Korea - The Final Word in Basketball Diplomacy

As I'm blogging about a new place, I like to keep an eye on the news coming from that country - generally, things are pretty quiet and it makes you realise that, political hot-spots apart, not much happens in other parts of the world that would catch the attention of the international media. Not so with Korea, especially North Korea - which has been constantly in the news in the past few weeks. 

Whether it's the 60th anniversary celebrations, the wrangling over the Kaesong Industrial zone, or the South Koreans shooting dead a man trying to cross the border to enter the North - Korea is one of those places that easily makes the news headlines. 

Basketball coaching in Pyongyang by Scot Byrd

One of the weirdest news stories I've read about North Korea in the past few weeks, involves the US basketball player Dennis Rodman who has, quite famously, made two trips to North Korea this year - he is believed to be the first American to meet North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong-un and, being interviewed at the airport in Beijing, declared that 'He [Kim Jong-un] is my friend for life - I don't care what you guys think about him'

Rodman has quite a reputation for (what people in England would call) eccentricity, back in the States - he's probably just as famous for his piercings and ever-changing hair colour, as he is for his basketball legacy and awards, not to mention dating Madonna and appearing naked with basketballs on the cover of his autobiography, Bad As I Wanna Be. 

I can see what's in it for Rodman - perhaps a genuine desire to do something useful, backed up with the need for continued celebrity, now that his heyday as a basketball player is over.  But what's in it for Kim?  Does he even realise (or care) how all of this is perceived in the West? 

North Korean kids playing basketball by Scot Byrd

I'm also wondering why sport is increasingly seen as a major political arena for the big issues of 21st century life?  Sure, sport can bring people together, despite its competitiveness, it's something that's enjoyed the world over - the Olympic games, the FIFA World Cup, ping pong, cricket, even basketball can create wonderful opportunities for cultural exchange.  But sport can also be divisive - North Korea boycotted the Seoul Olympics in 1988, a real missed opportunity for both Koreas to welcome the world and celebrate the Olympic games together.

But does sport really have all the answers?  To homophobia in Russia?  To racism on the football fields?  To nuclear weapons in Pyongyang?  And is someone like Dennis Rodman really the best person to manage diplomacy with an erratic regime like Kim Jong-un's?  Will his attempts to bring NBA players to North Korea really bring Americans and North Koreans closer together, or will it backfire, when Kim Jong-un realises what a circus this whole thing is?  Who knows - but it'll be interesting to see what happens next in the Rodman/North Korean story!

Image credits:

I found these wonderful images by Scot Byrd (aka byrdsiz) of young North Koreans playing basketball on Flickr and they have been shared with us using the Creative Commons license.  It looks as though Scot travelled to North Korea with a basketball initiative known as Project uNKnown - which looks like a genuinely ground-breaking initiative to use basketball as a way of overcoming cultural boundaries and getting to 'know' each other.   Thanks Scot for sharing these images with us. 

Korea - Tools for research: the Movies

I've watched a lot of Korean movies in the last couple of months - I should say South Korean, as I haven't yet come across any North Korean movies that are easily accessible.  I'm sure North Korea has a movie industry - it's well known that Kim Jong-Il was a massive fan of the movies - but there are very few North Korean movies available in the West. 

By contrast, South Korean movies are, like Japanese movies, becoming increasingly popular in the West. I watched Park Chan-wook's Oldboy (2003) long before I started researching Korea for this blog.  We seem to like Japanese horrors and Korean thrillers.  Western directors are even making Hollywood versions of East Asian blockbusters, although they're rarely as good as the originals.

One thing I noticed about Korean cinema is how violent Korean movies are!  Almost every movie I watched had high levels of violence, often against women and I found it a little bit disturbing.  I'm beginning to wonder whether or not this reflects a high level of violence in Korean society?

So, here are the movies I watched, in the order that I watched them:

You only need to watch one movie to learn everything you need to know about Korean culture and that is The Host (2006) dir. Bong Joon-ho.  I really enjoyed this movie, with its scaly-green river creature, iconic shots of the Nam River and a very funny performance by Song Kang-ho - it's an incredibly political movie and has a lot to say about the presence of the US army in South Korea.  It's the highest-grossing Korean movie of all time, having sold 13 million tickets at the box office. 




I wasn't quite as keen on A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) dir. Kim Ji-woon - based on a well-known Korean folk tale, I found the plot very confusing and wasn't quite sure what was going on for most of the movie.  I guess knowing Korean culture better might have helped.

I absolutely loved Joint Security Area (JSA) (2000) dir. Park Chan-wook - it's an incredibly sweet story - despite the action-movie-sounding name - and I'd highly recommend it, as a 'feel good' movie that shows how people are just people, regardless of which side of a political border they live on.  I think this movie, more than any other, brought South Korean cinema to the world's attention.




