We saw bundles of this crop laying on the road and propped up against the stone walls in the village of Hangwon-ri on Sunday morning, so stopped for a few minutes to explore and take some pictures. We’ve seen the crop set out to dry often enough before but I still don’t know what it is. The photo on the right shows the detail – I don’t know if it’s the seeds in the seed-heads that are harvested.
There’s a notice with something about history of the village, from which I quote below. If I understand correctly, it refers to a time in the middle of the 20th century.
“After it was made, a geomancy man argued that the coastal area was weak in fengshui, which would bring about poverty in the village. In order to prevent this disaster, pine trees were planted in Modom hills. However, fire lumps came down from the sky, causing a fire and goblins came to the village, making the cows collapse. In order to prevent the disaster, the villagers built towers and afterwards nothing bad happened and they lived peacefully.”
Another common sight is drying chillies spread in the sun. This load was set out on a cloth a few hundred metres further on.
Notes from a Korean island 