For the second part of my break I was able to go to Seoul, South Korea for a week and stay with the wonderful Park family, whose sons go/went to St. Stephen’s (my high school), and who are good family friends. My visit entailed experiencing the true difference between the Korean diet and pretty much any other food I’d ever had, being pulled up on stage at a Korean comedy show, having my most international New Year’s ever, seeing some of the coldest weather I’ve ever seen in person, and even going on a weekend ski trip with the family.
Food, in Korea, is not for the faint of heart. Virtually every thing that I ate during my week there was spiced in some way, from the kimchi-flavored lettuce to be used in lettuce wraps at the Korean BBQ restaurant to the chicken feet (yes, chicken feet) we snacked on while waiting for one of our meals. For those of you who don’t know, “kimchi” can basically include any of numerous Korean dishes made of picked vegetables and spices, the most common of which is the cabbage variety. Though the smell, texture, and general look of the dish aren’t the most appealing things in the world, it ends up making a pretty delicious addition to most Korean foods. Wikipedia fact of the day: kimchi is so ubiquitous in Korean gastronomy that the Korean space agency made a form of it to travel to space with their astronauts. I wonder if they make space Tex Mex…
Anyways, every meal that I had in Korea was shared family-style, even the one at Outback Steak House. After ordering, the waiter would bring out banchan, or a variety of side-dishes (including kimchi) that we ate before and during the meal. My biggest surprise (beyond the vast array of tastes arrayed before us) came when we actually began our meal. I found out fairly quickly that Korean table manners are different than any I’d experienced before- while in the States my mother had always strictly enforced the no-reaching-in-front-of-your-brother-to-get-last-piece-of-food rule, this simply was not present at the Korean table. Also, in Japan it is bad manners to pass food from chopsticks to chopsticks, so that when Mrs. Park offered me a piece of pork over the BBQ, I at first almost thought she wanted to feed it to me. The Japanese taboo comes from the fact that in traditional funerals that was the way that they passed the bones of the deceased after cremating them. After getting over the differences in table manners, I was ready to dig in to the cuisine, which included kimchi-pancakes, BBQ pork cooked on a grill in the middle of the table, various forms of what the Japanese would call nabe (dishes cooked in a big water-filled pot in the midde of the table), fried rice, white rice, small dehydrated fish, steak (thanks to Outback), cucumber soup, kimchi-(insert vegetable here), and of course the deboned, boiled, and kimchi-basted chicken feet (chewy and spicy, but surprisingly tasty).
Along with any good Korean meal must come some form of alcoholic beverage. During my time with the family we sipped on raspberry wine, Korean beer, souju (a vodka-like liquor made from potatoes), and makkoli/makgeolli (a milky and sweet rice wine).
Speaking of food, the boys, Alex and Jason, took me to Nanta, a Korean comedy show that I can only describe as the fusion of “Stomp,” Iron Chef, and a Jackie chan movie. Needless to say, it was pretty entertaining. At one point in the show, I was pulled up on stage and thrown into a mock wedding with one of the smallest women in the audience- if you’re lucky I may someday show you the photo proof of this event.
My most international New Year’s Eve/Day ever:
Because I was in Seoul for New Year’s, I had the opportunity to witness the way that the capital of Korea celebrated ringing in 2010, which they did quite literally by ringing a massive bell in the center of the city. The bell-ringing was preceded by several musical performances by Korean pop groups, appearances by various celebrities and government figures, and music performed on traditional Korean drums. Unlike New York City, New Years festivities were split up across Seoul, with the various performances at each being broadcast on TV’s at the other stages.
In saying that I had an “international” New Years, I mean that during the course of the evening/night/next morning I experienced a bit of American, Mexican, and of course Korean cultures: Outback Steakhouse with the Park family for dinner (I say this is American, because I’m not sure if they actually have them in Australia- I’m doubtful, for some reason), then met up with some American friends in downtown Seoul to head to the bell-ringing (we went to the main stage). At midnight, we ate grape candy and made a wish with a group of Mexican friends we’d made (you eat 12 grapes and make a wish at midnight in Hispanic culture), and then the next morning I awoke to a traditional Korean New Years breakfast, including fish and a soup called tteokguk, which consists of a broth and thinly sliced rice-cakes. It is a tradition to eat tteokguk on New Years because it is believed to grant the consumer luck for the forthcoming year and for him or her to supposedly gain an additional year of life.
When it comes to sightseeing, I walked around the city for two days and nights with Alex, and he gave me a pretty complete run-down of the northern half of the city, including the Shincheon area (popular for shopping and restaurants), Seoul Tower (from which one had a panoramic view of the entire city), a street lined with vendors of various souvenirs and treats (name forthcoming), the Seoul Lights Festival, the largest of the five national palaces in the city, and a peaceful canal-turned park in the middle of the city.
Though I don’t speak Korean, I was fascinated to observe people and note differences that I thought I saw between Korean and Japanese ways of interaction. This may be a product of having lived in the countryside for 5 1/2 months now, but whereas the Japanese are closely observant of personal space and downright apologetic when it is accidentally invaded, I found that brushing past people in the big city without a word to be the norm. Many of the interactions I noted in restaurants and stores were much less formal than what I’ve grown accustomed to in Japan, but I have to assume that Japan’s hyper-active and politeness-oriented service industry is the outlier on this one. Finally, I found Koreans to be much more direct in their interactions with one another, whereas I’m now used to the self-effacing and hinting nature of the way the Japanese express themselves. Of course, these observations were hindered by my lack of familiarity with the language, but they seemed to be the most self-evident.
Though I wasn’t able to make it to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea on this trip (something I’d been greatly looking forward to), the Parks took me on a ski trip for the weekend at the Phoenix Ski resort (which also had an indoor water-park that I found to be pretty remarkable), so I did end up making it out of Seoul for a few days.
I’m incredibly thankful to the Park family for giving me the chance to fully experience Seoul in a way that I would have had little chance to do otherwise. I’m definitely looking forward to making it back there at some point, hopefully after working a tad bit more on my Korean. I would highly recommend making the trip to anyone who isn’t afraid to try new (and spicy) cuisines, who is a fan of history, and wants to experience a truly different culture, distinct even from those in surrounding countries.
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