Foley Meets Cinderella and a Funnel

Dear Kim-chi Aficionados,

And welcome to another edition of Foley in Korea. On the agenda today is everything from shoe polish to Jesus, Patron to artificial human beings, so there’s no time to spare. Let’s begin with one of my favorite topics:

You know, if there’s one thing Koreans believe in more than family, country, and religion put together, it’s food. Food is part of the Korean national identity and they are fiercely obsessive about it. How much has permeated this society? Let’s take a look:

During the Korean high holidays, there are a multitude of no-nonsense rules about food preparation and consumption. Food is always served in groups of three or five. It cannot be served in groups of four because four is the number of death. For the same reason, no red food is served at dinner. Red=blood, blood=death, therefore red=death. All food with a head must face west, towards the setting sun.

In daily life, Koreans are humorless about their set pairings of food with alcohol. There is always a right or a wrong way to do it. For example, with Korean BBQ, you always order soju, and with fried chicken, you damn well better get beer. Trust me, I’ve tried to do the opposite. I was eating BBQ out with my Korean friends and told them I just wanted beer, no soju, with my BBQ. My Korean friends looked at me like I had just peed all over their shoes. They promptly poured me a shot of soju and slapped me in the face. You think I’m exaggerating? Try this on for size. “치맥” or “Chi-maek” is a word in Korean. “Chi” is from the Korean word “Chi-ken” and “Maek” is from the Korean word “Maek-ju,” their word for beer. Chicken plus beer equals “Chi-maek.” I mean, come on, we don’t even have a word for that in English.

But forget all the other nonsense on food. There is nothing Koreans are more adamant about than their love affair with kim-chi. Kim-chi, for all you ignoramuses out there, is the spicy rotted/fermented cabbage that exists as the staple of the Korean diet. It’s got an acquired, but delicious flavor and comes in over 200 varieties. But the Korean addiction to kim-chi is truly remarkable. It is such an influential food that last year, the price of kim-chi was raised and it made national news. People protested this, and it became a severe source of agony for the lower classes, who were afraid they could no longer afford it. Why not cook without it? Because out here, it’s in freakin’ everything. Kim-chi pervades everything from classic fare like fried rices and stews, to western-style fusion food like pizzas, burgers, and pasta, and beyond, into the outer limits of strange. The other day I had kim-chi chocolate…and, despite the distinctly funky aftertaste, I actually kinda liked it. That’s right, fermented spicy cabbage chocolate gets a thumbs up from Dan Foley.

Now, at first, it would seem absurd that so much emphasis is given to this one food. If you dig a little deeper, though, you will find two nuggets of wisdom that justify the obsession. One, kim-chi is more essential to eating in this country than any one food in America (even bread). It is literally eaten with every meal. The most common breakfast for a Korean is rice and kim-chi. Even if they have noodles for lunch and meat for dinner, you can guarantee yourself there’s some kim-chi floating around beside the main course. It’s a snack throughout the day, and compliments any Korean celebratory feast. There’s something about that bitter-spicy flavor. It is not only a source of subsistence, but a source of comfort and normalcy for the Korean people.

The second piece of knowledge is perhaps more interesting. As it turns out, Korean people are damn healthy, despite the raging alcoholism, chain smoking, dangerously-high sodium intake, and near-savage level of meat consumption. One explanation for this phenomenon is kim-chi. Turns out, if you Google “World’s 5 Healthiest Foods” kim-chi tops the list for a plethora of reasons. It’s super-high in vitamin A, B, C, low in fat, high in fiber, antioxidant-loaded, and is saturated with all them good bacteria, just to name a few. To my dieting people out there, get down on your kim-chi. You won’t regret it. (For the record, the other four healthiest foods are Indian Lentils, Spanish Olive Oil, Japanese Soy, and the very tasty Greek Yogurt.)

