This is Champagne Song from solitary confinement. Please visit prairielandedfendents.com. This is a poem I wrote called “Budae-jjigae.”
When I see budae-jjigae,
I see U.S. occupation,
War devastation,
Korean mothers forced to sex work to get a few cans of spam.
I see new industrialization,
Mass market consumerism in the instant ramen noodles.
I see a long history of resilience in the kimchi that’s thrown in.
When you have nothing,
make kimchi and survive.
I see young faces laughing around pretty boiling pots,
Nostalgic for an earlier time
When things seemed more simple and people had big dreams.
When the world is changing,
I see budae jjigae being made.
Budae-jjigae or army stew is a post-Korean War dish made with inexpensive scraps in South Korea. The core ingredients are spam and Vienna sausages, typically acquired from U.S. soldiers. The U.S. continued some of the Japanese comfort women system of force and government-promoted sex work for their soldiers. Instant ramen noodles, invented in Japan after World War II to utilize American wheat exports, and later mass-produced in South Korea. And kimchi, the traditional Korean staple of spicy fermented cabbage, kind of like a sauerkraut.
Today, budae-jjigae is a popular food for social gatherings of young people. More than 2 million Koreans were killed in the Korean War, most of them civilians. The United States, South Korea, and North Korea conducted atrocities and massacres of civilians. I have been personally moved by Picasso’s painting, “Massacre in Korea.” This is Champagne Song sentenced to one hundred years for anti-fascism.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
