Episode 28: Noodles
"You haven't gotten married yet, have you?"
"No, not yet."
"It must get lonely living alone in the countryside."
"I thought so too, but I've been so busy learning farming that I barely have time to think."
"Really? Now that I look at you, your face has gotten darker than when you were young, and you seem to exude a bit of a farmer's air."
Working under the sun had left my face a little tanned compared to when I lived in the city.
My teacher said I looked like a farmer, but I was embarrassed—I was still only growing a small vegetable patch.
"Is that so?"
"But you look good. You've become more dependable."
At my teacher's praise, I felt my mood lift.
"I'm preparing to grow sweet potatoes right now, so I'll give you some when I harvest them later."
My teacher had enjoyed the sweet potato bread I bought, and seeing that, I thought he might like plain sweet potatoes too.
"Really? Sweet potatoes grown by Minwoo... I'm looking forward to that. I'm thinking of moving to the countryside myself later, so I can learn how to plant sweet potatoes from you then."
"You're thinking of moving to the countryside?"
It seemed my teacher was also considering a rural life like me, and I felt glad.
"I'm nearing retirement soon. It's not easy to move somewhere new, and I've lived in Haenam for a long time, so I'd been thinking it would be nice to build a house in a quiet place."
Well, there are plenty of people who build houses in the countryside after retiring.
"Having lived here, I think country life isn't bad either—you grow your own crops and enjoy the scenery. Please consider it positively, Teacher."
"Really? If I move to the countryside later, you'll help me a lot, right?"
"Of course. By then, I'll have mastered farming and will teach you everything."
***
Beep, beep-beep.
I woke to the sound of my alarm.
06:00
When I checked the time, it was already six in the morning. I quickly got up, washed my face, and went outside.
I drove down; today was the day Mandeok was planting rice, so I had decided to help.
It had been a while since I woke up early, so I was a bit tired, but when I got to the paddy field, everyone was already bustling about.
"Minwoo, you're here."
Mandeok's father spoke to me.
"Sir, hello. I heard you were planting rice today, so I came to help."
"Really? I'd appreciate the help."
I greeted him, and Mandeok got out of the truck. He was wearing a one-piece work suit with chest-high waders, and it suited him well.
"You're here?"
"Yeah, this is the nursery field, right?"
I spoke while looking at the paddy; rice seedlings were spread out and growing across it. Mandeok had told me before that a paddy used to grow seedlings for transplanting was called a "nursery field."
"Right. We'll pull up the seedling mats from here and plant them with the transplanter."
"Okay, then shall we load the seedling mats onto the truck?"
"Yeah, just stack them neatly from the front."
Mandeok and I began taking the seedlings from the nursery field and moving them to the truck. When we loaded them onto the truck, his father started stacking them, but the seedlings were heavier than I expected.
"This is heavy."
"The seedlings are soaked with water. Don't overdo it—you could throw out your back lifting them suddenly."
Mandeok told me to be careful, but contrary to his words, he was running around carrying three seedling mats at a time.
Seeing that, I felt a pointless surge of competitiveness, so I started carrying two mats stacked together. Perhaps because I'd been taking walks and doing farm work in my spare time, my stamina seemed to have improved.
"Let's go plant rice."
After loading the truck full of seedlings, we set off for the paddy field where we'd plant them, but it was too cramped for three people inside, so I just climbed onto the back of the truck.
Thud, thud.
"Let's go!"
I signaled by knocking on the truck roof, and the truck began to move at the sound.
The paddy field for planting wasn't very far, so we arrived quickly, and the rice transplanter was already waiting there.
It seemed Mandeok had moved it here in the early morning.
"So this is the transplanter."
"Whenever I come here, you just unload the seedling mats from the truck and load them onto it."
Mandeok explained how the work was done; it wasn't that difficult.
We loaded the seedling mats onto the transplanter; Mandeok prepared to plant and set off, and the rice seedlings began to be planted in eight parallel rows.
"Oh."
I exclaimed unconsciously at the neat sight, and Mandeok's father laughed as he spoke.
"Amazing, isn't it?"
"Yes, the machine grabs just the right amount and plants them automatically."
"The world has improved. In my day, people held the lines from both sides and carried the seedlings around to plant them by hand."
At his words, I remembered pumasi, the communal farming labor I'd read about in textbooks as a child.
Seeing the seedlings being planted in neat lines, I felt somehow happy, and Mandeok's father spoke to me.
"When it goes and comes back, it'll turn the corner around here, so you just need to be ready to load more seedling mats."
He explained the know-how; this way, the workflow and time would be greatly saved.
"This way we can work much faster."
"Right. And when it comes back, Mandeok will hand you the used trays. You just gather those in one place and organize them."
"The trays are reused next year, right?"
"That's right."
I had heard the explanation before, but seeing it directly like this, what I felt was certainly different.
*Next year, I definitely have to try rice planting too.*
****
*It's already nine.*
We had been planting rice without rest since morning.
I organized the used seedling mats, and if we ran out of seedlings, I went back with the truck to get more mats.
As we did so, the paddy was gradually filling with seedlings, but there were many paddies, so it took some time.
"Aren't you hungry?"
Mandeok's father asked me, and perhaps because I had rushed out without eating breakfast, I was hungry.
"Yes, I'm a bit hungry."
"Just hold on a bit. The field snack is coming over there."
He pointed with his finger, and at the end of the farm road, Mandeok's mother was bringing a field snack.
