No Won in Your Wallet

Dear Korean,

Do wealthy Koreans carry something in their wallets other than won notes? In many K-dramas I've watched, someone--usually a rich someone--will offer payment that looks like a sort of check or money order. The recipient will often say, "Ah..that's too much!" Any idea what these slips of paper are?

Don W.

Don is probably referring to this type of piece of paper:

(source)

Pretty good eyes to recognize that the slip of paper is probably a check or a money order. This is called 자기앞수표 in Korean, or "banker's check." It is essentially a pre-printed check that entitles the holder of the check to the amount listed on the check. (Usually KRW 100,000, but the amount can be KRW 1 million or 10 million.)

It is important to note that this is not cash -- it is a commercial paper that may be exchanged into cash, but not itself cash. Although it is sometimes used like cash, many places of business would refuse to take banker's check as a form of payment. (For example, more often than not, you would not be able to use the banker's check to pay for your meal at a restaurant.)

Then why do people carry this piece of paper around? Answer: until June 2009, the highest denomination in won notes was KRW 10,000, or a little less than $10. One of the side effects of Korea's miraculous economic growth since the 1960s meant that people began to exchange larger and larger values very quickly. By 1990s, much like Americans, many Koreans would carry around $100 to $200 (i.e. KRW 100,000 to 200,000) in their wallets, and it was a significant hassle to carry 10 to 20 sheets of the KRW 10,000 notes in one's wallet.

The use of banker's check decreased after the introduction of the KRW 50,000 note in 2009, but until then, it was a common sight for the KRW 100,000 banker's check to get whipped out, usually with the same gusto that an American might pull out a $100 bill.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

20th Anniversary of Los Angeles Riots

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots, which began on April 29, 1992. The riots themselves preceded the Korean's time in America, as he was an 11 year old living in Seoul. But having immigrated to the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the many scars left by the riots on Korean American community were quite palpable.

The Korean remembers the 10 year anniversary of the riots in 2002. Although Korean American community of Los Angeles sustained the greatest damages from the riots, the memorial coverage of the riots mostly skipped over Korean American community. Then-President George W. Bush visited Los Angeles to commemorate the occasion, but did not visit Koreatown or meet with any Korean American civic leaders. We will see if that will change this time around.

In the meantime, please do check out the top-notch coverage of the LA riots at KoreAm magazine. In particular, make sure to check out the oral accounts of those Korean Americans who were in the middle of the chaos, and the map of the destroyed Korean American businesses.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Jasmine Lee, the First Non-Ethnic Assembly Member (Part II)

[Part I]

Now, for the second part of Eric's question:

Also, it seems that the Saenuri Party is making a greater effort than other parties to appeal to immigrants to Korea. From a western perspective, this is perplexing as one would expect a progressive party to be more, well, progressive. Could you help to provide some context on this?


Certainly. Given Korea's upcoming presidential election at the end of this year, the Korean will use this question to give a bit of primer about Korean politics, which would help one understand this oddity.

As of today, Korean politics can be divided largely into two camps:  conservatives and progressives. Broadly speaking, Korea's conservatives and progressives generally follow the same direction as the rightist and leftist politics of the United States or Europe. But there are peculiar aspects in Korean politics, owing to Korea's history, that drive Korea's conservatives and progressives into unexpected directions. Thus, to understand Korea's political landscape, one must first understand modern Korean history.

[Full disclosure:  The Korean and his family have been staunchly progressive, so read the rest with that bias in mind.]

Here is a very fast recap of modern Korean history. In 1945, Korea gained independence from Japan at the conclusion of World War II, but was immediately divided into North and South Korea. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea; Korean War ended in 1953. From 1953 to 1988 (or 1993, depending on who you ask, which is explained further below,) South Korea went through a series of fascist dictators, who justified their murderous dictatorship by (1) pointing to Korea's miraculous economic rise, and (2) citing the threat of North Korea attempting to invade the south once again. After waves and waves of democratization protests, South Korea's first democratic administration was established in 1988 (or again, 1993, depending on who you ask.) Since then, Korea has had 3 or 4 presidential elections, leading to this point.

(More after the jump.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.