But if you’re like me, and you hate healthy things, you should try getting your shoe polished in Korea. No, that’s not some strange euphemism, I really mean it. In Korea, especially Seoul, you can find many kinds of “street shops.” Street shops are tiny buildings no bigger than an outhouse located along the sidewalk on most major streets. You have your street food vendors, you have your street convenience stores, and of course, shoe polish shops. The polishing business must be pretty lucrative, as often, you’ll find more than one on the same street. I decided to sample one of these locations, mostly out of curiosity, the other day on the way to work. When I left, I’m pretty sure I was stoned.

Allow me to explain. Upon entering, I was greeted by a middle aged man and what I was assumed to be his father (side note: the father was a bearded Korean, which let me tell you is rarer than a unicorn out here).  I sat down in the close quarters, the man examined my shoes, and found them worthy of polishing. Then he began. The process was complicated, involving many types of polish, sprays, and a gas stove. Every so often, he would stick the shoes under the flame for some reason. It took all of fifteen minutes.

So why was I fried afterwards? You see, these shoe polish outhouses have a single sliding glass entrance and one tiny window that is usually half shut. The fumes from the shoe polish and spray just straight lurk in the room, compounding, circulating. And I can’t imagine the open flame helps things. Hell, I was feeling a little funky after fifteen minutes in there. I can’t imagine what those two guys felt like, though I’m guessing they knew exactly what they were doing. Because didn’t seem to mind that the TV they were watching was in black and white. And had no sound. And was mostly static.
   

But the huffing habits of polish junkies is small potatoes compared to one of my biggest gripes with this land: Nose-blowing etiquette. Most of Korean dogma for courtesy is fairly reasonable, but when it comes to snot, Koreans are sadistic. It is considered disrespectful to wipe or blow your nose in public, especially at dinner. What makes that so insane is the uber-spiciness of Korean cuisine. Their food is designed to make your nose run like a faucet. But of course, you can’t wipe or blow your nose. So what is the socially acceptable thing to do? Suck it back up through your nose. Yeah. You know that nasty sound someone makes right before they hock a loogie? Imagine that as being socially acceptable, as opposed to, you know, quickly blowing your nose and ending it. Then imagine an old man with a sinus infection sitting near you on a humid five-hour night bus ride to Seoul. Sartre once said “hell is other people.” In this case, I’m pretty sure he was right.

But if that’s hell, then let’s talk about heaven. That’s right, Easter was just last week. Now, while I don’t teach anymore, most of my friends still do. My friend Gina, who teaches middle-schoolers, recently shared this story with me, and well, my friends, I need to share it with you. Here is Gina, trying to explain Easter to a group of low-level English speakers.

Gina: “Hey guys, do you know what holiday it is on Sunday?”

Kid 1: “ Jesus?”

Me: “Yes! It's about Jesus. What happened to Jesus?”

Kid 1: “He die.“

Me: “Yes, on Friday, then on Sunday he came back to life, so we have a celebration!”

Kid 2: “OH! Halloween Day!”

Awesome.

Yes, I miss the days of teaching. But as it turns out, my new job is pretty solid. I’m working on a crack team to develop this Korean travel website. It’s comprised of five guys (myself included) and we are sent on missions to explore various locations around Seoul, and report back to the world on their awesomeness in an E-zine style format. Our coordinator, Don, is the Keeper of the Keys in Seoul: the dude seems to know everyone and everything worth knowing in this city and our manager, D.Y., is on an Enlightenment level of chillness. The photographer and graphic designer are two Korean-American brothers, Kevin and TK, who got involved with the company as fashion designers. Despite the fact that their primary goal is creating designer bags, they are two of the most heterosexual guys I’ve ever met. The bags are hand-dyed, organic Korean-monk-style with a contemporary design. Very cool stuff. Check it out on their website at iisewear.com. Yeah, that’s right. I do advertising on my blog now.

