You don’t have to be in South Korea long to notice two things: there is a large population of foreign English teachers and it does not have the best reputation. Truth be told, it is no struggle to find examples of ex-pats who show more interest in late-night drinking than day-time teaching. When you look a little deeper, though, there are plenty more examples of appreciatively respectful foreigners engaging with the people and culture in all sorts of meaningful ways. This short film made by Bodeene Amyot, a Canadian teacher and filmmaker, is a testament to the positive influence foreigners can have in South Korea. Seoul, Hope, and Mustard Seeds is a short glimpse into the many philanthropic organizations that foreigners give their free time to. In Amyot’s words:
Seoul, Peace and Mustards looks at the beautiful collision of human beings, both foreign and native to South Korea, and how they are turning their work into love in action.
This was originally posted as part of 30 Days of Biking, a group dedicated to riding their bikes “every, friggin’, day.” Since it was a few months ago now, and I promised to cross post it here, I decided it was time for this post to be cemented in the memory of Schoolhouse ROK readers everywhere. It’s worth noting that about a month following this post, the air pollution and heavy traffic got to be a little exhausting and I stuck to riding to school and back only. With that caveat, I stand by my words that Korea is a great place to explore by bike.
I had that dream again, the one where Lance Armstrong visits my little city in the Seoul suburbs as part of a new tour for LIVESTRONG, and for some reason, the powers that be put me in charge of giving him the bike tour of the city. It’s a strange dream for a few reasons, chiefly among them being that I’m not Korean but in fact a temporary resident of this town, here to teach English for the year and then be on my way. It starts at my tiny office-tel apartment wheeling my Surly out of the oversized walk-in closet of a living space I call home.
“We’ll go out on the main road right in front of the apartment here, take a left and head toward Lake Park, then loop around Daehwa-dong, and follow the Gyeonggui railroad line around the north end of town,” I tell Lance on the elevator ride down, “it’s one of my favorite rides.” Lance, of course, does not need to cram his bike into the elevator because his bike is waiting with some team hands from his crew. We strap on the helmets, and then head out.
Someone who has won the Tour de France as many times as Lance might not find this route incredibly thrilling, but the options are limited in this city, and this really is one of my favorite rides around the Ilsan district of Goyang, and it probably is the one I would take Lance on if I were so fortunate. The trickiest part of the whole loop is fending off the traffic.
In Korea, especially in the bigger cities, traffic can be a bit intimidating. Drivers on the mean streets of Ilsan are erratic at best and inattentive at their worst. Because biking is so popular here and traffic laws are a bit looser, drivers are used to sharing the road with smaller, slow-moving, non-motorized vehicles, which sometimes makes biking on the streets easy. The problems then, tend to be more with regard to people parking on corners, stopping in the middle of intersections, and being impatient at stoplights. It could be worse, but it’s the best option available.
Goyang prides itself on being a city of fitness. The tagline “Let’s Goyang” is plastered all over the city, and there are wide sidewalks and bike lanes along most major roads. A network of parks, parkways, and pedestrian zones make this town surprisingly easy to navigate on foot or by bike, despite its lack of street names or real addresses—as long as you have a good mental map. Most of the parkways stem from one central point, Lake Park. Here, a 5km bike/jogging loop winds its way around the largest artificial body of water in the peninsula. It’s a fine ride around the lake, and generally the earlier you can get out the better, particularly on the weekends. Since it is the only real place for sustained, outdoor recreation in Ilsan, it gets a bit crowded.
The off-street bike lanes in Korea suffer from the same problems that off-street lanes elsewhere face. They are rarely separate from the walker-only sidewalks, and if they are, it is even less likely to see a physical barrier between the two or see those barriers respected by cars, busses, and delivery scooters. Usually a white stripe painted down the center of the sidewalk, or a strip of the same stone the curbs are made from, marks the lanes. If the sidewalk narrows, the bike lane is the first to go, and regardless of how clearly marked the bike lane is, pedestrians will meander on over to the smoother, less crowded pavement on your side. The other problem with riding on the sidewalk is that sidewalks have curbs, and curbs hurt when you take them at 30kph (18mph) (if you can ever get going that fast on the sidewalk). These are curbs are not your run-of-the-mill, rounded-concrete corners, these are a little under a foot tall, mini-walls of granite meant to deter cars; just imagine what it would do to a road bike tire.
Riding on the streets may be dangerous, but it is definitely my preferred method. The ride I dream of taking Lance on is one of the longer rides I’ve managed to map out around Ilsan, and it was supposed to be longer, but to my surprise, half of the road on the far end of the trip was under construction. The only thing harder than biking around cars is biking around construction sites. This may be a universal truth, but in Korea, where as little of the road is closed as possible, it’s particularly prudent to wear a helmet, ride defensively, and react quickly to the unexpected.
My ultimate goal is to figure out how to get to Seoul from Goyang on my bike, but for the month of April, I’m determined to map a new route each day. Who knows, maybe Lance will show up some day.
The sound of the Kayagum, a traditional stringed Korean instrument apparently invented 1,400 years ago, played at Gyeongbokgung Palace. They were part of a large group reenacting a ceremony for court elders.
Home Again
Having recently returned to the land of parking lots and fast food, bread and cheese, and friends and family, I find myself in the United States with an an abundance of both sentimentality for all things Korean and newfound time. This blend lends itself perfectly to reminiscence about the last few month’s with the time to write about it.
