Woosuk University president Ra Jong-yil, 68, has recently published "The Bibimbap Story" in four languages, Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese. He says, "Bibimbap is nutritious and delicious and can be made easily with various ingredients."
Ra wanted to internationally promote Jeonju, home to bibimbap -- the only Korean food served by domestic airlines and one of the most popular menu items on Korean restaurants abroad -- by creating a story about bibimbap.
The fairytale is set in the town of "Ongoeul." In the story, a boy called Jeje helps unite the townspeople by sharing food made by mixing each person's ingredients. He said the idea struck while he was serving bibimbap to foreign guests while working as an ambassador to the U.K. and Japan for five years.
"The poems of Johann Goethe and Heinrich Heine made Loreley a popular tourist attraction. This fairytale will also deliver a lesson and lift bibimbap to become a culturally significant international food," says Ra.
On the topic of bibimbap---and it took me over two years to notice that 비빔 was just the noun form of 비비다 (to mix), following the pattern of making verbs into nouns by adding ~ㅁ---wait, I forgot where I was. On the topic of bibimbap, the paper also tells us it is one of the most-popular foods among influential foreigners.
The survey asked 207 foreigners in influential positions such as global company staff and professors, 78.7 percent of respondents said they like Korean food.
I see.
Asked why, the vast majority or 60.2 percent said because it tastes good.
Heh.
2 comments:
Good luck to Jeonju. Both Frankfurt and Duesseldorf have stuff more interesting than Jeonju, and both Goethe and Heine are celebrated for more than Lorelei or some vegetable dish. Don't even compare yourself to Germany's men and women of letters, Korea. Stick to kimchi and red pepper paste and hot women.
Sounds like the old story of "Stone Soup" to me. I don't think this guy's story is that original.
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