Thanks for the Rice; or, "IMMA MAKE YOU DANCE, MONKEY!!"

    The scene: 2010 Food Expo at COEX in Gangnam, Seoul.

    The players: Susubori crew, 'been-there-done-that' foreigners, naive 'wow-Korea's-so-unique' foreigners, and the Evil and Most Malevolent Bastards Who Think Nothing of Substance, aka, the PR Wanks, aka, the Showboaters, aka, The Guys Who Would Rather Film Us Than Teach Us Anything About Their Mysteriously Inscrutable Culture Which Is World Famous. Whew.

Entries from 32 exhibitors, from which 8 semi-finalists were selected.

    Here's the short version. The full account comes after the break. We're sweating away at COEX, in an exhibition hall, onstage, in front of massive rows of cameras recording proof of foreigners happily engaged in traditional Korean culture. What you won't see is that the end result of this is: no education regarding traditional culture; an unusable traditional product that would have been disposed of by the very people who made it (well, foreigners anyway, the jury's still out on whether non-Koreans in Korea are really people, given that we certainly aren't treated as such, but more on that later); and, finally, an overwhelming sense that we'd all been lent out to an end which didn't actually serve the purpose of our visit and which in truth defeated the very intent behind visiting this expo.
    To wit: frequently in Korea, there are these "cultural learnings for make great benefit glorious nation of Korea" type of events. At said events, foreigners get singled out to perform something they do not understand and look silly doing so. After said performances, Koreans in attendance feel something like, "Oh, that validates my culture and its uniqueness! They try and it's cute, but they're so bad at it!"

Be forewarned: I do get negative. But only because I care. And things turn out well, and suggestions, positive ones, are made.
  

Our cute little pony-dance booties...

    So we came for the makgeolli, to this hellish convention hall that would have been tough, loud, but tolerable when we hear, through the 10-cabs-to-a-stack columns on EV Audio louspeakers, something to the effect of, "ALL FOREIGNERS, COME TO THE FRONT! THERE WILL BE A SPECIAL CONTEST!" This is where it all begins to fall apart.
    Rewind two weeks. We're making makgeolli at Susubori, a 4-month old academy situated in Sodaemun dedicated to teaching the arts of Korean traditional alcohol, both fermented and distilled. We'd attended the class and ended up with a new hobby, a lot to learn, and two lovely pots of bubblesome brew which we're presently on the cusp of filtering. One of the ingredients for this whole process is nuruk, a rather obscure (even more Koreans, go ahead, ask your friends and co-teachers if they know what nuruk is, how it's made, and the particulars of its use) and while it can be purchased pre-made, one of the motivating factors for coming to this class was a move we'd made in the past year or two to whole, home-made foods. Blame Michael Pollan if you like, but it's been fairly awesome, excepting the fact that in Korea it's relatively impossible to let anyone know that you enjoy time alone, which is generally necessary for these home productions. Tell anyone you can chicken soup out of a can and it's like you're Gordon fucking Ramsay. Honestly.

What I had hoped to learn how to make...

    At the end of this first class we were informed that a nuruk-making class would be held on the 20th of November at COEX. Free for foreigners. Homemade liquor tasting. Sounded class to us. But you always pay, don't you, especially when it's free..
    So now we're waiting by these monstrous stacks of hifi audio speakers which produce a volume sufficient to sterilize flocks of cattle from a mile off, not sampling the makgeolli we've really come for (and to cheer on a few students of Susubori, who did take away a few prizes in the end), and entirely unsure of what's being asked of us or when we ought to be where doing what to what end and all that. (I'm sure this sense of being is entirely alien to foreigners residing in Korea who might be reading this blog, being as how this country is SO well-planned and thoroughly thought-out.) We're called up, after forming and then re-forming several groups for what turns out to be a rice-cake cutting contest. But the fastest cutters didn't win, in the end, nor did the most well-cut.. so hooray for arbitrary prizes. I simply found myself wishing the tall baseball-capped winner flashing pseudo-gang signs to the cameras wasn't an American...
    We still hadn't yet made nuruk at this point, and we've been pulled away from our makgeolli tasting, which was terribly sad since there were 32 different semi-finalists, each with a very distinct batch of makgeolli. Some was sweet, some was chalky, some was clear and effervescent, some were balanced, others not, but all very interesting. Some even topped 19% alcohol by volume, though the most common figure was about 12%, which is still a healthy twofold increase over typical store-bought varieties.