With a lengthy list of dynasties and kingdoms appearing in its long history, the Korean peninsula has no shortage of palaces and royal sites. Seoul is no exception, and in a short walk around central Seoul, you can easily come across more than one. Despite having lived here for a year, I had never visited the largest of the palaces, Gyeongbok-gung, until recently. Lonely Planet has a less-than-enthusiastic take on Seoul’s palaces, advising that if you visit more than one, it’s about one more than necessary. Heeding their advice, we visited Changdeok Palace in our first month and I mentally crossed Seoul’s palaces off my to-do list.
Changing of the Guard at Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, South Korea.
Looking for an interesting way to pass a Sunday afternoon and with only a few more to spare before departing Korea, we ignored Lonely Planet’s lukewarm review and headed to Gyeongbok-gung on a Sunday afternoon. All remains of Korea’s royal past are generally gorgeous, but like gothic churches in Europe, they can start to feel like repetitive experiences. Contrary to Lonely Planet’s take on the matter, Gyeongbok-gung was hardly another repeat of the same-old thing. With huge halls and soaring eaves, re-enactors standing in colorful garb in front of palace gates and pavilions peacefully perched in lotus ponds, good luck taking it all in with just an afternoon. More
The green tea leaves of the Camelliea sinensis plant peak through bamboo fences, the bush that gives the world oolong tea, black tea, and of course, green tea.
Traveling from place to place, I often marvel at the luckiness of creatures who call some of the best places the world has to offer their humble homes. A mere human couldn’t scrounge up enough of anything to land themselves the right to set up shop in Spain’s Alhambra. Yet a number of pigeons air their morning coos over the Sierra Nevada Mountains everyday, nestled among the bright mosaics of that ancient palace. And just imagine the view those plump marmots enjoy each morning, hunkered down like carpet across the alpine terrain of the Rocky Mountain’s higher elevations.
Korea is home to many a marvelous home for living creatures of the non-human variety. While most inhabitants of Seoul’s urban sprawl are packed like sardines into little boxes piled high into the air, critters across the Korean countryside must get a good laugh at all us silly humans. Like the chipmunks scampering around a temple-side bamboo grove of Mudeungsan Provincial Park, or the bees feasting on cherry blossoms in Gyeongju’s Bulguksa Temple, the gentle little leaves of Boseong’s tea plantations rank high on the list of living things passing their days in a to-die-for setting.
Boseong’s colonial history
And the truth is, some probably did die in order for Boseong’s green tea plantations to grow. Although green tea’s presence in Korea dates back to the Silla Dynasty, green tea did not find a place to grow in Boseong’s soil until recent decades. The growing potential of Boseong’s fertile landscape went unsown until Japan occupied and began looking for land and labor to supply the Japanese people with tea to sip. Thus the green tea plantations were born, expressly to serve the families of resented foreign colonizers. During the Korean War, these painstakingly groomed tea leaves were ravaged along with the rest of the country. For years after Korea won its independence, the once-carefully tended rows were left ignored and eventually overgrown. Nearly 50 years later, a Korean entrepreneur, took control of the Daehan plantation and harvesting resumed. Once one plantation was cultivated and thrived, both ecologically and financially, other sprang up too. Now, the town is a world capital of green tea, and the country’s largest plantation grows there, with slope upon slope of smaller farms surrounding it.
To look at the serene rows of the Daehan Dawon Plantation today, the country’s largest green tea farm and a popular tourist destination, you would never guess elements of its tumultuous past embody Japan’s brutal opporession of Korea’s land and people. All visitors are funneled through an entrance starting at a massive asphalt parking lot. But the earthly reminders of honking buses and busy streets end there. Soon a tree-lined path of towering cedars envelope visitors, softening the sun and sounds of the outer world. Soon, you emerge into an expansive view of sun-drenched green tea bushes, perfectly snipped into graceful semicircles unfolding across the hillside’s contours. Like uniform rolls of Crayola green play dough rolled by a precise child’s hands, their playful elegance brings to mind pages of Dr. Seuss and the whimsical topiaries of Chris Van Allsburg.
All about tea
Even a stooped ajumma can't be stopped.
But up close there’s nothing uniform about these carefully trimmed bushes, at least not to the discerning eye. Often that expert eye belongs to the stooped and weathered ajummas (elderly Korean women) who traditionally pick the leaves, one by one. Picked in a similar fashion, those flavorful leaves have been steeped in water and then enjoyed by humans for about 5,000 years (Mayo Clinic). Tea’s popularity has certainly not waned over time, and “today tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world, second only to water” (University of Maryland Medical Center).
With so much history behind it, it’s impressive that the tea slipping down thirsty throats for generations, come dominantly from one plant: the Camelliea sinensis. A hearty perennial evergreen bush, the Camelliea sinensis gives birth to the same leaves used to make green tea, oolong tea, and black tea. The difference lies in the processing. Green tea leaves are unfermented, while oolong tea leaves are partly fermented, and black tea leaves are fully fermented. Green tea’s famed health benefits also lie in the processing. Green tea is full of helpful little guys called polyphenols, “chemicals with potent antioxidant properties” (UMMC). As leaves ferment, the polyphenol content decreases and the caffeine levels increase. So, the pure and unfermented leaves of green tea keep all the good stuff, antioxidants, while having lower levels of the not-so-good stuff, caffeine.