Let us zoom in a little bit more. To understand the current-day Korean politics, a good starting point is 1979. In 1979, the long-time dictator  Park Chung-Hee was assassinated, ending Park's 16 year rule and giving a faint hope of democracy in Korea. Yet in December 1979, two-star general Chun Doo-Hwan came to power through military coup. In the following year, Chun's army massacred hundreds of democratization protesters in Gwangju, and claimed that the protesters were the militia controlled by North Korea.

By 1986, however, Chun Doo-Hwan capitulated to the waves and waves of democratization protests, and promised to hold a free election. In the presidential election in 1987, there were three major candidates -- Roh Tae-Woo, Kim Young-Sam, and Kim Dae-Jung.

The two Kims were both ambitious champions of democratization struggle, having begun their political careers in very young age. Kim Young-Sam became a National Assembly member at mere 26 years old, and was house-arrested and survived assassination attempts in the course of fighting against the dictatorships of Park Chung-Hee and Chun Doo-Hwan. Kim Dae-Jung likewise began his career young, becoming a National Assembly member as a 37-year-old. Kim Dae-Jung ran for president against Park Chung-Hee in 1970, and remarkably lost by less than a million votes, in an election that was clearly rigged in favor of the incumbent dictator. He would also survive multiple assassination attempts, and had to walk with a cane for the rest of his life.

Tragically for Korea's democracy, the two Kims could not form a unified slate against Roh Tae-Woo, Chun Doo-Hwan's right hand man. The two Kims ended up splitting the votes (each earned approximately 27-28% of the votes,) allowing Roh to win simply by earning 36% of the votes. Although Roh won in an election that was (mostly) fair, democratization activists lamented that the dictator's hand-picked successor ended up continuing the rule.

Yet, as attested by his final vote tally, Roh Tae-Woo administration was a lame duck from the start. In order to break through the weakness, Roh engineered a game-changer: Roh's Democratic Justice Party would merge with two opposition parties, one of which was Unification Democratic Party led by Kim Young-Sam. The result of this "Three Party Merger" was Democratic Freedom Party, which is the precursor to the current-day New Frontier Party. In 1992, on the back of the merged parties, Kim Young-Sam became the president.

In the following election in 1997, Kim Dae-Jung finally got his due and narrowly defeated Kim Young-Sam's successor Lee Hoi-Chang. In 2002, Roh Moo-Hyun, who entered politics along with Kim Young-Sam but left his camp in protest of the three party merger, won the presidential race as Kim Dae-Jung's successor. In 2007, however, Lee Myeong-Bak from the opposition regained the Blue House, and that's where we stand now.

Note what kinds of conflicts would arise in each period of Korea's tumultuous history, and how the conservatives and progressives would be formed along those lines of the conflicts. Korea's conservatives essentially belong to the big umbrella created by the three-party merger. Within it, there is an uneasy coexistence between the beneficiaries of the former dictatorship and former pro-democracy activists who are nonetheless conservative. The leading conservative party of today -- New Frontier Party, or NFP -- is strong in southeastern parts of Korea, as Gyeongsang-do natives Park Chung-Hee and Chun Doo-Hwan prioritized their home region for economic development. Conservatives are pro-United States, the patron state of South Korea even through its dictatorship period. Conservatives are hawkish against North Korea, and usually do not hesitate to accuse the progressives as North Korean fifth column.

Progressives are on the opposite side of those lines. Instead of being a big umbrella, Korea's progressives are more bound by shared political stance of leftist pro-democracy activists. The leading progressive party of today -- Democratic United Party, or DUP -- is strong in southwestern parts of Korea, where memories of Gwangju massacre are still quite fresh. Progressives are ambivalent or suspicious of United States, precisely because it was the patron state that propped up the murderous dictatorships of Park Chung-Hee and Chun Doo-Hwan. Progressives are more engagement-oriented with North Korea, and are suspicious of  the attempts at Red Scare, a favorite tactic by the dictatorships to justify their existence.

