[ On May 18, 1980, some 600 students and civilians gathered at
Gwangju’s Chonnam National University in peaceful protest against
Chun Doo-hwan. Gwangju’s rice ball is no less than an edible
encapsulation of the city’s history and moral fiber. ]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

HOW ‘FIST RICE’ BECAME A SYMBOL OF KOREAN DEMOCRACY  
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Jia Jung
November 3, 2022
Atlas Obscura [[link removed]]

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_ On May 18, 1980, some 600 students and civilians gathered at
Gwangju’s Chonnam National University in peaceful protest against
Chun Doo-hwan. Gwangju’s rice ball is no less than an edible
encapsulation of the city’s history and moral fiber. _

In this image from the Red Cross, prisoners receive rice balls during
the Korean War. , ICRC Archives Fred A. Rice

 

On a humid summer morning in the mountain-backed metropolis of
Gwangju, a cluster of fifth graders shuffled into an auditorium at
5.18 Freedom Park. Here were the former barracks where the South
Korean military dictator Chun Doo-hwan and his forces imprisoned,
interrogated, tortured, and in some cases killed thousands of
civilians in May of 1980.

Today, Koreans refer to these events as “5.18,” marking the first
day of the Gwangju Uprising, when city residents demanded democracy in
the wake of Chun’s 1979 power grab after the assassination of Park
Chung-hee, the previous dictator president. The Chun regime’s brutal
response still reverberates in the lives of the city’s residents.

As the young students took a breather from their field trip, a guide
passed out jumbo rice balls called jumeokbap, or “fist rice.”
Heavy and moist on the inside and shimmering with roasted seaweed
flakes on the outside, these goodies were prepared at dawn by tossing
together a tub of fresh rice, salt, and sesame seeds, then patting the
mixture into soothing spheres.

The guide told the children how jumeokbap fed the democratic
resistance in 1980. Even as they munched away, the seaweed-flecked
kids looked deeply affected by the story of this humble snack.

Before refrigeration, cheap, quick, and non-perishable jumeokbap were
a portable meal perfect for a day up in the mountains or a night in
the trenches during wartime.

Today, jumeokbap can be found all over South Korea—in train
stations, bus terminals, pubs, convenience stores, and even trendy
restaurants in Seoul. But the version of jumeokbap with the greatest
meaning is Gwangju’s rice ball, an edible encapsulation of the
city’s history and moral fiber.

On May 18, 1980, some 600 students and civilians gathered at
Gwangju’s Chonnam National University in peaceful protest against
Chun Doo-hwan. The military dictator blockaded the city from aid and
journalists, then deployed 18,000 riot police and 3,000 elite
paratroopers from the “black beret” Special Forces to attack
locals with bayonets, M-16s, and machinegun fire from helicopters.
Anywhere from 200 to 2,000 civilians were killed in the next few days.
Some individuals disappeared forever, “unknown even to rats or
birds,” as the Korean saying goes. The United States, needing South
Korea to remain a submissive ally in a strategic part of the
Asia-Pacific region, turned a blind eye to the atrocities.

When the freedom fighters ran out of food, the city’s women and
merchants set up distribution centers for jumeokbap. They emptied
their kitchens and shared their last coal briquettes to steam rice in
cauldrons out on the chaotic streets. The only additional ingredient
was a sprinkling of salt.

During those spring days, clouded by misty rain and gun smoke, Jung
Hyang-ja was a labor union sector head just shy of 30 years old. She
remembers packing hot rice with her bare hands at the bustling
Yangdong Market and along the thoroughfare of Geumnan-ro, where
chanting throngs flowed past army tanks into the city plaza to
protest.

“Even that summer, we never ate spoiled food,” Jung says, holding
her head of eggplant-purple curls with pride in her office at the
Gwangju Labor and Employment Center. From here, just steps from the
epicenter of 5.18, Jung recalls how even the gruffest freedom fighters
softened when offered jumeokbap with a side of company and
conversation. No one bothered one another for names or background
information. All were welcome at the hastily assembled tables.
Students, laborers, and trash pickers alike felt comfortable calling
the rice-packing women eomonim (mother), halmoni (granny), imo
(auntie), or nuna (big sis).

