When I went to Kenya I was urged by several people within my field of friends and family to reconsider. Kenya was a most dangerous place indeed. I would certainly get mugged, raped, eaten and converted to some heathen religion (not in that order). I expect the same people would be mortified with my move to South Korea.
Not because of the mugging or raping, most people will realize a 1.95m tall white guy in a country of 1.65m short asians isn’t prime target for that. No, it’s the neighbours. South Korea is next to North Korea and they’ve been huffing, and puffing and mostly just blowing steam for well . . . 5 decades now? They make the front page a couple of times of several newspapers every month with nuclear something, firing somethingother, launching whatchamecallits and mostly aggressive other stuff. I’m basically not worried about it much. Partly because of how the western media portraits the North Koreans and partly because nothing military is going to happen anytime soon. America is still very on their toes regarding the state of this peninsula, Japan isn’t NK friendly and China recently basically told them they didn’t have their back unconditionally.
So, what will I worry about.
THE FOOD.
Korea’s most notable contribution to world cuisine is Kimchi. Health Magazine has named it one of the world’s most healthy foods because it is loaded with vitamins A, B, and C, but its biggest benefit may be in its “healthy bacteria†called lactobacilli, found in fermented foods like kimchi and yogurt. This good bacteria helps with digestion, plus it seems to help stop and even prevent yeast infections. Best news of all though: Some studies show fermented cabbage has compounds that may prevent the growth of cancer.
Now, call me a skeptic, but I like to review my sources. Currently, I fill my days checking sources and whatever for my final thesis so the first thing I did was try and track down some of these sources.
Thin. Very thin.
What I did find was this: Kimchi and soybean pastes are risk factors of gastric cancer, by Hong-Mei Nan et.al.
Hell, if you google Kimchi cancer you will get a lot of links to either side of the arguement. Some of them indicate it being the cabbage that is responsible to the anti-cancer properties, others the pickling. And then others indicate the pickling is directly related to gastric cancer.
All in all it’s a hotly debated topic it seems and whichever side of the arguement I believe it’s not likely to affect me for years of regular use anyway.
But, here’s my stance on Kimchi.
To introduce and conclude: Kimchi, is a pickled dish made of cabbage, some other vegetables and various seasonings.
It’s pickled cabbage.
PICKLED CABBAGE.
I like neither pickled foods nor cabbage. Case closed. It could give me superpowers and I’ll politely pick at it during official functions and ignore the hell out of it during the rest of my stay there. But considering it’s served with every bloody meal and aelle seems to actually like it (I knew I should’ve questioned her tastes when she fell for me) I’m sure I’ll have enough exposure to it and so: Worry about it, I shall.
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Being a parent is wanting to hug and strangle your kid at the same time
– Bill Watterson
