Posts filed under 'Food'
Japanese food in Korea seems to come in two types: everyday sushi from the corner store and special occasion food. I decided Tod had to experience Japanese special occasion food, Korean style.
We went to a place I had been for lunch with a colleague and his family. We ordered the least expensive dinner item on the menu “Special Side Dishes, $40 per person”. The waitress spoke some English and assured us that the meal would include “sushi, sashimi, and Korean food.” Japanese food seems quite expensive, compared to the huge plate of raw fish one can get at a Korean sea-side restaurant (see my blog entry called “The Western Coast” at http://blogs.saintanselmcollege.net/bethsalerno/2007/12/12/the-western-coast/). However, Japanese meals have amazing variety. Here is what appeared for our $40 per person. I have interspersed cultural commentary with the menu.
Starters:
*A small bowl of juk (rice porridge) *Cabbage salad with sweet, nutty dressing
*Cucumbers, carrots, garlic scapes (stems) and hot peppers with dipping sauce
*Sliced ginger, pickled radish, and pickled pearl onions
*Wasabi, soy sauce, and red hot sauce for fish.
Course 1:
*Mioku (thick, salty sea vegetable), shrimp and raw oysters in light cold broth
*Sliced octopus with cucumber in hot sauce
*Sashimi salad with cabbage, kim (dried, crunchy seaweed) and hot sauce
Course 2:
*Red snapper sushi *Sashimi plate of white and silver fish
*Sealife plate of oysters, scallops, conch or whelk, and two unidentified crunchy things
Both the sashimi and sealife plates were decorated with orchids, a plastic dolphin, small pine trees, marigold blossoms, and shells, and all the food was placed atop large mounds of glistening white noodles which you do not eat. At moments, there was barely enough room on the table for the silverware.
Course 3:
*Doenjang Soup (kind of like Miso soup - a soybean based broth with mushrooms and scallions)
*Cooked white fish steak - buttery and plain.
*Cooked fish filet with slow-roasted carrot, onion, and garlic.
At this point, I recognized the general outlines of the meal from previous outings and warned Tod that there were likely to be at least two more courses. He stared at me. From then on, every time he heard the cart rolling down the hall he looked a bit like a deer in the headlights. But we plunged bravely on.
In Korea, it is tradition that guests should be served more food than it is humanly possible to eat. That way everyone is sure to have enough to eat of whatever they like best, while the host is seen as extremely generous and caring. One simply cannot think about the wasted food if one wants to be properly polite and honored. Eating everything on the table would be both rude and suicidal.
Course 4:
*Haemul nurungi soup (a thick, gelled soup made from seafood and the scorched rice at the bottom of the rice cooking pot)
*Mussels, baby octopi, and other unidentified sea life with noodles in red sauce
*A whole fish covered with tuna slices so thin they looked like slightly burned paper and tasted wonderfully dry and smoky. The fish also had hot sauce and scallions.
Course 5:
*Prawns (still in their shell with heads attached) deep fried in tempura batter with a Chinese sweet and sour sauce with hot peppers
*Tempura Vegetables and shrimp (absolutely no hot sauce in sight!)
Course 6:
*Rice with sesame seeds, two kinds of fish roe, and dried, crispy seeweed in a hot stone pot, so the rice crisped on the bottom and made the dish quite crunchy
*Maemultang - equal parts water, leftover fish parts, and red pepper powder with a few greens thrown in. Unbelieveably hot. Tod had two bowls and said the inside of his ears were sweating.
*Kimchi
Dessert:
Plum Juice
We ordered green tea early on and got a bottle of ice water with a tea bag. It was good and kept us through half the meal when we again ordered green tea and specified “hot please”. Koreans do not drink water with their meals usually, preferring to get their fluids from the foods and soups, perhaps drinking a glass of water at the end of the meal.
At the end of our meal, we could not drink water. We could barely move. We immediately agreed to skip the cab and walk six blocks to catch the bus. Too many special occasion meals like this and we would definitely explode!