Although, mostly set in the US, I thought it would also be important to watch The Manchurian Candidate (1962) dir. John Frankenheimer and starring Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh and (bizarrely) a stunning performance from Angela Lansbury - I didn't realise Angela Lansbury did proper movies, as I mostly associate her with the TV series, Murder, She Wrote.  The movie is partly set during the Korean War and has a fantastically complicated plot involving Communist brain-washing!

Park Chan-wook made Oldboy as part of a trilogy of films and I watched the other two movies in the trilogy - Sympathy for Mr Vengeance (2002) and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) - I guess Park Chan-wook is mostly responsible for my impression that all Korean movies are violent and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance was particularly violent with an interesting vigilante justice element that made me scream at the big screen - 'No, no, don't do it!'  I noticed with Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and other Korean movies, a peculiar obsession with heroes (or anti-heroes) who are disabled - the main character in this movie, Ryu (played by Shin Ha-kyun) is deaf/mute and Chan-wook cleverly plays around with sound, to give us an idea of life in Ryu's world.

Also featuring a main character who doesn't speak during the entire movie, I really loved 3-Iron (2004) dir. Kim Ki-duk.  With Joint Security Area, this was my favourite of all the movies I watched.  It's a pity about the title though, which gives the wrong impression in English - I much prefer the Korean title, 빈 집 which means 'Empty Houses'.  It's a beautiful story and oddly romantic. 



I was a bit bored by Natural City (2003) dir. Min Byeong-cheon - the first Korean Sci-Fi I've ever watched.  I'm a fan of Sci-Fi, so I was a bit disappointed, as the plot wasn't really up to much and, like A Tale of Two Sisters, I wasn't always 100% sure of what was going on.  An interesting thing about futuristic/science fiction movies is that they seem to recreate the past, when trying to imagine the future and I felt with this movie, quite ironically, that I was getting an insight into what life was like in Korea in the Joseon dynasty - apart from the flying saucers and computers that is!

Although I'd seen South Korea's most famous LGBT film before, I wanted to re-watch No Regret (2006) dir. Leesong Hee-il (South Korea's only openly gay film director) with a greater awareness of Korean culture this time.  It's a great movie and cautiously optimistic, although it shows how difficult life can be for gay men in South Korea (I can't even imagine how hard life is for gay men in North Korea).  It has a strong storyline and is tender, violent, passionate and dispassionate in equal measure. 

Last, but not least, I watched The Housemaid (2010) dir. Im Sang-soo - this was a great movie, about the exploitation of a maid in a modern Korean household.  The Housemaid was nominated for the Palme D'Or at Cannes Film Festival in 2010 and I would highly recommend it.  Im Sang-soo is an interesting director and I would like to watch more of his movies. 

Korea - Tools for research: The Books

I think I went overboard this time, with the number of books I read and movies I watched related to Korea!  So much so, that I have to separate the books and movies into two blog posts, otherwise it would be a very long list for you to read, all in one go!

I've also spent two months on Korea, which is a long time - although this did include my summer vacation and other real-life travel. 

The Books

I read way too many books about Korea - although I finished most of them, I had to stop myself in the end, otherwise I could have spent another few weeks reading and writing about Korea!  If you're interested in finding out more about Korea, I would recommend all of the following:

Korea: Insight Guides (2003) - ed. Tom Le Bas - I always find the Insight guides really useful, to give me an overview of the history and culture of the place that I'm blogging about.  I don't usually buy the most up-to-date versions, as they cost a lot of money, but I get older versions for a penny (literally!) online. This guidebook mostly covers South Korea, but I'd recommend it nevertheless.

Korea: Culture Smart! (2012) - James Hoare - Culture Smart! is another great little series of books and I always really enjoy reading them - the edition on Korea is particularly good and James Hoare is an ex-British diplomat who has written quite a few books on East Asia, including a book on the conflict in Korea that he co-wrote with his wife, Susan Pares.  I did buy the newest edition of this book, as I've got quite a nice collection of these cultural guides building up on my bookshelf!

Nothing to Envy (2010) - Barbara Demick - this is a great book and I really got a lot out of it.  Barbara focuses on the stories of refugees from Chonjin, in the far north of North Korea and tries to piece together a picture of what life must be like for North Korea's 25 million inhabitants.  I blogged about this in my post Something to Envy?

The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (2012) - Victor Cha - it really pains me that I didn't have time to finish this book, but I discovered it quite late into my blogging experience and, at more than 400 pages long, I just didn't have time to read the whole thing.  In the 100 or so pages that I did read, I found Cha's writing incredibly engaging and interesting.  Ah well, perhaps I will be able to return to it at a later date!  I'd definitely recommend this book, if you are interested in learning more about North Korea.

Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behaviour and Evolution (2001) - Raymond Coppinger and Lorna Coppinger.  This is a brilliant book and really made me question man's relationship with dogs.  The Coppingers are champion sled dog racers and passionate advocates of a greater, more scientific understanding of dogs than we currently have.  It's a bit heavy-going at times, but worth the brain power, if you want to understand the evolution of dogs and dog psychology.

My Sister Bongsoon (2005) - Ji-young Gong - somewhere in the midst of all this research, I even managed to read a Korean novel (in translation, of course!).  It was really interesting and covered a lot of social issues related to the treatment of maids and class differences in Korean society.

Literature from the Axis of Evil (2006) - a Words without Borders anthology, which includes writing from North Korea, but also Iran, Iraq and 'other enemy nations'.  This is a great collection and I read all of the North Korean texts - the first time I've ever read literature of this kind.  According to the editors, only 3% of books in the English-speaking world are in translation, which is pretty shocking and makes me wonder how much great literature we're missing out on, because it isn't translated into English?  I'm a passionate believer in discovering the literature of other countries and this book embodies the spirit of discovery and understanding that I think is so important in our increasingly globalised (and anglicised era)

The Food and Cooking of Japan and Korea (2010) - Emi Kazuko and Young-jin Song - last, but definitely not least, I discovered this wonderful book of Japanese and Korean recipes.  Having initially borrowed a copy from my local library, I felt the need to buy my own copy, in the end, as it's probably one of the best recipe books I've ever come across.  Not only does it give you lots of great recipes, with plenty of pictures and easy explanations, but there are also extensive sections on the Japanese and Korean kitchens - everything you might expect to find there, as well as detailed descriptions of the ingredients used in Korean and Japanese food. It's a book that I'm sure I will treasure for a long time to come!

Image credits:

The image of the book cover was taken by me. 

Korea - Ten random facts

It's almost time for my research on Korea to come to an end.  It's been a fantastic learning experience and I find myself browsing flights from London to Seoul - I am indeed very tempted to see Korea for myself, at least South Korea, as a more accessible (and cheaper) option!

A change to the process

In a departure from my blogging tradition, I've decided to split my final post about Korea into three installments.  This time, in particular, I have gathered a lot of information and I'm afraid that putting it all in one blog post would be overwhelming for you, dear Reader!

The areas I usually cover in my final blog post are:

1. Dinner party trivia: some random facts about the country, which you can use to impress people at dinner parties!)

2. Tools for research: a list of all of the movies I've watched, books I've read and music I've listened to, as part of my research on whichever place I'm blogging about.

3. The Final Word: Usually a smaller bite-sized topic - generally on a topic that I didn't have time to research fully, but one that interested me nonetheless.

Traditional Korea by Smulan77

In this blog post, I'll give you the dinner party trivia - although I've learned so many interesting things about Korea that I've decided to limit this to the ten most interesting things. 

Ten random facts about Korea

1. I was fascinated to learn about the Rangoon bombing of October 1983 - this was an assassination attempt on the life of Chun Doo-hwan, the fifth President of South Korea.  I'd never heard about this before and find it bizarre that the North Koreans could carry out an attack like this, in the territory of a third country, Burma/Myanmar!  21 people were killed in the attack, including 4 Burmese citizens - however, the President survived unscathed, as his motorcade got stuck in traffic and he arrived late for his official appointment at the Martyr's Mausoleum.

2. Two of Korea's most famous brand names are not family names (as I'd previously thought), but are based on concepts.  Hyundai 현대 means 'modern', Samsung, 삼성 (or more obviously in Korean hanja 三星) means 'three stars'.

3. By all accounts, dealing in foreign currency in North Korea is a crime which is punishable by death.  North Korea is one of only five countries in the world that still carry out public executions.  As I was researching for this blog post, it was reported that Hyon Song Wol, a North Korean singer and Kim Jong Un's ex-girlfriend was executed by firing squad, along with 11 other entertainers accused of making pornographic films.

Seoul by Smulan77

4. The US government considered South Korea under President Park in the 1970's to be somewhat of a 'rogue state' which was covertly trying to develop nuclear weapons, against the wishes of the international community!

5. Like most people, I was vaguely aware of the North Korean dynasty and its Presidents, however, I had no idea that South Korea has just elected its first female President, Park Geun-Hye (in February of this year).  She is the daughter of the Park Chung-Hee, who was President of South Korea from 1963 until 1979.  Park Geun-Hye lost both of her parents to the bullets of assassins (her mother was killed in an assassination attempt on her father in 1974.  Her father was assassinated in 1979)

6. The British attempted to establish a colony in Korea in the 1880's via the short-lived settlement, a small group of islands with the main base at Port Hamilton - the islands are now known by their Korean name, 거문도 Geomun-do

Traditional costumes by Smulan77

7. Koreans are sometimes called the Irish of the Orient because of their love of drinking and singing - especially melancholy songs!

