바로가기메뉴

본문 바로가기 주메뉴 바로가기

logo

Noodle Odyssey: East Asia and Beyond

Korea Journal / Korea Journal, (P)0023-3900; (E)2733-9343
2010, v.50 no.1, pp.60-84
https://doi.org/10.25024/kj.2010.50.1.60

  • Downloaded
  • Viewed

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to use Korean ramyeon to examine some of the major issues in the study of food and culture. In Japan, as in Korea, ramen and ramyeon not only came to find loyal consumers and occupy significant places in the food culture of both countries, but also began to cross national boundaries to find fans and markets in China and other countries. The Chinese noodle has come home, after a hundred-year-long voyage to and from Japan via Korea. Three points will be made. Firstly, Korean ramyeon has become a separate kind of global food, quite different from Japanese ramen. Ramyeon in Korea means “instant noodle,” while ramen in Japan generally refers to noodles sold in ramen restaurants as well as instant noodle. Second,Korean ramyeon is a class confuser that, instead of delineating and reinforcing class distinctions, seems to confuse and modify them. Third, I propose to introduce the concept of “ramyeonization.” This process is found in the increase of new forms of instant food sold in plastic packages, and also involves the dominance of hot and spicy taste in Korean cuisine. Further,ramyeonization involves individualization and fragmentation of meals and the resultant impact on family and society at large.

keywords
ramyeon, ramen, Chinese noodles, food, ramyeonization

Reference

1.

Anon. 2009. “Life Surrounded by Ramen.” http://www.worldramen.net/ABC/Life Surround/LifeFlame.html (accessed October 1).

2.

Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3.

____________. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

4.

Beadsworth, Alan, and Teresa Keil. 1997. Sociology on the Menu: An Invitation to the Study of Food and Society. London and New York: Routledge.

5.

Bendix, Regina. 1997. In Search of Authenticity: The Formation of Folklore Studies. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.

6.

Boym, Svetlana. 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books.

7.

Creighton, Millie. 1997. “Consuming Rural Japan: The Marketing of Tradition and Nostalgia in the Japanese Travel Industry.” Ethnology 36.3 (summer): 239-254.

8.

Han, Kyung-Koo. 2000. “Some Foods Are Good to Think: Kimchi and the Epitomization of National Character.” Korea Social Science Journal 27.1.

9.

____________. Forthcoming. “The Kimchi ‘Wars’ in Globalizing East Asia: Consuming Class, Gender, Health, and National Identity.” In Consuming Korean Culture in Early and Late Modernity, edited by L. Kendall. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

10.

Herzfeld, Michael. 1997. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York and London: Routledge.

11.

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 2003. The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: The University of California Press.

12.

Ivy, Marilyn. 1995. Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

13.

Kube, Rokuro. 1999/2009. Ramen hakkenden (The Ramen King). Tokyo: Shogakkan.

14.

McCracken, Grant. 1990. Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

15.

Miller, Daniel. 1995. “Consumption and Commodities.” Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 141-161.

16.

Ritzer, George. 2004. The McDonaldization of Society. Rev. ed. Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: Pine Forge Press.

17.

Stewart, Kathleen. 1988. “Nostalgia: A Polemic.” Cultural Anthropology 3.3: 227.

Korea Journal