
In this Korean version of Europe's high-stakes truffle hunt, Seo's small plant is a valuable find that will bring $500 on the region's billion-dollar wild ginseng market.
For centuries, the herb's fragile root has been revered across Asia as a cure-all with medicinal and rejuvenating powers. But it's the wild variety, believed to have many times the potency of cultivated plants, that makes Seo's heart race.
For the 55-year-old former pipe fitter and thousands of others known as shimmani, or "mountain ginseng person," the pursuit has become a way of life. He's obsessed with the plant and its intricate root system, which resembles a freeze frame of lightning spread across the sky.