I remember a June day in my family’s Seoul apartment when I was in a celebratory mood following my college graduation. It was a day for making kimchi. Squatting on the floor, crouched over a plastic bin smelling of fermented shrimp and garlic, my back ached and my eyes watered. But, fresh-made kimchi is a taste that gets the nose running, and I enjoyed my fill before sealing the jar. I sampled from the batch for weeks after, tasting the sourer-by-the-day brine and spice, and feeling certain that soon I would be making kimchi stew.
The making and preserving of kimchi makes up many of my earliest memories of summer in Korea. My grandmother and I would don our rubber gloves before we set upon the mounds of cabbage before us. I remember watching her as she worked, skimming through each leaf like an accountant, feeding me a sample every now and then to check her math. Afterwards, my lips would tingle and my stomach would be filled with a dinner of red pepper and cabbage. Over the months following, the taste would change dramatically; those small tweaks in ingredients and preparation compounded over time, producing new flavors and stirring up old memories.
One challenge, I think, for a novice in any long-winded academic or professional career, is the tendency for focusing on those milestones that are many years, even decades, ahead of them. What’s so important about today when “real life” is around the bend 10 years from now? Is it wrong if I can’t remember what happened on some Tuesday when I was a junior in college? Maybe, it depends on who you ask. After all, those who take many pictures can always go through their old photo albums. Others might be more diligent about their journaling. And through those entries, maybe they’ll get a sense of how they were feeling on certain days that seemed unremarkable at the time. But I don’t take many pictures, and my last journal entry was probably for an assignment in middle school.
No, in my case, the taste of kimchi, from the batch made however many days or weeks ago, is what jogs my memory. Joyful or stressed, spicy or salty, I get a sense for where I’ve come from, and where I have arrived in the present. And as I made and tasted that batch those couple of years ago, I am certain that I was thinking of my cap, gown and the bouquet of flowers from my parents. Soon, I think I will have another day like that one, though I’ll be wearing a different gown, anticipating the beginning of a journey instead of its end. Soon, I think, I will have another day filled with the rustling of rubber gloves and lazy tunes whistled through a mouthful of memories.
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