In 1895, colorful, opinionated Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop, world traveler, descended the Lower Han River southeast of Korea's capital to a remote potters' village - a place she later describes in her journal account, Korea and Her Neighbours( 1905 ):

At the village of Tomak-na-dali where we tied up, they make the great purple-black jars and pots which are in universal use. Their method is primitive. They had no objection to being watched, and were quite communicative. The potters pursue their trade in open sheds, digging up the clay close by. The stock-in-trade is a pit in which an uncouth potter's wheel revolves, the base of which is turned by the feet of a man who sits on the edge of the hole. A wooden spatula, a mason's wooden trowel, a curved stick, and a piece of rough rag are the tools, evident for the purpose

Elsewhere in her book, Mrs. Bishop again describes the product of these pottersas" ... great earthenware jars big enough to contain a man, in which rice,millet, barley, and water are kept."