Understanding Korea, One Story at a Time Podcast

<p><strong>What if Korean food isn’t </strong><strong><em>less</em></strong><strong> joyful than Swedish </strong><strong><em>fika</em></strong><strong> or Spanish </strong><strong><em>tapas, </em></strong><strong>but simply joy spoken in a different accent?</strong></p><p>This episode is the audio companion to this week’s Substack essay:</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/korean-food-pleasure">Beyond the Iced Americano: Does Korea Have Food That Is “Just” for Fun? — Searching for the Soul of Agenda-Free Joy (Part 1)</a></p><p>It started with a reader comment. <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/@lenasoohee">Lena</a> asked:</p><p><em>“If iced Americanos keep the country running and soju keeps people functional enough to show up the next day, what’s the Korean food that’s purely about pleasure?”</em></p><p>That question led me somewhere bigger: not whether Korea has pleasure, but why Korean pleasure so often shows up dressed as recovery, care, reward, season, or endurance.</p><p>Also, this podcast landed at <a target="_blank" href="https://podranker.com/korea-podcasts/">No. 11 on PodRanker’s Best Korea Podcasts of 202</a>6, which still feels a little surreal. Thank you, truly.</p><p><strong>📌 In this episode:</strong></p><p>* Why Korean icons — miyeok-guk (미역국), samgyetang (삼계탕), haejang-guk (해장국), iced Americano — all arrive with a built-in job description</p><p>* The centuries-old concept of <em>yaksikdongwon (약식동원)</em>: food as medicine</p><p>* Why heung (흥) and jeong (정) shape what Korean pleasure actually looks like</p><p>* How Korean joy differs from fika, aperitivo, and tapas — and what that reveals about something much larger than food</p><p><strong>📖 Korean terms in this episode:</strong></p><p>- 막걸리 makgeolli — lightly fizzy fermented rice wine</p><p>- 파전 pajeon — savory scallion pancake</p><p>- 새참 saecham — snack break during farm work</p><p>- 미역국 miyeok-guk — seaweed soup, eaten on birthdays</p><p>- 삼계탕 samgyetang — ginseng chicken soup, eaten on the hottest days of summer</p><p>- 해장국 haejang-guk — hangover soup</p><p>- 약식동원 yaksikdongwon — food and medicine share the same roots</p><p>- 반찬 banchan — small side dishes</p><p>- 찌개 jjigae — Korean stew</p><p>- 빙수 bingsu — shaved ice dessert</p><p>- 치맥 chimaek — fried chicken + beer</p><p>- 제철음식 jesol eumsik — seasonal food at its peak</p><p>- 전어 jeoneo — gizzard shad (autumn delicacy)</p><p>- 흥 heung — electric, collective, unplannable joy</p><p>- 정 jeong — the warmth that deepens through shared experience</p><p>- 풍류 pungnyu — a free-spirited, refined way of savoring beauty and life</p><p><strong>🔗 Links:</strong></p><p>📩 <strong>This week’s essay:</strong> <a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/korean-food-pleasure">Beyond the Iced Americano: Does Korea Have Food That Is “Just” for Fun?</a></p><p>🏆 <strong>Best Korea Podcasts of 2026, No. 11:</strong> <a target="_blank" href="https://podranker.com/korea-podcasts/">The 17 Best Korea Podcasts (2026) - Ranked & Reviewed | PodRanker</a></p><p>🌐 Find me everywhere: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.jiwon-yoon.com/links/"><strong>Links - Jiwon Yoon, Ph.D.</strong></a></p><p><em>Enjoying the podcast? A quick rating or comment helps more people find it, and means more than you know. Thank you.</em> 🙏</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Understanding Korea, One Story at a Time at <a href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">yoonjiwon.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<p>Once a month, I read a book written in Korean that hasn’t been translated into English and bring it to you. Not because I enjoy being the only one who can read it — though honestly, sometimes — but because some of the most interesting thinking about Korea is happening in Korean, and it deserves a wider audience.</p><p>This month's book is <a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/what-pain-makes-visible-korea"><strong>“What Pain Makes Visible”</strong></a><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/what-pain-makes-visible-korea"> (</a><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/what-pain-makes-visible-korea"><em>아프면 보이는 것들</em></a><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/what-pain-makes-visible-korea">)</a>. It's a collection by thirteen medical anthropologists asking one question across thirteen very different kinds of suffering: whose pain does Korean society take seriously, and whose does it quietly set aside?