Riley's Beard Experiment

The "grad student/living in the woods" look

Last month, we had a discussion with some of our foreigner and Korean friends about why Koreans do not grow beards.  This came up because our Korean-American friend grew a massive beard and gets strange looks from other people.  People say Koreans don't have beards because they can't grow them, but we know this isn't true because every Korean drama set in the ancient times, as well as the famous Koreans on their money, all have beards.  The Koreans dressed up in historical clothes "guarding" the palace in Seoul even put on fake facial hair to look the part!

See, Koreans used to have nice beards! (and cool hats)

So why is it Koreans today rarely have beards?  We have heard two reasons:

1) Communists wear beards.  This was from an older Korean that said during the war, any North Korean left in South Korea had to live in the mountains to hide.  As everybody knows, living in the mountains causes you to grow a beard.  Thus, anyone with a beard was assumed to have come from the mountains and be a communist.

2) Girls think beards are dirty.  This may have come from the above reason originally, but the bottom line is Korean girls think guys with beards are dirty.

In light of this discovery, Riley decided to grow a beard to see people's reactions.  It so happened we attended a dinner where many of our friends we hadn't seen in a while gathered and saw Riley's beard for the first time.  The Koreans said "wow" and most at least said they liked it (some were being polite I think, but a couple of them watch too much American tv).  The foreigners didn't seem to notice much, except for one group.  All of our Chinese friends told him to shave.  One of our friend's first reaction was "have you not left the house all week?" 
In short, the experiment was a success!  We also discovered that Riley cannot pull off an Asian beard.  Alas, the beard and long hair had to come off due to a presentation this week, so Riley is back to normal.

Yummy stuff

Before I get into the delicious food we have found in Korea, I want to note some of the foods that did not get on either list.  This past week we had raw salmon, sea cucumber, jellyfish, and raw beef.  It wasn't horrible, so it doesn't make the nasty list.  However, they don't quite make the yummy list either.  Now for the yummy stuff...

Kimchi김치

The national food here is kimchi (fermented cabbage), and it is eaten at every meal, and Koreans love it about 3x as much as North Carolinians love their barbecue.   But when I first tasted it, it tasted rotten (probably because its fermented.)  But now I love it almost as much as NC barbecue.

Sam-gyahp-sal 삼겹살=Giant bacon stuff of paradise

This is probably my favorite food in Korea.  It is part food and part experience.  Because it is hard to sue people in Korea (both a good thing and a bad thing), resturaunts have little grills at the tables, so you can grill your own food just the way you like it.  It's like giant bacon!!!  I love bacon, but as an American I think bigger is better, so giant bacon is awesome.  It's also a balanced meal, so it's delicious and nutritious.  You grill it with onions and garlic, and when you are done grilling it, you cut it into little squares, and you take a square, and dip it in sauce, and put it inside a piece of lettuce, and add onion bean sprout and/or kimchi, and pop it in your mouth, and it is gooood.

Someone's pictures from a Samgyeopsal resturaunt 

I love you giant bacon!!!

Bibimbap 비빔밥 (Boiled rice) /Dolsotbab 돌솥밥 (StoneBowlRice) /Things with lots of side dishes

Rice with mixed vegitables is another one of our favorite Korean foods.  We don't eat it as much as Samgyapsal (giant bacon) or kimchi stew, but we do like it.   The first time we had this stuff, we were given a raw egg in a little bowl.  We were eating with Dr Yim (our boss), and we were wondering if we had come to Korea with a crazy man who eats raw eggs straight, but he and his wife showed us that you mix the egg with the rice, and the rice is so hot that it cooks the egg on the spot.  A traditional thing to do after the meal is to scrape the burnt rice out of the bottom of the stone bowl and eat it because it is crunchy and delicious.  I know it sounds strange, but don't knock it until you try it!

A resturaunt in Gongju

Mandu 만두 (Dumplings)

These are dumplings and they are delicious!  You can have them steamed or fried, and they can be filled with Kimchi or meat and onions, and they can be bite-sized or huge!  They are hard to make from scratch, but if we buy the wrapping at the store they're not hard to make at home--but the mandu lady makes the best ones, so we always get ours from her dumpling shop.  We found the shop during our first month in Korea, and the dumpling lady was always very gracious with all of Margaret's pointing and squeaking.  (Ironically all that pointing and squeaking that Margaret does, has come in very handy here in Korea when we don't know how to put things into words.)

The red ones are Kimchi and the green ones are onion.  Yum!

Kimbab--김밥--Literally translated as RiceSeaweed

This is one of the cheapest meals you can get in Korea.  In America, you'd probably call it a California Roll, but its not sushi here!  And if you call it Japanese, you will lose your talking privileges!  Its basically the Asian version of a ham sandwich with rice and seaweed wrapped around ham, cheese, egg, and random vegetables.  On field trips with Koreans we always eat it for breakfast.  Our favorite type is the triangle kimbab, which we buy at the convenience store for 80 cents a bab.

The Kim in kimbab is the green seaweed.  The bab in kimbab means rice.