Notice how much of the conservative-progressive division is a result of the particulars of Korean history, rather than the policy preferences more regularly seen in other democracies. To be sure, policy preferences along the camp lines do exist in Korea. Like conservatives of many other countries, Korea's conservatives tend to prefer lower taxes and pro-business policies. Like leftists of many other countries, Korea's progressives tend to prefer more active intervention of the government in the market and distributive taxation policies. But these policy preferences are not the only driving purpose of Korea's political camps. Although one could argue that this is true in the politics of all countries, it is worth pointing out that policy preferences of each parties are not set in stone, and can change unexpectedly based on their historical roots as well as the realities of contemporary politics.

And at the time of the National Assembly elections two weeks ago, the political realities dictated that the NFP undergo significant changes. President Lee Myeong-Bak's popularity has cratered, at this point only garnering around 30% approval rating. As a former CEO of Hyundai, Lee's policies were unapologetically pro-business, pro-free trade, anti-labor and anti-distributive policies. The result was a disastrous drop in popularity, and the progressives made significant inroads by arguing -- probably correctly -- that Korea needs to strengthen its social safety net. The strength of this argument crested in October 2011, when the progressives took over the Seoul mayor's seat.

Desperate to regain footing, the conservative party -- known as Grand National Party at the time -- resorted to drastic measures. It changed its name to the New Frontier Party. The NFP's leadership resigned, and a newly formed Emergency Response Committee, comprised mostly of outsiders and fresh faces. The party distanced itself from the president, and co-opted the most popular progressive platforms such as more generous welfare benefits for families with young children and lowered tuition at national colleges.

It is in this context in which Jasmine Lee was recruited into the NFP. As one might have expected, progressives in Korea have been more attuned to the voices of minorities in Korea. But it is also important to note that, at least at the elite level, conservative of Korea do not have a particular aversion to immigration, unlike the conservatives in United States or Europe. In fact, at a high level, there is a bipartisan agreement in Korean politics that continued immigration and multiculturalism are necessary for Korea's future. In this context, recruiting Jasmine Lee was essentially a matter of who moved in first. NFP, being the party more desperate for change, simply happened to take in Lee first.

In fact, even as a card-carrying progressive, the Korean's personal feeling is that it is not a bad result for Lee to be in a conservative party. There is no question that the conservatives are stronger in Korea, and have greater access to various social institutions -- the bureaucracy, religious organizations, media, civic groups, etc. -- to effect real change. Lee's membership in the conservative party would also serve to discourage the growth of the xenophobic, far-right elements that plague the American and European politics. (Although, to be sure, there is ample potential within Korea's the far-left to develop its own version of xenophobic politics.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

AAK! PSA: Free Screening of "My Heart if Not Broken Yet"

The Women's Global Solidarity Action Network (WGSAN) will be hosting a free documentary film screening of "My Heart is Not Broken Yet", a powerful testimony of Song Shin-do Halmoni's continued fight for justice as a former "comfort woman" (women who were drafted into military sexual slavery during the Japanese occupation in World War II). Come watch this courageous survivor, witness her story, and help raise global awareness so we can get this issue resolved in 2012. "My Heart is Not Broken Yet" tells the story of the trail and struggle of Song Sin-do Halmoni who has continually campaigned for redress on the issue of the "comfort women." Although she lost the trial she states that "my soul is undefeated" which reveals her desire to fight for justice. The film screening will be on Sunday, April 29th at 3pm in the 시청각실 (screening room) on the fourth floor at the Seoul Women's Plaza. To get to Seoul Women's Plaza, go out exit 3 of Daebang Station (대방역) on line 1, walk 50m into the left alley.

Directions: http://www.seoulwomen.or.kr/nhpeng/intro/directions.jsp

For more information email: womens.global.solidarity@gmail.com

For the facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/264581113632923/

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Jasmine Lee, the First Non-Ethnic Assembly Member (Part I)

Dear Korean, 

I was wondering what the Korean thinks about the election of the first naturalized Korean citizen to the National Assembly as part of the Saenuri Party's proportional list. The views expressed in this article appear to represent a radical fringe. The views in this editorial seem like a reasonable response. Clearly there is a range. However, I am curious how most Koreans feel. Is it seen as an important milestone in the development of Korea as a democratic multiracial society? Do most Koreans view this in a way that would be analogous to the first female/minority/openly gay member of parliament in a non-Korean context?

