# When the volcano carved its billion-year-old secrets into Jeju's columnar poetry

Standing on the coast of Daepodong, the sea breeze hits my chest before the scenery does—not a soft caress, but a salty, sharp embrace, as if pulling me into a date spanning millions of years. Before me, there is no ordinary sandy shore or broken waves, but a forest of rocks "grown" from the sea: bluish-gray columns straight as piano keys, clustered in bunches, plunging into the deep blue Jeju Sea. When the waves crash against them, they actually splash out echoes of a symphony. Locals say this is the "handwriting" of the volcano. Millions of years ago, Hallasan volcano erupted, and the scorching lava surged to the coast, suddenly meeting the cold seawater—like a passionate confession met with unexpected silence. The lava instantly solidified but, pulled by internal tension, cracked into regular hexagonal columns. Time is the most patient sculptor; the waves have smoothed the columns' sharp edges, the sea breeze has carved mottled patterns on the rocks, yet those vertical lines still hide the stubbornness of the lava’s original flow. Walking down the trail closer to these "columnar joints," I feel like I’ve entered a giant’s music room. Some columns reach over ten meters high, standing side by side like frozen piano keys waiting for the sea breeze to play; others have broken into several pieces under the waves’ impact, lying horizontally on the beach, their hexagonal cross-sections as clear as carefully cut gems. At low tide, parts of the columns’ bases emerge from the sea, covered with pale purple seaweed. When the tide recedes, water droplets drip down the columns with a tinkling sound, like an interlude in this "rock symphony." An elderly local was sitting on the rocks fishing. I approached and struck up a conversation. He pointed to the distant columns and smiled, saying, "These stones can 'talk'." I was puzzled, and he explained that the sound of waves hitting the rocks changes with the seasons—spring winds are soft, and the wave sounds are gentle "shh-shh," like a violin’s adagio; after summer typhoons, the waves crash fiercely with a "boom" that carries far, like a timpani ensemble; in autumn, the tide slows, and the waves echo with a "whoosh," like a cello’s low hum. I crouched down to listen carefully, and indeed, the waves now carried the coolness of early autumn, falling on the columns and bouncing back layered sound waves, truly with the depth of a symphony. Noon sunlight pierced through the clouds, casting a golden edge on the bluish-gray columns. Several children, under their parents’ watchful eyes, carefully hopped from one low column to another. Their laughter mixed with the sound of the waves, becoming the liveliest notes in this "symphony." Suddenly, I understood why this columnar joint site is so moving—not just because it is a masterpiece of volcano and sea, but because it is not a cold geological wonder—it changes its tone with the tides, adjusts its melody with the seasons, and even adds lively "human voices" when visitors arrive. As I left, I looked back. The setting sun dyed the sea orange-red, and the shadows of the columnar rocks stretched long, like harp strings gently plucked by twilight. The sea breeze still blew in my ears, and I seemed to hear the sound of lava solidifying millions of years ago, the countless waves washing ashore, and my own quiet sigh: nature is never silent; it just carves its secrets into the shape of rocks, waiting for us to listen to this billion-year, never-ending symphony.