Conversations with Strangers. Part V.

In preparation for future travels and just to enjoy life more, I have been working on having more human interactions in public places. Overall, I am failing this course. Moscow trained me well to wear a “city face” and stare off into space. For the most part, I do not talk to strangers.

So, when I got onto the train for Daejeon, searched for my seat, and saw that an older Korean woman was sitting in the seat next to mine, I geared up. I could tell from the look on her face that she was ready to chat.

My seat was the aisle, but she insisted that I sit near the window. Because I understood this interaction and the word “sit” in Korean, she continued to speak in Korean. She said something, and I caught the word “pretty.” A nice thing considering I had no make-up on and was wearing my glasses. I said, “Thank you” in Korean.

In Korean, she said, “Ah, you speak Korean!”

Now, I knew I was in for it. I tried to slow her down by saying, “a little,” but she continued speaking to me like I understood everything. Maybe if I had studied Korean formally, the phrases she had used would have been familiar. Maybe if I were always surrounded by women this unapologetic, I would learn more.

She forged ahead and asked me how long I had been in Korea. To simplify things, I told her “eight,” meaning eight months. I did not know the word for years or months, but I could tell by her surprise and expression, she had understood eight years. I fumbled a bit, then took out my notebook and wrote down the date that I arrived in Busan. February 2014. Then she understood. In retrospect, I suppose it is technically nine months now. I communicated that I taught English. After the end of our short interaction about me, there was a lull. I did not know how to ask her about where she lived or what she did, and like I said, I’m failing the course of conversations with strangers.

Then, at about the time the heat in the train was getting unbearable, she piped up. She made a twisting motion with her hand in the air and said something in Korean that I could not quite make out. Based on how I was feeling, I assumed she was talking about the air being turned on, on the train. The motion could easily be interpreted as such. So, I said, “It’s hot,” and fanned myself a bit. She kind of shook her head, not in disgust, but there was a tinge of frustration. She was a talker and needed to be understood. She repeated herself and made the twisting motion again.

Finally, she simplified the thought to one word.

“Gam,” she said. “Gam.”

I shook my head.

She said, “gam” again, and then wrote with her finger in the air the Korean letters in “gam” 감. Luckily I know the Korean alphabet. I guess she could safely assume that because of the bits and parts of Korean that I understood. Still, for some reason, I thought this effort to show me the spelling was odd. Perhaps it was based on her knowledge of English. Maybe she only understood written words. When I shook my head again and told her, “I don’t know,” she said, “gam. Gam,” more loudly. Then she wrote quite emphatically with her finger on the back of the seat in front of us, the three letters that make up “gam” in their syllable block, in Korean.

I could tell she was not going to let it go, and why should she? I live in Korea. I should try to understand what she was getting at. Also, we had a couple hours in front of us. So, I took out my phone and used google translate.

감

In my google translate app, only one translation came up. “Feeling.”

I looked at her confused.  She glanced over. Then she shook her head and said, “gam,” as if searching. So I tried the other letter in Korean that sometimes sounds like a type of “a” 검. That just caused more confusion for me because it means “sword.” Then she did something ingenuous for translating a word that has multiple meanings. She told me a longer phrase. When I typed it in, “persimmon tree” came up. I probably made the most ridiculous, “Ahaa” sound. I knew the word for persimmon in Korean. Why couldn’t I put two and two together?

At that point she must have known exactly how limited my Korean was. She smiled and pointed to herself and communicated that she picks or grows persimmon. Then she rambled on a bit more. I caught “America” “gam”, and I could tell by the intonation it was a question. At this point I started mixing the tiny bit of Korean I had with English to communicate a bigger thought. I tried to tell her, “Yes, we have persimmons in America, but I never tried one until I came to Korea. They are delicious.” I’m certain she understood delicious, but when it came to America, she repeated a similar sounding phrase. She seemed surprised when I said the equivalent of, “Yes, persimmon America.” So I googled “persimmon America” to show her. That seemed to convince her and placate her interest. I tried to communicate my grandma grows apples, by saying the equivalent of “my grandma … apple.” She nodded. I have no idea if she understood. Then the conversation ended abruptly. Language barriers create labor intensive conversation.

Not long after, she got up, stood next to the seat, and let the rightful ticket holder take their seat.

I dreamed out the window about the landscape, the fall leaves, the biking paths, the river, and the mountains. Then the landscape changed rather abruptly. Orangish-red objects covered dark brown trees that had already dropped all their leaves. Rather than fall leaves of all colors, the hillsides were inundated by persimmon tree upon persimmon tree. Quite appropriately at the train station surrounded by persimmon trees, the older woman got off. She smiled, waved goodbye, and stepped into the landscape of persimmon trees.