I am not wholly sure what is “Japanese” about the meal, other than the sushi and sashimi. Many of the dishes were quite Korean and others may have been Korean-ized. Perhaps it is like Japanese food in the United States, which also likely bears only a passing resemblance to what is eaten in Japan but is immediately recognized by Americans as “Japanese” - sushi, tempura, grilled shrimp filleted by a knife-wielding chef and tossed to you. Koreans recognize the combination of dishes above as part of a “Japanese” menu. We recognized it as good food worth eating, though next time, we’ll skip lunch and possibly breakfast too, in order to prepare enough space.
January 17, 2008
Happy Solar New Year to everyone! My extended “absence” from the “blogosphere” this past month was due to my husband’s 3 week visit to Korea. E-mail and 3-cent-a-minute phone cards kept us connected during our four months apart, not to mention surprise packages and old-fashioned hand-written letters. However, nothing compares to being together and I did not want to “waste” any of our time writing blog entries!
You will hear about our various adventures over the next couple of weeks. Some entries will even have pictures, when I remembered to take them! The most interesting part however was getting to watch another American adapt to Korean society. I have gotten so used to the crowding, hurrying, language and customs of Korea, that I had forgotten how overwhelming they can be to a new person.
By New Hampshire standards, Pyeongtaek is a major city. With almost 400,000 residents, it is four times the size of Manchester. I tend to think of it as a small agricultural town in comparison to Seoul’s 24 million people. But Tod saw it compared to Weare New Hampshire’s 8000 very spread-out residents. Through his eyes I experienced once again the amazing population density here in Korea. Koreans’ sense of body space is very different than Americans and one is pretty constantly jostled, brushed against, or leaned on whenever there is a crowd. As in American cities, most people are in a constant state of hustle, so anyone trying to figure out where to go (or simply sight-seeing and dawdling along) is an obstacle to forward progress. In Korea, the hurry extends to bus drivers and taxi drivers who engage in what feel like life-threatening driving feats to shave 5 minutes off their arrival time (think “New York City cab driver” and then add attitude). This “ppalli, ppalli” or “fast, fast” personality has rocketed Korea from third world to first world economy in less than 30 years, but it does leave one a bit bewildered in the subway station. On the other hand, an amazing number of people stopped to ask us if we needed help - always in English.
After two weeks, Tod commented that he was surprised there was so little variety in the food. I was a bit astonished - he had eaten kalbi and samgyeopsal (grilled beef and pork) as well as Buddhist Temple Cuisine, which is vegetarian. But we realized what he meant was that all the food he was eating was recognizeably Korean. In Manchester alone, an adventurous person can eat Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Spanish, Italian, Greek, and Irish food, to mention only a few. This is pretty standard in any good-sized American town. But in Korea, you have to search a fair bit harder for non-Korean food, though Chinese and Japanese dishes that have been “Korean-ized” are widely available. I think this says something important about America’s acceptance of diversity in the past few decades, while Korea is still trying to adapt from its previously multiracial society to its rapidly multicultural one.
Being with Tod also showed me how many things I now do automatically, though I had never seen or done them five months ago. When I hand something to someone, I use one hand for young people, two hands for people senior to me, and one hand with the other hand near my elbow for equals. The first time I handed something to Tod this way, he looked at me baffled and I asked him what he was so confused about! I half-bow to new acquaintances, bring bags to the supermarket, get my vegetables weighed and labeled in the produce section (not at the checkout), eat neatly with metal chopsticks, navigate city buses, subways, three kinds of trains, and two kinds of taxis, and read signs and communicate in a language that to Tod was “circles and lines”. Five months ago some of those actions felt completely overwhelming. Now I often take them for granted.
Seeing Korea through Tod’s eyes gave me a strange “double vision” - I could see Korea the way I had when I first arrived, and yet also as I see it now. It makes me wonder what the country will look like in five more months when I take my leave from here and head back home.