The classifications of green tea don’t end there, though.
Timing matters too. Tea leaves are harvested about three to four times each year in Korea, affecting the quality and taste of the tea. Those leaves plucked from their stems before Gokwoo (April 20) are of the highest grade offering a mild and fresh taste. Only weeks later, as new leaves fully open to the fresh mountain air, Sejak tea is harvested, one of the most popular teas, often called Jakseol, or bird’s tongue, for the shape of its leaf. As the weather warms and the middle of May approaches, Joongjak tea is ripe for the picking, brown leaves that fill teapots with a thicker flavor. For those with an appreciation for flavors a bit puckery, the green tea plant offers the more mature leaves of the Daejak (often called Ipha) tea. Into June and July, old leaves soaked in water and often served in place of drinking water, are harvested until June and July.
Hi Little Guy: Soak these things in water, and soon you'll some tasty Nokcha.
And then the stooped ajummas raised in a tougher time and oozing practicality must wait for the bushes to go about the business of growing leaves anew to be harvested next year. While the plants are quietly at work, the Daehan Daewon Plantation does not stay quiet. The plants become more flavorful growing slowly in higher elevations.
As the tea takes its precious time to grow and becomes packed with flavor in the meantime, a steady stream of tourists take the bus to Boseong, often getting off at Daehan Plantation, walking through the tree-lined path, and pausing in front of the same striking landscape we paused before. A network of trails wind around the sprawling plantation, but we opted to head up to a small summit at a central hilltop on the plantation. Spring is a perfect time to visit, with cherry blossoms and magnolia trees in full bloom offering a pleasant interruption to the terraced green tea rows. We weren’t the only people to take advantage of this ideal timing, but the crowds were tame compared to the jam-packed trails of some national parks I’ve visited. Rarely did the mild crowds ruin the serene day, and with the exception of a Korean couple asking me to vacate an ideal picture spot beneath a cherry blossom tree, which I awkwardly mistook for an invitation to join the picture, we were left to ourselves.
For just 1,000 won, you too can enjoy a cup of Green Tea after a walk up to the top and back.
Many factors must converge to make land ideal for green tea. Standing atop the peak surrounded with a view of the area’s terrain for miles, you can see most of what makes Boseong an ideal place for tea to grow. About 1,500 millimeters of rain drops need to fall each year, and if you’ve ever spent monsoon season in Korea, you know that’s hardly a problem. The soil is best if it is porous and permeable, the weather must be cool but have a great daily temperature range, and high humidity is a must. With soil slipping beneath our feet on the way up, surprised by the midday heat of a day that began chilly, we shed our sweatshirts. Check, check, and check. Ocean breezes don’t hurt either, and as we took our last steps up the steepening trail, the turquoise blue of the nearby sea shone. Check. Mother Nature must have been thirsty when she cooked up Boseong, with all the requisite factors perfectly in place. There’s plenty to bring you to this area. Gwangju’s Medeungsan Provincial Park was delightful, the Damyang bamboo forest is a popular destination, and there are plenty of beaches to lounge on. But don’t let yourself leave without a trip to one of Boseong’s green tea plantations.
The spring colors of lanterns for Buddha's Birthday and blooming azaleas light up Jeungsimsa Temple, just a 10 minute walk from the art gallery at Gwangju's Medeungsan Provincial Park. If you're ever in Boseong, Gwangju is a worthwhile stop.
A makgeolli producer, whose family has been producing makgeolli for five generations.
We took our first sip of makgeolli back in late September on the first night of our farming adventure with Wooriwa, pouring from enormous drums like the kind my Grandpa once used to fill up the pontoon with gas at the cabin. Since then, we have become enamored with the beverage, and perplexed by its composition. About a month ago we had the pleasure of learning how the beverage is brewed by the people who knew it best: fifth generation professionals.
Foreigners often call makgeolli a rice wine. In fact, makgeolli is not wine at all, as numerous food bloggers around Seoul have pointed out. It is not made like wine, and it does not look or taste like wine. Some may argue over what the proper genre makgeolli belongs in, but regardless of what it should be, makgeolli is delicious, and a must taste for all visitors to the Land of the Morning Calm. With its white color, don’t make the mistake a friend did on his first week in Korea and douse your cerial in the opaque white substance. It may look vaguely like milk, but it tastes nothing like it. The milky-hued, slightly sweet beverage is a perfect addition to any meal of pajeon and bossam, or just to sip through an outdoor concert in Hongdae. It is traditionally sipped from bronze bowls, and served from a kettle to match. Like the drink itself, the brewing process is at once straightforward and mysterious.
Mashing up the nuruk Korean style: with our hands.
The first step is to acquire a lot of rice. The main ingredient by far, there is a special variety of rice that produces the best makgeolli, but in a pinch a long grain rice you can buy at the grocery store should get the job done. When we brewed our makgeolli the exact proportions were unclear because we were brewing a lot of makgeolli as a large group, but the quantity was more than you could make in a rice cooker at home. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says 4 parts. Before you start the cooker, soak the rice in water (10 parts) for about an hour, then stop the cooking process before it’s cooked all the way. Let the rice cool down and then taste it. After your taste test is over, spread the rice out on your counter top. You may want to put down a sushi mat, or something else that will keep the rice from sticking to the counter.
