The Food Issue

Anyang!
I hope this finds you all well in the new year, slightly and happily plump from holiday feasts! In light of the delicious food that is consumed the world over in hopes of negating the cold or just plain dreariness that seems to come hand-in-hand with December and January, I have decided to write a bit on the food of South Korea. That, and it seems like people have had more questions than usual regarding the cuisine. This is hard time of year for my family, family friends and myself, and, since Evan was such a lover of food and culinary arts, this write up is in his memory...I think he would enjoy it.

Korean food is overall spicy, spicy, spicy and very healthy. They use a lot of chili peppers, chili paste, garlic and soy products as well as veggies and the eastern staple--rice (bap in Korean). They also eat a lot of seafood (Korea is a relatively small peninsula with many rivers), and plenty of meat (beef, pork, chicken, duck....dog). Of course, there is one dish that is found at every single meal, even at non-korean establishments--the world renowned Kimchi (cabbage that is smothered with crushed red pepper and garlic and then fermented in huge underground ceramic containers...it also comes in a "white" variety without the pepper paste, in several cubed radish varieties, and with other vegetables, such as cucumber).

Traditional Meals
Every meal (Breakfast, lunch and dinner) in a traditional Korean household and restaurant consists of Soup, Rice and Kimchi at the very least. There are usually other side dishes and a main dish as well, but these are like the three sisters of Korean food. The soups here are pretty spectacular, and very spicy. There is Kimchi-chi-gae, a kimchi stew...but you'd still have a kimchi side dish with this. Another popular one is Tone-chang-chi-gae, a soy bean paste soup with tofu and veggies, it also has meat or fish sometimes. It smells AWFUL, I don't know what to compare it to...like something died in a soiled gym bag and sat for a couple of days, but it tastes great! When we have it at school, the whole place stinks for a few hours; but we all know what we're having for lunch. The other widely eaten soup is kong-na-mul-guk which is bean sprout soup, it is supposed to be one of the soups good for hangovers (As the science teacher at my school says every single time we eat bean sprouts "they aspirate alcohol from the liver"--how he knows the word aspirate I have no idea). If one is hungover (as many Koreans are much of the time) there is another panaceal soup that i've never had. It is made out of fresh blood and veggies--oh so mashissoyo (delicious).... There are myriad other soups that i could describe but i don't really have the time, and you probably don't really care so here's a brief list: Ox bone soup, bulgogi soup, duck and sesame leaf stew, spicy egg, garlic shoot and zucchini soup.

Side dishes (pan-chan) vary from place to place, but you always have them, and at least one of them is a type of kimchi. Others include kongchaban (my favorite!)--soy beans fried in soy sauce and sesame seeds; pickled bean sprouts (kong-na-mul); kim (dried seaweed); little dried anchovies (meo-ol-chi); sliced octopus tentacles (nak-chi); pa-jon ("Korean Pizza" actually more like korean pancakes with green onion and other veggies in it); this weird jello stuff made from acorns (toto-ri-muk); pickled radish discs; hunks of fish (sometimes heads, guts, scales and all!), and many, many others. Some places will give you twelve side dishes between two people whereas others will just give kimchi and one or two other side dishes.

One major note: All of these things are shared by the whole table! Usually each person has a small plate/bowl thing to themselves, it is about the size and shape of an ash tray, and you can put food here if you want. Usually, though, we just pick up and eat directly from the dishes in the center of the table. The only thing that each person has to themselves is a little silver bowl of rice. Oh, and we often sit on the floor--we have to take our shoes off in the entryway of the restuarant.

For lunch and dinner there is usually some kind of protein involved in the form of tofu, seafood or meat. Us waeguks (foreigners) tend to stick with Bulgoggi, Galbi, and Sam-Gyeop-Sal. Bulgoggi means "Fire meat" and it is beef or pork, sometimes marinated, cooked on a grill in the middle of the table. Galbi means rib meat, and it is marinated as well--it is really tasty. Sam -gyeop-sal means "three stripes of fat pork" aka bacon with three strips of fat in it. It is different from American bacon though--it hasn't been cured so it's lacking the salt and delicious nitrates. All of these are ordered by the serving (app. 100-200g/serving) and the server brings out a plate of raw meat, some kitchen scissors and some tongs. You then throw this on the grill, wait for it to cook a bit, cut it up, wait for it to cook a bit more, then wrap it up in a piece of lettuce with a wedge of garlic, some red meat sauce stuff and whatever else you'd like in the wrap. It's extremely tasty, and surprisingly good for you. At these places we usually put some kimchi on the grill (helps cut the bitterness), as well as some of the garlic wedges. These meals are generally insanely cheap too--easily running less than 10 bucks per person for filling meal.

