Korea in Crisis

That's right--CRISIS. It's finally happening, people.

Those of you who have been regular readers since I started posting about Korea have probably had your fill of my ranting and raving about the terrible weather. If that is the case, feel free to skip the next paragraph as I catch everyone else up.

When I arrived in Korea on November 1, 2009, it was all ready a good deal colder than I was used to, having come from California where the weather is perfect almost the whole year through. Within the week I was cursing my stupidity not to pack my winter coat (which my parents then shipped over to me at great cost), and within the month we had already had several snow storms. As if that wasn't bad enough, this cold miserable weather persisted until May, when it finally got nice for three whole weeks before suddenly dropping right into summer weather. And we're not talking California summer. We're not even talking Texas summer. It was between 90-100 F every day and 99% humidity to top it off. This misery lasted until halfway through September, when literally overnight the temperature dropped 30 degrees and we were suddenly plunged into the crisp autumn weather that I am currently enjoying.

Now if you can imagine me--poor little California-acclimated me--suffering through all of the terrible weather, can you just imagine how the rest of the population on the Korean peninsula dealt with it? Not well, let me tell you.

Korea is in crisis, all right. Its obvious to every mother doing her daily grocery shopping, to every business man going out to dinner with his colleagues, to every old lady willing to elbow others in the face to get what she needs to survive.

And its all because there is a cabbage shortage in South Korea.

Yes, the brave Napa cabbage, hundreds of thousands of tons of which are sacrificed every year to feed the nation's kimchi addiction, has perhaps experienced the most desperate struggle against the elements of anyone on the peninsula. Kimchi is served as a free side dish at almost all restaurants, including pizza parlors and Chinese take-out places, but with the cabbage crop down almost 40% from last year, there may not be enough of this staple to go around. The Korean government has had to ease trade restrictions with China to allow them to begin exporting cabbages into Korea. The government is also selling cabbage to markets at reduced cost so that more households can get what they need to survive. While they are encouraging people to enjoy the other types of kimchi (radish and green onion among them), the Korean have been griped by a panic that their most beloved food might soon disappear.

This crisis has been affecting everyone in different ways. A man was arrested in Gangwon-gu for stealing 40 heads of cabbage from a field, and the farmer is seeking a prison sentence of 10 years for it. Ajumas have started getting up...well at the same "before dawn" time as normal, but instead of going hiking or shopping with their friends, they are waiting in droves outside of supermarkets, hoping to get their hands on some of this elusive cabbage and then paying 350% more per head for it. Perhaps the saddest sight of all is the faces of the school children, who see that the kimchi on their lunch plate has been replaced with radish kimchi, which they know to be wildly inferior to the cabbage variety.

Foreigners have not been as deeply impacted by this crisis as others, but we too feel its sting. At the Chinese restaurant down the street where many of the teachers like to eat between classes, the side of kimchi that we have come to expect with each meal has been replaced with a side of raw onion. Perhaps there is at least a little comfort in that the owner knows there is no point in trying to pretend. The Napa cabbage has suffered, and come winter I know I will be among the first foreigners to line up at a volunteer center to wrap the heads of cabbage in warm blankets for the impending chill. Won't you join me?

I'd like everyone to take a few seconds for a moment of silence in honor of these brave souls that perished as a result of the aberrations in the Korean climate.

**Note: if you want to look at a more realistic (read: more serious and accurate) article about the kimchi crisis, go here.