Will Not Go There, See That

Got a peculiar press release the other day (because I'm on some peculiar lists): "So-and-So Travel Co. announces its 2012 group tour packages to North Korea... Highlights include:

The April 2012 tour coinciding with the 100th birthday celebrations of North Korea's Eternal President and founder, Kim Il Sung;

New visits to beautiful Kumgang, the "Diamond Mountains," open to tourists for the first time since 2008;

New visits to several pristine remote DRPK mountain ranges for intrepid travelers."

Yep, a starving population does have a way of keeping those mountain ranges pristine.

Item From the Past: Admiral Jung Bal and I

This is the only image I have of myself, and in fact the only image I have at all, from the week I spent in South Korea in early June 1990.

That I have it at all is peculiar. I was once the kind of tourist who didn't carry a camera, and so I was then. But I met a fellow on the boat from Osaka to Pusan who had a camera, and after we arrived in Pusan we spent part of the first day walking around together. He took this picture of me at the base of a distinctly martial statue somewhere in Pusan. Before we parted we exchanged addresses, and a month or two later the print arrived in the mail.

The more I think about that, the more I'm glad I didn't grow up in a world in which such an image could have been, and probably would have been, instantly uploaded to the cloud for all the world to see, or maybe e-mailed to me a few hours later. Something about the lag, and the complications of sending a physical object rather than bytes through space, adds to my experience of looking at the image, even 20-odd years later.

When I got it, I thumbtacked it to my wall in my apartment in Osaka, and left it hanging for a few years -- thus the circle with the pinpoint mark through it in the upper left corner. Until recently, I never bothered to find out just whose statue I'd stood under. On those rare occasions (maybe twice) when someone would ask, I would say it's the "gentleman who invented kimchi."

After scanning the image, however, I got a little curious, and figured that the world of 2011 might be able to provide me information that the world of 1990 could not. Sure enough, there are a few other images of the statue on line, so I've been able to identify it as Admiral Jong Bal (also spelled Jung Bal), whose exploits are scantily attested in English on the Web. But I like the text that goes with this photo. It's not technically correct English, but it's sure got heart.

"Admiral Jung Bal of Busan lived in 1553-1592, the Busaness braveman who lead volunteers to fight Jappaness aggressor until end of last blood droop. Their sacrifice is unforgetable of Busan people."

Crunky Vessel in the Fog

Unreasoning, stupid cold today. But they say it will be above freezing beginning sometime over the weekend. That will seem like resort weather. People will start wearing shorts until the next arctic blast (and there's bound to be at least one more).

Actually, even single-digit temps don't discourage a handful of shorts-wearing fanatics. Last Saturday, temps about 10° F., I was in line at a post office when in walks a fellow in a reasonably suitable winter coat but also shorts and tennis shoes. A shortish but stocky fellow, he must have been about my age, with short, vaguely military hair, a fair number of forehead wrinkles and an enormous, unlit cigar stuck in his mouth the entire time he was in line behind me. For some reason, he reminded me of Sgt. Fury, someone I hadn't thought about in years, but I doubt this guy was ever on a secret mission to kidnap Hitler.

When I scanned Temmy's Sweet Flakes yesterday, I couldn't stop at just one scan -- who can? -- especially when I had an empty box of Crunky around the house. Usually I don't want one enough to pay $2+, but I spied one at a serious discount at an Asian grocery store not long ago.

Unlike Temmy's, I've known about Crunky for many years. It didn't take me long to find Crunky at convenience- and grocery stores in Japan, along with a lot of other native confections. Except that, as a Lotte product, Crunky isn't quite native to Japan, but to Japan and Korea.

Lotte HQ might be in Japan, but it was established by a Korean who grew up in Japan, and its presence is much larger in South Korea than Japan. Except for its delightfully fractured name, Crunky is something like Nestle's Crunch, though not as sweet.

The founder of Lotte, one Shin Kyuk-Ho, is apparently still alive at 89. This is my favorite line in his Wiki stub: "He currently resides in South Korea for odd months and in Japan for even months. [citation needed]" If I had more energy for research tasks that don't pay, I might try to find that citation. I hope it's true. A billionaire without some eccentricities is no fun at all.

