Week 12: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight

Since Blogger.com has stopped allowing unlimited comment space, change one thing about your blog post: instead of pasting your article after your own comments, just past a small portion (if possible) and a link now. Thanks.

I post two different attitudes toward Korean culture and commodities.

1 of 2. Here's the article by Dr. Jon Huer that made me (and many others) pretty angry at his shallow analysis.

2 of 2. Here's my follow up that the Korea Times said would be published there soon.

It's 'sociologist vs. sociologist' ;-)



1 of 2:

Dr. Huer:

05-01-2009 17:44
Would Kimchi Be Korea’s Fame?


By Jon Huer
Korea Times Columnist

There are many Asian nations that have contributed to one part or another of the world vocabulary. There are the "Manila envelope," the "Chinese fire drill," the "Japanese maple," the "Indian paper," and so on.

Is there such a contribution that Korea can claim? What would be something that the world can connect to Korea? Is there anything that can be considered Korea's unique contribution to the world?

Those who are familiar with Korea would be almost unanimous in mentioning that unique Korean concoction called "Kimchi." In their minds, Kimchi and Korea are inseparable.

In many ways, Kimchi is Korea, both in the dietary sense and in the metaphorical sense. Sociologically speaking, Kimchi is everything Korea is, and vice versa, as Korea's social character can be defined by it easily and accurately. Kimchi is Korea's soul, self-image, and identifier.

Kimchi and Korea are a match made in Heaven. They are so intricately intertwined that one cannot legitimately exist without the other. Both are highly original in quality, odd and strange in substance and strong and indelible in aftertaste.

Korea without Kimchi is like a flock without its shepherd, a Catholic congregation without its priest, soldiers without their commander, children without their parents or guardians, or a bee colony without its queen bee.

Kimchi without Korea as its home, on the other hand, is like a migratory flock of birds without their homing device, completely lost and misplaced, as we cannot imagine any other culture in the world that would be so perfectly fit for Kimchi as Korea is.

Kimchi is Korea's culinary temple, its shroud of mystery and oracle, and all that is necessary and logical in Korean life. A Korean meal without Kimchi is like the arctic without its icecaps, Mt. Everest without its heigh and the Sahara without its sand. In other words, it makes all things right in Korea.

Separating Kimchi from Korea is like taking leather away from the cobbler, the voice from the singer, water from the stream or waves from the ocean. For a Korean, to be deprived of Kimchi is almost as traumatic as Adam and Eve to be kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

What is this concoction called Kimchi that has such a powerful hold over Korea and its spiritual imagination, and by which the world knows about Korea?

Kimchi is definitely an acquired taste. Its whole makeup ― visual, olfactory, taste ― is so odd and alien to visitors here that a foreigner's love for Korea is often determined by whether he can handle this perniciously smelling but incredibly addictive dish that is ubiquitous on all Korean food tables.

Kimchi is mainly made up of Chinese cabbage fermented with all sorts of spices, among them a good portion of hot peppers, garlic, fish juice and ginger, depending on each household's formula and tradition. Nutritionally speaking, that Kimchi is good for one's health is undisputed. Koreans are so dependent on this dish that no Korean considers his meal complete unless Kimchi is also served.

Let's admit it: Kimchi is one of the greatest wonders of the culinary world. Once addicted to it, no one can escape its orbit. Long-term foreign residents of Korea normally measure their degree of "Koreanization" by it.

A novice finds it revolting; an intermediate resident finds it interesting, something to try out; a successful transplant is aroused to a great appetite whenever he smells Kimchi. Naturally, for most visitors to Korea, its smell, taste, and texture require considerable understanding of anthropology and sociology in order to tolerate.

To most foreigners, Kimchi is just too spicy, too pungent, and too hot, almost like Korean culture itself, to make it a routine part of their daily menu. Like caviar, Kimchi is definitely an acquired taste.

But unfortunately for Kimchi and for Korea, Kimchi is not considered a high-image culinary experience. Caviar is connected to the image of high living, champagne and exotic romance, even though it's definitely an acquired taste. We think about adventures, faraway vacations and the sweet smell of success when we think about caviar. As for Kimchi, romance is the last thing we associate with it. Even in most Korean movies, lovers never eat Kimchi for dinner if kissing and romancing is to follow their dinner scene. For romance afterward, the movie lovers eat at a Western-style restaurant.