8. Perhaps more so than any modern country, Korean culture is defined by Confucian values - these permeate traditional ceremonies, such as ancestor worship, but also business practices and how people relate to each other socially.

9. Many Koreans are superstitious when it comes to the number 4 - 사 this is because it sounds a lot like the word for 'dead'.  Tetraphobia - fear of the number 4 - is quite common in East Asian societies. 

10. Our spelling of Seoul - with its unusual combination of vowels, comes from the French spelling of the name of the South Korean capital.  In the 19th century, Korea was known as the Hermit Kingdom, because of its refusal to engage with, namely, European traders.  The only Europeans who penetrated this cultural blockade were the French missionaries based in China.  A handful of French missionary priests were executed by the Joseon dynasty in 1865, prompting the French to invade Korea a year later!

Image credits:

For the purposes of this blog post, I want to highlight the photography of Flickr member Smulan77 - Smulan77 has a whole series of photos of South Korea, which you can see on his photostream.

Korea - Is Man a Dog's Best Friend?

When I was researching for my blog post on Korea - the Google Instant Test, I noticed a lot of interest from Western readers, as to whether or not Koreans eat dog meat.  It got me thinking, in a much broader sense about the human-dog relationship, probably one of the most important inter-species relationships/partnerships on our planet and how this key relationship matters to us, even when we are assessing our relationship with humans from another culture. 

My experience of dogs

I've always liked dogs.  Being Irish, I grew up in a society where dogs were everywhere.  We had a Jack Russell for many years and she produced several litters of pups, some of which became household pets.  I now live in England, where people seem to be obsessed with dogs.  People allow dogs to sleep in the same bed as them - people take their dogs to groomers, costing up to £50 a session!  Just take a walk through an English park in early summer and you'll begin to understand the important place dogs occupy in English society.

When I was growing up in Ireland, dogs were mostly kept outside, as yard pets.  This now seems to be changing and I sense a general evolution in people's attitude towards dogs - they are no longer animals, but part of the family, companions, man's best friend . . . Dogs may be a man's best friend, but I'm beginning to wonder whether the opposite statement is also true - ie. Is Man a Dog's best friend?

Just another consumer product?



Dalmatian on Cable Beach, WA

In a way, dogs are evolving, or being shaped, to meet the demands of human consumerism - we're breeding them smaller and cuter into all kinds of freaky shapes and sizes, some of which are physically debilitating, even unnatural.  It's as though dogs are replacing a human need for control that has long since been blurred by the fast pace of modern living.  They've become another symbol of our desire to be a master over the natural world - to see unconditional love reflected in the eyes of another creature.

A new way of thinking about dogs

One of the things I love about doing this blog is that I read things and learn things which change my perspective on the world.  Like many people reading this post, I've previously just accepted man's relationship with dogs and never really had a reason to question it.  Now, just as many people wonder why Koreans would want to eat dog - I'm beginning to wonder why people would want to own a dog, to keep it in their house, feed it, groom it, entertain it, exercise it and pay expensive veterinary bills when the dog gets ill?

As part of my research, I've read an eye-opening book called Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behaviour and Evolution (The University of Chicago Press, 2002) by Raymond Coppinger and Lorna Coppinger.  For anyone interested in dog behaviour and the origin of dogs as a species (and they are a relatively new species), then I would highly recommend getting a copy of this book (although I had to order it from the United States).  Raymond and Lorna are biologists and champion sled-dog trainers and I think their explanation of the role dogs play in human society makes a lot of sense. 

Dawn of the Dog

The Gamekeeper by Richard Ansdell

One of the main arguments they make is that man didn't somehow tame wolves and therefore produce dogs.  Wolves are wild animals and are not tameable - even after several generations, they are genetically programmed to behave in a certain way.  It's more likely that dogs tamed themselves, by modifying their behaviour and, ultimately, losing their fear of the human race.  Modern dogs are descendants of wild dogs (or perhaps wolves) who saw an opportunity in the new ecological niche that was created when humans first changed their nomadic lifestyles, turning to agricultural and settling in small villages based on clans. 

With agriculture and the first human settlements came food surplus and the first village dumps.  The Coppingers argue that the ancestors of dogs were scavengers at these village dumps (not only dogs, but also rats, domestic cats and other animals).  They became attracted to the constant source of food at these 'new' settlements and evolved their behaviour in a way that brought them ever closer to the ultimate source of food, humankind!  Over the years, dogs have become man's true companions and, as a species, they are flourishing with an estimated 400 million dogs worldwide, compared to 400 thousand wolves. 