January 15, 2008
I am not sure what news about Korea makes it into American newspapers. Right now Korea is dealing with a terrible oil spill on its west coast. 10,500 tons of oil have leaked and are landing on some of the most pristine beaches in the country. Abalone and oyster farms, raw seafood restaurants, little maritime communities and large tourist enclaves have all been equally damaged. Thousands of people have already applied for economic relief since their livelihoods have been utterly destroyed.
After seeing pictures of blackened shores, birds dripping oil, and rafts of belly-up crabs, I realized I have actually been to that coast. Of course I had no idea then that it would be my only chance to see one of the most beautiful parts of Korea. Here is a description of my trip, with sights, tastes and smells.
Three friends and I drove west and south from Pyeongtaek through miles and miles of rice fields. After about 2 hours we reached the coast and began driving south. In this area the road often becomes a very long bridge between peninsulas or even onto and off islands and the entire area is what I think of as a “beach town”. There are lots of motels close to the shore and acres and acres of oyster “shacks” (inexpensive restaurants serving fresh oysters in a half dozen simple ways).
I am not sure at which beach we finally stopped, though I think we were on Anmyeondo Island. This is the southern part of the Taean Haean National Marine Park which is the epicenter of the oil damage. We were greeted by wooden and metal birds on sticks lining the shore, an art form I have seen in many places in Korea. We arrived right around sunset and the islands off the shore already had a touch of red and gold behind them. It was very windy!
As we walked along the beach we passed dozens of older women with large bowls. Peeking in I saw live baby octopi, fresh oysters, and a half dozen types of sea life I could not identify. My companions stopped near a set of tables protected by umbrellas and ordered - raw shelled oysters, sea “ginseng” (sea cucumber or sea slug), and a red, pulsing thing that looked like a human heart but was clearly some kind of sea urchin.
The oysters were great, the red thing was hard and salty, but the slug was slimy and cartilaginous at the same time and is the first food I have had I will definitely not repeat. It is hard to believe it was a staple of the medieval East Asian trade routes! It was clear why beer and soju (pine-needle vodka, with half the alcohol) were necessary accompaniments, along with hot peppers, hot pepper sauce and garlic.
We then drove briefly to a fresh fish warehouse, chose our dinner from the tanks, and walked it next door. Butchers killed, cleaned and sliced our fish in front of us. (Koreans like to watch this process since it ensures that the fish they chose is the fish they actually eat, without substitution of lower quality fish). Then we walked next door one more time to a restaurant, which gave us a place to eat our huge pile of fresh, raw fish. The restaurant also cooked the heads, skin and bones into a rich stew with vegetables and spices (this is called maemultang). The raw fish was just like sashimi, except in amazing quantity.
Afterward we went out for norebang and then back to the car, looking out over the ocean under the stars. I wish I had inhaled deeply of the salty air, which is now thick with nausea- producing oil fumes.
Knowing my time here is limited, I have tried to do as many things as I can, while at the same time remembering I am on sabbatical and sheer exhaustion defeats the point! I had the tail end of a terrible cold when my friends decided to go to the coast, and I agreed to come reluctantly and a bit resentfully - I really just wanted to sleep. Now I am, as I often am here in Korea, grateful I went and tried something new. Sometimes events like the oil spill highlight how much can change in an instant and how precious time and place can be. As the New Year approaches that seems like a good reminder for all of us.
December 12, 2007
Since I have been in Korea I have grown out my fingernails. This was not an intentional action. I have always chewed my fingernails when I read or grade and I have done far less of both of those here than at home. So my nails grew. And I have discovered an important fact - fingernails are incredibly difficult to manage if you do not have a lot of experience with them. I cracked one off trying to open a pistachio nut. I caught another putting on my socks. I actually got one stuck between the keys of my laptop keyboard. Completely unconsciously I had developed a “short fingernail” culture. I am finding it very hard to adapt to “long fingernail” culture.
