Kimchi, Soba, BK be

Two of our colleagues wrote of a subject close to our palate. I am only three hours from the Yalu River. Chao Tian and Hanggul (NoKor and SoKor) are my neighbors, and the old Gogoryeo (from where the word Korea comes from) kingdom included half of Manchuria of old; the Yanbian Autonomous Region in Jilin (aka Korea-in-China) Province has ample supply of la ba cai, the local spiced cabbage, a mainstay in my fridge.

I spent two months in Suwon outside of Seoul in ’72 and, though familiar with spiced cabbage called kimchi among Korean fellow students in the United States, it was not until I ate with the locals that I got “addicted” to the taste. It was, perhaps, helpful that there was a Ms. Moon that mooned me with the recipe but that was icing on the cake, or, spice on the cabbage, if you will, rather than the main course itself.

Each time I go to the street market in Shenyang and see kimchi on display, I try my Yo bo sa-i-yo, ann-yang ha ship-ni-ka, and see if I can get a bite from the vendor. Sure enough, a seller has yet to be anyone other than a Hanggul Saram (Korean), and ze makes sure that I get ample supply of the spiced sauce to go with my veggie!

My romance with udon (noodles) goes back to ’65 when the ship I sailed on for San Francisco docked in Yokohama. A bunch of students from Southeast Asia decided to explore Ginza in Tokyo. At a back alley hole-on-the-wall, the spread of Japanese noodles from the thin ramen, shirataki, soba, somen, hiyamugi, to the thick noodle, the udon, was ours for the tasting. A Malaysian lady passenger, older by half my age, innocently took me under her wings and she smiled away most of my cost share, for the udon was not cheap.

It’s my turn to relate my food story but not along the delightful side of the cabbage and the noodle. What I got recently in my neighborhood is a prominently located corner fast food service branch of Burger King. For three years at the university, each time someone suggested Mickey D’s, I’d steer the conversation away (my aversion to the Donald goes back all the way to Chicago, so Joe Ayuyu of Saipan should not take offense) and as a coup d’grace, I’d say, “Besides, I am partial to Burger King!” which was nowhere available than four hours away by the bullet train! 

This week, one of my former colleagues rang me up and said, “Guess what? I just saw that Burger King at the corner of Shen Bei Lu and Daoyinan Da Jie across from the school entrance on the same side of the boulevard,” (lu = street, da jie = big street, i.e., Blvd or Ave). The invite to check it out came automatically.

Happily, the construction is not finished yet and I suspect they are probably eyeing a Halloween opening, but I am at a quandary. I no longer like burgers. In fact, with my friends, I have names for it that are less than polite! In any case, struggling with girth size, I probably could get away with just telling everyone the truth and confess that I have become almost a vegetarian! 

Well, almost. I still eat seafood, fowl and fish. If prepared carefully, I also nibble on the oxen/cattle from the grasslands of Nei Menggu. The Yokohama beef of old was more my taste. They massaged them individually before applying the blade. Now I get drawn to the Muslim (Hui) shops that serve lamb ribs and goat kid barbecue.

But for now, it is getting around Burger King. It must be the function of age, having sat through too many meetings with not much bending of the waist and knee, and a propensity to frequent buffets and all-you-can-eat places that the rotund shape had come to be. It does not help that middle-aged Chinese ladies think it is cute to look elegantly prosperous to be a robustly apple shaped lao ye. 

The xanthelesmata, the blotch of yellow skin on the eyelid, is a very telling sign that I carry too much cholesterol in my blood stream, an indicator of a disease that Tony Stearns commented the last time I stopped by his clinic. Since I am in the last phase of my living designated as the gracious exit of my dying, the remaining time to my existence is of no consequence. It is the quality of the expenditure of life that is of utmost importance.

So, to bugger, or to booger, that is the question. Burger King sits resplendent in our prominent corner with its whopper grilled, a plus in its favor. The double whopper brimming with the Swiss cheese, lettuce and tomato still makes the heart go fonder! My taste buds yearn for the radiant French fries, I thirst for a glass of root beer, and I do not shy away from a succulent chicken tenders. I flounder in my age-old habit of blunders!

Burger King accelerated market presence in the last two years. Earlier acquired by 3G Capital of Brazil, it merged with the coffee and doughnut chain of Tim Horton of Canada with backing from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. It started calling its signature product the BK whopper.

I am inside the whopping beltway of its temptation. To be, or, to BK be.