Minhwa, inked

A Canadian client came to a Seoul studio this spring and asked for Ilwolobongdo, the sun, moon and five peaks that once hung behind the throne of Joseon kings. It went on his calf as a farewell to the country. He had wanted a minhwa tattoo for years, he said, and could not find anyone making them. Tattooist Choi Hae-sol hears this often. Choi works in minhwa, the folk painting produced mostly by Joseon's commoner class rather than its scholar-gentry, and by his own count, roughly 95 percent of h