If you are walking with your own two feet, you should be thankful. I am repenting again and again that I took for granted my ability to walk around Seochon, climb Mt. Inwang and Mt. Bukhan near my house, and walk around while traveling abroad.
Was it because I was injured and hospitalized for long time last year, or was it because I didn’t restrain myself that I came to this?
Looking back, I realize that I have lived these past few decades on the wrong impression that I was still 30 years old. I cannot but laugh and lament that I came to this realization only after God sent me such a strong sign.
I’ve been going through difficult stuff and I overtaxed myself. As a result, I’ve been unable to move around this summer due to the pain in my back. I had a rough time of it.
I ate out every day, but now that I have been discharged from the hospital, I have to eat at home three meals a day – it is no easy task.
I am confined to my home all day, and today someone visits me. I ask them to hold me so that I can go eat Naengmyon, Korean cold noodles, near my home. They don’t understand even when I explain my situations and say “You should go to Woo Rae Oak at least, not just some place near your home “
I almost crawl to get in a car.
We pass the narrow entrance to Euljiro and I see the Woo Rae Oak.
It’s been 20 years.
An old person who is almost deaf greets customers at the entrance of the restaurant. He has been working here for almost 60 years.
On one side of old wall, it says “Since 1946” you can see it's history. It’s 4 p.m., yet I waited seating on an old chair for half an hour.
When I couldn’t speak Japanese, I came here with my father and he called this place 'Madakuruya' a place to return, in Japanese. I am reminded of that memory as a bowl of naengmyon is handed to me.
I am surprised at the first bite. it’s because the buckwheat noodle is beyond my expectations.
My father who was from Pyongyang died 36 years ago, so this was long ago, my father and I went to Woo Rae Oak two times. All I remember is the great stories he told me about Pyongyang Naengmyon, and I don’t particularly remember that the Naengmyon was particularly good. Yet, maybe because I didn’t eat very well throughout the whole summer or maybe because it is actually good, I am taken aback by the taste of naengmyon. It’s worth every penny of the 14,000 won I paid.
My dad had said that he loved eating Naeangmyon made of buckwheat harvested in the late autumn in radish water kimchi broth with ice while seated on the warm part of the ondol room in the middle of winter. I remember thinking how tasty that Naengmyon from my father’s story would have been.
My dad looked very bright, shining and beautiful when he talked about that – he was from a poor family and had had to walk over 7 miles to Pyongyang University of Education every day. It was strange that he didn’t look like he had ever been poor.
My father has always been a great storyteller.
He talked about all the things he experienced about Pyongyang, Manchuria, China and about how he worked at United States Patents and Trademark Office in Washington as the first director of the Patent Office of Korea in the 1950s. Whatever he talked about, it was very interesting. so we were very fond of him.
Come to think of it, that is one of my most treasured assets.
The Naengmyon of Woo Rae Oak is imbued with the memories of my father and is very tasty – I wonder if Pyongyang Naengmyon could be better than this. I also wonder when I would be able to eat Naengmyon in Pyongyang.
I also remember Peter Hyun who is from Hamheung, complaining “this is not real Hamheung Naengmyon. This is not how we do it in Hamheung,” when we went to have Hamheung Naengmyon together.
I went to Woo Rae Oak in New York and Washington all the time but It’s been a long time since I came to eat at Woo Rae Oak in Seoul.
Woo Rae Oak in New York was considered a first class restaurant from the seventies to nineties. They were much pricier than in Seoul, I went there only on special occasions. You could often spot some Japanese enjoying yakiniku there.
Woo Rae Oak in Washington was spacious and crowded. I have dined on a seat where Obama, a bulgogi lover, once sat. Last November one of my Washington literature lectures was to be held at a hall in Woo Rae Oak, I asked why and they said that it was because it was convenient to dine there after a lecture.
This summer feels like 30 years to me. The heat of late summer is still lingering but you can smell fall approaching .
I canceled my entire schedule for the summer but I hope to be able to recover and welcome this coming fall.
Having hard time this summer, the naengmyon of Woo Rae Oak in Seoul with the old memories remains in my memory.
고향 주소 주시며 '너는 갈 수 있어 달나라도 갈텐데' 아버지와의 마지막 대면
