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Showing Love With Food, Korean Style
If you tell me I can’t feed you, it’s like you’re telling me I can’t hug you
By Sandra, as told to Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi
I’m Korean American. My family came here back in the ’70s, so I carry an intense amount of very Korean traits, and a lot of American traits, and a lot of traits that have nothing to do with either culture — and both cultures don’t like those traits.
When I’m with my Korean family, I have an understanding of how to move with them. I know what I need to do in order for them to feel like I care about them. I ask about food — I ask if they’ve eaten, I offer them food — it’s all very food-based. So with my partner, who’s not Korean, he’s had to really grasp the fact that I’m so food-centric, and he’s just not. Culturally, I always keep him in my consciousness, so if I go get a glass of water for myself, I automatically am also going to get him a glass of water… even if he doesn’t actually want it.
We don’t usually ask how you are, we ask how you’ve eaten, because they kind of have the same meaning for us.
I hold quite a bit of intergenerational trauma around food and hunger, actually, so if you tell me I can’t feed you, it’s like you’re…