Perhaps because I was hungry, I felt glad and looked forward to what we would eat.
"Please eat this and keep working!"
The lady's tray looked heavy, so I quickly went and took it from her.
"Minwoo, you're working hard too."
"It's nothing."
Mandeok also stopped the machine and came out; we gathered around the tray, preparing to eat.
"I boiled some noodles simply."
The lady spoke as if it wasn't anything special, but nothing was better than noodles for a simple meal.
*Kimchi noodles? Yeolmu noodles? Bibim noodles?*
I wondered what kind of noodles it would be, but the lady began putting handfuls of boiled noodles into bowls.
I was slightly puzzled that she only gave noodles, but soon she picked up a kettle and poured broth for me, and a brown liquid began filling the bowl.
A cool sensation traveled to my hand through the bowl; it seemed to be noodles eaten cold.
Looking at the color, it felt like udon, but curious about the taste, I lifted the bowl and drank straight from it.
*Huh?*
I was surprised by the taste.
It was clearly a familiar taste, and I was puzzled why it was coming from here.
"Auntie, isn't this barley tea?"
That's right. What I had tasted was unmistakably barley tea.
I thought the lady had confused the drinking water with the broth, but suddenly Mandeok's family began to laugh.
"Hahaha."
Everyone was laughing at me, so I sensed something was strange; I wondered if they were playing a prank on me.
"Right? This is barley tea, isn't it?"
"It is barley tea. Minwoo, have you never had sugar noodles?"
"Sugar noodles?"
I had some confidence in cooking, but I had no memory of hearing about sugar noodles.
"This is the first time I've heard of them."
At my words, Mandeok's father also laughed and spoke.
"I thought you grew up in the countryside when you were young, so you'd know a thing or two, but now I see you're a complete city bumpkin."
And suddenly he lifted a sugar bag and poured it into my bowl.
"Huh?"
An enormous amount of sugar poured out, and I was bewildered.
"Stir it in and try it."
The father, having poured in the sugar, told me to try it; I stirred the noodles with chopsticks and began eating carefully.
Nothing else was added—just noodles, barley tea, and sugar.
I wondered what it would taste like, but I was a bit surprised.
"Mmm?"
Everyone had an expression as if they had expected this reaction; the taste of sugar noodles was better than I thought.
"How is it? It's edible, right?"
"Yes, I thought it would be strange, but it goes surprisingly well."
At my words, everyone began eating the sugar noodles; perhaps because the sweet sugar was dissolved, it tasted strangely good.
*It feels a bit like kongguksu.*
From cooking, I had learned a few things: eating methods differ slightly by region.
In Gwangju, they add sugar to kongguksu. But I heard that in other regions, they add salt.
Similarly, sundae is dipped in different things by region—vinegared chili paste, salt, or fermented soybean paste—and raw fish is also divided by soy sauce, vinegared chili paste, or fermented soybean paste.
Potatoes are also divided by sugar and salt; personally, I like mashing potatoes and mixing them with sweet sugar.
Barley tea sugar noodles seemed strange at first, but they had a strange charm that made you keep eating.
Before I knew it, I had finished the entire bowl while eating absently; I expressed my thanks to the lady.
"Thank you for the meal."
****
"How much paddy field did you say you have?"
After lunch, Mandeok and his father switched places.
Mandeok and I would load the seedlings together, so I asked him things I was curious about.
"I farm about 200 maji right now."
Since one maji of paddy is 200 pyeong, Mandeok was cultivating close to 40,000 pyeong.
"With that much, how much profit do you make?"
I asked out of curiosity, and Mandeok began calculating quietly.
"Well... for 100 maji, it usually comes out to about 40 to 50 million won..."
Thinking about Mandeok's words, it meant earning at least 80 million won; it seemed like a lot, yet with 40,000 pyeong of land, it also felt a bit little.
As if reading my thoughts, Mandeok spoke up.
"To make money with rice farming, you need a lot of arable land and water, and you're heavily affected by the weather; but you only suffer during planting time, and then you just spread fertilizer and herbicide, so compared to other farming, it's not as hard as you'd think."
Where there are advantages, there are disadvantages.
Mandeok explained the pros and cons of rice farming, which was very helpful.
Talking like that while working, it was already past six in the evening; he said they usually plant about 30 maji a day at most.
They had to do this work for at least a week.
"I'll help tomorrow too."
I told Mandeok, who was preparing to go home after finishing today's work, but he shook his head.
"No, Uncle Jeongnam will help tomorrow. We promised to plant all this and then plant his paddy too."
"Really?"
"Today I called you to show you how rice planting works. And you said you have to plant sweet potatoes too."
Come to think of it, I had things to do too.
"Will you be okay?"
"Yeah, it's plenty. And take this."
Mandeok gave me a white envelope; when I opened it, there were three 50,000-won bills inside.
"What's this?"
"Today's wages."
"Nah, it's fine."
I tried to give the money back, but he stuck the envelope into my pocket.
"I told you last time I'd have work for you. It's not much, but you don't have much money after buying a car, so use it for side dishes."
I tried to refuse, but he spoke more firmly than I expected. I had no choice but to take the money and get in the car.
"If you need help next time, tell me. I'll help."
"Yeah, take care."
Mandeok waved at me, but I threw the envelope out the window and sped away.
In the side mirror, I could see Mandeok pick up the envelope and stare at me incredulously; I stuck my head out the window and shouted.
"I have plenty of money! Buy something delicious for your mother and father!"