The traditional market at Seomyeon

When I left my apartment Saturday morning, despite my doubts about the directions the Internet gave me, I aimed to find American Apparel and replace my favorite dress. As expected, the map took me the wrong direction, and rather than taking me straight to American Apparel, it created a diversion which lead to a huge traditional market. Without any hesitation, I saw this as an opportunity and put my search for American Apparel on the back burner.

As I approached the covered market, I had no idea of its size. When I first entered, my eyes immediately went to the product, and I caught the familiar stares of older Koreans who are not used to seeing a foreigner in their midst. Ignoring the looks, I continued into the market. The smell of dried seaweed, salt, and fresh ocean fish greeted me. I could almost taste each item. As I walked I saw piles of whole fish, squid, and octopus. I saw buckets of clams. I smelled kimchi, herbal tea, and garlic. I saw green onions, peppers, artfully stacked apples, and Korean traditional rice desserts.

I sauntered on further, at a pace much slower than usual. Finally, I looked up and saw the market's great expanse. The aisle seemed to continue on indefinitely, and myriad directional options surrounded me. Should I turn left toward the upper part of the market with sunlight, napa cabbage and daikon radishes the size of small babies, turn right toward bean sprouts and a large variety of dried beans and peas, or keep going straight toward even more fish, carts of sweet potatoes, and orderly piles of red and green hot peppers? In the end, I decided straight, straight, straight for my first route through the market. I could always return via another route to the aisles I missed.

The displays were precisely arranged and aesthetically appealing. The stall keepers took great pride in their work, constantly arranging and rearranging as product disappeared from their tables and bins. No one except those with mobile carts bothered to yell out what they were selling and for how much, so the market remained calm and welcoming, even with the occasional scooter and a large number of people working, buying, and gawking.

I continued to wander through the market and was astounded at the amount of product these sellers had and were able to prepare. Weeks of work lie ahead for the couple with countless heads of garlic. As I gazed in amazement at this stall, a man, surrounded by bags of garlic sat peeling and separating individual garlic cloves. Korea is a country where many people prefer to purchase their garlic peeled.

Evidence of work already done showed with fresh peppers next to dried peppers and dried peppers next to crushed peppers. My mind jumped to my experience of Pike’s Place market in Seattle. The scale of this market was much larger and the products sold much more practical. While Pike’s Place does serve a practical function for select Seattleites looking for fresh fish, the main appeal seems to be touristic and the majority of stalls I remember sold flowers. On the other hand, while Korea is working to promote traditional markets as a tourist attraction, the markets serve a very real and necessary function for local farmers and family dinner tables. Dried peppers and garlic cloves brought that point home.

Overwhelmed by the market, and realizing that I could not carry fresh vegetables, fish, and other pleasantries around all day to American Apparel, the Busan Museum of Art, and wherever else I wandered, I vowed to shop at the traditional market near my apartment.

A truly Korean experience: Kimchi making

It’s that time of the year when Koreans in the south of South Korea make Kimchi. It has been for the last couple weeks. The Napa Cabbage is ready for harvest, so families turn their living rooms into mini kimchi factories so they can have kimchi for the rest of the year.

Napa Cabbage

What is Kimchi?

Aside from spicy and delicious, Kimchi is a staple of the Korean diet. The most common type in Ulsan is made with Napa Cabbage, and in this area, most kimchi pastes consist of a mixture of red pepper paste, roasted garlic, ginger, and fish sauce. Think meat rub, but wetter and for vegetables. Recipes for the paste vary from family to family and region to region, depending on what is available. Koreans use this paste to preserve vegetables for up to a year.

Kimchi paste (Red pepper serves as the main ingredient)

As the kimchi ages and ferments, the flavor changes, but as soon as the kimchi is made it can be eaten.

I was lucky enough to be invited by one of my coworkers to join her family in making kimchi. Unfortunately, I did not arrive in time to see exactly how this family makes the paste, but let me tell you, it is delicious!

The process is quite laborious and takes an entire day just to rub the paste on the cabbage, if you have a good amount of people working together. After rubbing paste on about 4 or 5 quarters of Napa Cabbage, my shoulders began to ache, my foot fell asleep, and I couldn’t even imagine what it would have been like starting this process at six in the morning like my coworker’s family.