Some cultural differences between America and Korea are similarly small and seemingly unimportant, but they take some getting used to. I continue to be surprised by how many of our ordinary actions are actually set by our culture. Here is a list of some small things I have noticed now that I have learned to manage the larger differences.
Action 1: Buying eggs. Eggs in Korea come in multiples of 5 rather than 6. Eggs can be found near the vegetables in an unrefrigerated section, not near the dairy in a refrigerated case.
Action 2: Tallying up votes. In America, when we tally up anything on paper, we tend to write vertical slash, vertical slash, vertical slash, vertical slash, diagonal slash through all four. We count this as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. At the end, we count groups of 5 to get the total. In Korea, they write vertical slash, horizontal line to make a T, little horizontal line to make an F, vertical line to the left of the first one and a little lower, horizontal line to make an upside down T. They count this as 1, 2, 3 4, 5 and at the end, count groups of 5. Why such an exotic looking set of 5 lines? It is the Chinese character for rightness or justice. A fine 5-lined character to use when counting votes!
Action 3: Getting water in a restaurant. In many restaurants here, water is “self-serve.” You get little stainless steel cups out of Ultraviolet Sterilizing Cabinets and hot or cold water from the water “cooler”. The futuristic-looking UV cabinets are everywhere, and seem to be used after washing the cups. Most Korean students will finish their meal and then go get a cup of water; many believe drinking water with a meal makes it harder to digest your food properly.
Action 4: Walking in crowds. Both Koreans and Americans drive on the right-hand side of the road. Americans and Koreans also stand on the right-side and walk on the left-side of escalators in subway stations. So it is pretty strange that given the option, Koreans will walk on the left-hand side of any crowded area. Imagine a large number of people walking toward you. If you move to the right, you are American. If you move left, you are Korean. If it depends on where there are more people, you are in a hurry - that works in both cultures!
Action 5: Counting on your fingers. Put up your hand and count on your fingers - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. If you started with your fist closed and counted by putting your forefinger up, then middle, ring, pinky and thumb, you are American. If you started with your hand open and put your pinky down first and then your ring, middle, forefinger and thumb, you are Korean.
Action 6: Eating Take-Out Food: In American cities and towns, you can call up the local restaurant and have food delivered to your house. This is also true in Korea. Deliveries arrive via scooters that defy all traffic laws and some of the laws of gravity. However in Korea the delivery person comes twice - once to deliver your meal and once to pick up the dishes! Thus the University and apartment hallways are lined with dirty dishes covered by a newspaper, waiting for pickup. Few restaurants provide “take out” containers.
Action 7: Dealing with Leftovers: Koreans assume that only the very poor would need to save food from a restaurant meal. No matter how good your main course was, if you cannot finish it, you throw it out. There are no “doggy bags”. Korea thus has the highest level of food waste in the world. On the other hand, at some restaurants uneaten side dishes are saved by the staff and put out for other diners. As usual, food is the most cultural item of all.
December 4, 2007
Picture yourself walking home from work on a Friday night. You pass eight or nine restaurants but it is 9 pm and you are not quite that hungry. You decide maybe you will stop at the local market instead. You pick up broccoli, chicken, bok choi, carrots and onions for tomorrow’s stir fry lunch, and find little “hair peppers” (dried red pepper strips thin as hair) which will make a perfect, spicy topping. Having tried a number of the local potato chips, you decide to try “kelp chips” this time for something different. [They taste like crunchy seawater with sugar.]
You wander across the street to get croissants for breakfast and then down five stores to the other French bakery for a walnut baguette (it will be perfect with butter and jam, an omelette and milk tea for breakfast). The woman who owns your favorite neighborhood restaurant sees you through the window and waves hi. Two students see you and wave hi. You decide you need something more than kelp chips this evening and stop by the fruit stand for a basket of persimmons. They have one basket left and the owner throws in a few apples because she knows you.
