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Intro
Tree-ear, an adolescent orphan in 12th-century Korea, lives under a bridge with his homeless guardian, Crane-man, in Ch’ulp’o, a potters’ village famous for celadon ceramics. Tree-ear has begun to spy on elderly master potter Min because he is so in awe of Min’s artistry. One day, Tree-ear walks past Min’s outdoor workshop and, seeing that no one is around, begins examining the pottery. He has just picked up a piece when Min returns and yells “Thief!” Startled, Tree-ear drops the piece he was holding, denting it. He quickly explains that he wasn’t stealing the pottery, just admiring it. He volunteers to work for Min for free as payment for the broken pottery. Min agrees that Tree-ear will work for him for nine days. On the tenth day, Tree-ear, who hopes to become Min’s apprentice, asks to continue working for Min. When Min says he can’t pay Tree-ear, Tree-ear nevertheless jumps at the chance to keep working for Min.
Min tells Tree-ear to gather clay. When Tree-ear returns after a long morning of work, Min’s wife gives him a bowl of food. Tree-ear eats happily. Yet when he returns to the bridge that night, he sees that Crane-man’s crutch is missing. Crane-man explains that a school of flounder swam close to the town’s beach, and he tried to catch some but couldn’t. In frustration, he hit his crutch against a rock and broke it. Tree-ear feels guilty because he would have caught the fish if he hadn’t been working for Min. He castigates himself for not bringing any of the food Min’s wife gave him home to Crane-man.
The next morning, Tree-ear brings his own bowl to Min’s and asks Min’s wife to give him his lunch in it—nominally so that she doesn’t have to worry about dishes, but actually so he can bring the bowl home to Crane-man. At lunch, he only eats half the food Min’s wife gives him and hides the bowl. Yet when he finishes his work and returns to the bowl, he discovers that a wild animal has eaten the food. The next day, he digs a hole for the bowl and covers it with a flat rock. Several days later, when he retrieves the hidden bowl at the end of his workday, he discovers that Min’s wife has entirely refilled it. Tree-ear is grateful to Min’s wife and starts to think of ways to thank her and pay her back.
Tree-ear has been working for Min for two months when Min starts teaching him how to drain clay to remove impurities. Though Min sometimes makes Tree-ear drain the clay more than six times, Tree-ear, to his own frustration, can’t feel a difference in the clay’s smoothness after the third drainage or so.
Time passes, and the weather grows cold. Tree-ear wonders how Crane-man will keep warm during the winter in his worn clothes. Then one day, Min’s wife gives Tree-ear a very warm jacket and pants. She explains that she made the clothes for her and Min’s son Hyung-gu, who died of fever when he was about Tree-ear’s age. Tree-ear ends up giving the jacket, which is too big for him, to Crane-man.
One night, Tree-ear spies a light in Kang’s pottery shed and peers inside. He sees Kang incising patterns into pottery and then painting the incisions with red and white slip. Several days later, a rumor gets around Ch’ulp’o that a royal emissary is going to visit the village and give royal commissions to the best potters. That night, Tree-ear is troubled: Min is a better potter than Kang and could likely execute Kang’s innovation better than Kang could—but Min doesn’t know about the innovation. Tree-ear asks Crane-man whether it’s wrong to take someone else’s idea. After a long pause, Crane-man says it’s wrong if the idea is a secret one has stolen somehow, but if the idea has been publicized, then it’s fine. Tree-ear concludes that, as Kang is keeping his innovation a secret, Tree-ear can’t honestly tell Min about it.
The royal emissary—Emissary Kim—arrives in Ch’ulp’o. All the potters have set up stalls in the marketplace to display their work to him. After Tree-ear helps set up Min’s stall, he goes to look at Kang’s stall, where he sees beautiful, innovative colored inlays in Kang’s otherwise shoddily made pots. Emissary Kim spends a long time at Kang’s stall, where Kang explains to him that the new technique is “inlay work,” an innovation Kang borrowed from lacquerware. When Emissary Kim reaches Min’s stall, he notes that Min’s designs are not innovative—but Min’s execution is uniquely excellent. Tree-ear, though overjoyed, knows that Kim won’t decide which potters will receive commissions until he’s traveled to another pottery region and seen their pots too.