</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/what-pain-makes-visible-korea">The newsletter </a>and the podcast ended up dividing the labor like a very efficient little content union: the newsletter covered <strong>postpartum wind, the humidifier disinfectant disaster, and infertility</strong>, while this episode takes up <strong>HIV stigma, the Sewol ferry disaster, and Korean-Chinese caregivers</strong>.</p><p>Same book, different route.If the <a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/what-pain-makes-visible-korea">newsletter was about care</a>, this episode is about recognition.</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Understanding Korea, One Story at a Time at <a href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">yoonjiwon.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<p>Sorry this week’s episode is late. I had recorded it, but when I opened the file to edit, my voice suddenly sounded oddly metallic, so I had to scrap it and record again.</p><p>This episode grows out of <a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/why-koreans-drink-iced-americanos-in-winter">this week’s newsletter,</a> but it wanders a little farther: into the backstory, the books, and the very Korean logic behind iced Americano in winter. In other words, this is not just a story about coffee. </p><p>It’s a story about work, habit, space, youth, and the small stubborn self that still says, “I’ll have it iced.”</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Understanding Korea, One Story at a Time at <a href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">yoonjiwon.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<p>This week’s episode takes the long way around one deceptively simple idea: after birth, mothers need care.</p><p>We begin with Korea’s <em>sanhujori</em> (산후조리) and follow what happens when an old postpartum instinct of warmth, rest, and nourishment becomes a modern system: the <em>joriwon</em>, or postpartum care center. </p><p>Along the way, I take a quick world tour through China’s <em>zuo yuezi</em> (坐月子), Japan’s <em>satogaeri bunben</em> (里帰り分娩), and the Dutch tradition of <em>kraamzorg</em> — and yes, I’m spelling them out here in case my Korean tongue committed a few minor international offenses while pronouncing them out loud.</p><p>This episode also includes something I do not take lightly: a frank conversation about what pregnancy and childbirth actually cost women’s bodies, and why that conversation is so rarely had. </p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/korean-postpartum-care-2">This week’s newsletter</a> covers different ground, including my own story of cobbling together a Korean postpartum recovery in America. </p><p>Read that, then come listen to this. They travel different roads, but they arrive at the same question.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/">🎧 </a><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/"><em>Understanding Korea, One Story at a Time</em></a><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/"> </a>is available wherever you get your podcasts.</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Understanding Korea, One Story at a Time at <a href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">yoonjiwon.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<p>This episode is a companion audio to <a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/korean-postpartum-care-1">this week’s Substack newsletter on </a><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/korean-postpartum-care-1"><strong>sanhujori (산후조리)</strong></a>, Korean postpartum care. In it, I explore why Korea has long understood birth not only as the arrival of a baby, but as the beginning of a mother’s recovery — through warmth, seaweed soup, ritual, and care.</p><p>One small correction from the episode: I referred to the K-drama <em>Goblin (도깨비)</em>, but its official English title is <strong><em>Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (쓸쓸하고 찬란하神 - 도깨비)</em></strong>. My apologies for the mix-up.</p><p>💬 I’d really love to hear what this brought up for you. Come<a target="_blank" href="https://www.jiwon-yoon.com/links/"> find me here </a>and share your thoughts, stories, or questions.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/"><em>Understanding Korea, One Story at a Time</em></a> is written and hosted by Jiwon Yoon. New episodes every week, alongside the Substack newsletter.</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Understanding Korea, One Story at a Time at <a href="https://yoonjiwon.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">yoonjiwon.substack.com/subscribe</a>