For a special treat for us Yeoju-ers, we go to the duck (Ori) restaurant--it is phenomenal, and if anyone makes it here I will treat you to a meal there for sure. You know how sometimes duck is too greasy? Well, it is perfect at this place--slow roasted on a spit over a wood fire. You can smell the place from about a block away and it is freaking amazing...you can order half or whole ducks that are brought to your table pre-sliced. You just give 'em a quick sizzle on the griddle and they're ready to go. It also comes with a delectible dipping sauce...mmmmm i want some right now...

Other entrees include tokk-galbi (rice cakes, chicken and cabbage grilled with spicy red sauce), bim-bim-bap (rice, bean sprouts, carrot shavings, dried seaweed, cucumber, red sauce, sesame oil and a poached/fried egg), kim bap (like a sushi roll), mandu (steamed dumplings, often in a soup, filled with either kimchi or pork). One, that sounds not so appetizing, is one if my favorites. It's called samething like Tolso-bap...something like that. It is very simple but pretty tasty. A very hot bowl filled with rice is placed in front of you and you are given an extra silver bowl. You fill the extra bowl with the rice from the super hot bowl. There should be some browned residual rice left in the really hot bowl, which is then filled with hot water and left to sit. The meal is eaten--rice, side dishes adn fish, and then the hot rice water finishes it all off. I really like it for some reason...it tastes good! it must have been some peasant food back in the day or something....All of these are cheap and delicious.

Not-So-Traditional Meals
Other things we often eat are Pizza (pretty damn good--sometimes has interesting toppings like crab and mayonaisse, potato wedges, and corn) and fried chicken (Koreans, to contradict the very healthy traditional food, have adopted some of the best frying techniques i've tasted). Pizza is one way to get cheese, which is sadly lacking in Korea (Thank you dad for the delicious, albeit expensive, shipment of chese in december!!). There are also street carts everywhere that serve corndogs, fried crab sticks, rice cakes on a stick, fried fish paste on a stick, tokkboki (rice cakes with red sauce and the fried fish paste all in one dish!), Fried dough filled with sweet black bean paste in the shape of fish, little tiny dough balls filled with black bean paste in the shape of walnuts, roasted sweet potatoes and fruits (right now clementines are everywhere).

In Seoul, one can eat just about anything from Bennigan's American cuisine to small greek restaurants, these places are pretty expensive though, so we rarely go. In Yeoju, we have a couple of japanese places (one with sushi and tempura another with Shabu Shabu), some chinese joints (they serve rice or noodles with this thick black soy bean reduction) and a pretty good Italian place (the man who works there is really cool--learned in italy, built his own brick oven). The rest are Korean, pizza and chicken. And last, but certainly not least, is everyone's college staple--Ramen Noodles. I have eaten far more here than I ever ate in college. To be fair though, they are much better in Korea than in the states--it is served in many restaurants as a matter of fact. Many Koreans will jazz up their ram-yon with fresh cut green onion and an egg.

Deserts, Snacks, Drinks
Koreans have major sweet tooth for sure. I've eaten more cake here than I would have ever eaten at home in the same amount of time. The cake is slightly different, a little less sweet and lighter--pretty good overall. Cake is eaten for so many celebrations--birthdays, new co workers, holidays, no school days, just for shits... Some of my fellow English teachers do not like the snacks here, but I, for one, find them delicious....maybe a little too delicious. I've noticed the kilograms slowly rising :( !! There are chips and crackers and candy and cookies...mmmm. Peppero sticks are the best. They are these long cookie sticks that are dipped in chocolate. November 11 is actually Peppero Day (because it looks like pepperos--11/11). It was definitely founded by Lotte, the makers of pepperos. There are also what i call Korean pringles...mmmmmm...

The only way I can get myself to not get the snacks is to tell myself that the excessive packaging, and the consequential waste from said packaging, is not worth the deliciousness. The wrapping of some of these things is just disgusting. Chocolate bars for example: usually it is a bag (think new hershey's bags) , inside the bag is a box, inside the box is a plastic container, inside the plastic container is the chocolate---much smaller than expected, and sometimes, if you're really really lucky, the chocolate inside the plastic container inside the box inside the bag is individually wrapped. So, to do a very small part for my floral and faunal friends (as well as the myriad people affected by excessive consumption of the industrial world) I abstain from most of these snacks. I thank my environmentalist side for keeping my thighs in line :)....although, as i type this, i am eating some cadbury chocolate, not much packaging, but shipped here from Australia...you win some you lose some i guess.

