we have had this conversation before. My husband says to tell you that his mother made her own sauerkraut and canned it but he doesn't know what the Koreans treat the cabbage with before they put it in a crock and bury it in the ground but he swears that after a person eats it, the smell hangs in the air and that person must sweat it out though their pores. They hired a young Korean man to keep their quarters clean and they barred him from entering the barracks if he had eaten kimchi because the smell made them all sick. LOL
Mom is German and lived there for a few years. Have had a few Korean friends. Your husband is right on the smell. We had a new from Korea girl come to my sixth grade class and she had a distinct smell coming from her pores and it was on all of her clothes. It might have been garlic.
Koreans don't 'treat' the cabbage. They simply pack with water and lots of salt. The natural sugars in the cabbage end up fermenting into lactic acid, a natural preservative. It is therefore 'pickled,' but not with our familiar vinegar pickling. They also add lots of hot pepper in the jar. It is definitely pungent and an acquired taste.