We are always looking for something new to come into our life. We want to escape from our boring, futile existence and hope for the world to change with some epoch-making event. Sometimes we wish our life to take a completely different path in the future. However such wishes are nothing more than just illusions. New sensations would come for those who try and make it happen. Nothing comes to those filled with wishes and hopes without making the effort.
There is a Korean American lady who brings a new sensation with Korean traditional food on YouTube. Her name is Emily Kim. Her nickname as a cook is interesting; it is Maangchi (it means ‘hammer’ in Korean). When you watch her cooking, you feel like you want to continue to watch her cook. She cooks easily and enthusiastically. What’s more inspiring is the last scene that she tastes her food and truly admires it. She surely loves cooking, but more certainly, she is a real food lover who knows to enjoy it.
In April 2007, she first uploaded her ordinary cooking life on YouTube for fun. People started to take interest to her cooking one by one, with many people asking her for recipes, and now she has become a YouTube chef with many fans. There are various reasons for her popularity. First of all, most of her recipes follow Korean traditional cooking style. Until now, no detailed recipes for Korean food were available on video so her Youtube videos became a hit. Second is friendliness. She uses simple instructions that anyone can follow. It is just like watching an ordinary housewife cooking in her kitchen. She speaks English with a distinctive Korean accent. But rather than being shy about her English, she is very confident and is able to deliver the message very well. Third is her sense of humor. She is able to entertain people watching her videos while cooking, which make people think that cooking is something fun, not difficult. Lastly she always tastes the dish she cooks in the end. She eats it very deliciously. It stimulates viewers’ appetite and makes them feel like they want to cook it too.
Her cooking that she started for fun became a huge phenomenon. She has come up with so many recipes that they have been published as a cooking book. Her recipes are shared online (www.maangchi.com) and offline through cookbooks. Emily Kim from New York has drawn attention from the media (CNN, NBC, USA Today, New York Times, New York Daily News, etc.), and in Autumn of 2011, her own cooking show supported by YouTube, namely ‘Global Cooking Show’ drew a huge success. The show was composed of traveling around the world to visit her fans, cooking her recipes together with the fans and learning to cook the local food from that region. It was just exciting to watch how the world became one through food. Despite her fame, her love for cooking has remained unchanged. She enjoys cooking and knows to appreciate food; she deserves the feverish attention from the public.
Emily shows us that she genuinely enjoys food. And from this joy, there is a great result in her food. People enjoy watching her cook but they also like to eat it. Cooking and eating food is an ordinary thing but she certainly shows us that a new sensation can come from being the most ordinary. It is not easy to be ordinary. Most of the people deny being ordinary. We have to compete with others to survive in this society. Therefore, we tend to reject being ordinary; our life becomes more about being outstanding, better and more extraordinary than others. Upon watching Maangchi’s cooking videos, the thought hits my mind that being ordinary, being the way you are is the most extraordinary and therefore, a new sensation.
Maangchi’s cooking, ‘Korean style steamed chicken’