Recording the damning evidence of our bewildered participation..

     Alas, the nuruk was not to be: we were marched onstage, ordered (not really, but it sure as hell feels like it under bright lights in front of dozens of cameras while the aforementioned speaker stacks shuddered with the voltage necessary to project the instructions we were intended to follow) to remove our shoes and socks in order to don the most ridiculous (and I'm pretty sure nylon is NOT a traditional Korean fabric, you cheap showy bastards) booties for what turned out to be the worst-ever "cultural" experience during the four years I've been here.
    You know that saying that goes something like, give someone a fish, feed them for a day; teach someone to fish, feed them for a lifetime? Yeah, that saying doesn't exist here, and if any equivalent does, it's locked away somewhere were no one can apply it to all the ridiculous "cultural" encounters which are here more of a masturbatory PR effort for the networks than any real attempt at educating non-Koreans or sharing genuine culture. We proceed to pile a pre-mixed wheat base (thanks for that, since of course I wasn't interested in what the mix was or how I could make it) into a cheesecloth packed into a wooden frame, which upon wrapping we stamp for something like ten minutes (which actually falls enormously short of the time actually required to produce nuruk of a density sufficient for makgeolli production) before being judged and awarded prizes based on the result of our stamping. So... for making something which was functionally crap, we got prizes. For NOT learning anything about producing the very liquor the exhibition was celebrating, we were awarded bags of rice. Wow, because I sure can't buy white rice at Home Plus. Or Lotte Mart. Or Costco.
    So we collected our nuruk and milled about before getting nylon shopping bags to stuff it into, and it then occurred to me that I wasn't sure any of these other foreigners (numbering perhaps 12-15) even knew that nuruk was an ingredient in makgeolli, or that they were actually here at the invitation of a makgeolli-making institute. And sadly, on this point I was correct. And they planned on throwing all of their nuruk out. Way to plan, Food Expo Conventioneers. You whored a bunch of unsuspecting foreigners into producing PR for your event and rewarded them with: unusable nuruk (they hadn't even been told the name of what they were making up there on stage, or what its purpose is), a bag of the most common grain available, and a sense of confusion and mild annoyance coupled with that hollow celebrity-stardom that befalls any given foreigner set into a backdrop of a sufficiently low Foreigner:Korea ratio.
  
    Lest we end this on a sour note, I have some helpful suggestions for Koreans interested in gifting things to foreigners that will be appreciated:

- DON'T give raw or unfinished supplies like bags of rice when its usefulness to the recipient is unknown and though logically possible, highly unlikely. Especially nuruk, which is useless to anyone who is not a specialist living in the countryside with very specific equipment suitable for growing a mold culture.
- DO give finished products that convey a perspective of your culture that you hope to share.
Example: DON'T give bags of rice, DO give a bottle of makgeolli. Especially if you're at a convention focusing on that very same drink. We will not use the rice. We WILL drink the makgeolli, especially if it's representative of the quality and artisanal focus that defined the whole 'homemade liquor' theme of this convention.

- DON'T give anything that comes in 'gift boxes' such as: cooking oils, Spam (which I'm very sorry you pay so much for here in Korea; in the US it's what no one rich enough to afford fresh meat buys, hence its original use as a military ration but let's not get into the awful things you like here because your grandfather first tasted it as a military handout in 1958), or personal hygiene products and soaps (which are quite personal and will be discarded, I assure you).
- DO give small but thoughtful everyday items which are characteristically Korea. My first year here our hagwon spent 20kkrw on a box set of undrinkable wine for each foreign teacher when it could have easily spent the same or less on a celadon cup or a tea set that would have been more authentic and would at least have been possible to re-gift, or better yet, would remind those who left of Korea in an authentic fashion. It would give the recipient to take a small native tradition home with them. It's a part of a ritual toolbox, if you will.

