Underwear, rice cooker...

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By Justin Park

When you move to a foreign country for an indefinite period, it's difficult to decide what to take with you. When my parents, brother and I emigrated from Korea to Canada in 1987, we shipped a mere one-cubic-metre boxful of stuff.  Yes, we also took eight, jumbo-sized pieces of luggage on our flight, but that still didn't amount to much more than what some people take on vacation.
I was only nine back then, so I only vaguely remember what we ended up taking to Canada. It couldn't have been an easy task for my parents, trying to predict what might be essential for daily survival in a foreign land and having to relinquish most of their possessions in the process.
As I recall, among the things that my parents deemed essential for daily survival was Korean underwear.  After 20 years in Canada, I think they still wear only Korean underwear.
No doubt, their decision process was partly pragmatic; but it's hard to tell where the pragmatic elements end and the sentimental ones begin. As far as I can tell, Korean underwear is not superior to Canadian underwear. For every object that accompanied us to Canada, there must have been a decision process in which my parents scrutinized the object for its practical value, but this process was unlikely to be insulated from sentimental influences.
I relived this scenario about a year ago, when I had to decide which of my possessions would accompany me on my journey to the Netherlands of indefinite duration.  I was determined to take only what would fit into my single, non-jumbo-sized piece of luggage.
Essentially, this meant that I would be taking along just a few bits of clothing. And sadly, this also meant that I had to part with a lot of what I would normally consider essential for survival: my CD collection, school yearbooks and a framed Time magazine cover featuring U2.
I believe in living simply, so moving to the Netherlands with just one piece of luggage was not such a terrible idea. In a way, it was a chance to start over and acquire only the things that are truly essential for survival.
But it's hard to separate sentiments from pragmatics. What I came to realize is that there are few things that you absolutely require for survival; most of our material possessions have functions other than practical utility.
I realized this, because I found myself feeling nostalgic about the oddest things.  For instance, I was sure that I could live without a rice cooker. I can easily go for weeks without rice (or other forms of Korean food), and there are enough Chinese restaurants around here to satisfy my intermittent rice cravings. And I did survive without a rice cooker for more than a year.
But then I recently heard about a Japanese/Korean grocery store in Amsterdam that carries rice cookers, I found myself daydreaming about having a rice cooker. Part of me knew that it wasn't just because of the practical utility.  It was as if I just wanted the comfort that comes with seeing a rice cooker in my kitchen, just as I'm comforted by pictures of my family on the wall.
So last weekend, I took a daytrip to Amsterdam with a Korean friend. When I walked into the grocery store filled with familiar smells and Korean-speaking customers, I felt downright giddy and couldn't stop circling the aisles.
I bought some groceries, ate a "BiBiBik" bar with my friend, and returned home with my new rice cooker, my comfort-giving cultural badge.

Justin Park is a 1.5-generation Korean Canadian living in the Netherlands. To submit a column to C3 News & Views, contact Angela MacKenzie at aymackenzie@gmail.com.

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