Let it be known that on this day, Wednesday, January 20, 2010, at around 1:15 pm, in the Ajisen Ramen restaurant in Long Zhi Meng mall, in the Zhongshan Park neighborhood of Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, I came up with the term “Kimchi Western,” by myself and free of any outside influences. My friend, Victor, was talking about a movie starring Song Kang-ho, an actor from two fantastic Korean films, The Host and Thirst. The movie he was talking about is of the western genre and called The Good, the Bad, the Weird. The first thing that popped into my head was Kimchi Western, just like the Spaghetti Westerns that were directed and produced by Italians in the 1960s. My friends suggested I write a paper on Kimchi Western, so that I could really own the term.
Of course, when I got home to the soon-to-be-endangered-in-China Google, I found that Kimchi Western does, in fact, already exist. Bollocks! Korean online news writers have been using the phrase to describe this very movie. However, the term does not yet exist on Wikipedia, and we all know that if its not in Wikipedia, does it really exist at all?
So, I decided to buy the domain. Take that, you chumps!
I pondered on the name of this blog for about 15 minutes with my friend, Jessica. I thought, well, I’m in China, not Korea. Maybe it should be a more Chinese name. We thought. Xiaolongbao Western. Zhongzi Western. Peking Western. Kung Pao Western. Kimchi was just the best. I love kimchi. I inhale the stuff. And, if and when I own a dog, his name will be Kimchi. Or Gus.
And I want this blog to be not only my musings on life, but also an East meets West sort of thing. I’m an American living in China. I’m half Filipina, half Scandinavian. Let’s face it: my life is East meets West.
Through this blog, I hope to foster cross-cultural understanding and empathy. I want to help others learn about China and the Chinese from an insider’s perspective.
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