Korea has a long history of viewing stone appreciation that was first influenced by Chinese practices, then later shaped by Japanese beliefs as distinct Korean concepts evolved. The Korean name for viewing stones, Suseok  (수석), can be traced to the late 1700s or early 1800s. Literally, Suseok can be translated as “living or spirit stones.” The classical period of Suseok history focuses primarily on scenic or abstract rock forms taken from mountains. The modern period expanded the scope to include stones taken from rivers and beaches. At one time, an estimated five million people collected aesthetically-pleasing rocks in Korea. Korea has the second largest population of Suseok enthusiasts after China and is considerably larger than the comparable community in Japan at its peak.

Many Korean scholars of Suseok consider the modern period to have begun in the early 1960s. This article will examine one element of the contemporary period, stones collected along the beaches in South Korea. South Korea is surrounded by seas on three sides and has 2,413 km (1,499 miles) of sea shoreline. Many rocky beaches contrast with beautiful sandy beaches. The viewing stones collected along rocky shores are known in Korea as Haeseok (헤이 검색 ) (Sea stone), a subcategory of Suseok.

The information presented here and the illustrated Haeseok are from Kim Min-Jeong, a longtime collector of beach stones and celebrated writer and poet specializing in Sijo poetry. Kim received her doctorate in Korean literature and won many prizes in her country for writing. She is the president of the sijo division of the Korean Writer’s Association and a member of the Wanseok Viewing Stone Society. Dr. Kim has been searching for Haeseok on Korean beaches for about 20 years and has a collection of approximately 1,000 stones. She is the author of two books of sijo poetry focusing solely on Suseok.

Kim believes that the modern period of Suseok began in Korea when Korean viewing stones were displayed at the Flower and Object Exhibition held at the National Museum in Seoul from January 10th to 30^th, 1963. Korea’s first Suseok association, Seokwoohoe, was founded in Seoul on July 15, 1966. Later, many Suseok clubs were established, and numerous stone exhibitions were held between the late 1960s through the 1980s. This was the period of rapid growth in the popularity of viewing stones in Korea. Some collectors continued to pursue the traditional types of rocks, while many newer collectors searched rivers for good stones. However, the construction of large-scale dams on the Han River in the 1980s eliminated many quality collecting sites. At this point, collectors began searching numerous rocky beaches for interesting rocks. Kim pointed out that Suseok officials even imported stones from the Philippines and Indonesia comparable to those found in Korea. This practice was confirmed by a stone collector in The Philippines who participated in the collecting and shipping stones to Korea. 

The Busan Haeseok Society was the first organization established in 1989 to focus solely on beach stones. They held their first exhibition in 1990 in Busan. Exhibitions of beach stones only or with other forms of Suseok continue to be held throughout Korea from that time to the present. Korea has one of the world's largest and most active communities of viewing stone enthusiasts, second only to China. No other country has embraced beach stones as much as Korean stone collectors. Their study of the patterns and lines in these lithic beach forms is special and deserves greater attention from the global viewing stone community.

When I asked Kim Min-jeong why she liked Haeseok so much, she responded, “Haeseok (Beach stone) has been cut by the waves for a long time, so the stone’s quality is hard, and there are many round shapes, so it is good because it is not rough. People’s patterns and objects are clear and pretty, and many patterns of stones are close to the truth, and there are stone shapes that resemble people or objects, and sometimes the colors are pretty like jewels, so I like them because they make me happy to see them.” These beach stones or Haeseok are usually simple and often have interesting surface patterns, sometimes as abstract representations.