After rice the second most important ingredient in this process is called nuruk. It was described to us as whole wheat yeast cake, but that’s not particularly helpful, and we suspected there was more to it than that. According to The FAO, Nuruk is “wheat,rice, barley (whole grain, grits or flour)” with the fermenting microorganisms “Aspergillus, Rhizopus, [and] yeasts” packed together into a large cake, and then incubated for about three weeks, dried for two, and aged for about two months. We had seen these nuruk cakes around grocery stores and markets in town, but never really knew what they were. To the untrained eye, they look almost like a strangely shaped bird’s nest. To make makgeolli, the nuruk (one part) is added to mineral water and broken into tiny pieces with the hands until it is a muddy color and consistency. Once the mixture is at a proper consistence, add in the rice, and mix it in thoroughly.
Almost done with the process, the mix up nuruk, water, and rice is transferred from the bowl into the container it will ferment in for four days.
Korean cooking values working with your hands, and a lot of things that people elsewhere would use tools for, Koreans do with their hands. When making makgeolli, even though it would probably be easier to do this mixing with a large spoon, or a pair of cooking chopsticks, or even maybe a blender to break up those giant chunks of nuruk, you should use your hands. When all the mixing is done, jar it. We suspect traditional Koreans did not use plastic jars, but if you don’t have a kimchi pot laying around, it’ll do in a pinch. Like beer, the longer it sits, the more alcoholic it gets; though, the FAO shows the alcohol content plateaus around 16% after 4 days. We were told to first cover it with a paper towel so that the drink could breathe—the more air those yeasts get the harder they work—and then after two days cover it and let it ferment covered for two more days. Stir the whole mixture twice per day, again to keep the yeast working hard. After four days your makgeolli is ready to drink.
The magkeolli stays busy while it ferments in its shady lair (the closet for the air conditioner). The yeast keeps it bubbling for days, eating up sugars and giving us alcohol.
After we uncovered it and took our first sips, we were a bit shocked at the sourness of the makgeolli, as were many of the people with whom we brewed. Our friends who brew beer here, and a Twitter follower of mine suggested we add sugar to the mix to both cut the edge out of the drink, up the alcohol content, and add a little more carbonation, and this seemed to do the trick. The drink was a bit strong as alcohol goes, but it can easily be watered down to taste. Friends who tried it said it tasted like makgeolli. Mission accomplished.
Daniel Gray, a Seoul Eats food blogger, recently published an op-ed in the Korea Herald regarding the public and private efforts to export Korean culture to the West—particularly to the United States. With coverage from the New York Times, CNN, and other high profile news organizations in the US, the government seems to be doing a fair job of gaining the attention of Western eyes, and now is focusing on making Korean food America’s Next Top Asian Cuisine.
This delightful alcoholic spirit is a traditional drink in Korea. Though the official spelling is Makgeolli, some dispute the proper romanization of its name: 막걸리.
Gray argues that Seoul should focus on which specific foods to export to different parts of the world, and how to market those foods abroad. He writes:
Take the full page “Bibimbap” advertisement that was in the New York Times on Dec. 21. First of all, I applaud the Korean show “Infinite Challenge” for the initiative. The ad had a great headline: “How about Bibimbap for lunch today?” There was a gorgeous picture and they gave the phone numbers of several Korean restaurants in New York.
The text is what I have a problem with: “It is said that this dish came from the customers of memorial service and rural villages. This dish is very convenient to provide, just mixing of cooked rice with various vegetables, namul, and red pepper paste together.”
First of all, death (customers of memorial service) doesn’t arouse my appetite and non-Korean speakers will not know what “namul” is. It was a great idea, just poor execution.
The way that Koreans market Korean food for Koreans will not work overseas. Korea’s “four seasons,” “well-being,” “good-for-health,” “kimchi,” and the “5 colors” will not convince the average person to try Korean food.
Awkward language aside, this ad is problematic for more reasons that Gray’s analysis reveals. Gray claims that the primary reason certain Korean foods will not catch on in the states and elsewhere is the taste and textures of the foods. It is true that some cultures are naturally more open to certain foods than others. For example, Gray writes about a series of interviews his company, O’ngo Food Communications, did with foreigners regarding their favorite Korean foods. His research, apparently “found that many French people liked chicken and ginseng soup. They said it reminded them of a popular French dish: poule au pot.” Gray believes that these results lead to the obvious conclusion that certain foods export across cultures better than others. While that may certainly be true, it is a myopic analysis that isolates food from the larger context of the food’s cultural origin. The problem is not exclusively a taste issue, though that is certainly part, and cultural differences do determine what tastes “good” to people. So far, Korea has failed to recognize how their culture fits within another culture. That is, more than anything else, Korean companies have a rhetorical problem, not an attracting people into restaurants problem.
The Romanization Problem
One component of the debate that erupted on the food blogs in Korea is over the proper spelling of Korean foods using Roman characters. Specifically, the conversation has debated whether Makgeolli is a proper or effective transliteration of the Korean word. Makgeolli is the proper spelling according to the government’s current (now standardized) romanization system, however, that does not mean it is a spelling that makes sense for westerners. ZenKimchi weighed in on the issue saying that the spelling of Makgeolli is fine for the government to use, but that “the ‘-kg’ and the ‘-eo’are problematic…[for] English speakers unfamiliar with the official Korean romanization.” This is likely true. “kgeo” is not a string of letters commonly found in English, which will make it hard to pronounce. ZenKimchi argues that Seoul should keep the standard romanization system they’ve developed, and “that interested stakeholders (e.g., producers and promoters) come up with a better romanization for the word in question, one that accurately reflects the Korean pronunciation.”