Ways of interpreting the human-dog relationship

We've taught dogs to care for other animals, to guard our properties, guide blind people, rescue human beings trapped in the snow, pull sleds . . . you name it!  But what is the true relationship between humans and dogs?  The Coppingers' posit several different ways of understanding this relationship:

Dogs learn to respond to human needs from an early age

Commensualism: ie. where one species benefits (dogs), but the other doesn't (humans).  This would fit the mould for dogs scavenging at the village dump.  Whilst, in the West, we tend to think of dogs as pets, the reality is that most of the world's dogs are village dogs, belonging to no-one in particular and scavenging off the leftovers of human meals. 

Mutualism: ie. where both species benefit from each other.  Most people would assume that this is the proper interpretation of the human-pet dog relationship - ie. we feed them, they love us!

Parasitism: ie. where one species benefits at the expense of the other.  This is probably a truer reflection of the human-pet dog relationship.  In Western society, pet dogs cost a lot of money, giving us, arguably, very little in return.  The reality is that pet dogs are needy, expensive to feed and live short lives, often beset with health problems because we've bred them into unnatural forms!

Dogs as modern-day slaves?

Think about how we treat dogs - is it really love, care and loyalty?  Or consumerism, degradation and enslavement?  The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that man is not dog's best friend, but that we are somehow locked in a parasitic relationship that is degrading to both species! 

Dogs have evolved because of changes in the way humans live - they are a species that mostly owe their existence to us - if humans suddenly disappeared off the planet, most household dogs wouldn't survive.  Conversely, humans would survive without dogs, although I imagine the loss of dogs would have a great impact on our collective cultural psyche. 

I find the human-dog relationship endlessly fascinating and I'm sure I'll come back to it in future blog posts!

Image credits:

Both photos were taken by me - the first in Australia, the second in Russia. 

The painting is by Richard Ansdell and depicts a typical scene from the human-dog relationship.  It's in the public domain and therefore copyright-free. 

Korea - Something to Envy?

I've just finished reading Barbara Demick's book Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea (2010).  It's a fascinating read and I feel that this book has given me a real insight into what has happened on the Korean peninsula, especially North Korea, in the past 60 years.  I'm also left wondering, as so many have been left wondering before me, how the North Korean regime has managed to hold on to power for so long?

I wanted to share three things I learned from Demick's book, that I think are important or resonate with places I've blogged about in the past.

1. The Famine

View from the Juche Tower by Marcelo Druck

I'd normally consider myself to be quite well up on world affairs but, somehow, I seem to have completely missed the fact that there was a major famine in North Korea, between 1994 and 1998.  True, it was a time in my life when I was bit disengaged from the bigger picture, mostly concentrating on my final exams at university and my first attempts at travelling and living abroad. 

Or perhaps I'm not the only one who missed this?  Perhaps it wasn't really known in the West at the time, due to the secrecy surround the hermitic People's Democratic Republic?  It's estimated that anything up to 3.5 million people died during the Famine (Demick puts the figure between 600,000 and 2 million) and I find it astounding that this could happen, in the closing decade of the 20th century, in a country surrounded by some of the most prosperous nations on Earth!

2. The North Korean Army

Portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il by Marcelo Druck

I also learned that North Korea, which has a similar population to Ghana and less than half the population of the UK, has the fourth largest army in the world!  There are 1.1 million people actively serving in the Korean People's Army, out of a total population of around 25 million people.  Unbelievably, North Korea has a larger army than Russia and is only surpassed in size by the new Superpowers; China, the United States and India. 

If you also count reserves and paramilitary forces, then North Korea has the biggest army in the world, almost 9.5 million people!  Perhaps this explains why the regime has stayed in power for so long?  Demick also explains North Korea's Songun or military-first policy, which prioritises the People's Army, in terms of resources and food supplies.  It has to be said that South Korea is also an incredibly militarised society, for its size.  With a population similar to England, South Korea's army is three times the size of the British army.

3. Mongolia's soft spot for religious dissenters?

Juche Tower by Marcelo Druck

Much of Demick's research is backed up by real-life stories of North Koreans who defected to South Korea and I found it interesting to read about the Mongolian route to South Korea.  The only way out of North Korea is across the northern border to China - those who can afford it organise fake passports that will get them on flights from Harbin and Beijing to Seoul.  For those with limited resources, fleeing to Mongolia is the best, albeit, more perilous option.