- DON'T give anything a tourist can buy at an airport. No one with taste wants a cheap brass Dynamic Korea keychain. It's forgettable and obviously cheap, not just in terms of cost, but in terms of the thought that went into the decision to purchase it.
- DO give small culturally relevant items that are easily boxed and travel well. A few of our best gifts since we've been here were two rather nice but not very expensive dolls who represent two different famous women from Korean history, one a queen and the other a woman renowned for her beauty. They came in boxes. they are small, and it's evident that no small amount of care went into them, regardless of their relatively low price point. Give a nice card made of beautiful paper. Give a small portrait of a Korean historical figure drawn by hand from Insadong. These things aren't expensive, and most importantly, they are the sort of things which as gifts here are atypical. They are therefore memorable.

    Oh.. one more thing: stop using foreigners as an excuse to feel good about your own culture. Just feel good about it. No one needs to approve your culture. Tteokbokki will not be popular abroad so long as it's crap, no matter how you choose to spell it. Don't rename established items like makgeolli and turn them into stupid, petty one-liners like Drunken Rice.It's demeaning to others that you think persons sufficiently interested in the product are incapable of learning its proper name, and it's demeaning to your own culture to market that very culture in cute terms to people customers who have no acquaintance with its name, context, and origin.
    If you really want to share your culture, putting foreigners into these ritual contexts that you don't explain, that they may have no lasting interest in, and which produce no realistic way to continue to participate in said ritual is sad and useless, and moreover insulting to the foreigners you involve.
    What you could be doing is:

a) Educating the interested. Let people know what's going on, where it comes from in your culture, and why it's important to you. We're in this because we like making things, and we therefore are interested in learning enough to take the practice with us, equipment and all. If people aren't interested, don't force them, and don't bribe them with trinkets. Lack of interest will not be overcome by the gift of a pink rice cake.

b) Planning it out. This convention produced two things: strange memories and lots of garbage. The nuruk everyone made would have been tossed if we hadn't inquired about it. Even so it is very likely to be unusable. So the convention failed to educate, and produced material waste.

c) Not cheapening participants. This happens by making a show of what could instead be a learning experience. The Food Expo was too cheap to hire actors, so for the price of a bag of rice they rented out foreigners who were entirely unsuspecting of their purpose (PR) and were in fact deceived/kept ignorant and will invariably be made fun of in a variety of media while actually directly defeating the purpose of this sort of event, which is to participate, to educate, and to share. None of these goals were accomplished.

d) Not damaging your national/cultural/professional credibility. Which you do by a) not educating, b) not planning, and c) cheapening your participants.

    What could have been done?

- Set up various stations for actually preparing the nuruk from scratch. It's an arduous process, but it could be done in stages while still permitting participants to be entirely hands-on. This is Susubori's strength, actually. In one night, we started the next classes' makgeolli and enjoyed the makgeolli that had been started by the previous class. We were able to participate in every step by preparing for those who would come after us. We learned. The Food Expo planners could take a cue from Susubori, which, as an institute, has clearly thought out their educational goals and the steps needed to achieve those goals, as well as defining education as a priority. Yes, someone takes photos of students participating, but that's a sidenote. It's never the focus.
  
- Have the participants make quality nuruk for the sake of learning and doing something well, not just to have something for a 5-minute short you'll broadcast in endless repetition on the subway TV. Teach why the mold is important, how it's grown, and what conditions are best.

- Plan a festival out in the mountains, where nuruk is best cultivated, and provide a ticket to each participant. Send the participants home with a bottle of some of the contestants' makgeolli, so they know to what end they've created this hard-packed block of whole wheat. Too expensive you say? That's why it's called investing. If you want to build something that will last, it will cost you. And it will be worth it.
  
- Invite the participants out to the countryside to see the results of what they've made. Fully involve people. They will respect you for taking the time. Everyone forgets that 5-minute subway TV short. No one forgets being included in a deliberate process that produces something potent, culturally unique, and uncommon. That's something the participants would take with them for quite a long time, and if you want to see Korean culture spread, this kind of inclusion and involvement will accomplish what no amount of pandering, pathetic National Branding and advertising will.

Enough with the carnivals.

Get on with the Education.