following a wide dirt road through the woods and then branching off
into a narrow, well-maintained foot path. The trail skirts around
2,900-foot Chukryeong Mountain. We passed an interpretive sign
claiming the woods have more oxygenated air than a city or a
building, although I wondered if this isn’t offset by the gain in
altitude to thinner air.
Park wore what looked to be comfy Mao-style pajamas, with a
round wooden nameplate attached to his chest. He moved gracefully
along while recounting the history of this ground. Like much of Korea
after World War II, these mountain flanks were once completely
denuded of trees. First the Japanese, who occupied Korea starting in
1910, cut the forests for timber. After the war, people scavenged
whatever was left for heating fuel. Times were desperate. At $100 per
capita, South Korea then had a GDP lower than that of Ghana. One-
third of Koreans were homeless. Without trees to anchor the mountain
in place, the mud slid and the streams choked with silt. Replanting
began in earnest in the 1960s. The Japanese hinoki cypress was a
favorite for its fast growth and uncanny ability to ward off pests.
Jangseong is now 88 percent hinoki, and the trees are fully grown.
What makes the tree so unappetizing to insects has vaulted it to
the heart of the Korean Forest Agency. It smells great. Walking
through Jangseong is like moving through a picturesque vat of
VapoRub. Whether or not these woods noticeably increase our oxygen
supply, it feels like they do, clearing the sinuses and infusing every
cell with an essence of the forest, something healthful and
invigorating. Robert Louis Stevenson has a line about “that quality of
air, that emanation from old trees that so wonderfully changes and
renews a weary spirit.” He had a good nose. So did D. H. Lawrence,
who wrote (or rather overwrote): “The piny sweetness is rousing and
defiant . . . keen with aeons of sharpness. . . . I am conscious that it
helps to change me, vitally. I am even conscious that shivers of
energy cross my living plasm, from the tree, and I become a degree