Programs for hands-on experience of making hanji are offered at various places, such as the Jeonju Hanji Culture Festival, the Wonju Hanji Festival and the Andong Hanji Hall. In the past, Hanji was called baek (meaning “one hundred”)-ji (meaning “paper”), as the paper-making process required handlings on more than a hundred occasions. And so, it is difficult to experience the entire process through the hands-on experience programs. Most people will only experience the key process called ‘hanji tteugi.’

For those planning to take part in such a program, it is advisable to first check the following explanation made by hanji master Jang Eung-ryeol of ‘Wonju Hanji’ so as to better understand hanji and to better enjoy your experience.

Remove the black and green barks, and collect only the white-colored bark from the mulberry tree. Put it in clean water for a day. Then place it in alkaline solutions and apply heat for 4-5 hours. Ashes of beans, buckwheat or straw that was soaked in warm water and then drained, is mostly used as alkaline solution. The alkaline solution makes the hanji a weak alkalinity that prevents the oxidation of the paper.

Leave the well-steamed mulberry bark in pot for 7-8 hours. Then take it out and soak it in clean flowing water for 3-4 days. While having it soaked in water and exposed to sunshine, the white-colored bark will become whiter, if the pieces are well mixed and turned over.

All particles remaining on the bark should be removed. It is not advisable to use bleaching chemicals for this purpose, as they may cause damage to the fiber. Doing the work manually will result in producing durable and high-quality hanji.

Place the bark on a flat-surfaced rock and beat it for 2-3 hours with a wood club to soften the fabric. The process of soaking and turning the bark around in water, and screening out particles should be repeated once more to produce a product of better quality.

Put mulberry fibers and hibiscus manihot in water and stir with a stick to prevent the fibers from becoming entangled with each other. Then take out the fibers floating on the water. This process is called “tteugi” or “sucho.” There are two ways of doing this: heullim tteugi and gadum tteugi. The former refers to a method of removing moisture by putting the fiber horizontally on a wide rectangle-shaped sieve, and the latter vertically. Because sheets of paper made by the former method are arranged diagonally, there is not much difference in horizontal strength making it stronger than paper made us the latter method. Place the hanji on top of a wooden board and place a heavy stone or a lever on top of the board and leave overnight so as to drain the water from the hanji.

In the past, the hanji that had gone through the foregoing process were placed on the ondol floor for drying, sweeping them with a broom, or were placed on the wall or a wooden plate and dried in the sun. At present, most hanji are placed on a heated steel sheet to dry.

The repeated process of pounding multi-layers of hanji, not fully dried and placed on top of a dochimgi (full block) in the shape of a treadmill, makes hanji softer and denser. The thickness of the fibers is reduced from a half to a third. Adjusting the size of the paper in this natural way, the paper made thus prevents ink from spreading in an irregular fashion.