There is no doubt that Kimchi is the most
well-known food to foreign people among the many other traditional Korean foods.
However, compared to Kimchi, kimjang culture is unknown to foreigners.
Generally, Korean defined kimjang as the progress of making kimchi in winter
with neighborhoods, relatives, and friends. In our traditional society, through
kimjang culture, people developed their own relationship. And I think it is
very meaningful because, the kimjang culture has played a significant role of
forming unique relationships, such as doorae or pumashi. Since, I have heard
that foreign society is overflowing with individualism; I would like people
from other countries to adopt kimjang culture or kimjang custom which is very
helpful for their society.
Firstly,
kimjang culture helps people become more familiar with each other. When the
winter comes in Korea, many people prepare for kimjang. This period is called
as ‘kimjang season’. Even though, one house makes Kimchi for one day, we called
it as ‘Kimjang season’. This is because of the characteristics of Kimjang
culture. The one who makes Kimchi will be helped by the neighborhoods or
friends on the kimjang day. Then, if the neighborhoods or friends’ kimjang day
comes, the one who got helped is supposed to go their homes and help them make kimchi.
This is why we called it as kimjang season not kimjang day. Through this kind
of helping each other, many people can make Kimchi more easily and efficiently.
And this custom help people in korea forge a bond and become more familiar with
neighborhoods. If the foreign countries which have Thanksgiving Day or such day
like it, adopt this mutual help, Individualism, at least, can alleviate.
Also, it is very good for the education of
their children. Children naturally see their parents and neighborhoods helping
each other in the Kimjang seasons. Through this direct experiment, children can
learn a spirit of mutual help. When they grow up, this kind of experiment helps
them adapt in the society. Indeed, there is thesis that researched about the
kimjang culture’s influence to children. In this research, the researcher found
that people who grow up with seeing their parent’s kimjang do better in the
society than the people grow up without seeing it. This research also found
that the people who grow up seeing kimjang make much better results when they
do group work. These results show us that kimjang culture can change the world
where the extreme individualism is prevalent.
However,
unfortunately, the media has just made issue of the flavor of Kimchi, or the
way to make Kimchi. It is very true that we did not regard the kimjang culture
as the important factor of our culture. However, as I mentioned in the prior 2
paragraphs, there are many advantages of kimjang culture not only for the
foreign country but also our country. So we have to be proud of our kimjang
custom. To conclude, I insist we not only keep our kimjang culture as long as
possible, but also try to make foreign countries adopt our good custom.
