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Asian-Style Slow Food: A Lesson in Chopsticks

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Chopsticks are the gentle cutlery. Choosing them for a meal means relinquishing the more violent actions of stabbing with fork tines and slicing with knife blades. Like surgery, using chopsticks involves delicate procedures and pinpoint accuracy to placidly move morsels of food to the mouth. Western utensils seem to be designed for an aggressive contact sport, but chopsticks allow for more of a tai chi routine. But, of course, that’s only for those who know how to use them well enough to not look ham-fisted. Read more

The Most Important Cabbage in the World

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Cabbage is a versatile vegetable responsible for several side dishes that I enjoy, like coleslaw, sauerkraut, and my favourite of all smelly foods, Korean kimchi. I have never made it myself and I didn’t even like it all that much at first, but having lived in South Korea, I have experienced it directly from the source. That was ten years ago, when I first developed a liking for it and now, being back in Canada, I miss it and crave it occasionally still. Every part of the world has trademark food items that are linked to the regional identity of locals and that outsiders learn to either love or hate. No nationality takes this as seriously as Koreans do with their kimchi. This inauspicious side dish offers more than just nourishment – it defines daily lives, family rituals, and national pride. Read more

The Name Game

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Vancouver-based publishing company, Summit Studios, launched a new book in its series of humorous travel anthologies in 2009. This newest offering, Never Trust a Smiling Bear, continues with the theme of its four previous volumes, which are all subtitled “True Tales to Make You Laugh, Chortle, Snicker and Feel Inspired.” My travel story entitled The Name Game has been selected for this anthology and is available at all bookstores and provincial park gift shops across Canada.   Read more

The Name Game in Korean Classrooms

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Being newlyweds when we left for South Korea, we promised our families back home we wouldn’t procreate any children of our own while living abroad; mostly so our parents wouldn’t miss out on all the grandparent-y stuff, but also because we were travelling to delay any domesticity in the early stages of marriage. As English teachers at a private school, we saw dozens of students, between the ages of five and fifteen, in rotating classes throughout each day, so having children of our own was the furthest thing from our minds. But that did not stop us from thinking about baby names, because naming children in South Korea is not only a parental duty – foreign teachers in ESL schools are responsible for giving English names to students who don’t already have one. Read more

Broken English: Lessons Given and Received in South Korea

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I may have broken the English language. I may have inflicted a disservice to the linguistic excellence of my mother tongue. I may have shattered the pristine image of the modern world’s lingua franca. I’m sorry I broke it, but giving English lessons to children in South Korea wasn’t easy. Being an ambassador of English, I had all the more reason to treat the language properly, I know; but I wasn’t getting through to them with my wordy sentences, so I needed to break them down. Read more