- [Announcer] Funding for Lucky Chow has bee provided by.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) - [Danielle] Whether you live to eat or eat to live, food is a necessary part of life.

In many Asian cultures though, food is much more than sustenance.

I'm in Seoul, the capital of South Korea where food seems to permeate every aspect of daily life.

But being a foodie in Korea means much more than just discovering the newest restaurant or chasing down the trendiest ingredient.

Here, food is performance art, something that appeals to the eye and the mind as much as the taste buds.

Korea is spawning one food trend after another, and they're permeating America pop culture.

(lively music) (upbeat music) When you're in Korea, it's pretty obvious that food is on everyone's mind all the time.

I wanted to learn more about the Korean obsession with food, so I called an expert on the topic.

Sue Ahn is an American living in Seoul and partaking in its immersive food culture.

From K-drama to the Korean art of Mukbang, Sue is showing me around Seoul's Gangnam district, and teaching me how to live and eat like a local.

- Hi!

- Thank you you so much for meeting me here in Seoul.

- Of course, of course, welcome!

- I feel like I've been to Seoul because of all the entertainment that I've seen about Seoul.

- Yes, there's so much, especially around the food culture.

Here, all of the socialization, everyone coming together, it really revolves around food.

And that's pretty much what the premise of our society is about.

- People are always talking about do we live to eat, or do we eat to live?

I think in Korea, you eat to have fun.

- [Sue] Yes.

- [Danielle] I'm fascinated by how food is the main character.

- Exactly, so that's how integrated the food is into our culture, and that definitely also seeps into the K-drama entertainment culture, as well.

- I've seen these K-dramas where these young kids fall in love over their shared interest in (speaking in foreign language) or spaghetti.

And that's almost like how they court each other, is through the food.

- Absolutely, and the food seems to be the main player.

People tend to want to take pictures, and they ask about what the story is behind the food, talk to the chefs, and that's really how you connect with the culture and the social scene here.

(upbeat music) So right now we're at one of the food truck stands called (speaking in foreign language).

So that means oh, delicious house, literally.

We have a bunch of Korean street food staples right here.

- Chicken on a stick is sort of a street food mainstay in any culture.

- Yes.

- But here in Korea, of course it has gochujang.

- [Sue] Of course and cheese.

- Which I feel like it's making it's way into every American refrigerator these days.

- Oh, really?

- Yeah, the international perception of Korean food has changed so much in the past couple of years because of the entertainment.

We're like learning about the food through Mukbang, for instance.

- [Sue] Exactly, so people can watch the Mukbang VJs, and they would just sit there and just eat, just eat and eat, and this fascination I think is especially prominent here because there's so many single-member households now that when they're eating alone, they want some kind of an entertainment, and like someone's eating with them kind of joining them.

- Because traditionally with Korean cuisine, it has to be shared.

- Exactly, more of a communal sense, and everyone's dipping their chopsticks in each other's food.

- So one criteria to becoming a Mukbang VJ is that you have to eat a lot?

- Yes.

- [Danielle] Or is it just about your expressions while eating?

- [Sue] Well, the number one criteria, I'd say, would have to be eating foods that people would be satisfied with.

So that means usually a large, large quantity.

- [Danielle] Well, it's really fascinating that, you know, eating a lot is something that people are falling in love with.

(gentle pop music) - Oh, man, where to begin?

- I know, with a curry hotdog, I think.

- He's very famous for the cheese hot curry.

That was featured in the (speaking in foreign language) TV show.

- That's so fun to actually eat or visit the places that you see on TV.

- Exactly, that's the cheese hot curry.

- Okay.

- And this is the (speaking in foreign language).

Cheers!

- Cheers!

(speaking in foreign language) (both moan) - It is so good!

- I think I'm experiencing Mukbang in real life because that was so satisfying to watch you eat.

- Would you like to try this, as well?

- Yes, I will.

- This is so good.

(squealing) That's so good.

- Mmm.

- So good.

- Mmm so good.

- Oh my god.

Happy dance.

Mmm.

- [Danielle] Food really is everywhere in Korea.

On the streets, on TV, on your phone and even in your local toy store.

Line Friends began in 2011 as a social media and messaging app that has grown to 600 million users worldwide.

The mascot characters created for the app became so popular that they took on a life of their own.

Now, there are Line stores globally from New York to Shanghai, and of course, their flagship store here in Seoul where you can share a meal with a Line Friend.

How's it going today, homie?

Food is also on the menu in a place where you wouldn't expect it, at the spa.

I'm at the world famous Dragon Hill Spa and Resort to sweat, shiver, relax, play and, of course, have a delicious Korean meal.

Koreans come to spas for lots of reasons, to bathe and get in a sauna, or for a cheap nights stay it's about 17 U.S. dollars for a 24 hour stay here, but I came to eat.

