A Revival from Starvation
by Sabrina Wong
비! 빔! 밥!
When I was younger, sometimes my mother struggled to figure out what to feed me. “Spaghetti?”
No.
“Pizza?”
Still no.
“Takeout from China Garden?”
Hm, no.
“How about 비빔밥?”
Perfect.
My mother would open the fridge while I would stand eagerly behind her as she took out the containers of 반찬.
“You want 김치, of course, right?”
“Yes,” I said while nodding my head in great approval.
“깻잎?”
Yes!
“마늘쫑?”
Still yes!
“멸치?”
Hm, sure, why not!
And this back and forth would continue until the fridge was emptied of its 반찬.
“And of course we can’t forget about the most important thing…”
“고추장!” We both exclaimed together.
Perfect.
Beaming with joy and excitement, I went back to sit on the couch and watch cartoons while my mother started heating up leftover rice in the microwave. I turned on the TV to my favorite television station and sat in contentment at the fact that soon I would be eating a delicious dinner, seeing that nothing else would satisfy my appetite that night. As I flipped to my favorite television station, the show I was watching was an episode I had never seen before. The show typically included content from children across the United States, showing the audience a glimpse into another child’s life and in what way their life was unique and fun.
But this segment was very different from the other segments I watched. Typically, the segments looked into the lives of a wide variety of children born into upper-middle-class White families, but this segment looked into the life of a child from an upper-middle-class Korean family.
Oh, it’s a Korean family! I thought that while the TV screen had captured my full attention as it usually does, this time it was different. The child went into the kitchen to see what her mother was making, and immediately my mind raced through the dishes that they could be showing.
Not 소꼬리탕, people wouldn’t eat ox tails… It couldn’t be 순대, there’s no way they would show food with pig blood…
And just then, I heard the little girl yell “비! 빔! 밥!”
Oh my gosh, I know that word!
“Oh, is that 비빔밥?” My mother asked me in surprise as she set down the bowl of red blotchy rice caked in a variety of meshed 반찬.
“Wow, I never thought I’d live to see the day they would show 비빔밥 on TV like this. Now 먹어” she told me lovingly.
I lively ate the rejuvenating 비빔밥 as I soothed my starving stomach with the first bite. And the little girl on my TV screen did the same.
Did You Eat a Lot?
Every time I would visit my 할머니’s house, she would make a fresh pot of rice for her, my mom, and I to have for lunch with the 반찬 in her fridge. Even though my 할머니 and my mother came to the USA decades ago, they still ate the same food they grew up with. And this way of eating had descended on me even though I had never been to Korea at that point. Although there was a language barrier between me and my 할머니, she was able to show her love to me through giving me plenty to eat.
She would always tell me 많이 먹어, to eat a lot. And at the time, I thought it was just a quirk of hers or she was just being too concerned over me. But as I got older, I realized that her way of showing me love, besides saying it, was to make sure I was always fed well. Korean food at my 할머니’s house became a new comfort, something that tightly bonded me to her. As I would eat, I recognized that I was eating the very same food my 할머니 and mother ate when they were still Korean citizens. I had never been so close to home.
Home Meal
When my mom was a little girl who had just moved from big city Seoul to a quiet neighborhood in Virginia, it was a big life adjustment to say the least. Not only did she have to move home, but she also had to move to a completely different country where a foreign language was spoken, the people she was surrounded by looked different than her, they had a different mindset and lifestyle compared to her. They also ate differently.
As I entered elementary school and started eating lunch at school, I quickly found out from my mother what was deemed acceptable. Suddenly, my access to Korean food was cut short. Not only was there no sign of any food remotely Asian in the cafeteria, but I was not allowed to bring any kind of Asian food to school.
When my mother went to school for the first time, she was bombarded by children who were not used to seeing someone with almond eyes and burnt chestnut hair. They were quick to ask her where she came from and ask what kind of dogs she ate. My mother didn’t eat dogs; she preferred to keep dogs as pets and just eat 짜장면 since meat was too expensive to be eaten often. My mother tried her best to acclimate quickly to American life, especially the food; however, she did end up bringing a packed lunch to school, but only once. It was 김밥 made by my 할머니. It was very simple and delicious and not smelly or too weird looking, but that day my mother didn’t eat much out of fear that she would be scrutinized by her classmates.
