Choi Hyeok Korean Medicine Clinic

"In Korea, food, cosmetics, and bathing culture are not far apart from one another. All of them originally began from the same way of caring for the body. Samgyetang, the summer restorative dish, is a whole chicken simmered slowly with a range of other ingredients. The ginseng, jujube, and garlic that go into it are both medicinal herbs and foodstuffs. Most ingredients used in Korean medicine work that way. They are eaten as food, simmered down and drunk like tea, and applied to the body. There are markets that deal in medicinal herbs and nothing else. More than half of all the herbs distributed in Korea pass through Seoul Yangnyeongsi in Dongdaemun. At the Seoul K-Medi Center inside the market, a reservation gets you a foot bath and a consultation with a Korean medicine doctor, and you can join a cooking class using medicinal herbs. Traditional Korean medicine held that the same illness calls for different treatments and different remedies depending on a person’s constitution. That idea still runs through a range of fields today. Forest Resom in Chungcheong-do runs a spa tailored to your constitution, and Tea Therapy in central Seoul pairs a foot bath program with a medicinal tea matched to the same reading. Cosmetics can be understood as part of the same continuum. Sulwhasoo builds on formulations drawn from traditional medicine, and its flagship store offers spa programs based on these formulations. Where Joseon medicine sorted people by constitution, cosmetics stores today recommend products by skin type. BEAUTY PLAY, with branches in Myeongdong and Hongdae, is an experience space run by the Korea Cosmetic Industry Institute, where you can have a skin diagnostic and a personal color consultation free of charge. The most popular spa culture of all is the jjimjilbang. You move between ocher rooms, charcoal kilns, and salt rooms, sweating it out and bathing as you go. Many stay open around the clock, and the snack counter will have baked eggs and cold sikhye. Eating eggs in a sauna may look a little strange at first, but in Korea it could not be more natural. What people eat shifts a little from region to region too. Jeolla-do has a mild climate and rich soil, so ingredients are abundant, and it is called Korea’s capital of flavor. In mountainous Gangwon-do, you will often find a table laid with wild mountain greens, and on Jeju there is a standing tradition of eating hairtail raw. There is food to be had at the temples as well. Temple food is built around beans, tofu, and vegetables and is described as food that nourishes the body and mind. Korean cooking uses vegetables in so many ways to begin with that bibimbap and gimbap are easy enough to enjoy if you simply ask for them without the meat. What you eat, what you apply, and even the culture of warming the body. In Korea, all of it is connected within a single current. "