In researching for How Not To Globalize Korean Food, Gray conducted a crude market research study to determining the best ways to Romanize the Korean word Makgeolli. The methodology was this: write down several spellings of 막걸리 with Makgeolli at the top of the list, find a bunch of foreigners, and ask them which pronunciation is best. Zen Kimchi’s Andrew Salmon illustrates some of the obvious problems with this method:
He [Gray] is posing the question to [those] who already understand the government’s romanization system. However, the overwhelming percentage of the world’s non-Korean population is NOT familiar with this system, which, naturally, has certain quirks.
The Korean language has many quirks, and its alphabet is equally idiosyncratic. In May 1972 Richard Rutt in the Korea Journal called Korean “a singularly intractable language for romanizing.” Rutt attributes this mostly to the “excellence” of the Korean alphabet, Hangul. The alphabet was designed in 1440 by King Sejong as a way of allowing the people to learn how to read and write their own language. Though scholars like Ki-Moon Lee in The Korean Alphabet, edited by Young-Ki Kim-Renaud, suggest that Sejong invented Hangul in a more Edisonian fashion—with Sejong as the mastermind and many people working around him, the official record claims he did it entirely by himself.
"A Singularly intractible language" to transliterate to the Roman alphabet, the hangul script itself is quite sophisticated. The three words depicted here, Makgeolli, Dalkgalbi, and Tteokbokki are three examples of foods that do not make the transition between the Korean and Roman alphabets well.
Prior to Hangul’s invention Koreans used Chinese characters to represent their language, which meant that like Chinese, Koreans needed to memorize thousands of complicated, individual characters, their stroke order, and the words they represent. Sejong decided it was time the Koreans had a system for reading and writing that matched the nature of the unique Korean language. According to the Korean government, Sejong invented the language “to contribute to a better life for the sake of ordinary people.” Since its creation, this alphabet for the people has been hailed as the world’s most scientific lettering system and the first alphabet intentionally created for a specific language.
Since Sejong’s time, Hangul has proliferated across the peninsula. After overcoming resistance from the nobility, who saw hangul as a threat to their power, it eventually became the prominent and only way of writing the Korean language. During their occupation, the Japanese unsuccessfully attempted to wipe out Hangul completely. Despite these uphill battles, it is hard to envision modern Korea without Hangul.
If the peculiarities of the Korean language can account for what drove the adoption of Hangul over the insufficient Chinese characters (known as Hanja), they are what historically have driven discussions over romanization. Over the years many different systems for transliterating the language to the Roman alphabet have been adopted. Rutt covered the progression of romanization standards, and suggested that the systems devised by Yale and McCune-Reischauer are the best systems, but also that there may not be a perfect way of transliterating the language. Even with a standardized system there are still significant problems with the 2002 revision. Indeed, if one looks at other Asian languages, the romanization methods are far from perfect and more an approximation of how to speak the language than an exact guide. For example, the way most Americans pronounce Seoul is far from the proper Korean pronunciation. The best way to accurately pronounce Korean words is obviously to learn to read Hangul itself, a task far less daunting than it sounds.
This is why Salmon’s argument that “if Korea needs to communicate an unfamiliar product to global audience, it needs to: (a) Make the English reflective of the Korean original” doesn’t hold much weight. Though Salmon is right in that Korean words are difficult to pronounce, a more familiar spelling is not likely what will get people buying Korean food.
Think Global, Act Local
Salmon is right when he argues that the so-called “international” market research done by many food companies and the Korean government is insufficient and ignores the fact that not all foreigners are created equal. He writes,
“When testing perceptions of the international community, it needs to be done - as a general rule - on subjects outside Korea, rather than those who are already here, who have in-built knowledge that the wider world will not. The latter approach results in misleading findings, and sets marketing strategies off on the wrong foot from day one.”
If the Korean government and the Korean people are serious about exporting their food, they need to remove the blinders and think beyond their own borders. Gray is likewise correct when he writes about how terrible the Bibimbap advertisement in the New York Times was, but it is not just because death does not arouse an appetite in, at least, Americans. It is because death, dying, and funerals are not thought of in the same way in American culture as they are in Korean culture.
In the US there is a funeral ritual, and the deceased are respected and honored, but Korean culture has a totally different set of cultural properties associated with death and the dead. Americans do not, for example, have a three day holiday dedicated to paying homage to ancestors as Koreans do—Chuseok. There are no rules about serving food to dead people, nor are there colors in which we may not write someone’s name without casting a death wish upon them. It may be the case that bibimbap has a history of being food served to “customers of memorial services,” but in the U.S. funeral food is not exactly a culinary delicacy. In addition, in modern Korea the rice and veggie “casserole” is everywhere, and there are plenty of ways to market it to Americans. It’s a hearty bowl of rice, whatever vegetables are around, and a special sauce that makes it just spicy enough to give it some kick. It’s a meal that’s perfect for “carbing up” before a run or hike.
