Being a member of the inner city and not of the sky scraping suburbs, I have not personally seen much effect of the recent outrageous prices of kimchi, the most integral food to every meal of Korean cuisine. The long story short is that something to do with the weather this year has left a shortage of radish, garlic, and (most severely) cabbage in Korea. This has led the prices to soar and, despite government subsidies, the production of the dish this harvest season to decrease. Being that it's a fermented food and usually takes months if not years to make properly, I hadn't predicted much effect on the consumer side of the market for at least half a year. However, last week I was refused kimchi for the first time in a restaurant, with "high prices of cabbage" cited as the excuse. Jaw-dropping. I had hoped to take part in some kimchi making this year. We'll see if the festival still takes place.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Top 4 Things that are Popular in Korea, but Never Could be in America (and Why)
Floor Sleeping:
Camping is great and all, but no one wants to do it everyday. Sleeping on the floor is the norm here. Just throw down a blanket and lay on it! I can't see this ever catching on in America. Even when they have a "bed," it's definitely fusion. They will buy a mattress sized wooden box with a mini-headboard, then throw down a blanket and sleep on that. I can't understand why they don't embrace the soft sleeping scenario, but perhaps it's a space thing. Most of the Westernization happens through the younger generation, who either live with parents and therefore don't have a choice what they sleep on or live in a whole so small that the bed has to roll up to make the space work.
Octopus:
On a rare occasion, you can get a group of people together who can get stomach fried calamari from an Italian restaurant, provided it's thoroughly fried, devoid of texture or fish flavor, and accompanied with a bucket of sauce to douse it in. In Korea, however, octopus and other seafoods are eaten far more often than chicken or even pork. This culinary contradiction is a reflection of the nature of the two countries, in my opinion. Whereas America is broad, with plenty of land for livestock, and a history of land-animal consumption, Korea can fit into America an almost even 98 times. This combined with being a peninsula and a general Asian affinity towards foods from the sea, means octopus is the new beef. I've eaten octopus steamed on a stick, dried, fried, grilled, sauced, over rice, in soup, and even alive. It's gotten so bad that I walk through street food areas and have to convince myself that it doesn't smell good. It doesn't, but that doesn't mean it can't be appetizing. It took a long time to even reach this stage, where I not only don't notice but am sometimes in the mood for octopus, and it's another thing I don't see America embracing any time soon.
Wrist Grab:
I'm sitting in the office, preparing for class. Suddenly, a hand comes from over my shoulder a grabs my wrist, with the clutch and unexpectedness of a zombie from the grave. It's just my boss of course, but the wrist grab is just a way of getting attention in this culture, like a tap on the shoulder or a psst! It doesn't stop at this one interaction, of course. It is a move of endearment, friendship, even attraction. It's not at all uncommon to see a boyfriend wrist grab his girl on the sidewalk, or watch it be used almost as a pick-up line. To the Western wrist it feels extremely disrespectful in the office and aggressive in the bar, though I know it's not meant that way. I'll stick to words, thanks.
Toilet Paper:
Obviously there's more to this. Sure, we all use toilet paper for it's obvious function, but one way in which toilet paper will never be employed is as napkins. Or paper towels. Or on a restaurant table for customers. There's just that bathroom connotation that, except for the odd bachelor pad, will never be socially acceptable in anything food-related.
Camping is great and all, but no one wants to do it everyday. Sleeping on the floor is the norm here. Just throw down a blanket and lay on it! I can't see this ever catching on in America. Even when they have a "bed," it's definitely fusion. They will buy a mattress sized wooden box with a mini-headboard, then throw down a blanket and sleep on that. I can't understand why they don't embrace the soft sleeping scenario, but perhaps it's a space thing. Most of the Westernization happens through the younger generation, who either live with parents and therefore don't have a choice what they sleep on or live in a whole so small that the bed has to roll up to make the space work.
