Fun with Language

On Jeju-do, we had another bit of a mixup due to the whole language thing. Jeju is well known throughout Korea for a few local delicacacies: tangerines, chocolate, black pork, and pheasant. It was a little early for tangerines, and the chocolate was good, but, well, let's not kid ourselves: Korea is not really known for it's chocolate. The first day, we did the black pork, and it was quite delicious. It's similar to sam-gap-sal, which is basically thick pieces of really fatty bacon. You cook it at your table, cut it into small peices, and eat it with garlic, red pepper paste, a peice of marinated turnip, green onions and kimchi, wrapped in a sesame or lettuce leaf. We were able to find a resturant fairly easily since they have pictures of big black pigs on their store fronts.

Pheasant, on the other hand, is a nicer, more expensive meal, and as a result, was a little more difficult to find. After an afternoon of wandering around Jeju's World Cup stadium and Jungnum Beach, we decided to search it out. We found many resturaunts that served duck, and each time we went into them to ask where we could find pheasant they tried to convince us that pheasant and duck were the same thing. So after about an hour and five or six attempts at duck resturaunts, we decided to just get into a cab and ask the driver to take us to a pheasant resturaunt.

So here'e where things got a little confusing. I had looked up the word in Korean a few hours earlier, "kkweong", but, unfortunately, I misremembered it and asked the taxi driver to take us to a "ddang" resturaunt. "Ddang," in Korean, means ground, earth, or real estate. So he was a bit confused at first. Then, I thought I was just mispronouncing it, so I asked for a "ddeong" resturant. This word officially doesn't mean anything in Korean, but it closely resembles "dung," which, I think, is pretty universal in definition. To make things worse, Jackie, an outgoing lady from Minnesota, did a little chicken dance, which should have worked, except she also put her hand over her butt like a bird tail. Along with the word "ddeong," I think this confused the driver even more. Well, after about 5 minutes of laughing and confusion, we finally figured things out and made it to a "kkweong" resturant, which, ironically, ended up being located about 3 blocks from our hotel.

The pheasant was simple delicious. We had it barbequed (kkweong gui), cut into thin slices and cooked in soup (kkweong shabu shabu), in meatballs (can't remember the name), and the most interesting, kkweong hwei, or raw pheasant. In The States I don't think I'd ever eat raw poultry, but when in Rome....


The raw, thinly sliced kkweong, which you mix into boiling soup right at your table. Called shabu shabu.

Jackie and Tony with a plate of kkweong hwei, or raw pheasant. And they're doing the chicken-pheasant dance.