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.

Kimberly in Korea: Kimchi Teacher

Ever since I was little, I dreaded kids coming up with nicknames. My last name is Cochrane, and in second grade, when I was eight, a creative, young boy, named Roberto, (yes, I still remember who it was … and no … I don’t harbor any ill feelings toward him …) realized that Cochrane and cockroach start the same. That’s really all it takes I’ve discovered, that first syllable.

Roberto called me cockroach on the playground, and I got infuriated.

“Don’t call me cockroach!”

But it stuck.

From second grade until about middle school, when students stop calling each other harmless names, and start being a bit more vicious, I was known as “cockroach.”

Since then, I have learned one valuable lesson. The more extreme my reaction is, the more often whatever it is will happen. It’s apparently quite entertaining to others, even to my friends, when I get riled up.

For the first two months of teaching in Korea, no students came up with nicknames. They were shy and sweet. They tried their best to pronounce Kimberly, though they usually turned it into Kim-bu-lin, and I was often asked if it was a Korean name. Three syllables, Kim being one of them. It must be Korean.

Suddenly, one day, when I was introducing myself to a new student in a class I had had for a while, and the new student struggled to say my name, pausing a bit too long after Kim, perhaps, Jack (eight years old and clever, just like Roberto) blurted out, “Kim … chi … Kimchi! … Kimchi, teacher!!” And laughed.

All the students repeated, “Kimchi, teacher!”

I shook my head and laughed. What else could I do?

Honestly, being called kimchi, a beloved Korean side dish, is hardly as insulting as cockroach. So, perhaps that is the real reason my reaction changed, not because I have matured or become more tolerant.

Also, I had met another Kim, teaching English here, whose students called her kimchi, so I anticipated it. I expected it. Perhaps because she had introduced herself as Kim, her students came up with this nickname right at the beginning. I was surprised how long it took my students to call me kimchi.

While Jack quickly returned to calling me Kimberly, one student in Jack’s class, Michael, latched on to the nickname. At first he used to yell, nearly pointing and laughing, “Hello, KIMCHI teacher!” when he went by the teacher’s room. I simply responded, “Hi, Michael,” shaking my head and laughing as my co-teachers acted a bit surprised.

Michael has been calling me kimchi for about a month now, and I realized that today he said it as if it was my actual name. He is no longer searching for a reaction. Perhaps because I just accepted it and said, “Hello, Michael,” he now greets me daily, in the tone of something said out of habit, with, “Hello, Kimchi teacher.” And I respond, “Hi, Michael.”

I’m sure the real reason he uses it, is simply because it’s much easier to say than Kimberly. Regardless, each day being called “Kimchi, teacher,” by Michael, brings a smile to my face.

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.