I noticed that the stories about defectors via Mongolia seemed to mostly involve North Koreans who were practising, or claiming to practise Christianity and it reminded me of my previous blogging about Mongolia, when I learned about the 'loss of religion' in Mongolia and how this has impacted on the national psyche.  Perhaps the Mongolians have something of a soft spot for the religious refugees fleeing North Korea?

Nothing to Envy

The title of Demick's book is from a popular slogan used by the establishment in North Korea.  She uses this slogan ironically - it should mean 'North Korea has nothing to envy in the rest of the world', but it could also mean 'The rest of the world has nothing to envy in North Korea' - also the fact that 'envy' is suggested at all, reveals that it's probably the greatest fear that the North Korean regime has - ie. that it's people will finally succumb to the temptations of the decadent capitalist world around them. 

I've just started reading another great book - The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (2013) by Victor Cha and he also makes a reference to this slogan.  I'm not sure if I'll have time to finish Cha's book, before my month (or so) with Korea runs out, which is a pity, as I'm already getting quite involved in his interpretation of recent events. 

Who knows what the future holds for Korea - every political analyst and commenter seems to have underestimated the power of the North Korean state and we've been led to believe that the People's Democratic Republic could fall any day now, except it never does!

Image credits:

For this blog post, I wanted to highlight the photography of flickr member mardruck - aka Marcelo Druck.  Marcelo has taken some really beautiful photos in Korea and North East Asia - these photos are from the set Pyongyang - thanks Marcelo for sharing these images with us, using the Creative Commons License. 

Korea - How I made Naengmyun - 냉면

In my search for a traditional Korean dish, I stumbled upon a really great cookbook The Food and Cooking of Japan and Korea (2010) by Emi Kazuko and Young Jin-Song.  Not only does it have lots of great recipes, well-described with plenty of pictures (which all good recipe books should have!) - but they also provide a narrative explanation and background to Japanese and Korean cooking and what you can expect to find in Japanese and Korean kitchens. 

Finding myself spoilt for choice, I decided to steer away from Korean dishes, like Bulgogi, that might be more familiar to the European palate - instead I chose a less familiar dish Naengmyun.  Perfect for hot summer weather -  it translates as 'cold noodles'

The Ingredients

The ingredients

350g of beef - 쇠고기 (saegogi) - the recipe said 90g, but I didn't think this would be enough
1 onion - 양파 (yangpa)
1/4 white radish/mooli - 무 (mu)
1/2 cucumber - 오이 (oi)
1 leek - 리크 (likeu)
1 Asian pear - 배나무 (baenamu) - unfortunately, I couldn't find an Asian pear, so I substituted with a European pear - 서양배 (seoyangbae)
Fresh ginger - 생강 (saeng-gang)
4 cloves of garlic - 마늘 (maneul)
Buckwheat noodles - 소바 (soba)
Shaoxing rice wine - 사오싱주 (saosingju)
Mustard - 머스터드 (meoseuteodeu)
1 egg - 달걀 (dalgyal)
salt - 소금 (sogeum)
sugar - 설탕 (seoltang)

How I made Naengmyun - 냉면

I started by boiling a large pot of water, then added the beef which I had cut into strips.  The recipe recommended boiling a whole flank of beef and cutting it into strips later, but I thought this method would be more effective and less messy!

Bring a pot of water to the boil and add the beef strips

It's important to scoop away the beefy froth that forms on top of the boiling water, before reducing the heat to let the beef boil for about an hour. 

Remove the beefy froth that forms on top of the boiling water

Whilst the beef was boiling I prepared other elements of the dish.  Something I've noticed about North East Asian cooking is that it mostly involves preparing lots of little bits and pieces of dishes, which are later combined by the diner to create a full meal.  Naengmyun was no exception. 

First I prepared the white radish - by cutting off 1/4 of the vegetable - peeling it and chopping it into small bite-size sticks.  It was my first time to prepare white radish and I really like the taste and crunchy texture of it.  I coated the radish sticks in sugar, salt and rice wine.  I then prepared the cucumber and pear in a similar way and put all three in the fridge to be served later.

White radish, called Mooli in Hindi

Chop the white radish into bite-size sticks

Prepare the cucumber by de-seeding

Also take the core out of the pear

Cucumber and pear sticks ready for chilling!

Next I prepared the noodles - boiling them in water for about two minutes, before draining them until the water ran clear.  I also put them in a bowl in the fridge for later. 

Boil the buckwheat noodles (soba) for about two minutes

After simmering the beef for 45 minutes, I prepared the vegetables that would go with it, to make the broth.  This involved washing and chopping the leek, cutting the onion, garlic and ginger root into small pieces.  Once the beef had simmered for about an hour, I added the vegetables, brought the whole lot to the boil and then simmered again for another twenty minutes.

