Day 8: Golden Rice Cake Room
It was Monday morning and I decided to go to Incheon to visit a 떡집 (rice cake store) that was featured on one of my favourite programs called 인간극장 (Screening Humanity). KBS’ Screening Humanity is a weekday documentary show that chronicles the everyday lives of ordinary people. It’s like a fly-on-the-wall type show with narration and they focus on a person’s story throughout the entire week. The lives they’ve documented cover such a wide range from a dying mother, a family struck with illness, a single father looking for love again, businessmen, ambassadors, families who moved from the city to live in the country, just all sorts of everyday people. A lot of the people they do choose for the show run businesses and those are usually my favourite. I always await Mondays to see whose lives will be documented next. There’s a lot of laughter, crying, hardship, pain and happiness shown through the documentary and it truly is human theater.
The subjects they chose to document for this one week was a young married couple in their 20’s who just opened their first business, a rice cake store. The title of the show was “우리 이제 시작이야” (“We Are Now Starting”). The husband’s upbringing was a tragic one. When he was young, both his parents died and he and his sister were forced to survive on their own, living on the streets at times. Despite the odds, they managed to somehow make it through the toughest times. A rice cake maker took the husband (back then a teen) under his wing and gave him a job and taught him how to make rice cakes. After working there for years, the husband decided to give running his own business a shot and opened his own rice cake store. The wife also had a hard upbringing in that she was raised my a single mom. Anyhow, the two met, got married, had 2 children and were now running their own business together.
If you are interested, you can actually watch all 4 parts (it was only 4 parts instead of the usual 5) of this episode here (if you scroll down you can see the other parts). The stories featured on Screening Humanity are always touching but I really felt touched by this episode in particular. It was seeing this young couple, falling and getting back up and trying their hardest to make it that really moved me. They always seemed tired, juggling the store and 2 young children, but they always tried their best. As I watched them, I felt like it would be so easy for them to give up in defeat but their earnest appearance made me want to root for them and their success. That’s why I wanted to go and visit their store and meet them and buy some of their rice cakes. I don’t even like rice cakes too. I felt like if I could just tell them that their story was touching people halfway around the world, perhaps that would give them more strength to keep pressing on even when things got difficult.
As the store’s name was blurred out on TV, I did some research on the net and found the name of the place which was 황금떡방 (translates to “Golden Rice Cake Room”) and where it was located which was in Incheon, a city west of Seoul and where the International Airport is located. At first, I wrote directions on how to get their by bus but then later found that the subway goes all the way to Incheon and there was a station stop right near the store. I bought a couple of a stuffed animals to give to their kids as gifts in Toronto and took them with me to Seoul. I noticed that the oldest daughter had Winnie the Pooh pajamas so I got a Winnie the Pooh bear and a character from Toy Story that smelt like strawberries.
I called the store just to confirm my directions and the guy on the phone sounded just like the guy in the episode I saw. That kind of psyched me up. I left in the morning around 9:30AM hoping to get there before lunch time. It took a long time to get to Incheon and the trip required a couple of subway transfers. I even went the wrong direction and had to double back. At Guro Station on Line 1, the line splits into 2 and the Westbound train then goes south instead of continuing west. Luckily I noticed I was going the wrong direction only after a few stops. During the ride and after I had gone the wrong way, I started questioning why I was even going to visit this rice cake place. It seemed so far away but I kept telling myself that it was all going to be so worth it when I got there. Leading up to my trip to Seoul, I would mention to my mom on frequent occasions about how excited I was to visit the rice cake store and she couldn’t believe I was actually going through with it.
When I finally got to Gyesan Station in Incheon, I was really tired from riding the subway for so long. The store was not far away though so I was glad to finally be here. I had practiced in my head what it was I wanted to say in Korean about how I saw their show and was moved and came from Canada to meet them. I walked down the street looking for the sign and spotted it. Just as I got to the store front however, instead of seeing the young couple as I was expecting, there was a middle-aged man and an older lady in the back making rice cakes. It startled me so much that I continued walking without even stopping thinking perhaps this was the wrong store. I walked further south looking for another rice cake store but in my mind I knew the place I passed was the right location. I turned around and walked up to the store and stood at the front looking in and at the rice cakes on display out front. The man came out and asked how he could help and I kind of looked over the rice cakes trying to buy some time to think how I would ask him if this was the same store I saw on Screening Humanity. When I finally did ask him, he said it was indeed the store that was feature on the show but that the owners had changed. He said the previous owner’s health wasn’t in good condition and therefore they sold the store. I felt like all the remaining energy in my body left when I heard those words and I wanted to collapse right there on the spot. Instead, I kept a smiling face and asked him which rice cakes he recommended. I bought several packs of rice cakes and he also gave me several free samples and recognized me as the one who called earlier. I thanked him and started walking back up the street.
I didn’t want to show him my disappointment or ask him questions about the previous owners because he and my disappointment had nothing to do with one another. I don’t think I felt more disappointed though in such a long time. The thought of going all the way back to Seoul by subway now was mind numbing. I wanted to jump in a cab and sleep all the way back so that I could try and not think of how let down I was. As I was walking, I kind of collected my thoughts and knew that I would feel better once I had a chance to sit and get something to eat as it was past lunch time. I found a Lotteria down the street and had lunch. Resting for a while did make me feel much better.
