who we are
kim gwinam
[halmoni]
This is my grandma. ๐บ She's a Buddhist elder, one of the most chill people I know, and is almost done completing her 99th time around the sun. โ๏ธ She was born in Gimhae and currently lives just outside of Seoul in a city called Yongin.
Something about her that I think about often is a response she has to perceived difference -- "๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ฌ๋๋ ์์ด." It literally translates to, "There are people like that, too," but is laced with sentiments of acceptance, understanding, validation, and love when it comes from her. ๐ฅฐ It's a statement that makes it so natural for her to exist as a Buddhist elder who loves to eat steak. ๐ฟ๐ฎ But itโs also a statement that was central to some of my family's processing of my coming out, and it continues to be a mantra I try to embrace when I reflect on relationships and community building. ๐
Like many households in Korea at the time, she grew up with homemade jangs, kimchis, and other fermented goodies. ๐ฏ She continues to have most of these around, but many have been slightly modified over time to fit different and changing tastes in her home.
Despite, or maybe because of, her pharmacistโs degree, she steered away from Western medicine and modern, processed foods, even as both were popping up everywhere during Japanese occupation and after the Korean War. And this is a large reason why she continues to prioritize homemade jangs when faced with the option of convenience. ๐ง
She eventually hired a caretaker, who has been in the family since I was a baby. She is from the Jeollanamdo region, so naturally, she is a remarkable cook and has a sister who is a farmer. ๐ฉ๐ปโ๐ณ๐ฉ๐ปโ๐พ Together, my grandma and extended family member fused different parts of their own regional and personal approaches to making jangs. โจ
This is what my mom inherited when she began to get curious about making jangs. ๐.
Helen Kim
[Umma]
This is my mom. ๐ She's an explorer, artist, and all-around jokester. She was born in Daegu, grew up in Seoul, immigrated to Austin in 1981 soon after marriage, and now lives in Los Angeles.
Immigrating to the U.S. was not in her life plans. ๐ ๐ปโโ๏ธ She loved living in Korea with her large family, and never imagined moving away from that. What started as a temporary, dutiful stay in the U.S. to support her husband during his graduate studies turned into a permanent, sometimes suffocating stay when she found out that her husband had no intentions of moving back to Korea. ๐ถโ๐ซ๏ธ
In a new country with no English and no community, my mom clutched her motherโs jangs โ a visceral reminder of home. Although my mom had strong feelings around not relying on her mother for anything in this new chapter of her life, she could never stop relying on my grandmaโs jangs. ๐ฏ
There were a couple years when she actually tried to cut her reliance and bought the brown and red containers from the Korean supermarket, but she could taste the shortcuts of industrialization ๐ญ โ starting with soybeans that had already been processed to make oil, skipping the first fermentation of soybeans, removing the crucial elements of sun and time, and relying on artificial ingredients and preservatives. ๐ตโ๐ซ
In 2008, after suddenly realizing that all Korean women up to her motherโs generation regularly made jangs at home, she felt a pang of longing and regret around the possibility of her motherโs jangs fading into history and started her jang-making journey. ๐ฌ
After 14 years of cultivating a full-on obsession with jangs, she is Los Angelesโ premiere homemade jang maker (sample size one ๐). With each yearโs batches, she is constantly studying, experimenting, and exploring new ways to test different approaches to jang. ๐ฉ๐ปโ๐ฌ
She makes way more jang than any two-person household could reasonably consume, so she regularly auctions her jangs to fundraise money for various community organizations. ๐ฑ๐ชด๐ณ
This is what I inherited when I began to get curious about making jangs. ๐
MIKE Kim
[owner]
And this is me! I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and have been in Seattle since 2009, relishing in the beauty and fresh air of the Pacific Northwest. โจ๐ฒโจ
From Seattle, I watched my mom dive into the world of jang. I admired her obsession and dedication to learning a new skill, as I stumbled through figuring out whether I wanted to stay in various legal careers. ๐ฅธ As she sent me more and more jars of jangs โ first as farewell gifts every time I visited LA, then as regular care packages nestled in thick layers of bubble wrap โ jangs quickly became a reminder that I came from somewhere and I always had somewhere to return. ๐ฅฐ
I can go on about how I feel like this jang hobby has been such a positive influence on my life. How it became a medium to reinforce feelings that my foreignness is not perpetual and my erasure is not a given. And how this supports an exercise in embracing what makes me a Korean, an Angeleno, and a Seattleite. But at its core, my relationship to jang is one centered in home and community. ๐ฑ๐ชด๐ณ
I don't have anyone to pass these recipes on to just yet, but until then, I'm hoping to share some of this knowledge with my local communities and expand the potential of jangs in the U.S. ๐