Prepare the leek, onion, ginger and garlic

Add the vegetables to the pot and simmer for a further 20 minutes

My final touch was to prepare a saucer and ramekin with the condiments; salt, sugar, rice wine and ginger - to be added to the soup at the very end.  I also hard-boiled an egg and put this in the fridge to chill. 

The condiments: sugar, salt, mustard and Shaoxing rice wine

When the beef and vegetables had fully cooked, I strained the broth into a container - put the meat and vegetables in another container and put the whole lot in the fridge to chill.

Beef and vegetable broth

Chill the beef and vegetables in the fridge

Naengmyun is best served cold, on a hot summer's day.  It's a bit weird, from a European perspective, to eat cold soup, but I wanted to do it proper Korean-style! 

Naengmyun

Close-up with Hite beer

After chilling all the ingredients, I set the table - then invited my partner to make his dinner by adding the cold broth, noodles, meat and vegetables, radish, cucumber and pear sticks, egg and condiments.  Oh - and not forgetting a cold Hite beer!

Buying Korean food in London

Although I couldn't find Asian pear, I managed to find all of the other ingredients for this dish by taking a trip to Burlington Road in New Malden, Kingston-upon-Thames - the heart of London's Korean community. 

As well as buying the ingredients for Naengmyun, I also bought some ready-made Kimchi (김치 ) and some Soju (소주), just to taste!

Kimchi and Soju

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me, please feel free to reuse, under the Creative Commons license:

Attribution (especially to this blog post)
Share alike
Non-commercial   

Korea - the Google Instant test

I want to introduce a new feature to my blog this month.  It's something I find quite fascinating, as I've been researching different world cultures for this blog: I'm calling it the Google Instant test.

Since Google introduced Google Instant in 2010, you may have noticed that, when you start typing something in the Google search field, a drop down list of suggested topics appears and changes 'instantly' as you're typing.

The intention is to save users time and, I'm assuming, the suggestions are based on the most googled topics.  Try typing - Are Germans . . . or Do French people . . . or Is China . . . into Google's search engine and the resulting most-frequently-googled questions are often quite amusing, occasionally sad or even shocking!  Some of the questions people ask make me wonder about the future of the human race!  Others are incredibly revealing, honest or relevant - depending on what you think the motivation for asking might be.

Here's what I found when I started asking questions about Korea:

Is Korea going to bomb us?

With variations - eg. Is Korea going to bomb UK? and Is Korea going to bomb America?  Of course, my Google Instant test is English-language based and, undoubtedly, the questions reflect the obsessions of English-language speakers, or those who use the English as their main access-language for the Internet.   

It's quite a sad question really and reflects the genuine anxiety that is out there about Korea - presumably, North Korea and the fear that Pyongyang is stacked high with nuclear weapons, ready to bring down Western civilisation! 

I'm no expert, but I very much doubt that 'Korea' is going to bomb us.  Despite the occasional media-frenzy about countries in the Axis of Evil - as far as I understand it,

North Korea is an incredibly impoverished nation whose government rattles the sabres of war every now and then but, realistically, doesn't have the ability to seriously threaten either the US or Britain.  That doesn't mean that the situation in North Korea isn't worrying, but it's always good to keep things in perspective and see through the politically-motivated hyperbole.

Do Koreans eat dogs?

Dog on Cable Beach by Me

Well, I guess the answer is yes.  From what I've read, Koreans - particularly Korean men - do occasionally eat dog.  Not pet dogs, but a special kind of dog, Poongsan, whose meat is called Gaegogi and is prepared in a special soup called bosintang - which means 'body nourishing soup'. 

As far as I can tell, it's not an incredibly common practice and the consumption of dog meat is restricted to certain traditions and often hidden from foreign visitors.  It's interesting how obsessed we are (at least, we in the West) about other people's eating habits - I touched on this in a previous blog post about allegations of cannibalism in the South Pacific.  

Do Koreans eat cats?

I very much doubt that this is true, although Koreans may have eaten cats in the past.  Again, I think this obsession with what Koreans eat reveals more about us in the 'West' than it does about Koreans!  Eating cats seems to be particularly taboo to me and I was surprised to see this question appearing, whereas I could have predicted the dog-eating question.  I did come across stories of cat-eating, very recently, when I was researching for my blog post about Jersey during the Nazi occupation. 

Do Koreans use chopsticks?

Yes, they do and I've read that the tradition in Korea is to use metallic chopsticks, rather than the wooden (or plastic) ones that people use in China and Japan.  Of course, Koreans share a lot of cultural traditions with both China and Japan, but they have a slightly different tradition in Korea, where they use chopsticks and a spoon to eat their meals.  The spoon is used for eating rice.

Are Koreans Chinese?

