Inner Journey

  Despite of its bad reputation of being tourist trap, I happened to choose Jeju for summer vacation. The southwestern corner of the island provides exotic view with nearby bellowing blue. Overlooking the seaside of the backyard of the hotel, I saw white foams scattered in the lapping water against rock shore afar. At night I came aback to my room, listening to Sajaboy’s hits and drunk a few cans of Island’s unique brand.   It has been several years since shamanisms and paganism had made come back to the influential status and recent popularity of K-pop demon hunters is just one of the phenomena. Why does shamanism dominate our conversation regarding spirituality and pop culture? Because it may provide answers to questions that cannot be obtained by any other means. What do you mean by being a living being? To live, we must kill and destroy other things. There is no other way around. After sunset, coming back from work, we ask ourselves how things had been and will be next d...

    These days, including many highballs and non-alcoholic drinks, it is increasingly difficult to avoid something sweet. It is tempting to correlated such trend and recent rise of diabetes in young adult groups in Korea. Diabetes is one of the representative chronic diseases, and there is a perception in Korea that it is commonly caught in the 40s and 50s. However, attention needs to be paid to the recent surge in the number of "young diabetes" patients in their 20s and 30s. Acc ording to statistics from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, the number of diabetic patients in their 30s was 121,568 in 2020, up 25.5% from four years ago, and the prevalence rate in their 20s increased by about 47% during the same period, showing a serious increase. If diabetes is diagnosed at a young age in their 20s and 30s, the risk of chronic vascular complications may increase as the period of exposure to high blood sugar increases. A bigger problem is that 80% of diabe...

  The popularity of the film Famyo bears witness to people’s renewed interest in occult and shamanism. These days, we, including younger generations are not that religious, and I am not an exception. I am kind of ‘not religious but spiritual’ guy quote-unquote. I lately visited a shaman themed local eatery in Gunpo where you may find out interesting things normally not in an ordinary setting of restaurants. There stand an altar with Dokkebi (fairy or sprite in Korea) and other statues of traditional deities. They serve many Korean dishes that go very well with soju and even Santori highballs. Behind bar, instead of bottles of liquor, there is a portrait of mountain spirit with his lovely pet tiger, incense vase, and two white slander candles. In many spiritual practices in the world, offering of foods to sprits is a common practice. Although it is not as popular as it was in the past, even in this country, offering of foods to worship long gone ancestors has been important elemen...

  I am always excited about trying to eat new sea foods and this time I have a good time to taste soy source seasoned herring at the local restaurant. Now, the fuss over Fukushima contaminated water discharge seemed to be fizzled out. Many seafood manias looked very happy, ignoring such event. However, recently, a new serious issue that may concern seafood lovers alike emerge.   There have been several fatal fishing boat accidents took place in the Korean waters. On the 9 th this month, a 20-ton Jeju shipping fishing boat sank in the sea of Yokjido Island in Tongyeong, Gyeongsangnam-do, killing four sailors and missing five. Five days later, a 139-ton fishing boat from Busan that set sail to catch sardines also sank off Yokjido Island, killing four people. During the spring spawning season when fish move to the coast, it is difficult to catch fish in the distant sea, so they often go out to the prohibited area and operate. All these incidents have something to do with...

    Mar. 3 became Pork Belly Day or Samkyeopsal Day, which was coined by people after noticing Sam means the number 3 and at the same time it is the first syllable of samkyepsal that means pork belly in Korean. I think people just started this practice as a prank in the first place. On Mar. 3, this year, we went to local restaurant specializing in pork belly dish to enjoy. The pork belly, which was sold on March 3, last year, was a product that had more fat than average, causing anger from consumers. The distribution industry explained that some products had a lot of fat mixed in due to a large volume of supplies on the occasion of Samkyeopsal Day. Samkeopsal usually refers to the part of pork belly attached to the ribs of pigs. It is called samkeopsasl because the fat present in the meaty part looks like three layers. The reason why pork belly tastes delicious is because of its rich fat. As it is grilled, it is grilled like frying the outside thanks to a lot of pork oil f...

  The Thai restaurant “Have a Jeed “was our favorite place during our stay. Both me and Leo enjoyed the same dish, minced hot stir-fried pork rice. Of course we have Korean style stir-fried pork rice back in Korea, but it is very different. Although both pork based dishes are spicy, the former has more strong scent with many spice and aromatic ingredients. In my opinion Thai cuisines are more popular in the West than Korean food. So far, Thailand is the most preferred Asian destination for foreigners, and the Thai government is promoting Thai cuisine to Westerners (including opening a cooking class and linking Thai cuisine tourism programs), so the image of Thai cuisine in the West is very good. In fact, Thai cuisine is often discussed as a benchmark and reference target example in the context of Korean food globalization. It also suits the taste of Koreans who like spicy food including me. As I mentioned, Thai food's spicy taste is different from that of Korea. It has a unique c...