27Stories from the past
This happened to me when I was in Korea about 2 years ago. I had gone there to study the language and, well I wasnt especially good at it. But I did my best! Anyways I dont eat pork. Now being in Korea its hard to find food that has no pork at all. It is either in the sauce or in the filling or in the cupcakes or whatever. The point is I had to learn how to say “food without pork” or ” there is no pork in this dish right?” very quickly.
It was all good until I went to order me som kimbab for the first time. Kimbab can be similar to Japanese sushi rolls, but its really different. Well I ordered food and made sure it was without pork, and I ordered a vegetable kimbab cuz I was sure! that it wouldnt contain any pork. I got the dish and saw that they had ham inside my roll!
I asked them why they put pork in my vegetable kimbab. The lady said there is no pork there. I said: yeah it kinda is look! and showed her what I meant. She laughed at me and said that is not pork that is HAM. My confused face did not get to here and went back to my seat and ate the other dish I had ordered.
I had to get to the bottom of this so I told my teacher the story, and despite my broken korean she realized what I was saying and laughed.
She told me that koreans dont consider ham to be pork. I asked what do they consider it to be then? They consider it to be just ham.
In a way I can totally understand that..