Then you see the “spicy chicken on a stick” (takkogi) vendor and realize that is exactly what you want. You debate - pickle and pineapple sauce? No, just spicy this time. You pass by the sweet cinnamon fried dough vendor with deep regret - your hands are completely full! Maybe tomorrow. He waves and you head back to your apartment. Total time, 25 minutes from leaving campus.
In New Hampshire I live in a rural community where each house sits on two acres. I have a large garden and lots of trees. We’ve seen bears, moose and deer on the property. But the nearest shop (a small general store) is an eight minute drive. In the summer I do my food shopping at the local farmers’ markets - I can get vegetables, chicken, lamb, bread, eggs, jam, friendly conversation and even a music concert all on the Town Green in Weare, NH. But the rest of the year, it is a 60 minute round trip drive to the supermarket where I rarely meet anyone I know.
My Korean neighborhood is the best of “urban” living with a dry cleaners, a pharmacy, a hardware store, three food markets, a fruit stand, two bakeries, two dozen restaurants, a dessert shop, a bank, a copy center, four bars, three hair salons, a DVD rental place, a florist, and a sauna all within a 10 minute walk. That list only includes the places whose English or Korean signs I can read - there are at least two dozen other shops I have not explored yet.
Do I miss having a garden and green space all my own? A little, though I have not thought about mowing, weeding, tree-trimming or brush-hauling for almost three months! The rice paddies here are a saving grace - they provide green space, a sense of the seasons, and a place for long, rambling walks. Do I miss having a car? Once or twice a car would have been nice, when public transportation did not easily go where I wanted. But I have not actually needed one. Do I miss having my own home instead of an apartment? This is more troublesome - I am less fond of sharing my neighbors’ noise, wailing children and smoke. But I am in one of the cheapest apartment buildings and could buy a fair bit of peace and quiet by moving to another building.
With no car, no commute, and no need to drive to the supermarket or Walmart, I have probably never lived this lightly on the earth in my entire life. Importantly, I am doing it without even trying - it comes with the shape of my urban environment. While I do not know my immediate neighbors, I do know my neighborhood, a community of grocers, bakers, pharmacists and clerks. And I have never eaten this well this easily! As Americans think about “going green” and “building community,” we could learn a lot from a small neighborhood in Korea.
November 30, 2007
The idea of Thanksgiving is not uniquely American. Many cultures have a specific day, usually in fall, when they express gratefulness to God for all good things and spend time together with family. In Korea, this is Chuseok. But American Thanksgiving does have its unique aspects, particularly its food traditions. (The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and college football are pretty special too, and Black Friday must be unique in the world).
I celebrated on Saturday this year with a former American military chaplain and his wife, both of whom teach at Pyeongtaek University. Seven Korean friends joined us. Because our hosts shopped at the military base, the Thanksgiving food was wonderfully familiar - a 26 pound (beautifully cooked) turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and green salad. We also had rice and kimchee. For dessert there was fruit salad, cheese pie, coffee cake and a decadent white cake with whipped cream and fruit from a local French bakery. I said to my hostess I was glad she had not made pumpkin pie, because then I would have had to nominate her for sainthood!
As in the U.S., we ate, and ate, and ate some more, telling jokes and stories, drinking wine and laughing. I was asked to contribute a Thanksgiving joke, so here’s my effort:
A woman bought a parrot a few days before Thanksgiving. She had been assured that the parrot knew many words, but so far he had not spoken. However, as each guest came in the door, he greeted them with a series of curse words! He sounded like a drunken sailor. The woman was frantic. She yelled at him, threw things at him. Finally, desperate, she walked him past the dining room table into the kitchen and put him in the refrigerator where no one could hear him. After 5 minutes she felt terrible and let him out. From then on, he was perfectly behaved, saying only the most polite things. When the last guest had left, he turned to her and asked, quietly, “So what did the turkey do?”