Unlike caviar, Kimchi has not attained its world fame yet, and I am not sure if it ever will. The trouble is not necessarily with Kimchi itself; it is with Korean cuisine. Unlike Chinese, Thai or Japanese cuisines, Korean food is still too spicy, too pungent and too hot to be favored on the world stage.

To be successful on the world stage, cuisine requires a certain level of bland superficiality that the average human taste bud can readily accept. Chinese food, Thai dishes, and Japanese sushi have the virtue of this bland superficiality. The only time Kimchi became popular among the Chinese, for example, was when the severe acute deficiency syndrome (SARS) epidemic was threatening; the Chinese ate it as a medicine to repel the syndrome.

Korean cuisine, in particular Korean Kimchi, is very much like Korean people or Korean culture: First we are repelled by its offensiveness, but later become captivated by its addictive quality that won't leave you alone once you truly acquire the taste. For Koreans who leave Korea and Korean culture, Kimchi is the last thing that departs them in their de-Koreanization process.

For an average Korean, it takes almost a heroic effort and epic struggle, like a drug addict who wants to kick the habit, to shake off the Kimchi-addiction if he wishes to escape the Korean orbit. Kimchi is the ultimate litmus test for those who come to Korea as well as for those who leave Korea: Adjusting to it is a sign of successful Koreanization; being able to leave it a sign of complete de-Koreanization.

Korea is known throughout the world for its technological wonders. Kimchi, a strange but powerful native product of Korea, wants to share that fame.

The writer can be reached at jonhuer@hotmail.com. The opinions expressed and the observations described in these articles are strictly the writer's own and do not represent any official position of the University of Maryland University College or the USFK.

[All of Dr. Huer's style reads like this: like a guy taunting you at a bar to fight him, repeating himself, over and over, and, NO DATA.]

http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/05/272_44192.html
[See others reactions to him with the comments at the link, click the area for more comments, etc.]


2 of 2.
The Koreanness of Food: The Missing Ingredient for Selling Korean Food Abroad Is Selling Context, Not Masking It


The recent decision to encourage selling Korean food abroad by state financing involves “36 food experts, officials, and CEOs including Agriculture Minister Chang and Culture Minister Yu.” Quite a banquet. Let’s hope they think that selling food is more than quantitative. Perhaps an environmental sociologist, like me, studying consumption comparatively for many years and now living in Korea, can provide suggestions for what may translate overseas qualitatively as well.

First, it seems many assume selling food is just a quantitative experience of gross sales. Another Korean Times columnist recently discussed “the selling of kimchi” and recommended it be divorced from all context as if it were some sort of stand-alone commodity that requires masking Korean culture to sell. Completely opposite is my view on this. Let’s hope government money is not wasted on such ‘dumbed down’ views of Korea because I think it would be self-destructive of the type of ‘brand’ that Korea wants to project with sales of Korean food. On the contrary, instead of masking Korea as you sell its food, what would make a successful policy is the selling of a special Korean food experience, organization, and feeling instead of just deculturalized ‘dead commodities.’

The symbolism and atmosphere in which Korean food is consumed is what is Korean. Tastes are not your problem in selling Korean food. The unvoiced issue is that Korean food has its own infrastructure of cooking and serving that is profoundly cultural. There are at least three unique arrangements: the hot pots you serve in their own holders that are safe(r), the shared table grilling environment (set in chair-based tables or set in low tables for floor seating), and shared mixed platters of combined food for you to experiment with how to merge them, or how to share it among friends with separate apchopshi dishes served ‘blank’ in front of you.

I think Korean food would go over well to have restaurants organized around these infrastructural items, similar to how hibachi Japanese became international while the food was only part of the whole 'experience'. Sell the event and merged table/kitchen feel, and I think it would work. Choose food that translates best to these three kinds of kitchen/table merged restaurant.

