jjajangmyeon | 짜장면 | 雜醬麵

Daily writing prompt

Which food, when you eat it, instantly transports you to childhood?

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tl;dr my family is Chinese-Korean/韓國華僑/朝鮮半島華人/화교, and I am instantly transported to childhood when I eat jjajangmyeon.

I spent a good chunk of my childhood in Koreatown and the Chinese-Korean restaurants scattered across LA county. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt that this is a world that is as alive and vibrant as it was in the past, because The Dragon closed earlier this year. I’ve heard that Shin Beijing is still in Koreatown, but as is common in the restaurant business relating to Chinese-Korean food, the owners are probably very old, looking to retire, and have children who know nothing about the food and service industry. That, or the owners are younger and probably Korean.

I feel weird talking about jjajangmyeon, mostly because I’ve spent most of my life catering to whatever is the dominant assumption among Chinese-, Korean-, and Taiwanese-Americans re: Chinese-Korean food. The truth of the matter is that a lot of these assumptions have left a bad taste in my mouth and two decades later, I finally feel secure enough in myself to talk about these bad tastes, without fear of retaliation (i.e., “are you even [insert Chinese, Korean, or Taiwanese here]”).

I can’t speak for non-East-Asian cultures–all I know that is that a degree of superiority has been embedded in the ethnonationalist narratives each of these groups has been taught, stories that have been passed down to nth-gen East Asian Americans, where n <= 3. It goes without saying that this superiority complex extends to cuisine, and this is part of the reason why food authenticity/purity discourse is such a mess for all three of the above.

I find food authenticity discourse particularly irritating because it reflects a rather superficial understanding of food and cooking. Anyone who cooks knows that recipes are never followed to a T, and whatever understanding of authenticity that exists is based on feelings of entitlement re: how a dish should be made, because I am the arbiter of the food of my culture.

And because all of the above see me as someone who must adhere to whatever personal understanding they have of the ethnonationalist narratives in question, I’ve found that I can trigger members of all of the above just by existing.

This somehow feels like a pseudo-critique of cultural appropriation but that’s not what I’m doing here–anyone with a brain knows I’m not talking about Lucky Lee’s.

But I digress.

Chinese-Americans tend to fall into two groups, when it comes to jjajangmyeon. The first tend to write off my people’s food as something that cannot compare to the elaborate and complex cuisines that characterize the Chinese mainland. There is an overwhelming need for Chinese-Americans to have me address the origins of jjajangmyeon and yes, 짜장면 is based on the Shandong iteration of 雜醬麵. The two dishes differ completely in all the ways that matter, so much so that anyone who has eaten 짜장면 and 雜醬麵 knows that the two are categorically different.

And as to how good jjajangmyeon is, I can acknowledge that it is nothing compared to mainland Chinese cuisine. I don’t know how this isn’t more common knowledge but food borne of struggle is often just that. Complexity and nuance and hints of this and that are irrelevant when your primary goal is survival.

The second group often tries to overemphasize the Korean-ness of Chinese-Korean food which without fail, often leads to a weird competition where the Chinese-American in question will try to compete with me on knowledge about Korea, even though my family has been there since the late 19th-century.

I’m including this, to address the elephant in the room.

Ohmygod I just retriggered myself I still have SO MUCH ANGER.

Korean-Americans often try to get me to agree that the food is more Korean than Chinese, so that I might adhere to whatever ethnonationalist fantasy they have re: Korean culture. I’m including the blurb below, to address the elephant in the room.

Chinese residents from Shandong province in eastern China, referred to as Hwagyo, were the first immigrant group in Korea’s modern history. Their Chineseness was constructed from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries when Korea was subjected to colonial rule, and struggled to survive economically as one of the poorest countries in the world. Highly motivated by their desire to survive and grow as a nation, Koreans targeted the most immediate others as threats to those goals. The Hwagyo’s dominance in trading and their expanding economic activities were perceived to be a national security risk that was used to justify the legal measures adopted to marginalise them socially and economically. 

Oh Jung-won, Constructing Chineseness as other in the evolution of national identity in South Korea   

The elephant in the room pt. 2 is that I often find that I connect more with Korean Americans than any other East Asian group listed above, but a part of my soul dies when I attempt to call myself Korean-American. The elephant in the room pt. 1238129327 is that I fume like crazy when food creators make jjajangmyeon and jjamppong and don’t mention the fact that these are all Chinese in origin, even though I’m several generations removed from the Chinese mainland.

To paint a more robust picture of how toxic Korean ethnonationalist tendencies can be, I’m including this, an article about ethnic Koreans from China.

The default reaction of Taiwanese-Americans, especially those who lean green, is to interact with jjajangmyeon in a way that completely erases the Chinese-ness. The elephant in the room is that Japan treated Taiwanese better than the Nationalists did (see 228)–if Taiwanese-American’s ancestors were punished for how un-Chinese they were, my ancestors were punished for being Chinese.

I’d probably group blue-leaning, Taiwanese-Americans with Chinese-Americans in this specific regard, as it relates to the confines of this blog post.

I think it’s overwhelmingly cliche, how my understanding of identity and invisible minorities coincided with the Eat, Pray, Love, Find Yourself™ journey I started a year ago. My default state of being, up until that point in time, was to cater to the assumptions of the majorities in the vicinity, completely unawares that I was destroying my soul in the process. Irony pt. 1243422 is the fact that East Asian Americans are a minority in the land of Uncle Sam.

Below is what I imagine are parts of the definition of what an invisible minority is:

A group so small in number that any authentic expression of cultural identity is met with conflict, because of the confines of ethnonationalist narratives associated with the more dominant/prevalent ethnic identity (i.e., any story sold to you by a governing entity is inherently unimaginative bahahahaha).

A group so small in number that it is impossible to maintain a strong cultural influence on the masses in any capacity, unless associated with the more dominant/prevalent ethnic identity.

P.S. I don’t know how to end this blog post but hey jjajangmyeon, like you and me, contain multitudes something something everything is deeper than you realize hahahahahaha.

P.S.S. Not me writing about a dish that transports me instantly to childhood and then inadvertently trauma dumping on the Internet just invisible minority tingzzzzz.

Happy Friday :D.