(upbeat music) With the spa and with the food, it's so much about keeping your body's temperature intact.

Everything seems to be based on temperature.

The charcoal grill is better based on three levels of heat, and then the frigid rooms where I'm literally sitting next to a snowman, and then likewise, with the food, seaweed soup is supposed to cool you down in hot days.

There's also the cold buckwheat noodles that people eat during hot days, and then, of course, the kimchi, a requisite with every Korean meal.

This place is really funky.

It's unlike any other spa I actually ever been to.

It's gigantic.

And then, if you get really bored of meditating or soaking, or steaming, you can always just go to the video arcade and play your hand.

It's kinda the best deal in Seoul.

Oh that's really good on a full stomach.

What I'm most surprised to find here is that there is so much food to go along with your spa adventure.

From bibidiba to hot dogs, chicken and beer, shaved ice, you really eat your way to wellness.

Hanging out at Dragon Hill Spa has taught me a lot about Korean culture, especially how food and entertainment go side by side.

(speaking foreign language) Now that I've sampled the spa lifestyle, I'm going to try another Korean invention that combines food and relaxation.

Mukbang means "eating broadcast," and it's exactly what it sounds like.

People film themselves eating large quantities of food, and other people watch them eat from the privacy of their own homes.

I wanted to create a Mukbang broadcast of my own, so I flew in some help from Chicago, America's first Mukbang star, Keemi.

Welcome to Chinatown.

- Thank you.

- [Danielle] Thanks for coming from Chicago over here.

- Yeah, thanks for inviting me.

- I've been fascinated in watching you first as you started, but I've always wanted to ask you how you got started with Mukbang.

- It was about two years ago.

I actually just was on YouTube like a normal day, and I saw this girl.

She was filming herself.

She was a really pretty, petite girl eating large amount of food.

It was very addicting to watch.

I was hooked, it was entertaining, and it was very comforting.

She was speaking Korean, you know, everything kind of started in South Korea.

So, I was looking at the comments, and I actually found a handful of people asking in English.

- Oh.

- Like, oh, what is she talking about?

What is she eating, and like what is this, and my boyfriend and I thought that oh like it'd be kind of cool if we start our own channel, but we talk in English, and we eat everything that's available in the states, not South Korea.

Hey guys, I got a new griddle, yay.

- [Danielle] So you started filming yourself eating about two years ago.

When did it become your career.

- I would say about a year ago, so a year after I started Mukbang, it kinda exploded, and I wanted to put 100 percent of me, so I took the risk, and I made it into my career.

American dream.

- Yeah I know, it really is, so I'm really excited, intrigued actually.

I think you're gonna give me a lesson, right?

- Yeah, I'll show you how it's done.

- Alright, let's go.

(upbeat pop music) - Usually all my videos kind of start the same way.

- Yes.

- I will be like hi guys, you know, welcome back to my channel.

Today, I'm back with another Mukbang with Danielle.

Today, we have some chicken noodle soup, and we have some KFC.

- You have all these tips for how to make your video just extra appealing to the viewer.

What are some of them?

- I definitely think that food needs to be closer to the camera.

You need to see more of the food than myself because we're journaling my videos for comfort of food, and, you know, more than just me.

(soft upbeat music) That makes good.

So, what we got here?

- [Danielle] KFC takeout.

The full bucket, family size.

- [Keemi] Oh my gosh it's so heavy.

- [Danielle] I feel like a food stylist.

I mean, I was watching your videos, and it really is an art.

- Right, it has to be appetizing, you know?

- Yeah, okay.

- [Keemi] Okay, those are done.

Yeah, let's just dig in.

- Alright, well show me how it's done.

(chewing) How do you choose what foods to cook?

- Usually, I have cravings, but you know, I can't eat same thing every week or every day, so I try to be more diverse, and I try to mix and match a Korean and American.

So, it's something that not other Mukbangers do.

So, I guess that makes me stand out a little bit more.

I'm gonna give you a lot.

- Is that like part of the fascination with Mukbang to be eating like big amounts of not so good for you food?

- When it comes to Mukbang, a lot of people want to see you take bigger bites.

Like compared to like normally, I would, if I'm eating alone, I would take like this much, but when I'm filming Mukbang I'm like.

- Really?

- There I'm like double amount of food.

I think people like to see your mouth full when, you know, someone petite like you, eating a lot of huge portion of food, and to then finish it, it's very satisfying, it's entertaining, but I think that's one of the misconceptions that people have of Mukbang because Mukbang literally translates into "eating broadcast," but it is definitely more popular.

(soft upbeat music) - So, are you mostly eating when you're doing your videos, or are you chatting and talking to your viewer?

