Kimchi Lady

My father asked me to meet him at a Korean Grocery Store many years ago. When I met him, he was talking to a lady who makes kimchi in the store. Kimchi is a Korean staple of spicy fermented cabbage. Making kimchi is a tedious and messy job so it is usually relegated to someone in the lower hierarchy in the store.

My father introduced me to the kimchi lady and told me that she was his colleague in university. Immediately, I bowed my head and said hello. My father went to university in the 1930’s. In those days, it was very rare for a woman to attend university in Korea. For this woman to have gone to university, she’d have to have been from a very well-to-do family and/or very bright. She definitely had the bearing that told me such was the case. It was a shock to me that she is now a kimchi lady in a small Korean grocery store in Canada.

Who knows what the story behind this lady being a kimchi lady is.However, this experience taught me an incredible lesson.It’s too bad we often look down on someone because of what their job is.They are working and being a productive member of the society.Someone told me once that, in France, a very good blacksmith is as respected as a very good medical doctor.How wonderful!This is the way it should be.