Kimchi rub process:

The paste is rubbed on each individual leaf

It's important to get right down to the base of each leaf

One of my finished bits of kimchi

Even though I hardly helped at all, my coworker's family fed me and sent me home with a bin of kimchi, which has become a part of my daily diet.

Assumptions about the produce section

Like in Russia, shopping for groceries has been one of the more challenging things. As a consumer, when I know the language written on packaging, I like to look at ingredients, calorie content, and the like. By the time I left Russia, I knew enough of the language that I was almost back to how I shopped in the States, but in Korea, I am starting from scratch. As I am just learning the alphabet, it is difficult to sound out the ingredients, let alone understand the words I’m sounding out. Yet, through it all, I have managed to avoid mistakes similar to those I made in Russia. When I bought milk, I actually bought milk … But a whole new set of issues has arisen.

So far, most of my grocery shopping has been in large hypermarkets, comparable to a super Wal-Mart. Finding products in the store can be a challenge, simply because the place is huge. Also, signage in English doesn’t always lead me to the right place. I saw a sign that read “Fresh Dairy” and in the case under the sign were processed meat products. It made me wonder why they even had English signage!

Surprisingly, through it all, one of the most confusing things has been the produce section of the grocery store. In Russia this was a bit confusing as well, but in a different way.

Generally in Russia there were loose bins of produce, whether it be apples, potatoes, carrots, bananas, etc. Like in the States, you grab a plastic bag and fill it with your selected amount of produce, but unlike the States, the produce is not weighed by the cashier at check out. Instead, you should take your produce to a scale – sometimes there is a person to weigh and label it for you and sometimes you have to weigh and label it yourself. Overall, the Russian system was only a bit intimidating, with the major question being, do I need to weigh this myself or is there someone to weigh it for me?

In Korea, at a hypermarket, things are a bit different. Almost all produce is pre-bagged, though there are some loose things – like potatoes, occasionally onions, and the like. The loose produce obviously needs to be weighed, and there is a woman who will weigh it for you. The pre-bagged produce with prices is also no trouble. It is the pre-bagged produce without prices marked that is the confusing and intimidating part. In Russia, these needed to be weighed along with everything else, so that was my assumption. In order to avoid the confusing ordeal of being at the cashier and having to go get something weighed, I went to the lady by the scale and gave her my pre-bagged broccoli. She took it, walked over to where the broccoli was displayed, and put it away.

Fail.

Because I was a bit embarrassed about this result, I didn’t go pick up the broccoli again. I just decided that I didn’t really need it and continued walking around the produce section a bit thrown.

The next time I went to the grocery store I found things were not as confusing as I had made them. Anything pre-bagged with a UPC has a set price and the cashier just scans it like any other product. It turns out in this case that my experience in Russia actually hindered my understanding.

Comparing chicken in three countries

Summary:

Russia: Small, lean, whole chickens

America: Giant, fatty, hormone injected chickens

Korea: ?? I have yet to find out. So far, I have only been able to find precut, prepackaged chicken breasts or thighs.

When I got back to Idaho in June and went grocery shopping with my father, one aspect of reverse culture shock began to sink in, and it had to do with chicken. This shock is continuing in Ulsan.

In Moscow, I ate a lot of chicken. So much so, that the when I visited my parents the first summer after living in Moscow, I didn’t want anything to do with it. I didn’t want to look at it and didn’t want to taste it. After another year of living in Moscow, where I developed fond memories connected to purchasing chicken, and learned how to butcher a whole chicken, I had gotten used to the size of chickens in Moscow, the freshness, how much fat they usually had on them, and so forth.

So, at the grocery store in Blackfoot, Idaho I was surprised to find, it’s nearly impossible to find a fresh, whole chicken. In Moscow the stores seemed to get daily shipments of fresh whole chickens, weighed them, bagged them and put them on the shelf. It actually could be a bit appalling how many chickens where on the shelf early in the day. In Blackfoot, a whole chicken could be found, but it would have been prepackaged and frozen, then shipped to the store. Additionally, I was shocked, disgusted and blown away by the mere SIZE of the chicken in the United States. They are huge!! Twice the size of a Russian chicken, they made me think of a small turkey with a lot more fat.

Chicken breasts are back to a reasonable size here in Ulsan, but I have yet to find a whole chicken. When I bought chicken at the giant hypermarket, which was larger than a Super Wal*Mart, all I could find was a package of about 12 pre-cut, pre-packaged, previously frozen chicken breasts or thighs … I will keep looking, but perhaps chicken isn’t big here or people prefer not to cut their own meat.