So far, our team has hit up several locations, but two of note for this blog. One is a famous “게장” (“Ge-jang”) or raw crab restaurant. It was started decades ago by these two old ladies, but they had a massive falling out (probably involving crabs) and now operate two separate restaurants. We went to the original. A favorite of wealthy Japanese businessmen who actually fly into Korea to get massive take out orders of this dish, the ge-jang is truly a wild ride. Instead of cooking it, the crabs are marinated in soy sauce and boiling it periodically, followed by chilling it before it’s served. The entire process takes the better part of the day, but it’s so very worth it. Ge-jang is like nothing you or I have ever had before, like the sweetest meat with a soy sauce tang and the consistency of oysters. I can see why the Japanese fiend for it.

The other place of note requires a bit of back-story. Our company covered Seoul fashion week, for a variety of reasons, none of which really mattered to me except that I had to go to runway shows and write about them while my friends snapped pictures. Now, it was fun and all, I’m always down to experience something different, but with my limited knowledge of fashion, I feel inadequate to review such things. What I did feel adequate to cover, thanks to my my excessive knowledge of partying, was the Fashion Week After-Party at Club Ellui.

This event was surreal, a mix of runway and laser shows and alcohol far too expensive for me to afford. One thing was for sure: everyone was pretty. Even the dudes. Luckily, being a fellow model, I fit right in. And since it was our company that threw the party, we had access to all the VIP areas. This meant one thing: drunken people handing out free top-shelf alcohol. It’s about this point in the night where my memory gets hazy, but according to reliable sources, there were a fair amount Korean celebrities (none of which I knew) and evidently, I got to meet D.J. Lucky Lou (the dude from LMFAO) at about 4:00 AM. Lucky Lou had brought a funnel with him, like this one:

Using said funnel, he proceeded to pour multi-shot drinks of a rancid mixture of Patron and high-end whiskey lighting-fast down the tube and into the mouth of whatever unfortunate soul he chose. As it turned out, that was everyone he made eye contact with. Including me. Hence, the next morning, I had little recollection and my stomach felt like the molten inner-reaches of Mordor.

But, like any after any foolish night of excessive boozing, there is always those sober revelations that come to you while you’re swearing under your breath and tossing back Advil and begging, praying that they stay down. Here’s what I got that morning.

The unsettling thing about these super pretty club people are the questions: how did we get that way and why do we value them for it? I’m not saying physical beauty shouldn’t be valued, hell, most people would argue aesthetics was the basis of all art. But, you have to wonder where beauty and reality align. I am, of course, talking about plastic surgery.

You’re probably saying, “Dan, you’ve told us all this before. In Korea, plastic surgery is an epidemic. Half the girls ages 22-27 have had it. Girls as young as thirteen are getting it. It cheapens society. Blah blah blah.” And yes, I have told you all that, but Seoul has put it in new perspective.  Why? I’ll tell you.

It’s because here, it’s not just a nose job or breast implants or an eye tweak. It’s a complete demolition followed by a total rebuilding. I am not knocking people who get plastic surgery, I understand self-esteem is a quintessential part of being a happy human being, but it’s too much here. Way too much. How much is way too much? Usually, I am a man of words, but in this case, I’m gonna let the pictures do the talking. To my knowledge, this is the most common advertisement in Korea:

 

Yeah. They're known as the Cinderella Girls. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

The worst part is, Korea is such a homogenous society. Everyone is Korean. Therefore, everyone looks more similar to one another than people in a melting pot like America where we have so many body types and ethnicities. Why is this a problem? Because the standard of beauty in Korea is more fixed. There is an ideal, something distinctly Korean with distinctive Korean traits. It’s not like America where you can argue all day between Jessica Alba and Miranda Kerr (though the answer’s totally Alba). Here, there is a convergence, a pinnacle idea of what it means to be perfectly beautiful. Therefore, the more plastic surgery, the more the girls are going for the exact same kind of beauty beauty. No friends, all Asian people don’t look alike. But with enough surgery, they might.

People, I miss and love you all, but you’ve got to see this. I will close with a now famous picture online, of four very plastic-sugeryed girls, known as the Cheongdamn girls, who prove my point so much it scares me.

 Take a real close look, tell me if you see it too.

-Holy Shit