And as for drinks...I drink a lot of water, orange juice, and soy milk. I miss coffee, like real coffee. My school, as well as most eating establishments, have "coffee machines." These machines put about a shot of sugar, a shot of powdered cream, a couple grains of instant coffee and then enough ridiculously hot water to make it liquid....I think I get more of a sugar high from it than anything. The big sports drink in Korea is appetizingly called "Pocari Sweat," yup, sweat...it's pretty good though, not as sweet as gatorade and just as full of electrolytes. Another popular "drink" is this strange vitamin beverage...they come in small brown glass bottles and are apparently full of vitamin C or Ginseng or some other very important nutrient. They either taste like a whole bunch of smarties dissolved in water or like a medicine cabinet. I actually haven't had one in a while!

What else...Sometimes we get these pouches filled with "extracts" usually from something like pumpkins or onions or pears. They are okay, scary to drink though--you gotta cut open the pouch and try not to spill it everywhere---no straws like with capri suns. Of course, there is coke--and i do drink my fair share of it. It comes in the tall skinny cans, 250 mL. I think it tastes a little better too. The soy milk i drink is super good. It's found in most convenience stores, and is often kept warm in this little hot box thing that has canned coffee/tea/other drinks in it. There is one that is peanut flavored--yummy. There's also plain ol' milk, lots of juices (aloe juice is really good!), and any soda you could imagine.

So that's about it for my food issue, there are plenty of other foods and drinks to discuss, but this is long. I am leaving for vacation (to Thailand!!) tomorrow, so I will write when I return home. Links to some fun stuff are on the bottom of this e-mail, and please check out my blog if you haven't! I haven't updated in a while, but it's kind of fun: www.arexinkorearand.blogspot.com Peace and love to you all,
Alex

For some hiking pics click here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506892&l=6bb73&id=8600337

Here are some Holiday pics (halloween, turkey day, etc):http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506853&l=62a6e&id=8600337

A four day retreat with the kiddies:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506790&l=8b465&id=8600337

And then there was Chicken University:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506743&l=a1a6a&id=8600337

Twas the night before Christmas...

And all through the house,

Not a creature was stirring...

not even a mouse...

When all of a sudden in my ears I did hear,

A gunshot that rang through the night sky so near.

I sprang to the window and threw open the sash,

Just to see a in the distance, a faint ruby flash.

It was Rudolph! He exists! but not for much longer,

Apparently he had been shot down by one much stronger.

While he fell through the sky, antlers a-flalin,

I heard in the distance, that stupid b!tch Palin.

"Oh deary me!" she cried with delight!

"How easy to shoot when with that glowing red light!"

"I was just thinking, ya know, that I needed some meat,

and, golly gee whiz, the kids wanted to help with the feast!"

"So we hopped on our snow mobiles (or whatever the hell she calls them) even the little retarded one,

And I handed them each their own, personal gun.

"And, well, ya know, we saw this red light kinda zooming around through the sky,

And I thought, what the heck?!? I bet that darn thing'd make a right tasty pot pie."

"But Ms. Palin! Why would you do such a thing?!" I cried in despair.

"I may not answer the questions that you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also." She replied with a dumb stare.

"What? I've heard that line before! You must be some spawn of satan come to ruin Christmas!" from her some answers I sought.

"Absolutely not. I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the shots that we've taken, that ... that would ... bring this whole ... I'm not doing this for naught."

"Oh wow, 'naught'! what a big word for you sarah! Wait, i'm missing my point here!" I cried

"You killed the most famous reindeer of them all....." I sadly sighed.

As she dragged off the dying red light in the cold dreary night,

I couldn't believe Christmas Eve had brought such a sight.

On a good note however, as I gazed on her with the corpse she did carry,

It was great to know that the dumbass wouldn't be in our white house come January.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

East Vs. West Graphic depiction

This is great, and some of them are amazingly true:

http://buburuza.net/?p=8664

Please check it out! It explains a lot of my praises and frustrations with this country!

To.Alex

Yesterday as I finished up my last class, I received a nice letter from one of my less than lovely students. I don't think she has participated in class even once--she is usually sleeping or straightening her hair or playing cards or talking in korean with her boyfriend....anything but speaking English. She is one of the "cool" girls with a major teenitude. But, apparently she does know some English, i have proof now. Here is a transcription of the letter, it's pretty cute:

To. Alex
Hi Alex my name is 신소라 (Sin Sora).
Alex Cute. me too ^^*
Alex, school fun? ㅋ
I'm not like school
Bye Bye (picture of heart) Alex.
I love you.
~ (another picture of heart)

from. Sora.