But these warm moments of camaraderie were soon snuffed out. On May
27, 1980, heavily weaponized troops diverted from the Demilitarized
Zone (DMZ) at the border of North Korea streamed downward to shut down
the protests. For years thereafter, the Chun regime tormented the
so-called rebels of 5.18, shutting down local media outlets and
prohibiting

commemorations of the struggle. But the survivors kept sharing
jumeokbap and memories while demanding remembrance, acknowledgment,
and reparations from the government.

Gwangju remains a city of fierce democratic spirit. But after enduring
decades of unemployment, brain drain, and depopulation that turned it
into the second-poorest city in the country, Gwangju decided in 2019
to refresh its image in all regards, including its famous traditional
cuisine.

In 2019, a city committee voted jumeokbap as one of seven foods to
represent Gwangju. Other dishes on the list were hanjeongsik, an array
of small plates once only enjoyed by royalty and aristocrats, and
oritang, a sumptuous duck stew. Common jumeokbap earned its spot on
this list for symbolizing the city’s jongshin—its mentality,
energy, and spirit.

The city attempted to catapult jumeokbap from its working-class roots
into the gourmet arena. Newly anointed representative businesses
decorated the formerly undressed rice balls with meat and sauces,
flowers and nuts, batter and leaves, and even pastel dyes.

Jung Hyang-ja shakes her head at this manufactured evolution. “We
can’t let jumeokbap mutate into something that’s too pretty,”
she says. For her, jumeokbap will always reflect plain, precious
sustenance during desperate times.

Jung started mobilizing people to make jumeokbap again in 2001 after
the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, distributing the rice balls to
local laborers who were going hungry. Ever since, she has led
everything from small groups to hundreds of volunteers in making
jumeokbap during 5.18

memorials, labor events, and crises. In 2014, the Sewol Ferry sinking
shocked the nation and the world. Afterwards, Gwangju high school
students hosted a jumeokbap tribute to raise awareness about the
incident and show sympathy to the families affected by the tragedy.

Word spread about Jung’s work. Survivors of the 1980 massacre and
Gwangju’s laborers began showing up faithfully to commune over
jumeokbap. When Jung scaled back the event during the pandemic, she
received phone calls from concerned workers and community members.

She realized then how much the people of Gwangju still depended on
jumeokbap to hold themselves together.

Jung relies on people power for jumeokbap-making events and hasn’t
taken a penny from the government to support her efforts. Two other
5.18 survivors by her side are Kim Eun-gyeong and Jang Hyun-jin of the
Gwangju Dong-gu District Self-Sufficiency Center.

Kim was in eighth grade during 5.18. She skipped around the last
corner to school one morning and found the street slick with blood.
From then on, she stayed home, with cotton sleeping mats piled up
against the door to protect against stray bullets. When her brother, a
high school freshman, didn’t come home for two days, she and her
family looked for him

downtown among the lined-up bodies draped with Korean flags.
Thankfully, he wasn’t among them and returned home alive. Jang was
nursing her first child during the human rights crisis. Still, she
headed out each night to light the darkened streets with a torch. “I
thought, if I could hold up even a single flame so these guys could
hold out for one more day, I would,” she says. She has the same
passion today, and still makes lunches for those in need.

The women make jumeokbap the old-fashioned way, adding only roasted
seaweed for flavor. Despite their lack of glamor, the rice balls exert
an immense mobilizing force. Next March, workers from labor
organizations around the country will join them to plan jumeokbap
distribution for the 43rd anniversary of 5.18. On the eve of May 18,
2023, the conversion of

sacks of rice into jumeokbap will begin. Then, a task force will
distribute immeasurable numbers of rice balls out of stands, trucks
and tents, and from there, to the people.

They will also show up at the May 18th National Cemetery, built by the
Korean government in 1997 to lay the dead from the uprising to rest.
Organizers hope that the simple snack will help people remember the
spirit of democracy that animated Gwangju in the spring of 1980, and

honor the brave people murdered by the regime.

