We round out this week’s series of posts on Korea-based food blogger Joe McPhersonwith some insights about his experience with the South Korean media and learn why he’s so glad he is publishing a book on Korean food globalization, forthcoming later this year.
AsianTalks: So you have a soon-to-be published book, bound to raise the level of awareness of what you’re doing, at least among South Korean readers.
I hope so. But one of my chef friends who read a chapter says that likely I’m going to end up in the trunk of a car.
AsianTalks: Goodness. Why?
My book is about how to globalize Korean food, but it’s from a foreigner’s perspective. A lot of it is me pointing out the emperor has no clothes. My book is basically the cold water to get the government to wake up. The publisher asked me to take the book in that direction.
What’s funny is this (request) came from the government, haphazardly, and in a circuitous route. A couple years ago they asked me to do a monthly column on the globalization of Korean food. And I keep saying what people are thinking, but are too afraid to say. So the publisher from my column approached me about doing the book. They got two other people, Dan Gray and Jennifer Flinn to flesh it out even further. I asked them how they wanted me to do the book, and they said, “We want you to do what you do in your column.” And it was great, because when I finished that manuscript, I didn’t write for weeks after that because I ran out of everything to say!
AsianTalks: You’re on the cusp of mainstream recognition in South Korea. What kind of other feedback have you received from your South Korean audience?
For people who actually read my work, I accept they have an agenda. If my writings don’t match their agenda, they don’t like me.
But as far as the general Korean public goes, especially with the media, I’m still kind of the monkey, the exotic animal in the zoo. I mean every time they want to do a TV thing with me, it’s the same thing. “Ooh look, a foreigner can eat Korean food. That’s so strange.”
In fact one episode got cut out for the last piece I did. I did a thing for one of the major networks this month, where they had me eating at a restaurant, which they always do. And they had me act out this one part, where they got two people who were working at the restaurant, dressed them up in coats to make them look like customers, and they sat at a table and they had them pointing at me, saying, “Look! That foreigner is eating Korean food.”
I turn down a lot of media requests these days. I investigate them thoroughly and if it’s another one of “Dance for us, monkey” types of shows, I’m not interested.
AsianTalks: Well, most of your readers who closely follow your blog have probably seen at least one of your TV appearances. But few of us had little idea of the behind story of those appearances.
The way Korean media works, they’re not really interested in what you have to say. I’m not contacted by producers. I get contacted by scriptwriters, and they want to see if I can fit in with their narrative and their script. And my job is not to be interviewed, but to say what they want me to say, and act how they want me to act in their script. Go along with stereotypes of how foreigners are. And it doesn’t really help me.
I’ve noticed that I don’t get more traffic to the blog. I get a few opportunities, but the few times I’ve gotten positive stuff from being in Korean media has been the few times when they’ve let me be myself on camera. And from that positive things have happened.
AsianTalks: Who would you say are your readers?
My audience is foreigners. Mostly Americans, mostly female, it turns out. It’s funny that women pay attention to me, foreign women — mostly Asian — and I’m like well, it would have been nice if you had paid attention to me, you know, before I was married!
AsianTalks: You’ve launched an online translation campaign for Korean menu items. What was the impetus for this move?
It’s just a pet peeve when Korean menus show a very confusing translation, or a totally off translation. Before I even came to Korea one of my favorite websites was Engrish.com. Loved it. I actually had one of my photos featured on Engrish.com when I first came to Korea. But when it came down to the food, and food is something I’m so passionate about, it went from being funny to seriously annoying.
What gets me sometimes is the arrogant attitude of restaurateurs or people promoting Korean food and they don’t care about it. Why would you bother translating it into another language if it’s going to be so wrong?
Take example something like ‘Kongbiji Jjigae‘ which is a wonderful stew made with basically tofu ricotta. They call it bean refuse stew.
AsianTalks: That doesn’t sound very appetizing.
Or simple spellings. When you call crab soup, ‘Crap Soup,’ or you name an edible plant by its scientific name. Take ‘Deodeok.’ Well there’s no English name for Deodeok, so just call it Deodeok. Instead they call it Codonopsis Lanceolata.
A lot of the times it’s very misleading. I’m trying to think of a good example especially when it comes to meats, they describe the meat as a wrong cut. It’s hilarious English, and what’s sad is they put it in large letters in front of the restaurant. And here I am, trying to make this food look great, and they make it look like clown shoes.
The trouble is in Korea there’s not much awareness that it is a problem. We’re not at a level where people care about it yet. There have been a couple of new stories about it, but people right now are too obsessed with how to spell something, obsessed with making things standardized.
But I also understand you might just have to be a native speaker or immersed in the culture long enough to understand what the nuances are. Because it’s not just one thing to translate something word for word, you have to translate it to make it sound appetizing to someone from that culture. And that’s what I thought our strength was, in menu translation, because I write about food all the time, I know how to make food sound appetizing, that came from trial and error.
I really want to make menus to sound great, I want people to eat things they normally don’t try.
But there are just some things that won’t translate well no matter how hard you try.
By: Elizabeth Shim
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