This is not to say that Seoul should surrender Korean values and tradition in order for its products to cross the Pacific. If Seoul is serious about selling Bibimbap—or any other Korean food—to Americans, however, it must meet Americans on their turf. Seoul needs to show Americans what they’ve been missing; how Korean food fits into the existing culture in the United States. This is hardly a new idea. When American companies export their products overseas, it comes with adjustments for the local culture. McDonalds for example, (it’s worth noting here that a commentator on Seoul Eats made a similar argument) sells products in nearly every country in which it exists that are simply unavailable in the US—Curry Chicken McNuggets in China, bulgogi burgers in Korea, and beer in parts of Europe. It is no surprise then, that McDonalds is wildly successful in Korea and other countries around the world. If Seoul does not account for other local traditions and culture when attempting to globalize their food, it simply will not work.
A Rhetoric of Food
It is obvious to many foreigners living in Korea that Koreans have a great deal of pride in their language, culture, and country. To see a country the size of Indiana set such an ambitious goal as to export their food all over the world is truly admirable. Seoul must change its strategy to realize this goal, however. The Korean government and private companies must target specific groups of Americans and determine what will cause them to add their neighborhood Korean restaurant to the list of places they frequent. Korean food already fits into the melting pot of the United States.
Green tea (녹차) is another example of Korean cuisine that already has a place in American culture. This tea plantation in Boesong produces some of the most famous tea in the world.
While some foods are totally foreign to American tongues, a lot of Korean food is similar to other Asian cuisines. Mandoo is nearly the same as Chinese dumplings, or wontons, and the noodle soups are similar to Chinese noodle soups that are already popular. A staple of Korean dining, the banchan are essentially side dishes, something Americans already know, love, and will even pay a premium to eat. Americans love grilling, and they love drinking while doing it—give them a restaurant in which they can do both, in a foreign and exotic environment, and you can play to American ideas of being worldly and cultured while engaging them in something familiar, something with which they can already identify. There is definitely a place for Korean barbecue in the United States, there is a place for tteokbokki, bibimbap, kalguksu, and there is a huge place for banchan and makgeolli, but Americans do not know it yet.
One of the best ways to promote Korean food in American culture might be to use the million or so foreigners in Korea to promote Korean food in their homelands. Maybe Seoul could set up a system offering grants, loans, or support to teachers who want to start up a Korean restaurant once they return home. As evidenced by the quantity and content of food blogs in Korea, there are many foreigners with strong opinions about Korean food. They are already semi-experts on Korean food—or at least more so than anyone else in the US—and they are also experts on the culture of their homeland, thus making them perfect candidates for promoting and selling Korean food and culture to the masses.
There are foreigners living in Korea who love Korean food. Some avoid it, but the majority are likely somewhere in the middle, with a few favorite dishes, and a few dishes they rarely touch. The best thing Seoul could do to promote Korean food is to get the foreigners into Korean restaurants upon repatriation, and to bring their friends and money with them. The bottom line is that food, like other parts of culture, is an idea unique to that culture. When it comes down to it, Seoul’s goal is rhetorical. It is about finding a way for Americans to identify with Korean food.
In A Rhetoric of Motives, Kenneth Burke introduced the idea of identification as a significant part of rhetoric. He argued it is not enough to think about rhetoric as the ways someone might persuade an audience. Because we are born divided people (or cultures, for the purpose of this article), we strive to mitigate that division by joining with others that share our interests and values. Persuasion is driven by this intrinsic need to join with others, or have others join with us so that we may find some cohesion within the social order or hierarchy in which we find ourselves as individuals. In order to successfully export Korean food, Seoul needs to persuade Americans to accept Korean food into their existing social order, and it must do that by playing to the motives and ideas that Americans already share with each other, and with Koreans. As Burke might say, Seoul’s rhetorical problem is persuading Americans that the two cultures are both “joined and separate.”
Lee, Ki-Moon. “The Inventor of the Korean Alphabet,” The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure. Kim-Renaud, Young-Ki ed. 1997 University of Hawai’i Press. Honolulu.
National Institute of Korean Language. “Want to Know about Hangeul?” January 2008 http://www.korean.go.kr/eng_hangeul/ Accessed May 2010. Seoul.
Rutt, Richard. “About the Romanization of Korean,” Korea Journal. 1 May 1972. 20-25. Seoul
After a record-setting winter proved just how cold the month of April can be in Korea, there's nothing better than seeing a tree, or a street brimming with them, blooming with the signs of spring. If a passerby wasn't approaching a walk on this street with enough grandeur, the speakers blaring melodramatic classical music were sure to push anyone in that direction.
The timing of our trip to Gyeongju couldn’t have been better. We left on the tail end of the first week of April and a cycling challenge I am participating in called 30 Days of Biking. It was also smack in the middle of cherry blossom season.
Gyeongju's cherry blossoms aren't a very well kept secret: the area was packed with tourists. Still, the crowds rarely proved so pervasive as to spoil the views or the ability to enjoy the day.
Gyeongju is a city several hours southeast of Seoul and was the Capitol of the Shilla Dynasty back in the day. In recent years the city has developed upon its historic notoriety and along with it made itself into a booming tourist hub, particularly in the early spring when the cherry blossoms that line the streets are in full bloom. As our trips’s organizer told us, it is a city best seen on two wheels.
Tall guy on a little bike. Apparently 6 foot 3 1/2 is not the typical dimension of the bike rental shop's clientele.