The event’s success depends upon the return of the pre-pandemic
volunteer force, especially the city’s youth. But it is increasingly
difficult to get anyone to contribute time and labor without
compensation. “The young’uns don’t know firsthand the
desperation and the urgency we felt

back then,” booms Jang, raising her voice and her fist. “We
can’t lose the jongshin from that time. That’s why we’re going
to keep going forward no matter what!”

In recent years, some businesses have developed jumeokbap-themed
snacks and breads, some even wrapped in replicas of 5.18-era letters
to sell as gifts and souvenirs. But the recent global appeal of
jumeokbap seems to be the in-person connection that the food
facilitates.

Foreigners visiting Gwangju often attend events to taste and make
jumeokbap with survivors and locals. In some cases, the snack and its
meaning have made their way abroad. Korean community organizations in
Los Angeles commemorate 5.18 in May, as do Koreans living in other
parts

of the world.

Jumeokbap makers and 5.18 commemorators also credit the Hallyu Wave
—the global influence of Korean popular culture—for the rise of
foreign interest in the city. For example, there’s the phenomenon of
fans of the KPop boy band BTS visiting Gwangju, because member J-Hope
(Jung Hoseok) hails from the city and shouts out to it in the 2015
song “Ma City.”

This has piqued the interest of the Commemorative Event Committee for
the May 18 People’s Uprising. “Of course, we’ve talked about
it,” both Executive Director Byun Jae-hoon and Secretary-General Kim
Mi-gyeong exclaim, in regards to their fantasy scenario in which
J-Hope would appear at a 5.18 commemoration. But they understand that
doing so could expose

the star to political scrutiny. Rather than looking for star power,
the committee is more focused on providing interactive events at which
community members and visitors can make jumeokbap together.

One haven for 5.18 survivors, the May Mothers’ House, already
provides jumeokbap-making experiences for group tours visiting
Gwangju. The sunlit space, built in 2014, serves women who lost a
husband, son, or brother in 5.18, or were injured themselves. Here,
the women share food,

songs, and memories. They also partake in art and exercise classes to
aid the lifelong process of healing from unimaginable loss.

Kim Hyung-mi, the eighth representative director of the house, was in
her first year of high school in 1980 when her brother, a college
freshman, died in helicopter gunfire aimed down at protestors. The
fact that the military shot at people from the sky was acknowledged
only after a special investigation conducted in 2018.

To Kim, jumeokbap, made by squeezing many grains of rice into one unit
by concerned and helping hands, not only represents jongshin, but also
jongshin gye-seung—spiritual inheritance—and daedong
jongshin—the will to achieve peace and prosperity together.

Last May, the House held a public jumeokbap sharing event at the
city’s USquare intercity bus terminal to show support for Myanmar
during its ongoing democratic struggles. In the same spirit, in 2020,
Gwangju gifted jumeokbap to the people of Daegu, a city on the eastern
side of the peninsula, when taking in their overflow of COVID-19
patients. More and more, Gwangju is using jumeokbap as an emblem of
good will and diplomacy.

Kim says that as 5.18 witnesses age, their stories are more critical
than ever. She hopes that younger generations can come away from
learning about the tragedy with a heightened sense of communal
responsibility. Making, sharing, and eating jumeokbap, then, is a way
for

survivors to pass on their memories.

Visitors to the May Mothers’ House find numerous women open to
sharing conversation and belly laughs. Often, a guest will receive a
pin of a Gwangju woman in hanbok traditional dress. The back of the
pin doubles as the shape of a unified Korean peninsula.

Interestingly, the pose of the woman on the pin mirrors that of the
Statue of Liberty, a famous symbol of freedom and goodwill. Like Lady
Liberty, the woman has a torch held high in one hand. Unlike the New
York City icon, she balances a basketful of rice on her head in lieu
of a crown. Kim Hyung-mi, holding the pin, gestures with her eyes at
the rice.

“Jumeokbap,” she says.

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