Once I got back to Seoul via subway, I ended up giving the stuffed animals to one of my aunts who was over to give to my cousin. This day kind of haunted me for the next few days afterwards. Needless to say, I didn’t feel like going anywhere else and stayed in for the remainder of the day...
The subjects they chose to document for this one week was a young married couple in their 20’s who just opened their first business, a rice cake store. The title of the show was “우리 이제 시작이야” (“We Are Now Starting”). The husband’s upbringing was a tragic one. When he was young, both his parents died and he and his sister were forced to survive on their own, living on the streets at times. Despite the odds, they managed to somehow make it through the toughest times. A rice cake maker took the husband (back then a teen) under his wing and gave him a job and taught him how to make rice cakes. After working there for years, the husband decided to give running his own business a shot and opened his own rice cake store. The wife also had a hard upbringing in that she was raised my a single mom. Anyhow, the two met, got married, had 2 children and were now running their own business together.
If you are interested, you can actually watch all 4 parts (it was only 4 parts instead of the usual 5) of this episode here (if you scroll down you can see the other parts). The stories featured on Screening Humanity are always touching but I really felt touched by this episode in particular. It was seeing this young couple, falling and getting back up and trying their hardest to make it that really moved me. They always seemed tired, juggling the store and 2 young children, but they always tried their best. As I watched them, I felt like it would be so easy for them to give up in defeat but their earnest appearance made me want to root for them and their success. That’s why I wanted to go and visit their store and meet them and buy some of their rice cakes. I don’t even like rice cakes too. I felt like if I could just tell them that their story was touching people halfway around the world, perhaps that would give them more strength to keep pressing on even when things got difficult.
As the store’s name was blurred out on TV, I did some research on the net and found the name of the place which was 황금떡방 (translates to “Golden Rice Cake Room”) and where it was located which was in Incheon, a city west of Seoul and where the International Airport is located. At first, I wrote directions on how to get their by bus but then later found that the subway goes all the way to Incheon and there was a station stop right near the store. I bought a couple of a stuffed animals to give to their kids as gifts in Toronto and took them with me to Seoul. I noticed that the oldest daughter had Winnie the Pooh pajamas so I got a Winnie the Pooh bear and a character from Toy Story that smelt like strawberries.
I called the store just to confirm my directions and the guy on the phone sounded just like the guy in the episode I saw. That kind of psyched me up. I left in the morning around 9:30AM hoping to get there before lunch time. It took a long time to get to Incheon and the trip required a couple of subway transfers. I even went the wrong direction and had to double back. At Guro Station on Line 1, the line splits into 2 and the Westbound train then goes south instead of continuing west. Luckily I noticed I was going the wrong direction only after a few stops. During the ride and after I had gone the wrong way, I started questioning why I was even going to visit this rice cake place. It seemed so far away but I kept telling myself that it was all going to be so worth it when I got there. Leading up to my trip to Seoul, I would mention to my mom on frequent occasions about how excited I was to visit the rice cake store and she couldn’t believe I was actually going through with it.
When I finally got to Gyesan Station in Incheon, I was really tired from riding the subway for so long. The store was not far away though so I was glad to finally be here. I had practiced in my head what it was I wanted to say in Korean about how I saw their show and was moved and came from Canada to meet them. I walked down the street looking for the sign and spotted it. Just as I got to the store front however, instead of seeing the young couple as I was expecting, there was a middle-aged man and an older lady in the back making rice cakes. It startled me so much that I continued walking without even stopping thinking perhaps this was the wrong store. I walked further south looking for another rice cake store but in my mind I knew the place I passed was the right location. I turned around and walked up to the store and stood at the front looking in and at the rice cakes on display out front. The man came out and asked how he could help and I kind of looked over the rice cakes trying to buy some time to think how I would ask him if this was the same store I saw on Screening Humanity. When I finally did ask him, he said it was indeed the store that was feature on the show but that the owners had changed. He said the previous owner’s health wasn’t in good condition and therefore they sold the store. I felt like all the remaining energy in my body left when I heard those words and I wanted to collapse right there on the spot. Instead, I kept a smiling face and asked him which rice cakes he recommended. I bought several packs of rice cakes and he also gave me several free samples and recognized me as the one who called earlier. I thanked him and started walking back up the street.
I didn’t want to show him my disappointment or ask him questions about the previous owners because he and my disappointment had nothing to do with one another. I don’t think I felt more disappointed though in such a long time. The thought of going all the way back to Seoul by subway now was mind numbing. I wanted to jump in a cab and sleep all the way back so that I could try and not think of how let down I was. As I was walking, I kind of collected my thoughts and knew that I would feel better once I had a chance to sit and get something to eat as it was past lunch time. I found a Lotteria down the street and had lunch. Resting for a while did make me feel much better.
Once I got back to Seoul via subway, I ended up giving the stuffed animals to one of my aunts who was over to give to my cousin. This day kind of haunted me for the next few days afterwards. Needless to say, I didn’t feel like going anywhere else and stayed in for the remainder of the day...
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