Zainichi author explores heritage through everyday meals

For Fukazawa Ushio, a Zainichi Korean born in Tokyo in 1966, kimchi was more than a staple. It carried discomfort, stigma, and ultimately, self-understanding. In postwar Japan, kimchi was often derided as Chosen-zuke, or “Korean pickles,” and the phrase “you smell like kimchi” was a common insult toward ethnic Koreans. Fukazawa remembers how her mother was once denied a rental home because, as the landlord said, “I can’t rent to you. The kimchi smell is too strong.” As a child, she hated the pungent odor that lingered in the family refrigerator.

Now a well-known novelist, Fukazawa revisits those memories in a profoundly personal essay collection. Subtitled 'The Memory on My Tongue at Every Turning Point in Life,' the book reflects on how meals shaped her experience growing up as a Korean in Japan. It explores the quiet tensions and cultural weight embedded in daily food.

Her household blended Japanese and Korean customs, but never easily. Her mother, now 87 and born in Japan to Korean parents, spent her life trying to avoid being identified as Korean. To mask the smell of garlic, she made a salad-style kimchi with barely any seasoning. When the family was sick, she searched distant neighborhoods for oxtail bones to make gomtang, a rich beef soup passed down through generations.

Fukazawa writes that to be Zainichi is to live between two worlds, regardless of intention. Even meals became moments of conflict. She recalls an incident when she was six. Her father pointed to the kimchi and told her mother, “Feed this to the children.” Her mother rinsed the cabbage in miso soup to soften the flavor and placed it over rice. Fukazawa, trembling, forced herself to eat. Her older sister vomited immediately. Their father erupted, flipped the table, and shouted, “This is because you have not raised them properly as Koreans.”

Such episodes are scattered throughout the book. Relatives who fiercely held on to Korean traditions appear alongside moments of cultural friction. Food was never just nourishment. It revealed pride, shame, and resistance.

In time, Fukazawa found her way to reconcile these layers. After many attempts, she learned to enjoy kimchi in a way that suited her. She forgave both her strict father and her self-sacrificing mother. Through that process, she arrived at a quiet realization: “Whatever defines me—whether nation, language, or culture—I am, above all, a human being. I am myself, and I belong to both worlds.”


김소민 somin@donga.com