{"id":4147,"date":"2017-04-29T15:36:10","date_gmt":"2017-04-29T22:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eekim.com\/?p=4147"},"modified":"2017-04-29T15:36:10","modified_gmt":"2017-04-29T22:36:10","slug":"a-taste-of-how-korean-culture-has-become-international-in-southern-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eekim.com\/2017\/04\/a-taste-of-how-korean-culture-has-become-international-in-southern-california\/","title":{"rendered":"A Taste of How Korean Culture Has Become International… in Southern California"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nIt’s no secret that Korean culture is huge internationally and has been for a long time, whether it’s K-pop<\/a>, Korean dramas<\/a>, or kimchi<\/a>. I love it, but I still find it weird, especially when I’m in Southern California, where I remember (from many, many, many years ago) Korean culture being the exclusive province of Korean people, and everyone else being completely ignorant or suspicious of it.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I had lunch with my mom at Yigah<\/a> in Garden Grove<\/a>, which specializes in Korean beef soups. As we left, I held the door open for a UPS delivery man carrying a large box. As this older white man walked through the door, he said, “\uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4” (“thank you”) without missing a beat, which left me chuckling.<\/p>\n

Afterward, my mom and I went to Arirang Market to pick up some groceries. At the Korean barbecue stand, I noticed to my surprise that each menu item had the Vietnamese equivalent written underneath (pictured above). I pointed this out to my mom, who shrugged her shoulders, and said, “Vietnamese people love \ubd88\uace0\uae30 (bulgogi).” (Garden Grove is also known as Little Saigon<\/a> because of its large Vietnamese population.)<\/p>\n

As folks become more exposed to and enamored with Korean culture, I delight in the subtle nuances that most people don’t know. At Yigang, I had \uc721\uac1c\uc7a5 (yukgaejang)<\/a>, a delicious, spicy, beef brisket soup made with mountain vegetables. I imagine many people enjoy it. What they may not realize is that “\uac1c” translates to “dog,” which is what this dish was originally made with. \uc721\uac1c\uc7a5 was a peasant dish, but when the Korean nobility (\uc591\ubc18) discovered they liked it, they started making it with beef instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s no secret that Korean culture is huge internationally and has been for a long time, whether it’s K-pop, Korean dramas, or kimchi. I love it, but I still find it weird, especially when I’m in Southern California, where I remember (from many, many, many years ago) Korean culture being the exclusive province of Korean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,18],"tags":[2118,614,2116,1004,2114,2115,2117],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4cTFX-14T","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eekim.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eekim.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eekim.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eekim.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eekim.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eekim.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eekim.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eekim.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eekim.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}