Why don't you eat kimchi?

By Park Moo-jong

Kimchi, the undisputed traditional Korean side dish made from a variety of salted and fermented vegetables, has abruptly become an international topic of late, thanks to Chinese state-controlled newspaper.

The topic derived from a Sept. 9 editorial of the Global Times, the sister paper of the state-run People's Daily, on the question of whether kimchi makes people stupid or not.

In the editorial entitled "Korea won't be safe with THAAD deployment," the English-language newspaper said, "Korean conservatives have become stupid after eating too much kimchi."

We have no option but to lament the ignorance of the paper's journalists, no matter how they had to curry favor with its owner, the Communist Party, which is all out to oppose the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile defense battery in South Korea against the ever-intensifying North Korean nuclear threats, citing absurd claims its radar is intrusive enough to spy on China's interior.

Ironically enough, on the same day, the Florida Times-Union carried a column entitled "Myths about kimchi" by Andrea Arikawa, an assistant professor in the Nutrition and Dietetics Flagship Program at the University of North Florida.

Prof. Arikawa said in the monthly column: "Kimchi is a traditional Korean food that consists of fermented cabbage seasoned with several spices, among which red pepper is one of the most important, as it serves as an inhibitor of the growth of harmful microorganisms.

"It's thought that kimchi was invented around 4,000 years ago. In the world of fermented vegetables, kimchi is the king of them all due to its rich combination of flavors."

She went on: "Fact: Kimchi is getting more popular in American markets and can be found in a variety of places, such as Asian restaurants and markets, local grocery stores, health stores and even at farmers' markets.

"Kimchi fans who want to make their own can find a variety of online recipes. The advantage of homemade kimchi is that you can control the process of fermentation to meet your taste buds by controlling the temperature of the environment."

Dear me! The Florida Times-Union should have printed the column before the Global Times carried the editorial, so the ignorant journalists there could read it.

The Chinese journalists must have not confirmed the facts about what they were going to write. If they looked to Wikipedia to write about kimchi, they would never have made such a groundless report.

The Chinese version of Wikipedia explains kimchi as a side dish that normally comes with rice and which has been selected by a U.S. health magazine as "one of the five healthiest foods in the world for its low calories and high levels of vitamins."

How can such a healthy food make its eaters stupid? It's an international mystery, humiliating many nutrition scientists, among others.

Not only the Communist Party leaders of China, but also the "loyal" mouthpieces need to read a Sept. 10 editorial of The Korea Times, titled "China's loutish media."

It reads: ".....If the Chinese mass media sucks up to the state with the zeal of red guards protecting Mao Tse-tung, it can only help lead to unhappy episodes like the Cultural Revolution.

"Finally, the paper tried to hoodwink readers when, in the face of protests from Seoul, it switched the headline to ‘2 questions Korea should answer' and reposted the contents with no changes. This shows that as well as being a state mouthpiece, the paper is deceitful as well."

I think there is no way they do not know the fact: People do not become stupid only because they eat specific foods. They become so because they are unable to think logically due to blind emotion or obedience (to government authorities).

Kimchi is not a food only conservatives of Korea eat. Every Korean eats the side dish almost every day. The so-called left-leaning liberals and the "esteemed" lawmakers of the former opposition-turned-present ruling party who flew to Beijing to blame the THAAD deployment in their country enjoy it at their every meal.

The communist country, which has the largest population of nearly 1.4 billion and occupies the third-biggest land in the world, is going all out to bash South Korea over the THAAD deployment, mobilizing its national media. The so-called retaliatory act of China against South Korea is so cheap.

China, along with Russia, played a decisive role in watering down the United Nations' resolution to sanction the North following the rogue country's sixth nuclear test two weeks ago. The U.N. Security Council's sanctions, excluding the crucial ban on oil supplies, are not expected to help stop Kim Jong-un's continuous provocations.

China and its mouthpieces need to pay attention to the growing call of South Koreans to build their own nuclear arsenal in the face of the mounting nuclear missile threats of North Korea.

Indeed, more than 60 percent of the people support the need for nuclear weapons and the opposition parties made it public Tuesday the need to consider the redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear arms in the South.

Unless China and its mass media are stupid, they have to take the lead in forcing North Korea give up on weapons of mass destruction and also help South Korea consider not having nuclear arms.

Kimchi is really a healthy food as proved by not only Korean but also foreign food and nutrition scientists. As seeing is believing, eating is believing as well.

Park Moo-jong is a senior adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of Korea's first English newspaper founded in 1950 from 2004 to 2014 after he worked as a reporter of the daily since 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.com or emjei29@gmail.com.