The Kimchi Wars

At present, more and more people in the world start to concentrate on Korean culture and its traditional food-kimchi.

Kimchi is a kind of food that has nutrition, delicious smell, and good taste. And most importantly, it can prevent disease. It is a strong symbol of national identity in this era of culture integration. According to the Korean press, the kimchi conflicts with Japan in 2004 and the uproar over imported Chinese kimchi in the fall of 2005.

The Historical Background and the Scandal of Kimchi

The red chili pepper was introduced into Korea in the Korea and Japan War in the 16^th century and at the same time, the pickled vegetables with chili pepper were invented. Since then, it becomes an essential part of the Korean cuisine. It is treated as a necessary and free food in some local restaurants. However, in some foreign restaurants, they think it isn’t decent to provide kimchi to their customers. Even though it is not a luxurious dishes and usually needs to eat with other food. It is of great importance to the Koreans. However, the diet habit is also changing with time. In the last decades, Korean traditional food was paid little attention and only rarely can be made at home. But, in recent years, the healthy situation of Korean people is worth paying attention onto. Therefore, some traditional food comes to people’s eyes again. The production of kimchi was commercialized since 1960 for the troops in Vietnam. After that, the produced kimchi was exported to the Europe for the Koreans working there. But local Koreans seldom buy it. But this phenomenon was changing with time, and more and more people begin to buy kimchi. The quality of industrially produced kimchi is also improving. In the early 1990s, the consumption of industrially produced kimchi increased because more and more Korean women began to work and more people would like to eat out. Because of that, more and more young women began to learn how to make delicious kimchi. The housewife of a family learn from each other on how to make kimchi, and after they make it, they would send some to their parents. But nowadays it is hard to make kimchi at home. The art of making kimchi may lose in the near future in Korea. And with the development of the Korean culture, more and more young women would like to get rid of the traditional duty of them. They want to live for themselves, not just for their children and husband. So they think they need to learn more new important things are not making kimchi. This propels the development of industrially produced kimchi.

One of the best manufacturers of kimchi called chonggajip advertises its kimchi that kimchi is showing the love of our mother. And this company tries to persuade customers to buy its product rather than other brands. Some women they can get homemade kimchi from their relatives, but those who do not have the relatives that can make kimchi would buy a famous brand kimchi to satisfy their family needs. And the Olympic Game held in Korea contributes to the development of the kimchi.

The Kimchi War with China and Japan

In the beginning, Japan does not admit Korean kimchi. The reason why is that Japan once colonized in Korea, and it thinks that kimchi is its food. However, after several years’ persistence, in the 1980s, Japan began to accept kimchi, and to serve it in the restaurant. The Japanese kimchi tastes so good, which makes Korean alarms because they think they may lose not only the Japanese market but also the global market.

In 2005, the imported kimchi from China had been found parasite eggs in it, and then Korean refused to import food from China. At the same time, China was also angry and claimed that they had found some parasite eggs in the kimchi imported from Korea. And the result is that Korean import more kimchi from China, and they afford less kimchi to Japan.

All in all, the social background, scandals and media reporting all contribute to the development of kimchi into the global market.