Miyeok-Guk
1
Legend has it that whales, after giving birth,
dive into the deep. Through their blowholes
they breathe in the open sky, then plunge
into the wide-open space of their home,
towards the ocean bed. From there, like cattle,
these mothers graze on sea mustard,
plants with bodies swaying the way ghosts do.
The journey the whales take can be seen
through the blood trailing from their bodies,
thinning in the water like smoke.
2
In earlier times, at the rise of the day,
the old people would walk to the market,
the sun silently following their footsteps,
and buy bundles of sea mustard.
Tradition says that the leaves must never be folded;
to not follow this is to snap apart the cord
between mother and child, or cross prematurely
the path between life and death. The sea
mustard is carried behind their backs, or held
by their arms, each bundle like a long
shapeless shadow. Dried sea mustard is black;
but once boiled with water, meat, sesame oil,
and soy sauce, it comes back, green, to life.
3
Each expectant mother, during the nine months
of waiting and hesitation, has to take in
miyeok-guk. To make her infant behave, slide
easily away from her body in order
to become its own, the old people would say.
The mother hopes for this to be true, each kick
in the belly, the child's restless swimming,
a cause for pained prayer. After delivery,
the mother, exhausted and incomplete,
is daily fed this soup for three weeks. That way,
the bleeding stops, the blood stream is cleansed
of excess, the wound closes, and she is herself again.
4
When I was young, I hated the miyeok-guk,
so I hated a part of my birthday. It felt as if
I were eating something still living, each square
piece of sea mustard a caterpillar struggling,
wanting back into its own world, inside
my mouth. Good health, my mother would say.
I wanted none of it; I wanted none
of life, I who still had so much of my own.
5
To eat miyeok-guk on your birthday, they say,
is to remember the sacrifices of your mother,
times when her legs would give way, because
yours were learning what they were capable of.
To eat is to remember what memory cannot.
When I turned 22, this was how I thought of it:
as I sipped the soup, as the sea mustard clung
to the roof of my mouth, I recalled not
the heavy belly, the stretched skin of my mother,
but the warm shell inside it, which I was part of,
in which the pains were not mine, but hers.
Sanjeok Sijo
Skewer a crabstick, mushroom, a strip of beef, a carrot, and leek.
The clothesline for fabrics worthy of Jungjeon Mama, seen from afar.
To prepare food is to know that beauty wants to exist
PHOTOS: Bowl of Mieyok-Guk courtesy of MyKoreanKitchen.Com; Korean art from NYU.edu