항상 음식에 대해 쓰네…

김치 찌개

Man. I was craving Kim Chi the last couple days so I had to make this last night. It wasn’t bad for my first attempt at 찌개 since coming back to the states. Indeed, I didn’t even make it like this in Korea very often I don’t think. It wasn’t bad for my first attempt here– definitely on the right track.

Eating this last night took me back to the cold winters in 광주, just like 됀장찌개 takes me back to the cold winter mornings in 청주 when Josh and I would eat 백반 with the MBC radio PD님 at the 기사식당 next door to the station…

Yes, a simple bowl of Kim Chi Jji-gae ended up as a trip down memory lane. It was like a time machine back to December of ’98…

In 광주(Kwang Ju) we’d often eat at a place on the second floor of a building in the 시내 near the 우체국 (post office). It was something between a cafeteria and a food court. One one hand, the food was really cheap (and tasted so), and the seating was also like a cafeteria. On the other hand, there were a number of different places that sold food, sort of in food court-fashion without the variety of a food court. I don’t know how many times I sat down there to eat a piping hot bowl of 참치 찌개 (Kim Chi Jji-gae with tuna as the meat) with rice, a side of kim chi, and a mug of cold water. That was the trick, I remember– figuring out which of the places had the best Kim Chi to go with their Jji-gae.

I still remember how it would still be boiling when they’d give it to you… not to mention spicy as heck– a stark contrast to the biting cold outside. Yes, the nose would be without doubt be running while eating that stuff. Anyways, another reason I ate it so often at that time was that I was serving with two Koreans.

Yes, often we’d end up with the sister missionaries (also Korean) for dinner appointments with members of the church, and it’d make me the lone whitey with all those Koreans. I think often it’s the other way around on missions, where there’s one Korean with group of white missionaries. Well, I can empathize with those lone Koreans in the group of whiteys. 😉 Though not for that reason, December of 1998 was one of the toughest months of my mission. It was tough because I was 3 months in country (green as ever) and we had a whack comp named 한동원 (Han Dongwon) who made it near impossible to do any real missionary work. Even as hard as it was, I still have a lot of nostagia for that time. Here are a few images from that time…

There’s the lone whitey with 6 Koreans 😀 I learned to eat Korean food like a champ, to say the least.

Elder Min, one of my comps at the time (the short dude in the very front), loved to take pictures. This was taken in front of an orphanage for disabled children that we did service at each week.

The tough part about being a tall white guy in a country full of average-to-short height Koreans is that you stick out like a sore thumb. As a result it wasn’t hard for this Korean celebrity or “talent” to single me out and humiliate me for the cause of a charity. My dignity was pretty much all I had to give anyways, didn’t really have any cash I could give them.

“Bending” the rules. Sister missionaries (well, women) aren’t allowed in the Elder’s houses and vice versa. I guess we decided the shoe pit didn’t constitute “house” so the sisters could sit in the shoe pit and still eat lunch at our house, hehe.

I did just state the rule about entering missionary houses of the opposite sex, didn’t I? Hehehe… yes I don’t know why one of my comps had a key to the sisters apartment but there’s the incriminating evidence. I did get a kick out of one sister’s reaction when we showed her this picture of us in her apartment: she first smiled at the picture and then gasped when she realized that was her underwear behind us in the picture, hehe.

We took these the night before I left Kwang Ju for the first time. It was almost a ritual to go get sticker 사진s (sa-jin– pictures) before leaving an area or companion. They had these sticker sa-jin booths all over in Korea. I’ve seen a couple since coming back to the states but they’re not quite as cool/zany as the ones in Korea. I remember they’d superimpose random images on the screen and fairly rapidly take a number of pictures in succession, so you were always trying to make a different face for each shot while making sure your face didn’t get blocked out by whatever image showed up on screen, hehe. Ah, the simple pleasures of life…