Picture a café in Seoul. One table, four people. Nobody is scrolling. All four are bent over notebooks, copying sentences out of books with pens that cost more than their coffee.
Welcome to 필사 (pilsa), which simply means "copying by hand". And no, it is not homework.
Pilsa: slow reading, on purpose
The idea is lovely and simple. Take a book you like, and write it out. Word by word. Slowly.
Reports say pilsa books and notebooks have sold several times over within a single year. Meditation for people who cannot sit still, basically. The sentence goes through your hand and not only your eyes, so it sticks.
Is it a little funny that people then photograph their notebooks for Instagram? There is even a hashtag, #필사스타그램 (pilsa-stagram). Yes, it is funny. We love it anyway.
다꾸 (dakku) and 신꾸 (sinkku): decorate everything
다꾸 (dakku) is short for 다이어리 꾸미기 (daieori kkumigi), decorating your diary. Stickers, washi tape, tiny clippings, a page that ends up looking like a collage.
Then the habit escaped the notebook. Korean news calls it 별다꾸 (byeol-dakku), "decorating everything": phones, tumblers, bags, and shoes.
Shoes even have their own word, 신꾸 (sinkku), from 신발 꾸미기 (sinbal kkumigi). Earlier this year jelly shoes brought it roaring back, with charms and pins in every hole. One fashion app reported jelly-shoe sales up more than forty times over a year, and Dongdaemun market became the place to decorate them on the spot.
Small confession: "analog" is a bit of a stretch here. Half of this hobby is shopping. For some people the sticker haul is the hobby.
The handwritten letter is back
This is our favourite part. The 손편지 (sonpyeonji), the handwritten letter, is having a quiet comeback.
Korea has "slow mailboxes", 느린 우체통 (neurin ucheton). You write a letter to yourself or someone you love, and it arrives up to a year later. A Seoul news report from January says the experience at the letter museum in Dobong (편지문학관, pyeonji-munhakgwan) is popular.
Think about it. A text takes two seconds and disappears into a chat nobody scrolls back through. A letter takes ten minutes and ends up in a drawer, where it waits for you.
Try it on your trip
- Copy one line from the book you brought into a small notebook. Add the date. That is pilsa, you are officially in.
- Buy a few stickers or a charm and decorate something small. A luggage tag is a nice start.
- Write a letter to yourself in a slow mailbox and forget about it for a year. Future you will be thrilled.
Our verdict: the pen is only the excuse. What people really want is ten quiet minutes that belong to them. Cheap, offline, and nobody can like it. That might be the real luxury.
What is the last thing you wrote by hand? A shopping list counts. (Okay, it counts a little.) Tell us on the Contact page.