Space Food and Other Strange Gifts

I was clearing out my kitchen cupboard this morning (an ongoing process to prevent clutter from overwhelming my tiny flat) when I came across a packet of freeze-fried kimchi. As you do.

The packet calls it 'Korean Space Food', and along with the cartoon this leads me to believe this is the dried kimchi that's been developed for Korean astronauts to take safely into space with them. Otherwise all space travel would probably have been severely limited, as we all know how Koreans can't go very long without kimchi. Ground Control to Major Kim: commencing countdown and... check you've got your pickled cabbage somewhere very secure.


This Korean Space Food was a particular cool inclusion in a party bag I was given at the end of some Korean event or other. So, as I added hot water to see how the stuff reconstitutes, it got me thinking about the other gifts I've had -- because whenever you have a meeting with Koreans they tend to give you a small present.

Another one that sat in my flat for quite a long time was a jigsaw. This was a 200-piece or so jigsaw of an old map of a Korean island, marked in Korean and Chinese, neither of which I can read to any useful degree. This old map, as old maps tend to be, was a maze of tiny grey lines with occasional brown markings. Whoever at head office thought these would be great gifts for the Korean Tourism Organization to give out to Brits to get them excited about Korea? In the end, one winter afternoon I sat down and actually completed it. But I did deserve a medal.


Once, I was given (all prettily wrapped, as Korean gifts always are) a little metal strip to attach to the back of your mobile phone, which apparently reduces the waves emitted from the phone into your ear. It was actually sponsored by Manchester United. I have no idea if it does anything at all but I figured it couldn't do any harm:

That's until I was having problems with my phone, and took it into the T-Mobile shop to get it serviced. I have to admit, I keep phones longer than most people. I don't like throwing things away. So it was a couple of years old - 2 billion years old in mobile phone years. The chap in T-Mobile wasn't condescending at all about this and was just about to send it back for servicing when he turned it over to take out the SIM and stopped. 'Oh,' he said. 'Actually, there's a problem.' He was looking at the metal strip. 'Well, you see, we can't accept phones from Manchester United fans.' Nice one.


Well, five minutes later I went back to my boil-in-the-bag kimchi. It was very watery -- I'd overwatered -- but although totally lacking in smell, it did taste like kimchi. Actually, maybe they're on to something: odourless kimchi....