My Newsletter Submission

Not great. Just better.

The past tense of mandu is mandid, the future tense is Daegu’s flat mandu.

It started out on Facebook. My friend posted pictures of a Korean dish that was both confusing and previously unknown to me. This story is about as mild as that dish, so I’ll have to give you the climax first. Two weeks after seeing those pictures I was standing outside of an abandoned building on a grey day unsure if the wetness on my face was caused by tears of desperation or the pouring rain.

It was all Naver’s fault. Days earlier, after several consultations with my co-teachers about where I could find the highest quality form of this mysterious dish, which by this time I had discovered was called flat mandu (납작만두), I consulted the maps tab (지도) on Naver, Korea’s premier search engine. My co-teachers had convened an impromptu meeting about flat mandu, even going so far as to invite the vice principal, the result of which was a single establishment’s name: 미성당만두. I typed this into Naver slowly, because I can’t type quickly in Korean, but also to increase the sense of drama for you, dear reader. Can you almost taste it, that flat mandu?

This mandu came from Heaven. Kimbap Heaven.

Most of the half dozen or so 미성당만두 locations that came up were inconveniently located far away from subway stops, but I picked one that was downtown, an area I was at least familiar with. By playing with the buttons on Naver’s map (I can’t understand the Korean) I found street view, and also the curious airplane view. It seems there was an exclusivity clause in Google’s contract with the satellite photo companies, but the airplane icons are too cute to give up (unfortunately they are not covered in glitter), and the forced 3D perspective is kind of fun. So, after poring over the normal, street, and airplane view maps, I thought I had a pretty good idea of where 미성당만두 was going to be, and that following weekend I set off into a sunny day with my chest puffed out and my heart full of hope.

I knew the tide had turned when I exited the subway. The sun had disappeared, to be replaced by ominous black clouds and a brisk wind. Thankfully, there was no dilapidated gate to enter, nor rickety deserted building atop a lonely hill to ascend to, or I might have turned back too soon and never fulfilled my dreams of eating flat mandu. Yes, this story does have a happy ending. Street view had informed me (or was it only my rotten memory?) that the establishment was just a few meters outside of exit 19, 반월당역. Ten meters away from the exit my shoulders drooped and my feet began to drag, had Naver lied to me!? But surely, I was just in grips of hunger’s narcosis. The impending squall had cleared the streets of both prowling cars and smoking pedestrians and their cacophony, and I thought in vain: this was exactly what I always wanted my neighborhood to be like! Oh, what a cruel mistress fate is. The cats and dogs began to wash over me as I traipsed up and down the street, hoping my new friend Naver hadn’t broken its promise. Naver, being technologically advanced, I had taken full advantage of its pinky swear feature.

I knew that if I didn’t find something to eat soon, I would perish. I thought of my students, alone in class, happier without me, and summoned my last reserves of energy. I thought also of the poster in the cafeteria at my school, and how it shows African children eating Spartan bowls of grain with cartoon food drawn over their plates. The nourishment they dream of is bread and milk, but not Kimchi. Aha! I spat on the ground, shouted, “Take that, Korea!” and broke into a sprint. Soaked to the bone I barged into the nearest Japanese restaurant and gasped for grilled noodles before I briefly lost consciousness in a booth near a window. Part of my soul disappeared that day. (Korea and I later kissed and made up).

The following week I tried a different 미성당만두 location, in a different part of town, again on a sunny day. By now I had the bright idea of calling the number listed next to the search result, and also of using Naver on my iPhone in case I got lost. This next place passed the phone test, but after frustrating problems zooming in with Naver’s map on a small touch screen, I lost the scent and almost smashed my iPhone on some Korean pavement. In an epiphany I realized if the Korean ground took apart my iPhone, I would lose an icon of my yuppie identity, and maybe my sense of self to boot. I didn’t want an identity crisis, because after all I was just trying to get something to eat.

Persevering, I found some other scents. Several old women in a window were making flat mandu by hand, and, shortly, three weeks after I’d first heard about flat mandu, I had my first bite. There was actually a whole team in the back folding mandu; they came out to eat lunch in perfect silence. But why is flat mandu flat? There isn’t anything inside. Well, close to nothing. Sometimes there are only a few noodles, sometimes-flavorless greens, or even just a tiny piece or two of chive. It’s really more like a pasta dish. In my disappointment I thought up this mocking slogan: “Low on flavor, flat on taste.”

However, my opinion of flat mandu soon rebounded. First off, after another conference with my co-teachers, I discovered I should have covered the mandu in teokbokki sauce. Even though this sounds appealing, I’ve never tried it. I love garlic breath and having irritated bowels as much as the next guy, but flat mandu just doesn’t have that effect on me. Flat mandu is lightly sprinkled with chili and green onions. After eating flat mandu you will never need the inspirational slogan plastered on the door to one of the only western toilets in my school: “After a storm comes a calm.”

Location location location

A Daegu travel guide describes flat mandu as “A new-concept dumpling made with herbal filling, different from too rich taste of others.” Besides the implicit reassurance of job security, this statement also highlights one of the most positive aspects of flat mandu. It is vegetarian. In a country where most food is red with chili powder or pink with pork, flat mandu stands out as a shining example (because it is lightly fried in oil) of humble simplicity; it is not empty at all, it is full of meaning.

As luck would have it, you can find flat mandu all over Daegu. Recently, even though it wasn’t on the menu of a Kimbap Cheonguk near Daegu Station, I was served a plate lickety-split. Kyodong Market (교동시장) near Daegu station also has a slew of your favorite old ladies behind grills patting row after row of flat mandu to perfection. Now if you’re like me and looking over the edge of an odeng trough gives you vertigo, or you prefer the timbre of your own chewing to others’, or perhaps you’re so considerate of others and you wouldn’t want to put them to shame with your slurping prowess, you might want to g

et some mandu to go. (포장 해 주세요~)

After that, you’re free to take it wherever you like, perhaps to your favorite blue and green Club F.M. As a complimentary drink I recommend sweet potato juice or some grapefruit tomato soda. But if you really want to enjoy Daegu’s flat mandu while enjoying Daegu at the same time, take your sack of mandu and your beverage to the extravagantly named 국채보상운동기념공원 (go out of Daegu station, take a left at the first big road and walk a few minutes, it’s on your right, or use Naver’s map) and you can sit on real green grass while you munch, as long as the park guard doesn’t catch you. If you find yourself lost and disoriented from a flat mandu induced food high, you can use the park’s 30-foot wide LED screen to orient yourself. Kidding aside, this (also flat) park is truly an ideal place to enjoy flat mandu. There are basketball hoops, benches, trees, and bathrooms. It is peaceful enough for one to forget the traffic and walls of neon lights looming beyond its borders.

Ghost in the park

To my surprise I recently found a 미성당만두 stand at the market not five minutes from my house. So, now, on most days after school I take a sack of flat mandu home with me. In an effort to rebuild my soul, I meditate under the power of flat mandu. What is the difference between mandu and ravioli? Misspelling mandu is less fun than misspelling ravioli (laviori). Why didn’t the Beatles write a song called “Why don’t we mandu it in the road”? Yoko was Japanese.

I like to put my money where my mouth is, that’s why I keep a fat brick of 10,000 won bills in between my plate of mandu and my laptop. Playing a stupid youtube video while I eat usually rounds out my dinner. Remember what Ann Orr said in her 2009 Grand Prize winning EPIK essay, “I’m an unofficial ambassador, just like every other GET in Korea.” With this in mind while you eat, please keep your Facebook window off to the side, or minimized altogether. We aren’t savages.