I never packed my lunch. I was used to eating whatever dry pizza or bouncy chicken nuggets my school tried to pass as food. I would enter my school and blend in. I got the occasional “Where are you from?” question, but I quickly shut them down in one breath when I told them I was born at the hospital 20 minutes away from our school but that my parents were born abroad and came to the USA when they were so young that when you speak to them you would think they were born here – just like my classmates and their parents.
I could relate to my classmates when we preferred to have hot dogs over pizza at lunch, when we talked about our favorite Lunchable we would eat after we got home, and even what kind of sides we preferred at the Thanksgiving table. I could talk freely about whatever my classmates talked about, but I was sure to leave out that it would be a dream come true if the cafeteria served 짜장면, or that when I got home from school my kind of treat would be rice and 반찬, and even at the Thanksgiving table I would always have soy sauce braised chicken and 잡채 along with mashed potatoes and stuffing.
This othering of Korean food quickly became my normal, and I never questioned it. I just accepted the fact that Korean food is not accepted by other people, and it is something I should keep a secret. My public persona was the all-American girl who easily fit in with her classmates despite always looking different in pictures. But culturally, I could blend in and exist within these social restrictions. I never brought any more attention to my heritage besides my face and last name, and I was content with blending in. And so was my mother. I had achieved something my parents had failed to do when they first went to school in America: the lack of scrutiny and bullying. I was the perfect example of my mother’s American dream: to fit in. But when I was home, I was free to eat whatever I wanted, whether that was a Lunchable or oxtail soup with extra scallions and soy sauce. Korean food quickly became a comfort food since I strictly ate it at home or within the walls of a Korean restaurant, where I could be around people who enjoyed Korean food and saw it to be normal food.
KFC – Korean Fried Chicken
When I was 16, I was bored. Music was my escape, but I was getting bored listening to the same bands repeatedly with no new albums. I knew that K-Pop was becoming more popular, so I thought Hey, I’m Korean; why not give K-Pop a try? It’s about time I showed some interest and pride in my culture.
Now I’m 21 and K-Pop has never been so popular. Everyone has heard about BTS and how they performed at the Grammys and met former President Joe Biden, and they have countless fans across the world who are now interested in Korean culture, all because of BTS. I fear that I am just like those fans. Without discovering BTS and K-Pop, my journey to explore my Korean heritage would be stifled even longer. But through the globalization of K-Pop along with other Korean media like K-Dramas or even K-Skincare, K-Food is now becoming more and more mainstream.
Korean Fried Chicken is something I never thought I would hear, just like I never thought Korean food would reach the popularity it has today. With Korean food being more accessible and normalized, part of me is happy and excited that something I love so much is now being brought into the spotlight. But another part of me feels a lot of resentment, because where was this idolization of Korean culture when I was growing up? I grew up eating Korean food in isolated places at home or in the one Korean restaurant near my home because I did not feel comfortable or safe to be who I was. Now people are so fascinated and entranced by Korean food.
Why are these people so interested in Korean culture? If K-Pop had not existed along with the romantic fairytale K-Dramas, would the people who are so engrossed in Korean culture still be as fascinated as they are today? While it is good that Korean culture is so popular these days, what about tomorrow? Is Korean culture just another trend? It may be easy to write off K-Pop and the rise of K-Culture as just a mere fad, something that people devoured but were quick to pass on to the next trend. But for me, Korean culture isn’t a fad or trend. It’s who I am. Whether I like it or not, I can’t change being Korean. I will always live with Korean culture and Korean food ingrained in me.
While I am grateful that more people are showing interest in Korean food and Korean culture, I’, still left questioning where was this kind of fascination when I was growing up and how drastically could my self-acceptance have been if I grew up in a world that appreciated Korean food just as much as I do.
비벼 비벼
As I now mix my own 비빔밥 in my apartment when I am starving yet have nothing else I want to eat, I start to see myself in the mixing bowl. A sturdy base of white rice; a human being. Then a few 반찬 from my fridge. 깻잎; my Korean side. 마늘쫑; my Chinese side. 멸치; my American side. And when mixed all together with some 고추장 and 참기름, a brand-new dish full of flavors balancing each other out to create the perfect bite has now been born.
I am a mix of three different cultures that helped shape me into the person I am today. Although sometimes life was sour and spoiled, those experiences made me stronger and healthier. I still struggle with feeling like I’m not Korean enough or Chinese enough or American enough, but rather than thinking of my identity in parts, my identity is 비빔밥 in its entirety. You cannot have me if you did not put in 깻잎, 마늘쫑, or 멸치.
When I take a bite of 비빔밥, I revive myself.