The Noodles Of Life

South African scriptwriter Lebogang Mogashoa was an unbelievably fussy eater… until a life-changing encounter with a bowl of noodles in South Korea

- Lebogang Mogashoa

When I first moved to South Korea to teach English as a foreign language, the only thing I knew about the country was that it was not North Korea. 

That’s it.

I didn’t even know what kimchi was. I was 21, hungry for adventure and eager to see who I really was without the comfort and familiarity of home. It turned out that my real self was a picky, overly cautious eater.

I ran from kimchi. I hid from meat dishes because practically everything had pork in it. I’d grown up in the Zionist Christian Church so had only started eating bacon the year before – the rest of the pig was still a frightening mystery to me. I also didn’t touch vegetarian options, as most were prepared with a base of porky broth. I became one of those annoying people who avoided all food offered to me and, before I knew it, six months of my year long contract had passed and I found myself completely isolated. Closing myself off to experiencing the food of Korea had also excluded me from the life in my new community. I grew terribly homesick and began counting the months until the end of my contract.