My bike was a little on the small side, which was fine because we weren’t riding very fast anyway. The traffic, both human and motorized, was heavy and densely packed, all of us with the same mission: to enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of a budding springtime season.
Cherry Blossoms don't steal the whole show of the spring premiere here. Magnolias make a notable appearance too.
The best route to take for cherry blossom vistas is to go around the lake. A longer track runs around the lake-front park following the road, and a shorter yet more scenic route follows the shore and surprisingly high floodwalls encircling the lake. From the moment I entered the lake path my vision field turned to a pink, blue, and green hue, the cool colors of spring are here, and temperate weather to boot.
Members of our biking gang.
History and heritage fans should stick close to the area around the tower—the oldest astronomical observatory in all of Asia—as this is where the many tombs of Shilla era royalty are easily accessible. It’s about impossible to miss the tombs, enormous mounds of Earth rising out of the ground as if to remind posterity of the Shilla Kingdom’s prominence in shaping the Korea of today.
With Asia's oldest observatory on your left and a hillsides dappled with entombed royalty on your right, a tourist can't ask for more accessible heritage and history. And if you thought ancient royalty was just a bunch of stuffy aristocrats, those cherry blossomed hillsides hold a few surprises. A short walk brings you to the esteemed ancient site for royal drinking games and the centuries old natural refrigerator.
The Shilla was the dynasty that unified the three kingdoms ruling over the Korean peninsula. They were promptly overtaken by the Koreyo kingdom which ruled the land until the beginning of Choseon. Most of the buildings of note in Gyoengju were constructed in the 700s.
The air was absolutely aromatic with the sweet smell of magnolias, cherry blossoms, and of course, sappy love. A country with a surprising commitment to most things nauseatingly cute, it's little surprise that couples young and old were out in droves to giggle on tandem bikes and the like. But in a country that enjoys Valentines Day so much they created a holiday for the 14th day of every month, what can you expect?
The area immediately around the tower is one hotbed of historical landmarks—including the stone refrigerator built into the fortress which looks over more than 30 tombs—and just across the road is a park where 25 Shilla kings and queens are buried. This park is also home to a replica mound where one of the kings’s burial affects, coffin, and tomb are on display.
Cheomseongdae Astronomical Tower is one of the oldest observatories in Asia. If the ratio of bricks to days was plaguing you, rest assured knowing that the 361 and a half stone slabs used to build this monument are equal to the number of days in a lunar year.
For a truly enchanting experience combining both cherry blossoms and history, a trip to Bulguksa Temple is a must. The temple is a sprawling complex of pagodas, pavillions, living quarters, and various structures for teaching and practicing Buddhism. The entire complex was torched by the Japanese during their ruthless invasion of Korea, and much of it has since been rebuilt.
Constructed in 751 AD and restored in 1973, Bulguksa Temple is a truly distinctive site. In Korea temples are as common as gothic churches in Europe, and as grand as they often are, they can start to feel as bland and predictable. This temple compound, with expansive views of pagodas and mountains, is far from stale. Structure after structure unfolded one after another, each impressive and distinctive.
The lookouts from various parts of the Bulguksa reveal serenely gorgeous landscapes of mountains and forest. For just under $4 one can scale the temple and gaze into the expansive nature surrounding it, pondering the lives of the kings and monks who practiced Shilla Buddhism from this same summit during ancient times.
Bulguksa Temple is steeped in history. There's much to see and learn here, although lacking a personal guide and Korean fluency, I'm sure most of it went over my head.
The local culinary specialty seemed to be Ssambap, a one course meal made up of 30 separate and unique side dishes, or banchan. The place we ate at was nothing to write home about, but there were many places to try the finger-food meal and if banchan is your thing, it’s worth giving it a go. Usually cold and uncooked, banchan often include different varieties of pickled vegetables, raw seafood, and other salty items. If side dishes, aren’t your thing—and you don’t mind paying the premium—there are barbecue beef places in the quaint food village outside the lake.
Pedal on, brave soldier!
If the scenery doesn’t entice you to stop and take it all in over refreshments, then the smells of meat cooking on an open fire might seal the deal. Barbeque is a hallmark of Korean cuisine and hardly hard to find. The samgyeopsal, a pork dish that is basically uncured bacon, was among the best we have had in Korea thus far. The place we ate at had an amazing side salad along with three other delectable varieties of banchan.
Bomunho Lake offers cyclists and walkers a perfect place to appreciate the spring colors lining the water. But cyclists beware, the closer you get to the resorts and theme park, the more densely packed the crowds. Young children on mini motorized four wheelers may appear cute, but should also be considered dangerous.
A trip anywhere outside of Seoul makes for a relaxing weekend, but Gyeongju was a unique blend of history, culture, and natual beauty rarely found so perfectly balanced and preserved.
I recently began participating in a great online group called 30 Days of Biking. The goal, to ride your bike every day during the month of April. So far I’ve only missed one day, and it was because I was at a wedding in Incheon all day and had no time to get out on the bike. Sad, I know. I’ve been doing well so far though, and contacted the folks running the blog to see about being a guest writer and they were thrilled. This morning, Seoul time, my piece was published. I talk about my recurring dream of showing Lance Armstrong around Ilsan, and try to give readers some idea of what it’s like to be on the road out here.