Crunky's OK. But it never was my favorite East Asian chocolate. Another Lotte product, Vessel in the Fog, was. I've never seen it for sale in the United States. It's a smooth confection with a great, inexplicable name.

Meditations on a Box of Korean Waffle Mix

Not long ago, Yuriko brought home a box of Korean waffle mix, acquired at H Mart, a Korean supermarket. Many basic ingredients of Japanese cuisine are available there at lower prices than at Japanese grocery stores, or for that matter, most small stores specializing in East Asian goods. Waffles aren't native to either Japan or Korea that I know of, but both have adopted them.

It's an artful box, sporting a studio-lit photo of a Belgian waffle topped with fruit, powdered sugar and ice cream. Since it's an import from Korea, almost everything on the box is written in Korean, as you'd expect, but there are splashes of English as well -- mainly "European Waffle Mix" and "Enjoy Home Baking." Why "European" and not "Belgian," I don't know. Either Belgium has no cache in Korea when it comes to waffles, or South Korea and the EU have some kind of trade agreement that bans calling waffles Belgian if in fact they're from somewhere else. Stranger things have emerged from the EU, I think.

Those are exactly the kind of English phrases you might also find on a Japanese box of waffle mix. A fair number of packed items in Japan -- and I suppose in Korea, too, from the evidence of this box -- include English not because they were created by English-speakers or bought by English-speakers but because (this is what Yuriko says) it makes the box look more exotic to Japanese-speakers.

It's like splashing a French name on a product, though it's a little hard to imagine a product for English-speakers using non-roman characters to make itself more exotic. People would eye the thing suspiciously and register a WTF moment, which usually isn't good for sales. Imagine if you saw the following on your waffle mix:

That's largest Hangul on the waffle-mix box, and whether it says the brand or "waffle mix" in Korean, I can't say. But would you ever find it on a box of Aunt Jemima or Bisquick pancake mix?

Choco-Pie!

Time now to talk of many things -- shoes, ships, sealing wax, cabbages and Choco-Pie. I don't remember the exact moment during my time in Japan when I discovered Choco-Pies, but discover them I did. A sometime treat for me in those days, because they were a bit expensive in their shiny boxes of eight (or was it 10?), I enjoyed them anyway, the MoonPies of the Orient. Just the name is fun to say. Say it with with emphasis on the "pie" and you'll see: ChocoPIE! It was years before I found out that they weren't native to Japan, but were rather Korean. Not that that matters to me.

Not long ago I read the Wiki entry on Choco-Pies. It's a fine example of multi-source writing, because it starts off in fully idiomatic English and then switches suddenly to English written by someone whose native language is clearly something else. I preserve the text here, because the Wiki entry might changed without warning, perhaps losing the charms of the fractured-English section.

As of today, anyway, it says: "Choco Pie is a confectionary treat created and manufactured since 1974 by the Orion Confectionery, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Similar to a moon pie, a Choco Pie consists of two layers of chocolate-dipped cookies, with a marshmallow filling.

"The Choco Pie is considered a quintessential Korean treat, similar to the status of the Oreo cookie in American culture. Lotte Confectionery makes an imitation which is priced below that of the Choco Pie in order to compete...

"In recent years Orion has used the Choco Pie to gain a foothold in foreign markets, and Orion now controls a 2/3 share of the Chinese cookie market, with a third of Orion's revenue now coming from outside Korea. Whole series of choco pies have been sold more than 12.1 billions all over the world.

"Orion company selected 4 main position - South Korea, Russia, Vietnam and China. In China, choco pie had a repuation of having a big success on whole market going through stable deal.

"In South Korea, choco pie has a strong image of Jeong which indicates closeness among people in Korea. Its advertisments stil have a large point on impressive relationship among family members, companions and so on. Its CM song is widely known.

말하지 않아도 알아요 (I can know your heart without your telling me.)

눈빛만 보아도 알아 (When I see your look, I can understand)

그냥 바라보면 마음 속에 있다는 걸 (Just look at you. It lies within your heart.)"