Also, it seems that the Saenuri Party is making a greater effort than other parties to appeal to immigrants to Korea. From a western perspective, this is perplexing as one would expect a progressive party to be more, well, progressive. Could you help to provide some context on this?

Eric M.

First of all, a bit of background on how the legislature elections work in Korea. Korea's legislature is called the National Assembly [국회]. It has 300 members who serve a four-year term. The election system is slightly complicated. 246 of those seats are given to “regional representatives” — i.e. candidates who win a geographical electoral district on a first-past-the-pole basis. 54 seats are given to “proportional representatives,” namely party representatives. This means that each voter casts two votes — one for the representative for her own electoral district, and the other for the party that she supports.

The “district” votes and the “party” votes are counted separately. The “district” votes are counted to determine the winner of the electoral district. The “party” votes are counted to determine how many seats would be assigned to each party. Each party that wins more than 3% of the “party” votes receives a seat based on the support. For example, if a party won 10% of the “party” votes, the party would receive five seats, or approximately 10% of 54 seats. Each party puts out a proportional representative slate that would take those seats. In this scenario, the first five people on the party’s slate would take those seats.

The National Assembly
(source)

The last Assembly election was held on April 11. In the last election, the conservative Saenuri Party (also known as the New Frontier Party, or the NFP) put Jasmine Lee at number 15 on the slate. NFP won 42.8% of the "party" votes in the last election, giving the party 25 proportional representatives -- which means Lee was in, becoming the first naturalized Korean citizen to be an Assembly member.

(More after the jump.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.



Lee's story is quite compelling. Born Jasmine Bacurnay in the Philippines, she married her Korean husband who was a sailor in 1995. She moved to Korea the next year, and in 1998 founded the Waterdrop Society, the first civic organization geared toward assisting marriage-immigrant women to Korea. She was tragically widowed in 2010, when her husband died from heart attack while attempting to save their daughter who was swept in the rapids while they were vacationing. (The daughter survived.) Undeterred, she continued to raise her children and live with her in-laws in Korea. She began appearing in movies in 2010, and gained widespread fame by appearing in the 2011 comedy movie Punch, which drew more than 5.3 million viewers.

New Assembly member Jasmine Lee delivers opening remarks. (source)

How are Koreans receiving Lee? It is probably safe to say that there is no single sentiment which most Koreans feel. Many Koreans certainly see Lee's election as a significant milestone, as Koreans are slowly opening up to the idea of being a multicultural society. But the racist attacks are absolutely real. To be sure, it is important not to overstate the prevalence of those attacks. To give a numerical sense, only about 1 to 2 percent of all tweets referring to Lee contained any racist attacks. Yet, as all racist attacks are, they are shrill, damaging and attention-grabbing. Although proportional representatives generally do not make campaign promises, some Internet troll made up the supposed campaign promises by Lee that included over-the-top welfare benefits in an attempt to stoke xenophobia. Other slanderous attacks claimed that she was sold to her husband through a marriage agency, or that she falsely claimed that she was attending medical school in the Philippines. (She was a pre-med in college, which she did not finish as she followed her husband to move to Korea.)

To her enormous credit, Lee has been a profile of grace. In her first interview as an Assembly member, she said she was more concerned about other multicultural families in Korea getting hurt. She added that although she was hurt by those attacks, it was also an opportunity for Korea to prove its inclusiveness, referring to the Koreans around her who encouraged her to stay strong.

To understand Korea's reaction to Jasmine Lee, one has to understand the larger debate in which Lee fits. Beginning around 10 years ago, Korea was set upon the path of being an immigration destination by virtue of its newly found wealth. As Koreans are more reluctant to work in certain jobs that are more physically difficult, or live in areas that are rural and less-than-interesting (or, more specifically, marry the men who live in those areas,) non-Korean immigrants have been filling that gap. In the last decade, those immigrants are beginning to reach a critical mass.

Remember this truth about racism -- racists are animated only if the minority race is in a position to threaten the majority. (Stated differently: race relation is not an issue if one race is not in a position to affect the other.) This perceived threat can come in a variety of different forms. A minority in a position of power is threatening. A large number of minority is threatening, because of the implied power in the numbers. A minority with an official position is threatening. (It is not a coincidence that racists in America love to bash on African American DMV ladies!) A minority perceived to be crime-prone is threatening. In sufficient numbers, any minority with a job can be threatening. ("Dey terk our jerbs!")

