more like unto the tree, more bristling and turpentiney. . . .”
Clearly, cypress trees and the love for them are not unique to
Asia. They are prized the world over for their rot-resistant wood,
warm tones and pleasing scent. In ancient Egypt the tree was used for
mummy cases. Cypress wood was even thought to outlast brass, and
so it served as a palimpsest for Plato’s code of laws. With its rich
amber bark and soaring greenery, Jangseong felt comforting, almost
congregational. While I’d walked in forests in Japan, the ones I saw
bore a mix of hardwoods, cypress, other native evergreens. Jangseong,
though, is practically a mono crop.
In what I understood might be the Asian conception of nature,
compromise would do just fine. It doesn’t have to fulfill an
Emersonian purity in order to be considered sacred. I asked Park
about wildlife, and he admitted there is not much here in the way of
large mammals. Most have been hunted or squeezed by poor habitat
into the surprisingly biologically rich Demilitarized Zone between
North Korea and South Korea. People have been locked out of that
160-mile long, 2.5-mile wide buffer for decades, making it a prime
candidate for an international peace park, if only North and South
could agree on anything.
What these woods lack in biodiversity they make up in sensory
delight and, increasingly, human medical use. “There are two and a
half million individual trees here,” said Park. A subtle mist rose from
them, made of the very aerosols we were smelling. Atmospherically,
these serve a cloud-seeding function, helping forests regulate their
moisture levels. But Park, healing instructor that he is, holds a strictly
medical appreciation. “The phytoncides are antibacterial,” he said.
Citing the Japanese research of Miyazaki, he continued as though he’s
recited it many times before: “They reduce stress fifty-three percent
and lower blood pressure five to seven percent. The soil is also good
for healing. It is antiviral and the geosmin is good for cancer.”
Geosmin, I learned, causes the funky-great smell of earth after a rain.