A textile mill redressed in art and culture

Joyang Bangjik

©Incheon Tourism Organization

Since the Goryeo era, Ganghwado Island was famous for making textile mats called “hwamunseok.” Because it was located close to the mainland, it was easy to transport textiles by boat and so the textile industry prospered. In 1933, Joyang Bangjik became the very first textile factory owned and operated by Koreans making artificial silk.

With a total floor area of 2,300 m2, this huge two-story factory equipped with 80 looms became the starting point of the modernization of the textile industry in Ganghwado, shifting from manual labor to machine labor. The textile industry in Ganghwado grew very rapidly in the 1930s, when the Joyang Bangjik factory was established.

Newspaper articles at the time described the women of Ganghwado Island who traveled to China and Japan peddling hwamunseok mats and muslins as “Korean caravans.” The Joyang Bangjik factory also brough in electrical and telephone facilities into the island, and with more than 60 smaller textile mills opening up in the area, the number of workers at textile mills in the Ganghwa-eup neighborhood alone is said to have exceeded 4,000. As such, Joyang Bangjik led the textile industry in Ganghwado Island, but it faced difficulty during the Korean War (1950–1953), and eventually closed in 1958. Afterwards, the factory was briefly used as a pickled radish factory and then a salted fish factory, then it was finally vacated and abandoned for decades.

The outer space and exterior of the factory of the 1930s were preserved as much as possible, and props that rekindle old sentiments were placed throughout the site, making visitors feel as if entering a filming set of a period drama.

TIP: The Ganghwa Anglican Church near Joyang Bangjik is Korea’s first hanok (traditional Korean house)-style church with a unique architecture that combines cultures of the East and West.