was at a loss. Japan is a place where the etiquette of giving and receiving gifts is quite refined, so I worried that something too expensive-looking would make the recipient feel burdened, while something too light would seem half-hearted. Since it had to be sent overseas, I also wanted to rule out anything fragile, and any food items that might cause customs concerns.

I tried searching for "gift for a professor in Japan" and "Teachers' Day gift for a foreign professor" in turn. Eventually I even searched for "traditional Korean gifts to send abroad." I compared a few options: a mother-of-pearl jewelry box seemed too ornate and heavy, and a mug felt a little too casual for a professor. What I was looking for was something that would be recognizably Korean at a glance, yet something that could sit on the professor's desk every single day.

That is how I settled on the 탁상용시계-십장생민화 (Sipjangsaeng Minhwa Desk Clock — a small desk clock featuring a sipjangsaeng minhwa, a traditional Korean folk painting of the Ten Symbols of Longevity, set on a mother-of-pearl panel). It measures 13.5 cm wide, 10.5 cm tall, and 1.5 cm thick, and weighs 420 g — just the right size to sit in a corner of a desk. It comes in a hard case, which put my mind at ease about sending it a long distance.

The sipjangsaeng-do is one of the most representative subjects in Korean minhwa (folk painting), associated with wishing for long life. I thought it would let me say "please stay in good health always" to a professor who has kept watch over a research office for so many years — expressed through a painting rather than words. That said, since I was choosing based only on what I could see on screen, I honestly had mixed feelings about whether the actual item would be all right.

Special Requests I Made When Ordering

Because I needed to receive it myself first and then forward it to Japan, I left an inquiry the moment I placed the order. I asked to receive it as quickly as possible, and — even though I had selected the gift-wrapping option — I asked them not to wrap it but instead to include the wrapping paper and ribbon separately. I was worried the wrapping might get crumpled during international shipping, so I wanted to do the final wrapping with my own hands. I also asked them to include plenty of bubble wrap, and to be sure to enclose an English-language leaflet. Since the professor cannot read Korean, I needed something on paper that would explain what sipjangsaeng means.

The shop dispatched it that very day, and the box arrived early in the week after the weekend. Beside the clock, which was wrapped thickly in bubble wrap, the wrapping paper and ribbon were tucked in separately, and the English leaflet was there as well. When I took the clock out, the mother-of-pearl panel shimmered softly in the light. My worries dissolved at that moment. I felt it was something I would not be embarrassed to present to the professor.

I wrapped the clock in the wrapping paper, tied the ribbon, and then packed the bubble wrap carefully around it again. Next to the English leaflet I placed a short card written in Japanese, explaining that Korea has Teachers' Day on May 15th and that I had wanted to send my thanks in time for that day. And so the box made its way to Japan around Teachers' Day.

On the Research-Office Desk

A little while later, an email arrived from the professor. After reading the leaflet, the professor had learned that the animals and trees in the painting represent longevity, and mentioned having placed the clock next to the monitor on the research-office desk. The remark about spending a long time looking at even the back of the clock made me smile. The wrapping paper was so pretty, the professor had folded it and put it in a drawer. Reading that one line, I was glad I had done the wrapping myself.

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If you want to send something distinctly Korean to a former teacher abroad while keeping the sense of burden to a minimum, an everyday desk accessory that catches the eye proved to be a safe choice. The item I deliberated over until the very end was the 한지 자동필함-학팔각 [청색] (Hanji Jadongpilham-Hakpalgak [Blue] — a pen case with a wooden base covered in hanji, traditional Korean paper, decorated with silver-wire and mother-of-pearl crane-and-octagon, hak palgak, motifs). The crane symbolizes longevity and nobility, so it would not feel out of place as a gift for a professor. At 22.2 cm in length, it can hold pens generously. However, it is a fragile item, so if you are sending it overseas it is advisable to pack extra cushioning material.

For someone who reads a great deal, I thought the 금장 책갈피-국보 10종세트 (Geumjang Chaekgalpi-Gukbo 10-jong Set — a set of ten gold-finish bookmarks featuring National Treasure motifs) paired with a card would also be a nice touch. The National Treasure motifs offer a light introduction to Korean cultural heritage, and the set is flat enough to slip easily into one side of a box.

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For me, the clock alone was enough. It tells the time on the professor's desk every day, and every now and then it might bring to mind a student back in Korea.

This account is based on an actual purchase; individuals and institutions have been anonymized, and some scenes have been reconstructed.