Korean dancer by Brendan Lally

I found this question a bit strange - Koreans are obviously not Chinese, but I guess I can understand why people would ask, especially coming from a society which is remote from East Asia - it's a bit like saying Are Scottish people English?  Koreans share a lot of their culture with China, especially Manchuria, but they have managed to maintain an independent culture, language and, perhaps, outlook on the world.

After the partition of Korea, North Korea was particularly close to China and received a lot of support from its fellow-Communist neighbour.  China established diplomatic relations with South Korea in the early 1990's and, economically at least, it would seem as though China and South Korea are getting along just fine. 

Do Koreans have middle names?

Korean naming traditions are very interesting and I can understand why this question is so popular as it does indeed look as though all Koreans have a middle name.  Koreans tends to put their family name first (opposite to the Western tradition) - the most common family names being Kim, Lee and Park.  Interestingly, most people share one syllable of their first name with their siblings, although this doesn't seem to be a hard a fast rule.

For example, Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General of the UN, has three children; two girls, Ban Seon-Yong and Ban Hyun-hee and one son, Ban Woo-hyun - one daughter and son share a common syllable hyun.  It's also interesting that Ban Ki-Moon's wife is called Yoo Soon-taek - Korean women don't give up their birth name when they get married.

Do Koreans have eyelashes?

Detail of Hong Sung Chul's 'Eye' by robpatrick

I found this question to be extremely bizarre!  Why wouldn't Koreans have eyelashes?  It's also worrying that this question is the second most popular in the Do Koreans have . . category. 

From what little I know about Koreans - at least, South Koreans - they have a strong sense of aesthetic and, like many people in East Asia, they spend a lot of money on cosmetics, skin-whiteners and fashion.  Seoul has it's own fashion week and Korean designers, such as Andre Kim and Doo-Ri Chung, are known the world over.

These are just a few of the 'top' questions about Korea - I'm very aware that there are other search engines out there apart from Google and other languages apart from English but, still, I think the results are fairly revealing and an interesting filter which shows Western 'understanding' or obsessions about Korean culture.   

Image credits:

The image of the dog was taken by me on Cable Beach, Broome, Western Australia.  

The image of the dancer is by Dance photographer - Brendan Lally - you can see more of Brendan's images on his photostream. 

The close-up of Hong Song Chul's art work was taken by Flickr member robpatrick

Thanks to Brendan and Rob for sharing these images with us, using the Creative Commons license.  

Korea - a Tale of Two Nations

Taking on Korea is quite a challenge - with a combined population of around 74 million and a land area slightly smaller than that of the UK, both the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) offer a rich tapestry of culture, music, movies and literature, which will be hard to capture in a small number of blog posts.  I see this as my starting point with the Koreas and I may come back to either country in more detail at a later date.

I also feel that it's important to look at both Koreas, in this first virtual journey around Korean culture.  Perhaps South Korea is much more familiar to us, because of links with the US and the West?  North Korea seems distant and remote - an experience which lies outside the realms of Western imagination - but a place that is fascinating, nonetheless.

Koreans in Uzbekistan and Ireland

My experience of Korea comes mostly through the many Uzbeks and Tajik families, who saw their fathers and older brothers heading off to Seoul and Pusan, to earn money which they would send back home to Uzbekistan.  Their experience of Korea sounded pretty harsh to me - uncomfortable living conditions and relentless work in a society where they are, on the whole, regarded with suspicion.

In an ironic reversal of history, I also met my first Koreans in Uzbekistan, Russian-speaking descendants of Korean peasants who were moved away from the Russian border with Korea, so it could be populated by white Europeans.  I also briefly taught two Korean students during a summer I spent in Dublin - they were incredibly polite, deferential and diligent.

Korea in the shadows

I find Korea interesting as a place that has lived in the shadow of its two, more powerful, neighbours - Japan and China.  As I've started researching Korean history, I can see that it is dominated by Korea's relationship with these two neighbours and, more recently, with other big countries, such as Russia and the United States.  Through it all, the Koreans have remained independent, proud of their language, culture and heritage although, sadly, still divided by the political manoeuvring which took place at the end of World War 2.

A tale of two nations?

Korean reunification flag

I also want to blog about both Koreas, as it feels natural to think of Korea as a whole or single nation.  Of course, the reality of 60 years of separation means that the two Koreas which were created in 1948 have followed different paths and really started developing their own distinct histories and cultures.

It's hard to undo the sense of 'difference' which is created when a country splits in two and I wonder if, one day, Korea will reunite, like Vietnam, Yemen and Germany - or whether the years of separation will reinforce the countries' distinct identities, as it has done in my own country, Ireland?


However you feel about Korea, I hope you'll join me over the next few weeks, as I read books about Korea, listen to Korean music, cook Korean food and watch Korean movies!