In Korea, especially in the bigger cities, traffic can be a bit intimidating. Drivers on the mean streets of Ilsan are erratic at best and inattentive at their worst. Because biking is so popular here and traffic laws are a bit looser, drivers are used to sharing the road with smaller, slow-moving, non-motorized vehicles, which sometimes makes biking on the streets easy. The problems then, tend to be more with regard to people parking on corners, stopping in the middle of intersections, and being impatient at stoplights. It could be worse, but it’s the best option available.
You can read the whole thing on the 30 Days of Biking website. The group has gotten quite a bit of media attention, and they are welcoming riders from around the world. They are tracking miles on DailyMile, and keeping up a healthy conversation on Twitter. I’ll be writing more about biking in Ilsan for this blog soon.
The real news with this update is an announcement related to another project both Danielle and I are working on called International Underground. We blogged about International Underground once before, alerting you of its existence, but now we are glad to announce it is up and running.
International Underground is a multimedia organization dedicated to telling the stories of those who often fail to make the headlines, or even page A27. Our first series, Inside Seoul’s Filipino Community, attempts to give voice to one of the largest populations of migrant workers in Korea. Filipinos can be found all over the country working the so-called 3D jobs, those that are dirty, dangerous, and difficult. They work in the factories, lumber yards, manufacturing facilities, and farms, and often face adversity and discrimination. Our stories give life and voice to these workers through engaging and creative storytelling. You can read Danielle’s piece, A Place to Call Their Own: Seoul’s Raphael Clinic, and hear my audio piece, A Culture of Support, on the International Underground website at http://internationalunderground.org, if you enjoy what you see, hear, and read, please subscribe to the email list, or the rss feed, and visit the facebook and twitter profiles. These articles will likely be cross-posted in some form to this blog, but not for a while.
As far as Schoolhouse: ROK goes, we have some entries in progress, and we hope to get back to more regular updates for you all. Those of you who frequent the site may have noticed we have a new design layout for Schoolhouse: ROK. For those keeping score, this is the third time we changed up the layout and design for the Schoolhouse: ROK blog. Hopefully things are pretty easy to find, we’re hoping they are easier to find with this layout, particularly for those of you on any version of Internet Explorer. We only recently realized how terrible the old layout looked for you folks. We’re working on a new design for the whole site, rethinking it from the ground up, that should launch sometime this summer. Until then we think this notepad-like theme is an elegant solution.
In the 1950s a style of music emerged in the United States that combined the sonic wonders of early Rock ‘n’ Roll and Hillbilly Music, a particularly swingin’ kind of country music. The people who pioneered and made this music famous are not unknown souls, they are people like Johnny Cash, Elvis Presly, and especially Carl Perkins. They called it Rockabilly. With some notable exceptions scattered sporadically throughout the last 60 years, the genre has stayed out of the limelight, relegated to an underground, niche status. In the 70s a group called Levi and Dexter did a brief stint in the national spotlight, and in the 80s the Stray Cats, with their iconic guitarist, Brian Stezer, brought some modern Rockabilly revivals, but in the last ten years, bands like the Reverend Horton Heat and other even lesser known Rockabilly groups have stayed in the clubs, and off the mainstream charts. The notable exception here is, obviously, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, which stitched the rockabilly scene together with a growing swing revival in the late 90s and early 2000s. In the UK, Canada, and Australia there are similar underground Rockabilly scenes to that of the United States, but until recently, the only scene in Asia was in Japan. That changed in 2001 when Tiger, Velvet Geena, Eddie Tarantuala, Roy, and Jack “The Knife” burst onto the Seoul club scene as the Rock Tigers.
The self-described pioneers of Korean Rockabilly call their aggressive, up-tempo music, Kimchibilly. The band throws a show each month to showcase Kimchibilly, and this month, it will bring in a Rockabilly group from Japan called “Swamp Rats” as part of the 14th Kimchibilly night at DGBD (sic) on March 27th.
On stage the group looks very much like a punk-influenced Rockabilly group, with black leather jackets, a flame emblazoned upright bass, and Les Paul-style hollow-body electric guitars. Leading the pack is Velvet Geena, the only woman in the group, with shockingly ultra-blond hair and a screaming, powerful voice who dances and sings, putting on a performance that goes all the way to eleven (because ten just wouldn’t be loud enough). We saw the Tigers at DGBD as part of the Hands for Haiti benefit, an event that spanned across two other venues, and donated all of its proceeds to help the relief efforts following the devastating earthquake that hit the Caribbean island earlier this year.
We were impressed with the group’s stage presence and creativity. Most Korean pop music, K-Pop, is boring, obnoxious, and designed to be catchy, and thrives on sex appeal, and monetization. The Rock Tigers nail the appearance, and energy that any good live show should have, and their music doesn’t lie down either. Velvet Geena’s powerful voice, Tiger and Roy’s wailing guitars, and the pounding of Roy’s bass and Jack’s kick drum, nag at that voice that say “dance.” The Tigers are currently on tour but will be back in Seoul with shows on March 14, 20, 26, and rounding out the month with the Rockabilly Night on the 27th.
We took some audio at our show last month, and attached a couple of the band’s music videos via their website. They recently released a new album called “Rock ‘n’ Roll License.” Make sure to check them out the next time your are in Korea, or if they ever come to your hometown.
Bonus: Our friend Andre Francisco (Seoulful Adventures) makes a cameo in one of these podcasts, see if you can hear him daring me to turn off the wireless mic receivers at DGBD.
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