Chuseok morning

by Robert Koehler on September 30, 2012

in Photos of Korea

Shooting a five century old zelkova tree in Wonjeong-ri, Boeun-gun, Chungcheongbuk-do.

{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Jakgani September 30, 2012 at 1:30 pm: You are 36.388953,127.811888 on https://maps.google.com/
2 CactusMcHarris October 1, 2012 at 11:47 am: Robert,

I really enjoyed this tree-hugging side of you. Nice hues of autumn. Is there a plaque at the tree?
3 Q October 1, 2012 at 11:53 am: Happy Chuseok, CMcH!
4 Q October 1, 2012 at 12:03 pm: I wish everybody, whether or not had disputes with me, good health and happiness in family.

I just found out a relative struggling with breast cancer has the cancer metastasized to brain and bone. A Korean war veteran I’ve known passed away last week with lung cancer, and a middle aged mother of five kids in my village got diagnosed with breast cancer.

Life seems so short. People I’ve known are leaving. 있을 때 잘 해야 하는데…
5 dogbertt October 1, 2012 at 12:15 pm: WTF is a “zelkova”?
6 jefferyhodges October 1, 2012 at 12:25 pm: It’s any of a genus of six species of deciduous trees in the elm family Ulmaceae, native to southern Europe and southwest and eastern Asia, as everybody knows.

Unless it’s some character in a Woody Allen film . . .

Jeffery Hodges

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7 robert neff October 1, 2012 at 12:34 pm: Sorry to hear about the rash of misfortune Q. I hope things will improve soon. Life is too short.
8 dogbertt October 1, 2012 at 12:47 pm: It’s any of a genus of six species of deciduous trees in the elm family Ulmaceae, native to southern Europe and southwest and eastern Asia, as everybody knows.

Then why not just call it an “elm”? A good old Anglo-Saxon word we all know.

To paraphrase Eddie Murphy referring to Muhammad Ali, “His momma named him Clay, I’m a call him Clay.”
9 Sperwer October 1, 2012 at 1:10 pm: Because it doesn’t look anything like an American elm, and calling it an elm thus would give a mistaken impression of what it is.
10 dogbertt October 1, 2012 at 1:24 pm: http://www.floridata.com/ref/z/zelk_ser.cfm?menu=0&CFID=4716291&CFTOKEN=65378915
11 jk641 October 1, 2012 at 1:39 pm: Q@#4,

My sympathies to everyone who is battling cancer.
It really is a dreadful disease.
Unfortunately, cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide and getting more and more prevalent.

We should all take steps to prevent cancer, such as staying away from chemicals, pesticides, radiation, microwave ovens, stressful jobs, burnt meat, etc, etc.
12 jefferyhodges October 1, 2012 at 1:48 pm: I was surprised to learn that “elm” is Anglo-Saxon — I’d assumed it was derived from the Latin “ulmus” — but it is from Germanic, connected to Latin only by a Proto-Indo-European root!

In the Ozarks, however, we called it an “elum.”

Jeffery Hodges

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13 hacker October 1, 2012 at 6:28 pm: Q – Health and Happiness to you and yours as well. It is tough loosing someone to Cancer, my mother passed after struggling for over a year. Seems as though the best thing you can do is show up with a smile on your face and hope you can do your best to make them forget the worst even if only for a very short time.
14 Arghaeri October 1, 2012 at 7:22 pm: We should all take steps to prevent cancer, such as staying away from chemicals, pesticides, radiation, microwave ovens, stressful jobs, burnt meat, etc, etc.

We could just try not to live so long, that being the main reason for the increasing number of deaths by cancer.
15 Robert Koehler October 1, 2012 at 9:45 pm: Then why not just call it an “elm”? A good old Anglo-Saxon word we all know.

Because I had no idea it was even related to the elm. In fact, I didn’t even know what a zelkova was until I looked up 느티나무 in the dictionary and got “zelkova.”
16 CactusMcHarris October 1, 2012 at 10:40 pm: Q,

Happy Chuseok to you and yours – I hope you get strength for the difficult days behind and ahead.

And Happy Chuseok to all the MHers.

I didn’t know it was a suitable bonsai specimen. From Wiki:

Zelkova serrata (Keyaki or Japanese Zelkova; Japanese: 欅 (ケヤキ) keyaki; Chinese: 榉树 ju shu; Korean: 느티나무 neutinamu) is a species of Zelkova native to Japan, Korea, eastern China, and Taiwan.[2][3] It is often grown as an ornamental tree, and used in bonsai.

Also from Wiki:

The name Zelkova derives from the native name of Z. carpinifolia in one of the Kartvelian languages, as shown by the Georgian name, ძელქვა (dzelkva). ძელ dzel meaning “bar”, and ქვა kva meaning “rock”. The tree was often used for making rock-hard and durable bars for building.
17 dogbertt October 2, 2012 at 12:24 am: @Robert, apologies for the distraction from your outstanding photography. That is a wonderful shot.

Shortly after I arrived in Korea I began drinking a tea brewed from 느티나무 bark and for some reason had always associated that tree with “elm”, although I now learn Zelkova is more precise. I’ll have to add “Zelkova” to the list of English words I did not know before studying Korean, along with “laver”, &c.
18 inkevitch October 2, 2012 at 5:41 am: jk641,
Ditto what arghaeri said. Another is that we are getting better at diagnosing cancer.
19 jk641 October 2, 2012 at 8:27 am: Arghaeri & inkevitch,

Well still, I’m not gonna take chances.
Better safe than sorry when it comes to c****r.
20 sanshinseon October 2, 2012 at 11:49 am: Korean Zelkova or Neuti-namu has been regarded as a semi-sacred species due both to the long lives of some and the useful excellence of its wood for making furniture, musical instruments, ritual implements and some kinds of military weapons. One or more great old ones in the center of a village, like this, were regarded as local resource-treasures, from which a branch might occasionally be harvested or younger ones grown from its seeds for practical use.
21 hamel October 2, 2012 at 4:38 pm: I’ll have to add “Zelkova” to the list of English words I did not know before studying Korean, along with “laver”, &c.

Had you been born Welsh, you would have been familiar with laver cakes, &c.

By the way, Dogbertt, did you notice that the NK restaurant in Amsterdam, opened to much fanfare in Jan this year, is already closed?
22 yuna October 2, 2012 at 4:50 pm: I like all things with Korean names (not sino-Korean) so I looked it up and look what I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPTW3kTRVA
The imagination of the uploader is that it becomes (from a straight) a puny 관목 from to a great 교목 relatively late i.e. 늦게 티낸다 = shows up(itself) late..늦티 ->느티.
I don’t know enough about tree growing to verify the theory but it’s quite cute. Because it’s usually associated with villages it used to have quite a sacred/protective function.
23 Q October 4, 2012 at 7:48 am: Thank you all for kind words. I wish you all good health and happiness and peace in family again.