The Sun is blazing , a grain of sand is glittering.

The Sun is blazing , a grain of sand is glittering.

Mokpo branch starts the inspection of sun-dried salt when Mother nature of the seasonal verdure, which is introducing the refreshing Spring going by cold Winter, is colored.'Salt inspection' as a generally spoken term is to be defined as 'Salt Quality Inspection' accurately. Now it has been 6 years of classification as food since it was classified as a mineral before March 2008. Quality inspection system to increase customer's credibility and reinforce the competitiveness of salt Industries as well as improve salt quality through preventing its distribution to the markets with disguising imported salt as local one and industrial salt as  edible one, has been started from 'Salt Inspection Task' on August 2010.

                          

Salt inspection sorts as two kinds of inspection such as sensory inspection and precision inspection. Sensory Inspection is the test which decides pass or fail by the sensory test method of Salt color, taste, smell, foreign materials etc.

Otherwise, Precision Inspection is the test which decides pass or fail by physical and chemical inspection method on general components(5 items) and pernicious ones(6 items) through instruments.

General Components consist of Sodium chloride, total chlorine, moisture, insolubles, a grain of sand. Pernicious components are made up of Sulfate ion, Arsenic, Plumbum, Cadmium, Mercury, Ferrocyanide ion. Producers of edible salt in the domestic should be obliged to  undergo precison inspection at least once every two years from January 1, 2014.

                     

A busy task coming in earnest of Salt Inspection Season.

Salt Inspection task began from the office phone ringing from mid-April of this year. Rough voices heard from the other side of the phone!!! A fragrant Jeolla-do accent guy whose voice is likely to hear from dramas, intended to obtain the sun-dried salt inspection along with the word "Is this place Salt Inspection Office, right?".

I had to go to the saltern boarding a ferry around 2 to 3 hours in the very early morning this time as well.

////I could imagine the feature of ferry which plied among islands in the morning dawn and could smell of the wetland in front of my eyes at that moment.

It has been called, "island of the angel", in Shinan-gun having 1,004 islands in the southwest of an Archipelago. It seems there is no end in sight of the wetland reaching around 650 times wider than Yeouido and it was enough to connect the island to the other in the past. By constructing the saltern in the wetland, it has been getting a reputation as the home of sun-dried salt production in the domestic by now. It is an island area that it takes a few hours for boarding the ferry from passenger terminal of Mokpo port and the ferry operates once in the morning and afternoon because the residents here don't live too much by Transferring Fish and Islands Phenomenon.

                     

The pure white salt flower presenting by Sun Light and Nature, Sun light and wind.

I moved one step towards the Saltern to start my day at dawn for salt inspection . I was worried that there would be no public transportation that I could move from the dock where I arrived with suffering 2 hours of the waves, boarding at 7 am in the ferry to the Saltern where applied for salt inspection. But A single old truck which was corroded by salt, was waiting for us. After getting on the cramped truck running about ten minutes, I saw an old wood warehouse. It was a warehouse of salt to store it. And I saw the floor that represented the heavens color.

There was a place where was the crystalized pond of the saltern hugging the figure of the sky naturally, and the pure white flowers on the shallow water bloomed there. That was Sun-dried Salt. It would be seen the blooming flower of salt absorbing the natural wind and the light of the sun.

The flowers of salt started blooming in places were getting increased their crystals gradually and then it was been piled in a warehouse with full of salt by workers breads of sweat. I tried to inspect the moisture of contents by gripping and releasing strongly the full of salt, which was piled as full as the grain of white sand, contained on palm. Also, I selected the salt in multiple locations and inspected it which was piled deep into the warehouse with folding-type of a landing net.

Feel salty with my mouth full  when I took a few grain of salt in my mouth. I inspected foreign materials such as the grain of sand by dissolving the salt with distilled water in test container while managing my expression pretending not care of workers who worked extremely hard, even in front of them.

I pocked the re-accumulated piles of salt deeply and examined the salt inside of piles. When it was determined to pass after the sensory test, I put the salt in a distributing a bag and then affixed the quality test results one by one on that bag with a red edible indelible ink.

I wondered that I affixed the seal in thousands on that bag? Sweat was flowing out of the forehead. And thousands of seals again. I looked in the sky with a straight back while resting for a while. When the wind, which blossomed the flowers of salt passing by the wide saltern, grazed my forehead, it seemed to deliver coolness and the story of salt transmitted to the tip of my nose together.

From the reservoir as far to 1st and 2nd evaporation spot, the warehouse of Salt water, crystalized pond, salt warehouse where I stood, those were made by the field. The standard area of the reservoir, salt water warehouse and crystalized pond is 3,000 pyeong, in other words, it is called 1 Jung as an unit. It appeared not to be accurate, but I assumed that our ancestors used the term of unit as 1 Jung to make the saltern. Because still it is used to be heard 'how many Jungs of salt plates do you have?' among workers in saltern. There is a large saltern unit wider than 3,000 pyeong of cause.

I may peep traces of honest labors into the tanned skin of workers.

Since I rested for a while, it must be a seal in the remaining bags. When I finished seals remaining bags, the worker who was soaked with sweat passed one cup of cold water with friendly saying of fragrant Jeolla-do dialect, "How hard works do you did!". I looked at the worker who said thanks. The worker who had a tanned skin with white teeth laughed at a genial smile. I could feel the worker give a sigh of relief.

I heard a story from the worker in saltern. He quit his job as a dayworker in seoul when the value of the salt had soared by the accident of radioactivity in Japan, and then came back his hometown of saltern in near thirty years. And he added he didn't think about getting tanned his face because he had to marry his children who lived in Seoul.

However, there were a lot of saltern which worried about the falling of salt price significantly as well as stopping shipment of it recently, he said. If inspection of the salt was completed, it might expect to be shipped immediately. That's why he laughed with the tanned face.

                         

Potential Domestic Salt Industries having inexhaustible development.

I arrived at the prow(dock) again behind the saltern. My stomach was clamoring because I didn't have breakfast because of starting early morning. There was an old and shabby restaurant, but food looked so delicious in there. I soothed my stomach in it. Then I asked the time of the ferry and waited about an hour. Salt was produced at the place where the traffic condition was poor. Suddenly I thought that the imported salt was disguised as domestic produced one because of the poor traffic situations located at the country side. Distributors had a difficulty to purchase salt in the island, so they wanted to sell the imported salt easily after packing. Also, consumers didn't know where domestic salt was produced and had a difficulty to check whether its salt was domestic produced or imported one.

                            

When I returned to my office after finished the day beginning with early morning, my quitting time had passed long ago. Eventually I had to start my postponed work. We who live in the 21st century, have a lot of works to do for development of salt industries such as entry into the world markets by luxury brand of sun-dried salt. However, a few opinions for the salt industry promotion leaving unfold, let them valuable experts' tasks. Incoming calls are ringing persistently at Mokpo branch from saltern today as well. 

In regular season of summer, the inquiry of salt inspection will be inundated because of increasing of sun-dried salt production. There were flowers even though it had poor conditions of the basis of saltern and the embraced joys and sorrows on salt quality inspection. 

"Flower of salt" which nature has created .

[Epilogue]

There are two or three salt inspection a day at Mokpo branch. And it has been made along with the sweat of the period system workers. Their sweat and efforts give to console and help as the rain of grace in the drought to inspectors. I represent their hard work with great thanks for development of the salt industry.