Public Speaking - 2nd Speech

8/3/2019 Public Speaking - 2nd Speech

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Good day ladies and gentleman.

And Annyeonghasaeyo. Having travelled to South Korea a few times, I have come to appreciate more

on its friendly citizens, diverse culture, beautiful language and last but not least its variety of food. Being

in Seoul, Busan and a few other cities in South Korea, Ive tried my best to immerse myself into the

Korean way of life, be it in terms of speaking their language, speed walking in subway stations and alsoeating the variety of street food during my journey.

Food has always been the problem for Muslims traveling to non-Islamic countries such as South Korea.

Muslims are a minority in this country and they are made up of only one percent of the whole

population. The choice of halal food for Muslim travellers is rather limited. So whenever people asked

me about the country, food has always been the main issue and I always get the same kind of questions

from friends and family.

The first and most famous question would be; Isnt it hard to find Halal food there? My answer for this

question would be yes, because its really true. Finding halal food is not an easy task to do if youre

travelling in Korea, but it is not impossible at all. You need to look harder and keep your options open.

One of them is to visit Itaewon town, where there are many Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants to

choose from. However the towns location is a bit far from the main city, Seoul, and travelling there

would take a lot of your time.

The second question would be Can you find food with Halal logo there?

My answer for the first question would be yes. YesAs to the second question, my answer would be no.

As I said in my previous post about food, finding Halal food is not an easy task in Korea, unless youre inItaewon, but its not an impossible task to do too. If you know how, you can actually find food that

Muslim can consume.

Be confident of what youre eating, if you have a slight doubt about the ingredient and/or the utensils

used in the process of making the food, then I suggest you not to consume it. Of course, avoid the

obvious, such as meat (any kinds), ham, et cetera.

Before I share with you the local food that you could eat in Korea, lets learn some simple (but VERY

useful) phrases that you can use when you want to order food or when someone offered you food

which is not Halal. I took this from Zarinas blog, so all credits goes to her okay! I just corrected some

romanization for the Hangugo pronunciation.

I cant eat meat-

-

choneunkogireulmommogoyo


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I dont eat meat -

-

choneunkogireul an mogoyo

Please dont put meat -

-

kogireulnohjimasaeyo

Please dont put ham -

-

hemeulnohjimasaeyo

I can only eat vegetable and seafood -

-

yachewahesanmulyorireulmogelsuissoyo

I am a vegetarian -

-

choneuncheshikjuweeja ye yo

Make full use of these phrases. Its really helpful if the seller doesnt speak English at all.

So shall I recommend you to some local food that you SHOULD try when you are in Korea? Mind you

these are just suggestions from me and if youre looking for food with certified halal sticker/logo, youre

gonna be disappointed. Though IMHO, in order to know more about a country, eating the local food is

the best way to do it, dont you think? LOL

I have blogged about bibimbap in my (unfinished) 50 Things About Korea. Its #9 in my list. You can read

about it here. I have made my own version of bibimbap and that was my first and last time making it.

Reason being, preparing for it took a lot of time (which is totally my fault, as bibimbap is actually just

MIXING the rice with any ingredients) and I could not finish the whole bowl of bibimbap by myself.

I wanted to try the bibimbap but to be honest, we just could not find time to eat it. When we go to the

restaurant near our guest house, me and Shambie just ordered kimbap, because it was simple, and not

too much (in quantity). Most of the time we were too tired to eat, resting our fatigue legs was way more

important than filling our tummies at that time. Hehe.

If you want to eat bibimbap in Korea, ask for a vegetarian one. Or just ask the ahjumma to put away the

meat for you. Same like we did when we bought kimbap-minus-the-ham. Opt for dolsotbibimbap

(,edolsotf meaningestone potf) if you can because eating a hot bibimbap, to me, is

yummier.


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Pajeon is a simple dish. Its just a mixture of flour,riceflour,eggs and green onions fried in a form of

pancake. Anyone can make this simple dish, though authenticity is crucial. Eating pajeon in Korea, made

by Korean cook, is a different experience. Exaggerated but its a fact. Hehe

Plain pajeon might just taste like Malaysiads own lempeng or cucur. So, if you are in Korea and want to

eat Pajeon, opt for HaemulPajeon () which is a seafood pajeon, or KimchiPajeon ( q)

made from what else, KIMCHI! There are pajeons made from beef or pork too so check the ingredients

before you eat.

You always heard of tteokbokki which is the spicy version of rice cake. But have you ever thought of

eating tteok (rice cake) as desert? When I was in Korea last year, I found a Halmoni (grandma) selling a

variety of home madetteok in Dongdaemun. She was just sitting in the cold (it was even snowing at that

time!) beside other peoples stalls with her tteok displayed on a big tray.

Looking at her made my heart ache, but even more so, her tteok looked super delicious to me. Too bad I

forgot to take her photo with her homemade tteok. All I could remember was that Halmoni was shocked

to see a scarf-clad foreigner like me wanted to buy her tteok. LOL Awww..Halmoni!

My knowledge about the variety of tteok is limited. Wikipedia has quite a lot of info, but most of them

are just the list of tteok, with no photos. You can read it here.

But thereds one particular place I like to buy my sweet tteok from - when thereds no Halmoni around

selling her home made ones (wow that sounds like I do this on a regular basis! Haha). The shop is called

(Bijeun/Bizeun). Thereds an outlet at the Incheon Airport too in case you cant find any in the city.

Not cupcake but CARP CAKE! Hehe. This pastry is delicious eat when itds still warm, in the cool weather.

Yummyumm. In Korean,ebungeo()f means Carassius, a kind of fish, and eppang()f means

bread.

Bungeoppangs are made using an appliance similar to a waffle iron. The batter is poured into a fish-shaped mold, red bean paste is added, then more batter to encase the red bean paste. The mold is then

closed, and roasted.

There are also bungeoppang-shaped waffles filled with ice cream and pat (sweetened and boiled red

beans or azuki beans). These waffles are usually mass produced and sold by retailers, not by open-air

food vendors.

There are two main stews that you can find in Korea. Itds DwenjangChigae () and

KimchiChigae (q). Dwenjang means soybean paste, which means the stew is made from it, and

for Kimchi stew, itds made from the fermented kimchi added with other ingredients.

Both stews are usually served with vegetables and/or tofu. For dwenjangchigae, the ingredientsnormally includes tofu and variety of vegetables. As for kimchichigae, some restaurant add diced pork or

sometimes seafood in the stew, so please be careful if youre going to order this dish. If the kimchichigae

only has tofu and vegetables in it then its alright to consume this.

When we talk about stew, the Korean variant of stew is not too thick. In fact its almost like a soup and

having at least one soup-y dish in their meal, for breakfast,lunch and dinner , is a must for Koreans.


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Most of you reading this post might think that the food featured above are all very common. You might

even eat it on a weekly (if not daily) basis at your local Korean restaurant outlet. But like I said, the food,

no matter how familiar you are with it, eaten in the place where its originated, tastes different! Hehe.

And to those who are not familiar with these food, either you have never heard of them, or have heard

of them, but have not actually tried them, then my advice to you is, dont be afraid to try. Muslims who

are not confident with these food, I hope you can benefit from this and know that there are options forus to eat authentic Korean food if we know what to ask for.

- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the

discovery of a new star.

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Public Speaking - 2nd Speech