After she gave it to me, she wanted candy, but I didn't have any. Now I know the price of love for ninth grade girls--Chocolate (strange, that doesnt seem to change much....).

Chicken University

Happy Holidays Beautiful People!

So, I'm still in Korea, fancy that. Life here is becoming more routine and less hilarious, which is fine—all of that amusement can be tiresome. A couple of weeks ago, actually, I was so fed up with Korea that I wanted to hike north, through the land of Kim Jong-Il (maybe have a bit of a chat with the little, dying man), a nice hike through Russia, and then a refreshing swim to the land of Palin…The sound of Hangul-mal (Korean language) was like finger nails on a chalk board, and the superficiality and artifice that seems to drape over every single thing in Korea were really, really starting to rack my nerves. My good eighth grad girls were caught drinking at the elementary school (and one of them vomited—at the elementary school), the ninth grade boys have severed themselves from any notion of respect and "normal" social behavior, and my sixth graders have started to draw phallic symbols on everything and anything in sight. Oh, the joy of teaching middle school.

Please, do not worry or have many negative thoughts toward this country! After a bit of ranting, I will share some incredible acts of human kindness and beauty, and some fun times in Korea.

One of the more entertaining and god awful boring things I've done in the recent past was a teacher's "Retreat" to Chicken University—at first I thought maybe we were going to a school of poultry science or something, but no, it is actually called Chicken University!!! Haaahaaaa. I guess it's a place where people from a large Korean fried chicken chain, under the name BBQ chicken (BBQ= Best of the Best Quality) come to train and be surrounded by chicken-ey things. Mom, you would have loved it, there were huge roosters everywhere!! I will post pictures soon. Well, this "Retreat" was not what I expected; it involved all of the teachers and administrators sitting around a table, with a lot of chicken and other food, for SEVEN hours…talking about how to discipline the students (which, you can tell from the first paragraph has worked incredibly well). They did this all in Korean, of course (which I am not angry about, only two of them speak English). In the few instances that I did know what they were talking about, I would pipe in with a suggestion and promptly get shot down, or looked at like I am a crazy, naïve white girl who has no say in how to discipline the students. So why was I there!!! Aaarrrggghhhhh….I wasn't happy to say the least.

With that said, any of you who were "bad seeds" in your schooling years have any advice for how to deal with these hellions?? I'm pretty sure these students are more like the American "bad" students of the eighties and nineties than they are similar to anything the Korean teachers are familiar with. P.S. after SEVEN hours of bickering, there were no conclusions or decisions made. It was all a grand waste of time and energy. I did get out some wonderful poetry though, classics I'd say. Here is one :

I am so bored,
This is worse than orientation,
At least I have Somaek and apples.
Let's just send all of the little F@#$#ers to boot camp!

Beautiful, isn't it? I was truly inspired.
After staying up until 1 A.M. talking about students we awoke the next morning at an ungodly hour and went for a hike, which ended up being Very Danger. It was a short hike, on Dodomunsan, which means "Crying Pig Mountain." It should have been peaceful and quick, but the teacher who led us was keen on going off trail—which was cool, apart from the two older ladies with us and my aging principal. He brought us to these cliffs that, if someone had fallen or slipped, would have killed one of us. The way down was less treacherous, and it was enjoyable overall.

That same week as the teacher's conference I spent four days with the seventh and eighth grade students at a kind of camp, where they learned about Korean history, did team building stuff and generally practiced good ol' Korean camaraderie. It was very fun, I got to rock climb a bit with the kiddies, and we all bonded. I was the only non-Korean there with three schools present, so I was part of the entertainment for the few days. Fun fun. I think that week straight of only Korean interaction is what helped drive me to my state of discontent. That, and missing the excitement around elections…GOOObbbaaammaaaa!!!

Since then, things have looked up! I've gone on some more hikes, visited some fellow teachers and celebrated Thanksgiving! A couple of weekends ago, three of my friends and I visited Mt Seoun (or Seounsan) in a neighboring city. It took us a long time to get there (about 2.5 hours on a bus, in a car it would have been about 40 minutes), and we were hungry once we arrived. (annnddd, we were a bit lost, I was the organizer…never a good thing. I thought we were getting dropped off at the bus terminal, but apparently the bus doesn't stop at the terminal, so the bus driver kind of dropped us off in the middle of the street once he realized we were still on the bus, and we had to wander a bit to get our bearings). We stopped in a restaurant that was closed, so we left, but then the owner yelled after us and told us we could eat there still! It was so nice of him, and it was a great place to eat. For 9,000 won (about $7) we could eat as much as we wanted from his buffet. And this was no ordinary buffet. It had all of the Korean side dishes, like kimchi, veggies, little shrimpy things, condiments, and other Korean faire. The best part, though, was the huge array of raw meat to choose from. There had to be about twelve different types of pork and beef, in different marinades and different cuts, and we could take as much as we wanted. We just grilled it all on our table and did the lettuce wrap thing. It was delicious, nutritious and extremely kind of the old man.

