Korean Job Discussion Forums

[wylies99]

Local dishes get unified names
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2895155
Gov�t wants to avoid culinary confusion
September 22, 2008
That which we call kimchi by any other name would taste as spicy, but the government has decided to unify the English names of Korean dishes to avoid confusion.

The government last week announced a proposal for the standardized naming of 102 Korean dishes including the bibimbap, gimbap, naengmyeon and samgyetang.

Bibimbap will be called �rice mixed with vegetables and beef,� gimbap will be referred to as �dried seaweed rolls,� and naengmyeon will be �chilled buckwheat noodle soup,� according to the Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries and Food.

Park Young-ho, deputy director of food policy at the agriculture ministry, said the English names of the food products were standardized because there have been reports that the names were used inaccurately at some Korean restaurants.

�We will apply the standardized naming by educating members of the Korea Restaurant Association and through the Korea Food Expo in October,� Park said.

The agricultural ministry said it has been working on the project since June with the help of domestic and overseas food experts as well as English language experts.

This is not the first time the government has set up English terms for Korean food. In February, the Korea Tourism Organization introduced its own English names for Korean dishes.

However, the problem until now was that no organization had standardized the names. Each local government had its own terms, which confused restaurants and tourists.

On average some 6 million tourists visit Korea every year.

The Seoul city government calls bibimbap �mixed rice� and naengmyeon is described as �cold noodles.� But the Korea Tourism Organization refers to the two dishes as �boiled rice mixed with vegetables� and �buckwheat noodles in a cold broth,� respectively.

Ko Beom-seok, a professor on hotel, restaurant and culinary arts at Daegu Health College, said people overseas increasingly know about Korean food.

In addition, bibimbap and bibim noodle won the world�s in-flight meal award in 1998 and 2006 respectively.

Ko said there was a pressing need to unify the English names and descriptions of dishes in Korean restaurants.


By Lee Ho-jeong Staff Reporter [[email protected]]

[Starla]

Maybe common Korean foods will no longer need English translations as other ethnic foods don't once they gain more popularity worldwide. I always am stunned when a non-Korean knows what kimchi is. One of my non-Korean friends calls dolsot bibimbap a "hot pot."

[bobbyhanlon]

i love these overly-literal translations.. its always fun to see english names for korean dishes that quite obviously came out of a dictionary, especially those with descriptions like 'pig entrails spicy stew with chicken gizzards and living octopus. healthy korea tradition food'

[wylies99]

[JongnoGuru]

[ernie]

stoopidest idea ever.

[seoulsucker]

Really, really bad idea.

Hmmm...I think I'll have "flour noodles that have been boiled and drained then covered in a sauce made from diced tomatoes, garlic, and ground beef that has been packed into spheres" for lunch.

Mexican, Italian, Turkish, Indian, Thai, Japanese, and even most Chinese dishes all use their own language to name their dishes. I would ask why Korea is going against logic here, but I know better.

[Underwaterbob]

Bibimbap has achieved international recognition through Michael Jackson's endorsement of it. Why on earth would they want to change the name to "Mixed rice with vegetables"?

[Bigfeet]

I think they meant that they're standardizing the English descriptions of the Korean dishes, and not its names. The names will stay Korean, just the English descriptions of what make up the food will be standardized.

[billybrobby]

The names make the foods sound kinda gross. I'll stick to elongated cylinders of boiled semolina flour dough with semi-liquified solanum lycopersicum.

[Fishead soup]

[Scotticus]

This is SUCH a stupid idea.

1) The translations never sound good.

2) It inhibits communication by forcing workers to learn these arbitrary English names for things if they expect to be understood by whities.

3) It (might) give incoming whities the idea that restaurants will actually KNOW these names when they try and use them to order.

4) It reinforces the idea that non-Koreans are a bunch of mouth-breathing cromagnons incapable of even pronouncing the names of Korean food.

That last one may sound like Korea-bashing, but I'd like to point out that Koreans of all shapes and sizes (adults, students, etc) are STILL amazed, even though they know I've been here for years, that I can order food in Korean, use chopsticks and/or eat "spicy" food. Just this weekend I had a table of Koreans almost crap their pants when I ordered gochubap at a restaurant. The waitress, no joke, tried to stop me from ordering it and multiple times pointed out how "hot" the dish was.

[bangbayed]

I agree, the Korean names should be used in English and not transliterated.

HOWEVER, I think the main reason for this proposal was to prevent food from being labelled something like "grilled pig entrails" or "dried pollack gruel".

[billybrobby]

[Underwaterbob]

I like 오미자 차 (Omija tea) but there is apparently no English word for it other than "Maximowiczia chinensis tea" which I have seen on a couple menus. If this kind of stuff can be prevented, then I'm all for it.