MYSTERIES OF THE MOTHER

My mom sells her kimchi when she’s bored. She makes a whole variety of them. Cucumber kimchi in the summer, and water kimchi with flowered carrots for festive occasions. When she is open for sale, my mom decorates her KakaoStory with pictures of her at the market picking out vegetables. She posts explaining each ingredient and whose hands were responsible for them to get to her kitchen counter. 

A week or two after she’s made a new batch of scallion kimchi, we put pork belly on the pan. Take a lettuce leaf and start loading; a small spoonful of rice, a piece of pork belly, a slice of raw or roasted garlic, some ssamjang, and a bit of the kimchi. Stuffing ourselves with these wraps of fragile green leaves, all we really talk about is how much pork belly Uly, my dog, should be allowed to eat. All I want to think or say seems to slip away from me, washed down with cold cans of beer. We’re filling our stomachs. And on the table devoid of any meaningful conversation, the sizzling and the crunching fill that peculiar silence. 

I don’t necessarily get along with my mom, but I always do with the things she chose to feed me. Especially her kimchi, because it’s really, too good. But before the taste, what comes into my mind first is always the color. The bright red color. It’s never a devilish red though, its redness does not scream spicy, salty, nor fishy. It’s fiery, but it’s also soft. It’s a red that is transparent and optimistic. It is a red that invites then assures. The gochugaru she uses is quite special: she has this number she hits up when she needs it; the guy shows up in a car with dark windows; and he does not take tikkie. Depending on the kimchi, she will use apples or pears, sometimes both. When she’s in the mood my mom also puts little strands of chopi fruits. In her winter cabbage kimchi, she adds chopped pieces of raw hairtail fish. The fish gets kind of cured in the pot; the kimchi gives some to the fish, and the fish gives some of itself to the kimchi. In the end the fish becomes this nutty thing. For the fish sauce, she prefers the ones made with small sand eels, over those with anchovies. Sand eels are green. And its fermented form, so extremely fermented that the fish is no longer decipherable, definitely smells disgusting. Yet in the kimchi, it disappears; only leaving this unmistakable trace, a subtle freshness. A fermentation layered over another. Layers of time. Again, lay this kimchi on your spoonful of rice. Maybe layer it with a piece of hairtail. On top of a seaweed paper. Stuff yourself. 

I don’t necessarily get along with my mom, in fact, I am disgusted by my parents when I talk about them over my therapist’s desk. I remember that one summer evening we went to an eels barbeque. I don’t like eels. That evening I saw my dad for the first time in 37 hours, and that 37 hours ago he had called me something. Sitting on the jungja outside the apartment, I told my mom to please fuck off. I don’t want anything to do with them. I said I cannot live with the memories of the family. All the layers of time they brought into my life when they brought me into my life. Crying. Begging. Let me go. I hate those layers, just please fuck off from everything. The next morning, I went to therapy, then spent the day staring at a wall in Starbucks chewing on bananas. But when I faced them at that table, I had to eat. Sizzle and crunch. What cute thing did Uly do today? Everything slips away. Really, eels are too slimy. Against my repulsion, against my desperate clinging onto my hatred—like the fish sauce, the disgust becomes something else. I evaporate. What is left in my mouth is something that is unforgettable yet traceless. Traceless like the fish sauce; but absolutely nothing is subtle. Nothing is fresh in my mouth. 

There are a million different types of kimchi and there are about half a million things that can go into it. Salt and sugar for pickling. Aekjeot of all kinds of sea animals, gochugaru, garlic, ginger, onion, scallion, chives, radish, apple, pears, rice… But if you asked my mom what the most important ingredient is, I know she will say time. Time. 

It is only after the right amount of time that the pot of kimchi can be opened.

I am never sure what kind of a woman my mom is. I don’t know about her past dreams and her future aspirations. I am utterly ignorant about the ways she deals with her sadness or loneliness. I wonder if she truly enjoys her lunch dates with ajummas with colorful Birkins and stories of their lawyer daughters and in-laws. I wonder how those stories make her feel about her own daughter, who left to … where? Netherlands? New Zealand?, and who keeps dating boys too colorful for her own taste. I don’t know what her fun looks like. Or maybe I do, but am simply unable or unwilling to relate. I don’t understand why she never left my dad, although she regularly says she will. I wonder if it is similar to the way she regularly says she will get an eye lift but never does. I wonder if that’s what love is. I wonder if forgiveness is indispensable in the way she loves.

I wonder what she thinks when she makes kimchi. I wonder where her little smile comes from, each time we eat at her table. I wonder if that coffee she goes to drink after my dad’s manic fit makes her really feel better. Because it doesn’t make me feel any better. Because after each coffee, after each “I am never coming back,” she always comes home. 

Maybe I know all the answers but I don’t want to. How many layers of time will I have to travel through? When will I open?

It has been almost two years since I moved to Amsterdam. I’m going home in May. I already know my mom will put some crazy shit across the table for me the evening of my arrival. Neatly laid out on the table, the rice next to the soup. Banchan around the main dish. Freshly cut kimchi. Cold cans of beer. Pretty dishes neatly arranged, unlike the memories layered over my chest, my head, and my present. We will know just by the appearance, the food on the table is good. We will sit down and sizzle, crunch, chew, swallow. We understand this is good food, this is a good time. But perhaps we will never understand each other. 

Or perhaps, just perhaps, we understand each other too much. Making it impossible to love. But also impossible to not love.

Text&Photos: Alex Heeyeon Kil