[Aside:  this is the primary reason why the Korean still believes that America is the least racist country in the world. Because of the sheer number and influence of minorities in America, white Americans have the most reason to be (irrationally) hateful toward minorities. Yet, by virtue of its long experience with race relations, America handles race relations better than any other country, if that country were placed in a similar demographical situation.]

With non-ethnic Koreans comprising approximately 2 percent of the population, Korea is slowly coming to a point were the minority race can begin to pose a threat to the majority. It is not a coincidence that racist attacks on Lee happened around the same time as the gory murder of a young woman by a Chinese-Korean, who raped, killed and dismembered the victim. Sensationalistic newspapers did not fail to mention that the murderer was an immigrant, which drove the xenophobes in Korean Internet into a frenzy. In this context, the election of Jasmine Lee is particularly threatening to racists in Korea. It did not help that she was elected through the conservative NFP, which claimed a gutty win over the progressives in a closely fought election. As progressive voters are better represented on the Internet, the racist attacks against Lee on the Internet were particularly shrill. (More on this in Part II.)

By having Jasmine Lee front and center in the news, Koreans are facing up to the choice -- is Korea going to be an immigrant-friendly, multicultural country going forward? The no-brainer answer should be a yes. Like all advanced industrial countries, Korea has less native-born people who are willing to do the jobs that immigrants from poorer countries are more willing to do. In fact, Korea has less native-born people, period, because Korea's birthrate has plummet in the last decade to a degree that it is headed for a demographic disaster in 20 years if the situation does not improve soon. Facing this situation, Korea's elites -- regardless of their political persuasion -- are more or less unified behind their support for multiculturalism in Korea. (Prominent progressive personalities, like Professors Chin Jungkwon or Cho Kuk, have been quick to denounce the racist attacks against Lee.)

Ordinary Koreans, however, remain to be persuaded. It is important to note that the scale of racist attacks against Lee has been somewhat overstated, as the conservative media (who tend to be more influential in the traditional media outlets, i.e. newspapers and television) pounced on those attacks as a chance to claim that the progressives, who usually brand themselves as friends of the weak, were ugly hypocrites. But even if Koreans were not engaged in racist attacks against Lee, there is no question that a solid majority of Koreans are not yet sold on the goal of multicultural Korea. They remember the race riots of Los Angeles 20 years ago, the riots that roiled London last year, and German chancellor Angela Merkel declaring that multiculturalism in Germany utterly failed.

But more than anything else, Koreans simply have zero experience in dealing with someone from a different ethnic background, with different-colored skin, eating different food and speaking a different language. The Korean has never met a non-Korean in person until he was 15 -- and that was only because, at the time, the Korean Father was in the business of dealing with a lot of non-Koreans, who were invited to our house. Even today, overwhelming majority of Koreans have never had any meaningful interaction with non-Koreans. This alone will be a significant hurdle toward Korea's inevitable march toward a multicultural society.

Part II will deal with the second part of Eric's question, and give an overview of Korea's politics.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Ask a Korean! Wiki: What to do with Asian Names?

Dear Korean,

We are adopting a sweet little boy from the Seoul area. My husband is Lebanese/American and I am European/American. We were planning on keeping the name his birthmother had given him which is HaJin. However a Chinese/American male friend didn't think this was a good idea. My friend stated that growing up Asian was difficult enough, and he and his Asian friends were grateful to have been given more English sounding names. What are your thoughts on this?

Paige K.

That issue is a tricky one not only for adoptive parents, but also for a lot of young Asian American parents. Paige's Chinese American friend is not wrong -- it is tough enough to look different, and adding the extra effort of telling people how to pronounce your name all the time, only to see them never remember your name, could be a rather alienating experience. But on the other hand -- especially for adoptees, who have a difficult time retaining their heritage culture -- using the given name could serve as a good reminder of one's heritage. One form of compromise among Korean American parents is to choose a name that can operate in both in English and in Korean (e.g. "Mina".)

As for the Korean himself, he hopes to give the Korean Baby a Korean first name and an English/Christian middle name, so that while the child could go by the English name, the priorities would be clear, especially when it comes to everything legal.

