Do You Have the “Drunken Rice”?

I don’t tend to read food blogs, but in the past year or so, there seems to have arrived a meme spreading around Korea that Korean food must be popularized in the West, as Japanese food has been. I suspect this is not just because Japanese food being popular irks your average nationalist in Korea — Japan’s international popularity in general does, after all — but also because, if you go to some places in North America, you’ll see Koreans running many of the “Japanese” restaurants. (In such places, side dishes of kimchi are often available in far greater occurrence than, say, the availability of “kimochi” in Japan.)

Anyway, this leads me to the topic of “drunken rice”. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s been discussed over at Fat Man Seoul. Essentially, the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries held a contest for the creation of an unofficial pet name for the drink “makgeoli,” apparently because foreigners cannot pronounce it.

Which, by the way, is bullshit. Makgeoli is a drink most Westerners who are not teetotal will encounter in Korea within a few months of their arrival here. I’ve never met a Westerner who couldn’t pronounce “makgeoli.” Of course, it doesn’t sound the way it looks, because the romanization system is really just a one-to-one correspondence of Korean letters — not phonemes, mind, but the locations of letters in a word. In other words, it’s designed for the people who need it least to be most able to use it, in other words, but there’s a precedent for that.  As long as Koreans are comfortable with nobody knowing how to pronounce anything written in this system, who am I to complain?

Anyway, in the comments on that post over at Fat Man Seoul, someone points out that this stupid term, “drunken rice,” is not supposed to replace the name makkeoli, but… well, the purpose seems muddled, but it is supposed to be a “pet name.” Fat Man replies that other foods don’t have pet names to make them more comfortable or accessible to Westerners.

Actually, a number of Korean foods have ill-gotten “English” pet names. How many times have how many random people turned to you and said, “Korea[n] Pizza!!!” over a pajeon? Or, over samgyeopsal, “Korea[n] bacon!” The role of rice in the making of soju is for most brands exceedingly small as far as I know, but people still call it “rice wine” or “rice vodka” or other things it plain isn’t. Koreans are so often making analogies between Korean things and Western things that, in their opinion, are similar, apparently for the benefit of Westerners who cannot grok differences. (Because they’re mappin
Which is not to defend this idiocy, but rather simply to point out this is not unusual except to the degree to which it’s been officialized. In fact, it’s the same old story: a group of Koreans “trying to figure out how to make X easier/more comfortable for/more attractive to” foreigners in every possible way except, er, talking to foreigners.

This is, of course, in error. Official pet names, no, I don’t think they exist, but lots of Korean foods have semi-formal “pet names” that are used for exactly this purpose.

A number of Korean foods have ill-gotten “English” pet names. How many times have how many random people turned to you and said, “Korea[n] Pizza!!!” over a pajeon? (It’s a terrible analogy, as pajeon is nothing like pizza. At all.) Or, over samgyeopsal, “Korea[n] bacon!” The role of rice in the making of soju is for most brands exceedingly small as far as I know, but people still call it “rice wine” or “rice vodka” or other things it plain isn’t. Koreans are so often making analogies between Korean things and Western things that, in their opinion, are similar, apparently for the benefit of Westerners who cannot grok differences.

The assumption that Westerners cannot grok the difference is one of the real problems. See, what we have is older guys who are, in all likelihood, assuming Westerners are like them. Some older guys tend, in my experience, to be less comfortable not just with the names of “foreign foods” but also with actually eating anything non-Korean. The likelihood of being uncomfortable in this way probably goes up with age, but some young guys are like this too.

Which is why I look a little askance at Fat Man Seoul’s argument that this is Koreans calling Westerners dumb. In fact, it seems to me, it’s just a few ignorant older guys assuming everyone else (across cultures) is as ignorant as they are.

An analogy is how I used to get mad when certain older Korean guys would talk to me as if I obviously knew nothing about Korean history, culture, society. I’d signal that I knew more than they  thought — commenting on the radical drop in status women underwent as the Joseon Dynasty took over, alluding to the very long history of hereditary slavery in Korea, hinting that I’d read more than a few pages about the Korean war — but they’d go on telling me very simplistic, watered-down stuff about modern and earlier Korean history.

It bothered me till I asked them about the places they’d lived abroad, and I discovered (to my dismay) that they’d lived in places for two, three, five, or ten years without really learning anything about the place. The history? A smidge. The culture? They’d laugh and use the word “weird” but there was little more to their sense of things than that. Now, I’m not talking about all Koreans who go abroad. I’m talking about the ones who assumed I knew zilch about Korea… they also happened to know zilch about the places they’d lived.

That’s when I figured out: they were just assuming — against all evidence to the contrary — that I was as lazy, ignorant, and mediocre as they were. Bing! It was suddenly so easy not to get offended. And I also could respond quite differently. I’d either nod and say, “Oh? Really?” to some random, indoctrinated trusim, or I’d be more forward with the fact that what they were discussing was not really news to me.