This is Korea after all, so after dinner there was no football. Instead we went out for norebang. Norebang is the Korean word for karaoke or “singing room”, a private room with karaoke machine, lights, and a wall of video monitors. I love to sing, but never know the titles of songs, making it hard to find something I know in a book of 6000 song titles, 5000 in Korean. But this was my third experience, and my colleagues are very supportive, often singing in English. Watching a former Korean military general belt out Frank Sinatra’s My Way ranks up there with my best experiences in Korea! This time I contributed Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl, Desperado, and John Denver’s Take Me Home Country Roads. I have promised to learn one song completely in Korean before I leave for home!
Given all the richness of my experience here, I gave extra special thanks this Thanksgiving. While my family and old friends were far away, they were safe and happy. I had new friends and familiar foods and plenty of laughter. From the very beginning, one could say Thanksgiving has been an international holiday. Both the turkey and the Indians were named after countries far away. The Indians who joined the colonists were representing their own nations. Colonists were integrating European traditions (like harvest festivals and pie) with American foods (like turkeys and pumpkins). So perhaps my multinational celebration was more American than I had thought. I wonder if there was a colonial American tradition of norebang too?
November 24, 2007
Fall has arrived here, and as in the U.S., I feel like it snuck up on me. The days were long, hot, sticky and humid, and now there is a sharp crispness in the air and the nights are cold. The rice fields which were bright green when I arrived are now brown and gold, and the rice stems are heavy with brown grains. Harvesting machines and hand threshers are both in use here. Slowly the fields are being transformed into mud flats full of rice straw.
On Soraksan the trees had already begun to turn, with bright red maples shimmering amid dark green pines. Here in Pyeongtaek the change is just beginning. The mornings are full of fog over the rice fields, so the colors in the trees slowly seep through the greyness until the sun comes out and turns everything golden.
The changing seasons are marked by changing foods. The nearby town of Anseong is famous for grapes and during early October they were everywhere. The little ones tasted like Concord grapes, but the bigger ones had a rich, complex taste. I have also bought persimmons which I don’t think I’d ever seen before - at first I thought they were underripe tomatoes. They are flattened on the top and bottom, and orange red when ripe. Their flesh is incredibly soft and unlike anything else I have had - sweet but not too sweet, slightly spiced. Chestnuts are also everywhere, at first in the size we get in the United States, and now smaller and smaller. The “fall spring onions” are all harvested and women sit in large groups stripping off the browned outer layers so they can make vats of onion kimchee to last all year. Just this week the Mandarin oranges ripened on Jeju Island, the southernmost part of Korea, and boxes of them have appeared in markets - local sweet versions of tangerines or Clementines.
The peppers I saw drying everywhere in August are now in 3 foot high plastic bags on every market corner. People have finished harvesting sweet potatoes (which are purple on the outside and white in the center here). Pears which were carefully wrapped on the trees to protect them in August are now in the markets, brown-skinned, bigger and rounder than apples, and crunchy-sweet. Bright yellow and white-striped, fist-sized melons have appeared and taste like underripe honeydew melons.
Fall is the season of reaping what we sow. We gather what we will need for the long length of winter and savor that which we have and might not have later. I wonder if we glory in fall partly because we know winter is coming. We are not afraid of it, but we recognize it will be quieter, a little harder, a little darker, and long. We want every bit of sun and taste and movement we can find before then.
Korea and New England share this glorious fall of color and taste and freedom. Wherever you are, enjoy fall before it passes.
October 25, 2007
This past weekend I took the bus to Seoul, the subway across Seoul, and a second bus into Bukhansan National Park. I thought I would share a few crucial Korean hiking lessons and a few photographs. For more photographs, you can click on the photo to the left and see the Bhukansan set on flickr. For more lessons, you have to hike yourself.
1) When almost every person you see has hiking boots, a full pack, and a hiking stick, it is fine to think “Wow, Koreans take their hiking so much more seriously than most Americans. These are my kind of people, prepared for the worst on the mountain.” It is good however to have the follow up thought - I wonder how serious a mountain this is?
