Food Culture Tangents

You have to taste a culture to understand it.

- Deborah Cater

So, I haven't seen anyone (well hardly anyone) from my local congregation since October. We've been meeting through zoom, and video etiquette determines that if you're not speaking the video and audio stays off. Since I'm not quite at church speaking level, most people haven't seen me for almost 4 months now. 

Which leads to something that will be a secret between you and me - my goal is to lose enough weight that the ladies at my church start asking me if I've been eating enough. Yeah, it's a weird goal, but I don't do well with numbers. Just ask my Mom - she's the one who's suffered most from my stubborn dislike of numbers (the fact I can do any math at all is 100% due to her tireless patience). But reactions? Subjective responses that have little or nothing to do with anything? 

Sign me up. 

Honestly though, that has been an interesting side effect of moving to Korea - I'm shrinking. Now before you start worrying about me feeding myself, let me reassure you - There is a lot of food here and I do my best to eat pretty much all of it. 

Well, not all of it because then that would be a lot. But like, unless it's an insect, I don't turn food down unless I've tried it once and have decided to hate it. And that's not common, because I generally enjoy food. Period. But the quality of food, combined with all the walking and standing I do with my job has led to a few unintended side-effects. 

1) My glasses don't fit. So I had indentations on the side of my head from where my glasses pressed into my skin, and now the only thing keeping my glasses from falling down my face half the time is the fact that they sit on my mask. It's also emphasized the fact that my left ear sits lower on my head than my right ear, so now that my glasses are supported solely by my ears, my glasses have a noticeable slant unless they're pressed firmly to the top of my nose. 

2) I've learned some about how Koreans (or at least, Korean guys) perceive dieting and eating. Take these two separate examples:

Dieting: 

Hayley, Hyunho, Kyle and I, were eating dinner at a Chinese restaurant together after about a month of no meetings due to COVID. HyunHo and Kyle were talking to each other in Korean, and Hayley and I were recovering from a fairly long work day, so while we were kind of trying to understand what they were saying, I at least was mostly focused on my bowl of noodles. I heard my name, and then Hayley's and I looked over at Kyle tuning in a little more intently to the conversation. I started to grin a little bit when I realized he was asking HyunHo if he thought we looked different, but all suspicions were confirmed when he just looked at the two of us and was like "You look more skinnier, are you dieting?" 

This isn't the first time I've been asked about my weight, so I wasn't offended by the questions - when I served my mission for my church I served in Hispanic cultures which were also much more open about weight. But that time it wasn't a friend asking me if I was dieting, it was a sweet 80 year old abuelo who looked me with his twinkling eyes and said "Hermana, you look a little more fat." Bless him for saying a little. 

So this time, I was happy to deny any attempts at dieting and blame the Korean dishes and absence of Western cuisine for the shrinking. But it was a fun reminder that elephants in the room have a lot to do with culture, and in Korea, weight is not as big an elephant to avoid as it is in the US. 

Not to say there isn't a societal stigma associated with weight gain though. There is a heavy societal expectation to be in good shape (no pun intended). That, combined with their perspective on eating, makes for an interesting combination.

Eating: 

Yesterday we were all eating dinner together (same group except my friend MJ instead of Kyle), and there was food still left on the table, but everyone was winding down and getting full. So HyunHo looked at me and said, "You don't have a boyfriend, eat more."

Eyes raised, I turned to him semi-seriously. "But, HyunHo, If I eat more and get fat, how will I get a boyfriend?"

He paused for a moment, eyes glinting in laughter at my question, then he shrugged and said, "Just eat the food, and get a boyfriend."

Which leads to a social conundrum. It's generally considered attractive to be a good eater, as well as a sign of affection to load up your friend's and family's plates. It's similar to most cultures - mom makes you food because she loves you, you eat it because you love her. Here, friends, significant others, family, they show affection through not only preparing food, but making sure that food gets put on your plate (honestly, if they think you're skimping on your food, they'll just grab it and plop it on your bowl of rice). So when HyunHo told me to eat more, he wasn't trying to tell me to eat my feelings away as the single one in the group. He was saying "Someone needs to make sure you eat, so eat this, then get a boyfriend so you have a designated food supervisor like normal people." 

It's an interesting dichotomy looking at the perspectives on dieting and eating. On one hand, being in really good shape and being as thin as a rail is considered really attractive. On the other, when food is put in front of you, you've got to eat it and eat lots. Which can lead to a lot of behaviors we also see in the US - crash diets, weird food restrictions that have little to do with health, and binge/purge cycles. 

Honestly beauty expectations and culture could be their own post and likely will be once I've been around long enough to actually see faces, but for now, we'll just leave it at that. 

3) One final side effect (bringing us back to the theme of this post, which you've undoubtedly forgotten because I certainly did... #tangents):

When my kids start to charge into me, I have to consciously make an effort to not get bowled over. It's not like I'm tiny by any means, it's just that I'm not quite as solid as before. So when the 7 year old charges into me, hands ramrod straight, I better be prepared or we're both likely to end up on the floor. It doesn't help that they're also getting taller which results in better points of leverage. 

Kids, I tell you what. Always out to kill you. Which has led to me doing more Pilates to achieve and maintain another numberless goal: no concussions in class.

-Shayla