A Japanese enthralled by Korean rice cakes

KIM HYUN-YE
The author is a Tokyo correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo.

There is a shop in a corner of Ginza, Tokyo, that is easy to miss unless you look for it. The shop is more than 400 years old, and the owner and employees are all Japanese. Here, they sell “Goryeobyeong” rice cakes.

The rice cake, which is meant to be eaten with green tea, resembles Korean siru ddeok. I searched for information on Kagoshima’s famous snacks on the the prefecture’s Confectionery Industry Association.

It was about Goryeobyeong — “Goremochi” in Japanese — from Kagoshima. The explanation says, “It refers to the steamed cake with sticky rice and red bean paste made by Korean potters who were forcibly taken from Joseon during the Edo period. They used the cake for their ancestral rites at shrines they built while missing home. It is widely known to ordinary people for its delicious taste.”

I had forgotten about the Goremochi for a while, but a letter reminded me of this rice cake. Fourty-six-year-old Yumi Nohara recently published a book on Korean ddeok. When stores selling Japanese rice cakes with sweet soybean paste are crowded, why is she publishing a book on Korean ddeok in Japan? I became very curious about the book, as ddeok has a long history in there but never got much attention.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday in Korea, I met her at the Korean Cultural Center in Tokyo. She took a container out of the bag. Freshly steamed siru rice cake looked quite pretty. “It’s been 13 years since I started making Korean ddeok.”

Her connection with ddeok began when she went into a “store with a steamer where white steam came out” in Tokyo in 2009, when she was working as a barista. After tasting pumpkin seolgi, she fell in love with the simple taste she had never had before, and she got into other varieties of Korean ddeok.

Whenever she had free time, she started a ddeok journey, visiting various parts of Korea to enjoy local specialties. After her love for ddeok made her learn the Korean language, her affection for Korea deepened. Now, she is preaching Korean ddeok to her students. “Korean ddeok seems to symbolize happiness and the happiness of sharing. Koreans eat it for weddings, birthdays, or when they move to other places. The two countries’ past will not change, but I hope we can share ddeok and get along.”

Starting to like something from a foreign country without prejudice, she learned about the country and understood it sincerely. In addition to Korean dramas and music, these little things are achieving great things that no politician or power group could do.