We finally made it to where we wanted to hike, after a long cab ride, and hiked a bit. People on the mountain were extremely nice too. One kept taking pics of us and told us he would e-mail them to us (which he hasn't yet….) and we were fed pretty well on the way up as well. After we finished the hike, we couln't figure out the bus schedule, cause it didn't appear to go to where we needed to catch a bus home. There was a temple at the base of the mountain, so we checked it out, and a Korean woman started speaking to my friend Sarah. I approached her and asked her if she could call a taxi for us, and Korean hullabaloo ensued. About ten Koreans immediately came from the woodwork, and in about ten minutes we were in somebody's car headed for the bus terminal. These people are crazy, and nice. Crazy nice. The best thing about that little interaction was when the woman showed us her "studying English" notebook, and the first thing we see is the word "lusty" and how it used in a sentence and then translated into Korean. Hilarious.

Well, this is getting pretty freaking long…but I'm gonna keep writing.

Last week a few of the Americans in town and one Canadian and I celebrated Turkey day in my apartment (which is extremely small). It was nice, we had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, mac and cheese, apple Danish things, and some wine. There was a small incident with the wine. I'll include one picture, to give you an idea, you can ask later if you'd like. It was clumsily hilarious.

I've also participated in the national sports of badminton and ping pong, and seem to be alright at both. But, I am not a fan of competitive ping pong. Or should I say, table tennis. The boys here are way too competitive. Whatever taste I had for poker is now totally gone, and I'd rather never speak about American football ever again (since I was such a fan before!!). I'll stick to playing with the girls I guess, they are way more fun.

Okay, I'm getting sick of writing now…sorry to rattle your ears/eyes. I hope the Holidays are treating you all wonderfully and with great cheer and all that jazz. Miss you mucho, wish I could be at home during this time!!! Let me know how life is going for you all!! Peace and Love, Alex p.s. I did start a blog, it is http://www.arexinkorearand.blogspot.com/, it is a bit random, and so far has a lot of Calvin & Hobbes cartoons. But check it out, leave me some love, maybe it will entertain you a bit. I'll try to update that more often than I write e-mails. I will also post e-mails to the blog.

I'm Walking down the Street with my Nike's on...

This past weekend was swanky-chic and a lot of fun! Since my birthday was on Friday, and two of my friends have birthdays on Thursday, we all decided to celebrate together by seeing some DJs at the Seoul W hotel. I had never been to anything like it, I've been in very nice hotels (Thank you dad :)) but I have never been to a night bar super swanky scene like this one. Koreans, and I think Asians in general, are especially adept at dressing to the nines and looking overall fabulous. Their impeccable style was complemented by the incredibly chic interior of the W's Bar--the Woobar (doesn't have that classy of a name...). Everything was white, white, white, with a huge bar--about fifty feet long. The Dance floor was shrouded in mirrors and the Dj booth was this space age looking bubble pod thing. And there are these egg shaped pod chairs everywhere too...Pretty futuristic and surreal.



We saw some pretty good DJs, house music mostly, and a House band called Oriental Funk Stew--I failed to hear any funk though...more Disco-ey. One of the best songs, which I have to track down some how was a remix of a song that goes, "I'm walking down the street with my nike's on..." and it repeats it a few times. There were also some remixes of some pretty bad songs, like that annoying "One more time" (not britney spears, the more nineties sounding one...), which the Koreans loved.

I have to say that at first I felt TOTALLY out of place....not expensive enough clothes, skinny enough legs, high enough heels (or any heel at all really...) or done up enough hair and make-up. I got over that relatively quickly though once we started dancing and realized that those people who were all made up and expensive A) didn't care what we looked like and B) were not having nearly as much fun as we were having.

Finished off the night at a cute motel with cheap rooms (about $20 a pop!) and had breakfast at an "American Diner" the next morning (wellll, i guess it was almost 2 P.M.). I had real bacon for the first time in a while!!

and the love affair continues

My obsession with Calvin and Hobbes continues, and perhaps is getting stronger. I totally forgot how perfect this comic strip can be for almost any occassion. This one for example...it explains korean cuisine to a T. hahahaaaaaa....freaking hilarious.