I've been to 'Korean' restaurants in the USA that lacked merged kitchen/table options. 'Korean food' on Western plates was missing something. Sell whole merged kitchen/table atmosphere of foods and floor seating options while having chairs as well for a consumer’s choice. Make the ondol as inviting as it already is. Build ondol into the restaurants. I’ve read the Korean government is attempting to popularize ondol internationally. Popularize ondol in Korean restaurants as the best route to give it a positive symbolism overseas.

On the tables, leave it to the consumer to spice their food with Korean choices to experiment, to try different kimchi's, to get free refills on vegetable side dishes, and perhaps to have free shigye (sweet rice drink) for dessert. By all means serve ‘hongi-pap’ (one metal box/serving of hot rice) instead of a lump of cooling rice on a plate. Give everyone a big Korean spoon for rice instead of only metal chopsticks. And of course the shikye should be served ice-cold in ever-present Korean metal cups. Perhaps ‘hangul’ calligraphy on wallpaper or cups could have Korean phrases with translations to encourage having fun with a different language, culture, and sound.

Korea has an astounding regional variety of foods. Perhaps government-aided restaurants should survey different regions and pick items from each. Perhaps North Korea’s preserved and popularized royal cuisine (little eaten in South Korea) might have a few items—encouraging fellow feeling of ‘greater Korea’ abroad as well as at home.

All jeong varieties can be sold as "Korean pizza." Turn it into a bar environment with copious Korean alcohols, beers, and ‘fusion’ choices of sake and wines—definitely Korean as well. Different jeong with drinks would be a more Korean experience. And definitely a noraebang singing room or two that you could eat in as well is Korean. Perhaps the noraebang could be dual or triple use--quickly converting into a cozy and dark ‘DVD bang’/room with ‘Hallyu’ Korean-wave and international DVD rentals for watching while eating jeong and drinking. It could convert once more to serve a private banquet of more elaborate royal cuisine. Remember the Korean bubble-gum pop muzak. And where is that little instant coffee machine at the door?

Help Korea’s small regional farmers and stock raisers, the backbone of cultural and biological diversity maintenance. It’s cultural suicide and biodiversity suicide to keep demoting small-scale farmers’ jobs and economic capacity as both the left and the right in Korea have been doing. The only sane ‘green growth’ is to save your small farmers and clean soils from becoming toxic and pesticide-laden. Only that maintains nutritional quality of Korean foods and public health in the long run. Make Korean vegetables and fruits high quality organic. Make Korean meat a trusted, grass-fed, organic product. It will have positive feedback in Korea itself, encouraging removal of mindboggling levels of antibiotics in Korean meats. It is not healthy for animals, the environment, or consumers of such products since it creates contexts of disease virulence. Take the high road on regulation and introduce testing of all Korean hanoe beef for BSE/mad cow in this lucrative international economy sector. Expand it later to all animals. Stick behind the policy like Japan and the E.U. do. “Korean 100% Organic, Grass-Fed, Hanoe Beef” has a nice ring to it. Don’t source from genetically engineered crops. People globally will fall head over heels to eat trusted Korean animal and plant products. With a larger dispersed global market the prices will go down.

Three Koreans recently died of cyanide food poisoning. That should not happen to the international consumer either. Introduce a special license (or reward/recognition) for raising high quality food for restaurants overseas. This can gradually--by example and market pressures--popularize more consumer-friendly food production practices domestically.

The recent tourism catch phrase “Korea Sparkling” should apply to the quality of Korean food sold overseas primarily. This is because food is typically the first carrier of a cultural experience for most foreigners. If Korean culture is expressed in the food, cultural curiosities and admiration will lure people further into Koreanness (and future markets). Think synergistically and you can help ‘green’ it all: domestic health policy, international image, tourism, environment, and international market food quality all at once.

In conclusion, people miss the point if they think they are selling food. No, sell Korean organization of food and experience. Give people a chance to feel what it is to “eat Korean” and do it safely and you will make a friend (and customer) for life. I’m certainly one.


The writer is a professor of environmental sociology at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, and author of ``Toward a Bioregional State'' (2005) and “Ecological Revolution” (2009). He can be reached at mwhitaker@ewha.ac.kr The views expressed in the above article are those of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times.

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