Having said that, let's hear from our readers. Asian Americans, how do you feel about your ethnic names? What did/will you do with your children's names?

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

The Korean on "An Economist Gets Lunch"

The Korean is a faithful reader of Prof. Tyler Cowen's blog Marginal Revolution. Like Prof. Cowen, the Korean is also a resident of Northern Virginia, and he cares about food deeply. So the Korean is expecting his copy of Prof. Cowen's An Economist Gets Lunch with great interest. The Korean did not read the book yet, but based on the reviews, it sounds fascinating -- Moneyball for lunch selections, as it were. A lot of what Prof. Cowen suggests makes perfect sense. For example, it makes sense to go for the ugly-sounding dish in a nice restaurant, because the dish had better to be good if it deserved a place on the menu. (Oven roasted bone marrow at Blue Duck Tavern in Washington D.C. comes to mind as a good example.)

But the Korean couldn't help but furrow his brow a little bit at the part of the book about selecting good ethnic restaurants. For example, in the New York Times book review that discussed Prof. Cowen's favorite Ethiopian restaurant:

It’s a sports bar, which seems like an unlikely choice, but not to Professor Cowen’s way of thinking. He chose it precisely because it was an unlikely choice. An American sports bar might mean Buffalo wings and cheeseburgers, but an Ethiopian sports bar? “They are making no attempt to appeal to non-Ethiopians,” he said.

How does he know it is good? Ethiopians eat there. It’s crowded. People look prosperous. But the two-page menu offers more clues. A few American items are tucked down in a corner, but other than that it is all Ethiopian. It has Ethiopian breakfast items. The descriptions are sparse, because why would they need explaining to its core audience? There are dishes on the menu that he doesn’t recognize. “That’s always a good sign,” he said.

At a first glance, all of the above seem to make sense. If you want the best Ethiopian food, it makes sense to look for the place that cater more or less exclusively to well-off Ethiopians. However, that idea rests on a critical assumption:  well-off Ethiopians know how to look for the best Ethiopian food. The Korean's problem with this assumption is -- at least when it comes to Korean food in America, that assumption is completely false. I cannot speak for any other ethnic cuisine in America, but I would not be surprised similar trends occurred in other immigrant communities.

Here, the Korean should take a quick detour and remind everyone about his own peculiar stance with food, especially Korean food. Simply put, I am an irrational Korean food purist. I have been called "Korean food Wahhabbist." I despise any and all efforts to steer Korean food away from the way it is supposed to be. (And "the way it is supposed to be" is defined as the way it is made in the place of the dish's origin, i.e. a particular region in Korea. And yes, that means I despise much of Korean food in Korea also.) When I comes to Korean food, I am a deranged lunatic. When it comes to Korean food, I am more unreasonable than an obnoxious sports dad attending his child's little league baseball game. I will utterly disregard the reasonable preference of everyone else. I will lose my shit and wantonly issue death threats to anyone who gives a bad Korean food recipe. So take this post as what you will.

Having said that, how is it the case that well-off Korean Americans still are not competent judges of good Korean food?

Korean Americans have been living in the U.S. in large numbers since the 1960s, and at this point it is fair to say that Korean American cuisine has developed a number of subtle differences that distinguishes it from traditional Korean cuisine. A few of those divergences are positive -- for example, Korean Americans expanded the potential of soondubu soup (spicy soft tofu soup) by adding more, and more diverse, ingredients, to the point that the American-style soondubu soup was reverse-exported back to Korea.

But the Korean would daresay that vast majority of changes applied to Korean cuisine applied by Korean Americans have been negative. One major difference in Korean versus Korean American cuisine is the infantilization of flavors -- going from sophisticated to crude, from complex to one-dimensioned. Much of Korean food in America is one or more of too sweet, too spicy, too salty, etc. Sweetness, in particular, is the all-encompassing evil that completely downgrades Korean food in America. Proper Korean food hardly uses any sweetening agent, but overwhelming majority of Korean restaurants in America liberally use sugar in their food. For anyone with discerning taste, it is vile.