Two days later, Min finally asks Tree-ear about Kang’s innovation. Tree-ear, figuring that the innovation is now public knowledge, explains the “inlay work” concept to Min. Min tells Tree-ear to fetch red and white clay for slip. While Min plans out various inlay designs, Tree-ear drains clay. One day, suddenly, Tree-ear can finally feel the subtle difference between the fifth and sixth drainage of clay. Finally, Min finishes five versions of the same inlay-work vase and fires them. The firing ends late at night, so Min and Tree-ear can’t check the quality of the vases’ glaze; they just take the vases home. The next morning, when Tree-ear goes to Min’s, the backyard is full of smashed pottery—Min destroyed the vases after the firing went wrong and ruined the vases’ glaze.
Emissary Kim returns to Ch’ulp’o before Min has time to finish more vases. Yet Kim visits Min, admits that he prefers Min’s work to Kang’s, and suggests that Min bring some inlay-work vases—once he has finished them—to Kim in the capital city Songdo. Min demurs, saying he’s too old to travel to Songdo. Tree-ear volunteers to bring Min’s work to Songdo once Min has finished. Min’s wife agrees to ask Min about it—on the condition that Tree-ear return safely and that he call her “Ajima,” an endearment for older female relatives that roughly translates to “Auntie.” Tree-ear, overwhelmed by emotion, agrees.
Tree-ear tells Crane-man about the trip to Songdo and admits he’s frightened by how long it will take. Meanwhile, as Min is working hard on new pots, Tree-ear has less work and more time to think. After thinking hard, he approaches Min and asks whether Min will ever teach him to throw pots. Min harshly says no: potters train their sons as their apprentices. Min was supposed to train his son Hyung-gu, who died—and Tree-ear isn’t Min’s son. Tree-ear is devastated. Yet after a few days, he realizes that even if Min won’t teach him to throw pots, Tree-ear can try to mold his own pottery free-hand.
Min finishes the vases he wants Tree-ear to carry to Songdo. Crane-man weaves a sturdy, padded back for Tree-ear to carry the vases in. The evening before Tree-ear leaves, he gives Crane-man a tiny ceramic monkey that he molded by hand. Crane-man accepts it, overcome with emotion.
After Tree-ear has been walking for many days toward Songdo, he makes a brief detour to see the “Rock of Falling Flowers,” where an ancient king’s brave concubines famously threw themselves from a cliff rather than be captured and tortured by an invading T’ang Chinese army. At the top of the cliff, two bandits waylay Tree-ear: one pins his arms while the other takes his pack. The bandits are furious when they realize that the pack contains vases, not food or money. In revenge, they toss both vases over the cliff and leave. Tree-ear is so devastated that he briefly considers himself throwing over the cliff like the concubines did. Yet he hears Crane-man’s voice in his head, telling him that there’s more than one way to be brave. Tree-ear goes in search of the vases at the cliff’s base and finds a lovely shard of one of the smashed vases that demonstrates Min’s mastery of the “inlay work” innovation. He decides to bring that shard to Emissary Kim in Songdo.
Once in Songdo, Tree-ear bluffs his way into the palace to see Emissary Kim. When he admits to Kim that he has only a shard to show him, Kim’s underling tries to throw Tree-ear out—but Kim stops him and examines the shard. Then he says that he’s going to give Min a royal commission and that he’ll send Tree-ear back to Ch’ulp’o by boat with the news.
Tree-ear disembarks in Ch’ulp’o and rushes to bring Min the good news. Yet when Tree-ear finds Min, Min somberly tells him that Crane-man died in an accident: a cart knocked him off the bridge into the freezing river, and his heart stopped. He was still holding the ceramic monkey Tree-ear made him when people fished his body from the water. Tree-ear is overcome with grief. Min’s wife insists he stay the night with them. The next day, Min tells Tree-ear to go chop big logs for another potter’s wheel: if Tree-ear is going to help him with the royal commission, he’ll need his own. Tree-ear realizes that Min is taking him on as a potter’s apprentice. Later, Min’s wife asks Tree-ear to come live with them permanently and to go by the name Hyung-pil, a name that suggests Tree-ear is a kind of sibling to her dead son Hyung-gu. As Tree-ear goes to work, he imagines the perfect vases he will one day make and resolves to take his apprenticeship one day at a time.