2) When maps do not have contour lines, it is helpful to ask “how high” as well as “how far” when asking directions. It also helps to have studied HOW to ask these questions prior to arriving at the mountain.
3) Do not accept hiking suggestions from rock climbers - their concepts of “flat” and “downhill” are seriously problematic.
4) Counting steps is a serious mistake, even if you are trying to practice your Korean numbers. The hike goes much better if you don’t realize you just passed your 2000th step and it has only been 20 minutes.
5) When you start seeing steel cables lining the path to keep people from falling off the mountain or sliding down it, it is time to think about turning around - even if the grandmother and three year old who just passed you are doing fine.
6) Being seriously tired is no excuse for not remembering how to translate a typical Korean accent. When a Buddhist monk has kindly answered your questions in English and asks “Do you like play?” do not answer “Yes I do like plays - are you putting on a play?” Instead translate the accent into American English: “Would you like to pray?” Otherwise you find yourself in the middle of a Buddhist Temple prayer service trying to keep up.
7) Although it is good to have brought food, it is ok not to eat your peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This mountain had two noodle houses just on my one trail. I did not envy the poor guys who were hauling boxes of food up the mountain - they reminded me of AMC hut workers in the NH White Mountains. But I did envy the people downing noodle soup, spiced tofu and iced lemon tea.
8) Despite giving up on the peak itself (it involved holding onto steel cables and climbing straight up!), the views were amazing. As you enjoy them, send up a prayer for my hamstrings. My next hiking trip is in less than two weeks - and the mountain is higher.
October 8, 2007
Somewhere in my preparations for Korea I read the odd statement that culture shock is not what happens when you arrive in a country, it is what happens six weeks later when you have not yet left. Now I understand. When I arrived, all the differences from home were part of the adventure. There were difficulties, but I could deal with them because that was part of the excitement of living abroad. I missed home, but there was so much to do that I did not have time or need for the familiar.
Now that I have been here longer, the pull of the familiar grows stronger. I have seen and done an amazing number of things, so everything is not new and fascinating.
It is not that I am unhappy - I am still glad to be here and I will not be on a plane tomorrow. It is just that the desire to hop on a plane has finally hit me. The truth is I am not going home any time soon. There simply is no way to make lasagna without mozzarella and an oven. My language skills are not going to improve magically. And despite my efforts to see the best in everything, there are a few pieces of Korean life I am having trouble accepting.
First the smells. Korea smells different than anywhere I have lived before. Maybe this is the famous fermenting kimchee smell that many American writers complain about. I doubt it - I actually like the smell of most kimchee. To me the odor is the smell of wet clay full of anaerobic bacteria and centuries of human waste used as fertilizer. It is too many people in too little space with insufficient trash pickup and a huge amount of food waste sitting in open trash bins. It is the smell of a culture that cares deeply and sensitively about its personal environment, but much less for public, common areas.
Second, the poverty. Koreans have achieved first world status in terms of average wealth, (and the wealth of luxury goods here shames Rodeo Drive) but the people living in the rice fields around me share more with rural Arkansas than urban Seoul - at least as far as I can tell from the outside of their houses.
Third is the disregard of others. People answer their cell phones in concert halls and have loud conversations; parents allow their small children to do just about anything; bus drivers regularly run red lights and drive up the wrong side of the road to make a schedule.
Let me stress - none of these issues is unique to Korea. I recognize America has exactly the same problems in one place or another. And many Koreans are concerned about the same problems - this is the only place I have ever been where some people cover their mouths when they talk on cell phones in public places. But it is not the specific issues that cause the culture shock. It is that they come on top of the uncertainties and insecurities of living in another culture, not understanding the language, and never being quite sure I am acting appropriately. When one is off balance or lonely, everything rankles more. Importantly, unlike in America, I cannot really complain to the people involved. I am a guest, and I am determined to be a good guest. Even a polite comment to a mother about manners would be a major insult from a visiting American - as writing this blog entry may be.
