A Single Shard: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

One early morning in early fall, Tree-ear spies the potter Kang pushing a covered cart toward the kiln. Given the early hour and the cover, Tree-ear suspects that Kang is firing some special pottery. Out of curiosity, he looks for Kang’s pots at the kiln when the firing is done a few days later—but doesn’t see them. For the next few days, Tree-ear keeps an eye out for Kang. One day, he spots Kang with two bowls of white and brick-red liquid clay (called “slip”). Usually, the potters use “gray-brown” clay for celadon ware, and though some have tried to paint designs on their pots with multicolored clay, the painting runs during firing. Tree-ear is baffled, wondering what Kang wants with red and white slip.

Tree-ear keeps working and working for Min. He’s stopped thinking he might be taught to make a pot at any moment—but he still hopes that Min will teach him someday in the future. He imagines making a beautiful prunus vase—a vase for holding plum branches, whose “symmetry” enchants him.

As the weather cools, the villagers harvest their rice, and very poor people are allowed to pick up fallen grains in the fields once the harvest is done. Tree-ear picks up rice every day before and after working for Min—motivated in part by the thought that Min could fire him at any moment. Crane-man also picks up fallen rice and weaves rice straw into sandals—a form of labor he learned because his disabled leg prevented him from doing more physically demanding labor. When he finally finishes sandals for Tree-ear, the sandals are too small: Tree-ear has grown.

Tree-ear’s growth worries him. In this season, the monks usually come to the village to receive donations of food and warm clothing. Sometimes, they pass the clothing on to poor people. But this year, the monks didn’t come, and Tree-ear is worried that he and Crane-man won’t have any warm clothes. As winter comes, they move from under the bridge into a dugout that farmers used to use as a vegetable pit, which protects them from the wind. Then one morning, while Tree-ear is waiting outside Min’s house for his work to begin, Min’s wife comes out, tells him he can’t work if he’s shivering, and gives him a very warm, thick jacket and trousers.

Tree-ear puts the clothing on, feeling instantly better. After a moment, Min’s wife tells him that fever killed her and Min’s son Hyung-gu when he was Tree-ear’s age—she made the clothes for Hyung-gu. Though Tree-ear is very surprised at the thought of Min as someone’s father, he bows deeply. When Min comes out of the house, he tells Tree-ear that his wife thought of the clothing, not him. Tree-ear ends up giving the jacket, which is too big, to Crane-man—he decides this regifting wouldn’t upset Min’s wife.

One evening while Tree-ear is walking to the clay pit, he spies a light shining from Kang’s shed. Realizing there must be a hole in the shed, he creeps up and looks in the hole. Inside, he sees Kang etching chrysanthemums into hardened but unglazed clay cups with an awl. Once the etching is done, Kang paints the incisions with white and red slip and smooths the slip so that the clay cup has a smooth surface. Tree-ear hurries away, wondering what he’s just witnessed.