- I mean I do try to share about my ups and downs to kind of tell the audience that it's okay.

Being a Mukbanger, I play a huge role of being a virtual friend.

I want them to feel like, you know we're not physically together, but, you know, we're kinda in this together.

So, with the chicken, a lot of people like to hear the sound of it 'cause usually they're really crunchy, and like when you bite into it gets really juicy.

That's where I like to have my microphone right next to me.

Have you ever heard of ASMR?

- I was gonna ask you, what does that mean exactly?

- It stands for autonomous sensory meridian response.

It's basically like when somebody's whispering in your ear, and you kinda like tingle a little bit, right?

- Uh huh.

- And it can be from biting into crunchy chicken to like tapping something.

It doesn't always have to be food related, but some people find it kinda satisfying.

You know, actually a lot of people like the gulping sound, too, like.

(gulps) - Oh.

- They like that sound a lot.

Yeah.

- You do that really well.

(laughter) How do you do that?

You have to teach me.

(laughter) (exhales) - So there's a way... (burp and laughter) - I can't drink beer without burping.

(gulping) - You know, I don't know how to (laughs) I'm sorry.

- That is really soothing.

That is like the sound of the ocean.

How should we sign off?

- Oh, well usually when I'm really full or when I'm done eating, I will just be like okay well I'm gonna end the video here.

I hope you guys enjoyed today's video.

Like this video and subscribe, and I'll see you guys next time.

Yay.

(upbeat music) - When I think of Asian staples, the first think I think of is rice, but there's another humble starch with a long history.

This exhibit at the Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook University celebrates the potato and all of its Asian glory.

I took a tour of the show called "Potasia" with the exhibit's co-curators to see how the potato has affected and inspired Asian art throughout history.

As soon as I heard that there was an exhibit all about potatoes, I had to come.

Can you tell me more about it?

- You are at the Charles B. Wang Center.

It is an Asian art and culture center.

We do offer a lot of variety of Asian culture programs including exhibitions.

This is all about home of potato as related to Asian culture.

It's called "Potasia and Potatoism in the East."

So, we explore potato as a culture icon as related to Asian culture.

Surprising enough, it has inspired many Asian artists, and also it serve as a artistic manifestation of social and political changes.

- Can you show me some of your favorite pieces?

- Sure.

Here, potatoes of primary sub take up the whole entire socialist poster collection.

Even though it shows really vibrant color and energetic people, it represent often poverty and sorrow and their shortage, but at the same time it shows the future abundance.

- These posters really show how food teaches you about history, and when you look at these happy, colorful images, you don't realize that this was made during the Great Leap Forward which caused a lot of famine.

You see these posters hanging in Chinese restaurants now almost as kitsch devoid of historical context.

- Right.

(elegant music) - Well these are very ornamental.

- It is actual potato painted gold.

She's contrasting the beautiful peony flower with the decaying, sprouting potato as her manifestation of beautiful dream yet fragile realities.

- This is so intriguing.

- This is a biggest form of potato.

The potato is only, you know, kept in the dark to prevent growing of the sprout, and I think that she was kind of captivating the dark.

You know, not to grow as an artist.

This artwork is a metaphor herself as an artist, and I think she really expressed well the duality of potato in here.

- [Danielle] What do you want people to take away from this exhibit?

- Like to have more flexible idea about Asia itself.

Asia is not always old and historical.

It is growing and changing, - "Potasia" co-curator, Jeffrey Allen Price, isn't your typical potato fan.

He's more like a fanatic, or what the Japanese call an "otaku."

Jeffrey has thousands of potato related memorabilia, food items, and art from around the world.

- I first came to the potato as a vegetarian, and then I thought about it as a conceptual art project, and the more I researched about the potato, it just became this interesting symbol where I was finding instances in movies and music, and it led me to understand that the potato was this worldwide cultural phenomenon that all cultures use the potato.

- [Danielle] How many pieces of potato art do you have in this exhibition?

- [Jeffrey] This is a sampling of my collection.

These are all Asian-themed.

There's a little over a hundred.

- What about in your entire collection?

- My entire collection is well over 5,000 pieces.

- 5,000?

- Yes, why don't I show you one of my favorite objects in the collection.

(upbeat music) This is a stereo viewer.

This particular one is a potato stall in Japan.

You see almost a three-dimensional view of this.

- Amazing, from 1896.

Ah-ha.

- So we do have real potato food.

This shows how the potato is ubiquitous in snack foods.

- I love it, and so this lays potato chip from China has seaweed whereas this one from Thailand has... - Lime and (speaks foreign language).

- So it's localized for... - Exactly.

- For the palettes.

What's with this?

- Well here we see that a potato can run electricity.

