Greetings and happy new year from Buenos Aires! Apologies for falling off, friends. I started the new year off satisfying my wanderlust in South America and it’s been a whirlwind of a month. I’ve been strolling around K-Town in Buenos Aires and watching ahjussi’s sipping coffee at cafes, speaking in English and Spanish and felt inspired to write about my experience as a Korean immigrant. For those that know me, I looooove to travel! I pretty much have based my life around being travel sized. And although I grew up very far from home and my wanderlust has brought me to exotic and distant places—I can always rely on my olfactory system to cure my homesickness. It’s because odors elicit emotion and are linked to emotional memory.
Every Korean knows that familiar smell and taste of home the second we see that bright red label, with the words “Shin Ramyun” in bold black. It doesn’t matter where we are and how far we may be from home—whether I’m in the middle of no where Russia, nursing a hangover after a night of celebrating Korea beating Germany in the World Cup, or I’m in my $3 bungalow in the middle of the Mekong River in Laos searching for a slice of home, or I’m just a broke college kid in Chicago in need of a midnight snack—it always brings me right back to where it all started, to what my taste buds know best. It’s the taste of the motherland—umami, spice, heat, salt, and lots of flavor.
In just 3 minutes, a paper cup stuffed with cold, hard, dehydrated “noodles” turns into a heaping bowl of hot, steamy, spicy ramyun, topped with mushrooms, green onions, and hot pepper flakes. That first loud slurp is orgasmic and I savor the taste in my mouth as it travels down my throat, sending sensations all the way down to my gut. Siwonhae. Every Korean knows exactly what I mean.
It’s the taste of home that every immigrant craves and misses.
What food reminds you of your home?
Read my full post via Psychology Today!