Why Kimchi? – Image and Symbolism of Kimchi in Korea
As food is important in the formation of national identity, Kimchi, one of the most representative foods of Korea, naturally becomes a source of nationalism. Even though today’s Kimchi has already been transformed from a home-made food to be a kind of pre-packed, ready-made food produced in factories and sold at supermarkets, its emotional affiliation amongst Korean people remains strong.
In the study of commercial advertisement of Kimchi in Korea, Kyung-Koo Han argues that nowadays’ pre-packed Kimchi is a “nostalgic business” that “hominess, tradition, naturalness, and nostalgic appeal to motherly love” are still the main elements of the advertisements. He suggests the example of Chonggajip that though this brand is more expensive than its counterparts, it sells well as its television commercials has been successful in arousing the sense of Koreaness to the audience (154, 155).
On the other hand, not limited to the Korean people within Korea, the feeling of homeliness linked to Kimchi is also explicit amongst overseas Koreans. Francis Leo Collins did an empirical research on the international Korean students in Auckland, and the importance of Kimchi in their sense of home. In his research, he found that most of the Korean students first lived in homestays sooner or later moved to live with other Korean students, because the absence of Kimchi and rice made them realise the difference between ‘homestay’ and ‘home’, thus they chose to move out and prepare Korean meals with their Korean friends (Collins 161).
Also, in many articles written by diasporic Koreans, Kimchi is usually depicted as a bridge linking them closer to their home country and their mothers. The two articles published in Gastronomica- The Journal of Food and Culture, written by two Korean professors in America, are examples (Ahn; Grace M. Cho). In short, to Koreans, either residing in Korea or migrated overseas, Kimchi allows them to obtain familiar sensations of home, group identity and emotional attachment. This is also the reason why Kimchi is frequently utilized by the Korean government in the construction of cultural identity and nationalism.