But in the end this blog entry is about me, not Korea. There are only two cures for this kind of culture shock: going home or going on. Since I’m not going home, I’m working on bringing home to me - Tod has plane tickets, I have more calling cards, and I’m headed to the USO canteen for lasagna. I’m also working hard on making my own place in Korea. I try to walk every day, past the sections that smell, past the poor houses, and out into the rice paddies. I smile at my neighbors, I stop to inspect the gardens, I wander paths to see where they go. I try hard not to isolate myself in my moments of frustration or become the kind of complaining, bitter American foreigners rightly dislike. Koreans have reciprocated with warmth and enthusiasm, taking me places and showing me things I would never find on my own.
This week it was acorn “jelly” which is really more like acorn jello, but without the sugar. And yes, it is brown and wiggly and made from acorns. It tastes like….jello without sugar, mostly. Also boiled silkworms, which despite the moisture of the broth taste positively dusty (bottom center in this picture of Chinese medicine ingredients). And paper cups full of black and white spiral shells, out of which one sucks tasty little morsels of salty marine life. One student called them Korean popcorn. So the adventure continues.
October 3, 2007
Thanksgiving or Chuseok is a harvest festival set by the lunar calendar. This year it fell on September 25th. For weeks, Koreans have been celebrating with traditional dances and music - and planning for the inevitable nation-wide traffic jams. As in America, Koreans travel all over the country to be with relatives. Usually this means traveling to the parents’ or eldest son’s hometown since Chuseok is also a day to pay respect to one’s ancestors.
As the holiday approached, I got the chance to see a lot of traditional culture. Nong ark is traditional Korean dance and music. Bands ranging from 9-40 people play small gongs, large gongs, “bass” drums, hour-glass shaped, double ended drums, and flat tambourine-shaped instruments without the cymbals. Some wear hats with ball and socket hardware and a long, white streamer. As the band plays, these members dance complicated figures, all the while swinging the long streamers in graceful arcs around and over and under other dancers. The music has an amazing percussive power. 
At Camp Humphreys (an American military base in Pyeongtaek) I participated in a recreation of the ancestor veneration ceremony for Chuseok. Tables full of special food, wine, incense and candles are set up near ancestor portraits, people dress in their best traditional finery, and make deep, formal bows. Then after the incense has burned down and the ancestors have had time to appreciate the good life, everybody eats until they are stuffed.
I spent Chuseok itself with Korean, Russian, Filipino, Chinese and Japanese students and a dorm director. One student prepared a feast of battered and fried vegetables, Korean pancakes, and two kinds of kimchee (thank you Song Min Kyung!!). Then we all made a traditional Chuseok treat, songpyeon (half moon rice cakes). These are very easy to make if you have a steamer, and are delicious - not too sweet, but addictive. If you would like a good recipe, go to http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/ and type songpyeon into the search box. I do not know how long the article will be accessible, but I cut the recipe out of the newspaper and you can ask me for it. Korea has hundreds of types of rice cakes - for more on this food group see the following website http://www.lifeinkorea.com/culture/ricecake/ricecake.cfm?Subject=types. In my photostream on flickr.com I posted pictures of our songpyeon - both the traditional ones and the more creative, unusual ones. Both tasted excellent, with sesame seeds, brown sugar, chewy rice and a hint of pine needle tang and fragrance.
Then as at any Thanksgiving event, we ate and laughed and shared stories and ate some more. Most stories started in English or Korean, but got translated from one to the other, with Russian and other words thrown in to get the point across. More people showed up with beer and leftovers from their Chuseok celebrations and we ate again. Then we walked, savoring the full moon over a Buddhist temple garden.
Our celebration was not quite Korean Chuseok. But it was our own form of Thanksgiving, for a good harvest of food, for friends who stand in when family is absent, for the things that make life good. Thus tradition crossed cultural boundaries, got reinvented into new forms with old meanings, and ensured its place in a changing, multicultural, but ultimately human world.
September 25, 2007
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