Korean restaurants in America also take many shortcuts to save the cost and effort. Faking umami through the use of MSG in any brothy Korean food is an easy example. Less noticeable (at least to those who never had the real thing) are the "cheap restaurant tricks" that Korean restaurants use in certain types of food. For example, seolleongtang [설렁탕] is a cow's leg bone soup, whose broth becomes milky white after many hours of slowly boiling the bone in low heat as the collagen in the bone slowly melts out. But instead of spending those many hours, Korean restaurants use a shortcut -- take the regular, store-bought beef broth, and add coffee creamer (!) to it.

[-UPDATE, 4/18/2012- Lest there should be any misunderstanding, this is not to say that "cheap restaurant tricks" are used exclusively in Korean restaurants in America. Most of those tricks originated in Korea, and are still used to cheap restaurants in Korea. The difference is that in Korea, the customer base knows enough about Korean food such that "cheap restaurant tricks," for the most part, actually stay within cheap restaurants. In the U.S., that is not the case -- coffee creamer seolleongtang can be found in the places that look like they are supposed to be decent places.]

Then there is the influence of American eating habits creeping into Korean food in America. Vegetables are the backbone of Korean cuisine, as Korea has more than 1,000 edible vegetables and herbs. Korea also has a huge variety of seasonal fish, thanks to the fact that it is surrounded by the ocean on three sides. To keep those vegetables and fish for a long period of time, Koreans have developed a number of pickling and fermentation methods that add a great deal of complexity to those ingredients. (Kimchi is the prime example of this.) In a typical Korean meal, vast majority of the food served will be vegetables or fish, and a lot of them are pickled and/or fermented. But in America, Korean BBQ is the de facto representative of Korean cuisine. Nary a fermented side dish (which invariably takes much more effort to make) can be found. In a disturbing trend, the newer, more "hip" Korean restaurants are doing away with the last vestige of vegetables in Korean BBQ by getting rid of the lettuce wraps that would always accompany the meat.

All told, Korean food to Korean American food is a movie to a pornography -- the entire endeavor is reduced to a single, crass purpose, which is achieved by artificial "enhancements." Yet Korean restaurants, even those only patronized by well-off Korean Americans, merrily stay in business. How?

Ever wished as a child that you could eat your cereal with chocolate milk, or have a piece of cake for breakfast? That's what has happened with Korean food in America. Unmoored from parental supervision (in this case, the centuries of tradition,) Korean Americans have made Korean food in America cheaper, easier and simpler, at the cost of quality. It is particularly notable that most well-off Korean Americans in America did not start out well-off -- they arrived poor, but became middle class through hard work. While Korean Americans' immigrant work ethic deserves lavish praise, it would be ludicrous to claim that those Korean Americans arrived at America with highly sophisticated culinary aesthetics. (Because rare is the case that a group of wealthy people immigrate to America, the Korean would think that similar trend may hold with other ethnic cuisines.)

The presence of young Korean Americans, second generation and beyond, drives this trend to a much deeper nadir. The second generation Korean Americans grew up without ever exploring the ceiling of what Korean food could be, or establishing the floor of what Korean food, at a minimum, should be. Yet, by virtue of their minority status, they become false representatives of authenticity to mainstream America, which is never all that good at appreciating finer differences within a given ethnic group. Even David Chang, probably the most famous Korean American chef in the U.S. right now, apparently "had no idea there were such endless varieties of namul," or seasoned vegetable dishes, in Korean cuisine. To me, that is an inexcusable level of ignorance -- namul is (or, at least, should be) on a Korean table every meal, every day. If you do not even know the characteristics of one of the most foundational components of Korean food, what the hell do you know?

This means that even following Prof. Cowen's advice does not necessarily lead to good Korean food. In Manhattan, for example, one could always find a restaurant around 32nd street that makes no attempt to cater to non-Koreans; that is crowded with prosperous-looking Koreans; whose menu is exclusively comprised of Korean food items with little English description accompanying them. Yet, no matter -- that restaurant will serve shitty Korean food laced with so much MSG that, if you have sensitive stomach like my wife, it will give you the runs all day long.

By my count, the New York metro area (Manhattan, Long Island, New Jersey) only has three or four good Korean restaurants. (Please note that this is "good" in the scale of "great-good-tolerable-inedible.") Northern Virginia has one that could be considered good.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.