Green tea, raw fish and seaweed. Ugh!
My dear POF, I have a couple of packages of dried seaweed in my cupboard. for wrapping around delicate rice cakes. Back in the day my fellow graduate student pal's wife showed me how to make them. He was legally married to her in Korea by proxy, a woman chose for him by his parents; then she came over to him here, a woman whom he had not personally met before. On her arrival, they had a marriage ceremony here, planned for them by his sponsor, then began their life together.
His prents were very wise. She was very attractive, an accomplished secretary to the president of South Korea, a fine cook and social entertainer, and wholly dedicated to her husband and his well-being, loved by all his circe of friends and fellow students, but especially by her new husband. I like to make rice cakes in memory of her. (I suppose the both may have passe on by now.)
I had the opportunity of visiting them in their residence n Seoul, back in the mid-1980s, being invited to supper that she prepared. Main side dish: kimchi that she herself had made. You want variety in flavors? that kimchi smelled like an old coon dog come in out of the rain, and steamingly drying out on the furnace register grating. You can imagine the taste, loved by Koreans!
Base line: Korean home cooking or restaurant fare is not like ours at all, my FRiend. But my dining with them was a benefit of responding to his invitation to address the representatives of several electronics companies at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, of which my friend was Director. In it I represented my company and the results of my research, to offer our products to an industry starving for technology beyond that of Japan's.
Like to see your reaction to their home cooking!
(Respectful comment and tales of recollections, just for you, POF)
And, oh, quite interestingly, from Wikipedia:
"The institute was founded in 1971 as the Korea Advanced Institute of Science (KAIS) by a loan of US$6 million (US$38 million[13] 2019) from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and supported by President Park Chung-Hee." (click here)So now we go about killing off the USAID that through decades made such devoted friends of South Korean intelligentsia, no politics outside of dedication to personal and economic freedom involved.
Try to imagine, a nation that hadbeen for years slaves to the occupying Japanese lords, treated lower than dogs, allowed the lowest forms of foods while the best was shipped to Honshu. They were finally freed to personal liberty in the areas under the protection of the US and UN; the rest in the North re-enslaved by communist tyranny.
What value of individual freedom did one possess who went through the stage of slavery and was liberated after 1945? My graduate pal had. It's been about 80 years now. How much of those values have still been kept shining by the generations since then? (a rhetorical question)
Remember green tea when you encounter it. A symbol of our freedoms to choose, a God-given right to His created souls, whom Satan wants to crush.
Thank you for your choice of username, it's a great one.
ProtectOurFreedom.
Well said and defended.