Written by Kristin R. Pak (Lee Young-sook)
American, university lecturer
This is taken from “Riding the Third Wave,” which looks at adoptees currently living in Korea and the effect of Korea’s social distancing level 2.5 on their professional and social lives.
On a mid-December Thursday afternoon, I’m listening for the pressure cooker valve to drop on the dwaeji gukbap (rice & pork bone broth soup) I’m making. I have time to cook lots of homemade meals from scratch nowadays since the level of caution has been raised to 2.5 (the second-highest level) in the Seoul metropolitan area. This has closed my part-time job for three weeks, and my “real job” at a university has kept its classes online all through 2020. With all this time at home, I decided it was a good time to get a dog. In keeping with the culinary theme, I named her Hoo-Choo (black pepper) when I got her at the end of November. The pork had been purchased for her, but she showed little interest in it, so I have been left to eat it; the meal will be complemented with the free kimchi that I picked up from G.O.A.’L. last week.
Another reason for all the home cooking is that there are fewer chances to meet friends for dinner. With a 9 o’clock curfew, all restaurants have to kick out their dine-in customers although they can still deliver and prepare takeout food. The 9 o’clock curfew is intended to curtail the after-work team-building dinner and drinking sessions, but restaurants are still busy during the sacred lunch hour. This expulsion has resulted in a second rush hour as customers all leave at the same time and take public transportation home, which makes social distancing impossible.
Other ajummas (middle-aged women) like me usually crowd coffee shops during the day in my neighborhood around Seoul Station. However, these businesses are the ones most impacted by the increased regulations. Cafes aren’t allowed to have dine-in customers at all during this time. Instead of sitting in a coffee shop for hours, or bringing their kids to the playgrounds, which are also closed, stay-at-homers rely on groceries purchased online and delivered to our doors rather than risking a trip to supermarkets. Or they take advantage of all the delivery options from restaurants that are now forced to offer takeout to customers.
Hoo-Choo and I are using this time off to explore our neighborhood-mask on, of course! – and get to know each other while I cook, or we sit on the sofa and wait for our deliveries.
