고등학교 영어 독해와 작문 (NE능률 양현권) 연계 글

Breaking a favorite cup is one of the smallest disappointments of daily life, and most people respond by throwing the pieces away or by gluing them together as invisibly as they can. In Japan, however, craftspeople developed a very different response known as kintsugi, a word often translated as "golden joinery." Rather than concealing the damage, a kintsugi repair turns each crack into a fine golden line that draws the viewer's eye.

The method depends on lacquer, a natural coating made from the sap of the lacquer tree. Artisans in East Asia have coated bowls, boxes, and other everyday objects with this material for thousands of years, prizing it for its glossy finish. In kintsugi, the craftsperson first joins the broken pieces with lacquer and then sprinkles powdered gold over the lacquered seams. When the work is complete, the bowl is whole once more, yet the history of its damage remains plainly visible.

This approach is easier to appreciate when it is compared with the usual practice in China, where broken ceramics were typically held together with small metal staples. Kintsugi offered a more graceful alternative, and Japanese owners applied it even to bowls that had been made in China and later reached Japan. Seen this way, a crack becomes a new chapter in a bowl's history rather than the end of its useful life.

Finding burrs stuck to one's clothes after a walk in the countryside is one of the most common annoyances of outdoor life, yet in 1941 that small annoyance gave a Swiss engineer, George de Mestral, an unexpected idea. After he returned from an outing with his dog, he noticed that burdock burrs were clinging firmly to his clothing and to the dog's fur. Curious about why they held on so tightly, he examined one under a microscope and found that it was covered with tiny hooks that caught on the loops of thread in fabric and on strands of fur. In nature, these hooks help the plant spread its seeds by attaching them to passing animals.

De Mestral reasoned that the same principle could join two strips of cloth: one strip would carry stiff hooks, and the other would carry soft loops. Turning that simple idea into a product, however, proved far harder than he had expected. Few people took the plan seriously, and some openly laughed at it. Working with a weaver in France for years, he learned that hooks made of nylon were far more durable than those made of cotton. Producing the tiny hooks by machine was another obstacle, and he did not apply for a Swiss patent until 1951.

Since then, hook-and-loop fasteners have found their way onto shoes, jackets, bags, and countless other everyday objects. His story suggests that creativity often begins when someone stops treating a small irritation as a nuisance and starts asking how it works.