Which is not to defend this idiocy, about the drunken rice. It’s rather simply to point out this is not unusual except to the degree to which it’s been officialized. Korean society right now is in a haphazard jumble about how to better its profile on the international scene. There are things Korea could do, and possibly benefits that might accrue, but nobody’s being realistic about that. It’s more about the muddled panic at the moment.

Which means sensible advice won’t make a difference anyway, even if they did ask us. It’s like the young, aspiring author who asks, “How can I make a  living writing horror novels?” Aside from saying, “Be Stephen King,” what can one say in a few sentences? Nothing useful. One has to say, “Look, you need to study the publishing industry. You need to consider whether you really are writing bestseller material — stuff that Dan Brown’s audience will eat up. You need a day job for now. You need to ask yourself how filmable your novels are. You should consider other ways of doing it, like podcasting your stuff or releasing it online and getting a following that way.” In short, you can’t answer the question usefully, because that young author isn’t in a position to understand what you’re saying anyway.

So I think Fat Man Seoul is overstating things. In  fact, to me this seems like it’s the same old story: a group of Koreans “trying to figure out how to make X easier/more comfortable for/more attractive to foreigners” in every possible way they can…

… except, er, talking to foreigners.

4 thoughts on “Do You Have the “Drunken Rice”?

  1. When I hear the term “drunken rice” (which I’ve never heard before), I automatically think: “drunken noodles” — a very different animal, indeed.

  2. Well . . . yes and no.
    Obviously, not all Koreans think foreigners are stupid. And by “stupid” we mean that the default assumption is that foreigners can’t grok Korean food without substantive help. Whether than stems from old dudes who can’t themselves grok non-Korean food or from tragically hip young folk anxious to help 외국인 understand the wonderfulness of 막걸리 (note: it’s usually not the latter), it still works from the assumption that foreigners can’t/won’t get it. Which is to say, assuming that they are at least slightly stupid.
    This decision, as with many, was the brainchild of some high muckety-muck, exactly as you’ve described. At several points, several people both Korean and not explained that this probably wasn’t the right tack. The fact that it went ahead anyway was a testament to how firmly entrenched these kinds of people are in the power structure. The response shows how keenly aware most Koreans are of the error of those assumptions. So, we don’t think Korean people think foreigners are stupid when it comes to Korean food, but lots of the people in power do, because, as you said, they are when it comes to outside things themselves. Unfortunately, they’re the ones in charge and ultimately responsible for debacles like “drunken rice.”

  3. This is a slight tangent, but I’ve noticed on my favored brand of makgeoli that it’s brewed in the next town over from where I live. In that it tastes different from the makgeoli I’ve had in other parts of Korea, I’ve wondered if the drink compares to a microbrewed beverage with a lot of regional variety–or do I just happen to live in the next town over from the main supplier for Korea?

  4. I wrote a response to the first two comments earlier but the aether ate them, argh. So:

    Kevin,

    Yeah, it crossed my mind, though really, I just wish everyone in Korea would get it that “drunken” isn’t used in modern English outside of a kind of “chinoiserie” affectation.

    Fat Man Seoul,

    Actually, in my experience it’s often young/middle-aged men who offer the useless analogies. Shrug.

    Old guys don’t grok, and don’t grok that they don’t grok. I stopped being surprised at that pretty quickly, and while it sometimes annoys me, I hardly think it warrants being called a debacle.

    I don’t think it’s primarily a Korean-foreigner interface thing, by the way. Remember the debate about mid-decade about what condoms should be called, and how someone wanted to change the name to “ae-pil”? When I helped interview students applying for early admission to my uni last year, one of the interview questions was about the terminology for the physically handicapped — with two options offered, the traditional word and some newfangled patronizing word I can’t remember which which (cloyingly) translated as “disabled friend.” These kinds of terminological disputes aren’t unknown in the west, but it seems they’re inevitably a more constant issue here, perhaps because of how language is used in this culture.

    It’s typical someone would think a superficial linguistic change would make any difference at all, especially an un-implementable one.

    Justin,

    Oh, there definitely are regional variations to makgeoli! I had a very interesting makgeoli at Sobaeksan that everyone commented about, because it looked and tasted to unusual. (It looked like pineapple juice at the top of an unshaken bottle, and a cup of Bailey’s Irish Cream at the bottom, if I remember right, and while I can’t remember the flavor, it was not like any makgeoli I’ve had before.

    Though I would say the phenomenon is probably more like pre-megabrew regional varieties, or like differences in wines in a place like Europe, than it is like the more recent microbrew phenomenon. (Though if you mean the smaller-scale brewing in European history, chock full of regional variances, then yeah, I think you’re spot on.)

    I’ve noticed, to my slight horror, that there’s a W1000 per liter brand of bokbunja makgeoli on the market. Er… I dunno, but I’m leery.

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