Octopus:
On a rare occasion, you can get a group of people together who can get stomach fried calamari from an Italian restaurant, provided it's thoroughly fried, devoid of texture or fish flavor, and accompanied with a bucket of sauce to douse it in. In Korea, however, octopus and other seafoods are eaten far more often than chicken or even pork. This culinary contradiction is a reflection of the nature of the two countries, in my opinion. Whereas America is broad, with plenty of land for livestock, and a history of land-animal consumption, Korea can fit into America an almost even 98 times. This combined with being a peninsula and a general Asian affinity towards foods from the sea, means octopus is the new beef. I've eaten octopus steamed on a stick, dried, fried, grilled, sauced, over rice, in soup, and even alive. It's gotten so bad that I walk through street food areas and have to convince myself that it doesn't smell good. It doesn't, but that doesn't mean it can't be appetizing. It took a long time to even reach this stage, where I not only don't notice but am sometimes in the mood for octopus, and it's another thing I don't see America embracing any time soon.
Wrist Grab:
I'm sitting in the office, preparing for class. Suddenly, a hand comes from over my shoulder a grabs my wrist, with the clutch and unexpectedness of a zombie from the grave. It's just my boss of course, but the wrist grab is just a way of getting attention in this culture, like a tap on the shoulder or a psst! It doesn't stop at this one interaction, of course. It is a move of endearment, friendship, even attraction. It's not at all uncommon to see a boyfriend wrist grab his girl on the sidewalk, or watch it be used almost as a pick-up line. To the Western wrist it feels extremely disrespectful in the office and aggressive in the bar, though I know it's not meant that way. I'll stick to words, thanks.
Toilet Paper:
Obviously there's more to this. Sure, we all use toilet paper for it's obvious function, but one way in which toilet paper will never be employed is as napkins. Or paper towels. Or on a restaurant table for customers. There's just that bathroom connotation that, except for the odd bachelor pad, will never be socially acceptable in anything food-related.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Top 3 Things that are Popular in America, but Never Could be in Korea (and Why)
Though t may be mathematical and nerdy, Tetris can not reach a state of popularity in South Korea. The reason? The F word. That's right. You know how one of the Tetris pieces looks like an amputated medical cross? Well, Koreans believe that looks strikingly similar to a representation of the middle finger, and have endearingly titled the gesture "f*** you." Turn your back on a class full of rascals for 1 second and it is sure to happen: one student will shoot the bird at another, and that student will immediately shout, "Teacher! He did f*** you to me." Of course, he will simultaneously demonstrate the offensive gesture in your direction while tattling, thereby compound the annoyance of the tattle with actually cursing and flicking off the teacher. Back to tetris, this particular piece can be found scrawled all over the desks and walls of the schools. A game based around it would be too much for them to handle.
Salsa:
A delicious condiment for chips, salad, or anything in a tortilla, we all know that salsa can range from sweet to extremely spicy. While these are flavors that Koreans know and love, especially pepper based spice, I don't believe that this dip will ever find popularity without a name change. This is because the word salsa is terribly close to the word sulsa, meaning diarrhea. There is literally no way to pronounce salsa without garnering a cringe (or in the case of elementary students, an outburst of laughter), even if you enunciate with extreme precision. If you walked into a foreign restaurant and there on the appetizer list was something dubbed "dee-a-ree-a," would you take the chance?
Drive Thru:
One of the qualifications of a true "fast-food" restaurant is the ability to purchase it without the extra hassle of parking and walking into the store. The convention of the drive thru is so omnipresent that it may be hard to imagine a world without it, and yet it does not exist in Korea. Yes, we have McDonald's and Burger King, KFC, Popeye's, even a Taco Bell now. Not a single one of them offers drive thru pick up. This is a combination of space problems and market needs. For starters, the drive thru requires a wide swath of private road around the fast-food restaurant in question. However, most of these establishments are on the first floor of a 12 story building that is crammed next to a whole row of 12 story buildings. In a city that stacks everything from grocery stores to movie theaters, there just isn't the spatial luxury to pave a moat around your burger joint. Of course, we also have to consider that the operative word in drive thru is drive. In a city with a popular subway and bus system, not to mention a thriving pedestrian culture, a drive-up window would only be convenient to the smaller segment of the population that is actually driving their cars. To counter act these space and market constrictions, fast-food joints have begun to offer walk-up window service or even delivery.
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