So, we have a sweet potato clock.

We have simple electrodes, and it's running a very simple clock here.

- So, you're a multidisciplinary artist.

- That's right.

And this is a film that I'm working on, "This Is How I Say Potato."

- Aaloo.

- Pomme de terre.

- Potato.

- So, I'm getting as many different languages and accents and nicknames for the potato as I can.

I'm also interviewing them about their own personal stories.

I'm trying to tell the story of the potato around the world through this film.

- Thanks to you both, I'm never gonna look at a potato the same way again.

(upbeat music) Food can be art in many forms.

Not all of them edible.

For his non-profit educational program Project Origami, Ben Hu teaches children how to turn paper into colorful, elaborate sculptures of food to raise awareness of arts and to relieve stress.

I found his work so beautiful and impressive that I featured it in a recent LUCKYRICE feast in Los Angeles.

The theme for the feast was Breaking Bao, and Ben's intricate origami bao, sushi, and peppers fit right in.

Tisha Cherry's art is definitely edible.

Though you may not want to spoil it by eating it.

Tisha, who grew up in her family's Thai restaurant, takes the idea of playing with your food to a whole new level.

One of her specialties is Oreo cookie portraits which she shares with her thousands of Instagram followers.

Today, she's gonna show me what she can do with some fruits and vegetables from my go-to neighborhood market.

Tisha, I'm excited to have you at my favorite grocery store which I hope it'll be your favorite art supply store.

- Absolutely.

So, we'll grab a pineapple.

I'm gonna envision it to flip it around and kind of shape it as a bird.

- Do you only use food as your medium for the work?

- Yes, yes.

That's the challenge.

- I'm like an old Chinatown lady.

I have to like touch every piece of fruit.

- [Tisha] Every single one.

- You grew up in a restaurant family, right?

- Correct, absolutely.

- So Thai cuisine is really known for its intricate, elaborate food art.

Did you start making those beautiful rose flowers from an early age?

- A few Sundays a month we would go to the temples.

They would carve all this fruit out and just have it on display to give to the monks, so I was exposed to it a lot, and I was just intrigued.

- Do you share your art through mostly just social media?

- [Tisha] I work a nine to five, so I share most of my work on social media.

It's just instant.

I play, I take a picture, and I eat, and that's really how it is.

- Yeah.

Well, I can't wait to get to work actually and see what you're making today.

Bye.

(upbeat music) Hey, what is that?

- So, I made a cookie of you.

I started my food art just kind of making cookie portraits.

- That is such a special gift, thank you so much.

I would have never thought to ever meet a cookie photo of myself, I mean, it's so realistic.

Now, you must have a background in art.

- Absolutely not (laughs).

It's still just trial and error.

- Do you always make your own dough, or do you have a favorite cookie you work with?

- I do make my own dough, but I also love the Oreo cookie.

(pop music) - So what really struck me about your work was that it was really playful.

There was the play on words.

You couldn't tell if it was actually a painting or a photo or something edible.

- Every year, Oreo comes out with limited edition flavors.

Halloween it's orange.

Christmas time there's a winter Oreo that's red.

I mix colors together to do like a skin tone.

Like I've done a Van Gogh.

- So Oreos really are your tubes of paint essentially.

What are we doing today?

- So, we're gonna start off by making tomato roses.

So what we do we kinda angle it off to the side, and then we're just gonna rotate.

You bring it down to the next level.

- Let me try this.

I have more respect now for all the amazing roses that I see at Thai restaurants.

- Right?

And you're just gonna roll it in really, really gently.

- [Danielle] Okay.

- That's so great.

And you can put it in your hair, right, like hey.

- Oh, yes.

- What shall we do next?

- You tell me.

- Let's do pineapple.

I am envisioning a bird.

- [Danielle] Okay.

- Can you envision it yet?

- Got that.

Your work is really conceptual.

I mean, it's different from like tradition fruit carving because it's not just about beautifying something.

- Kind of relating it to like what's relevant, too.

Migos did a song about stir fry, and like how could I not do it?

So, one of my most recent posts is the guys of Migos, and I painted them out of soy sauce, and then I made stir fry around it.

- That's really fun, so you get your inspiration from pop culture.

- Yes.

This is gonna be a bird's tail.

This'll be the bird's head.

When I was younger, what I would do is just look at this and kind of think about what else looks like this, right.

So, it could be a turtle's shell, or like a reptile.

So, you'd appreciate the texture and the color.

- I love your imagination.

- (laughs) It's so bizarre.

I recently kind of told more people that I have ADHD, and it's not the, oh, I can't focus and sit down, or need Adderall to focus.

I actually hate taking it, but I am more focused, so it's one of those things where this really is therapeutic for me.

- Really?

- Yes.

So here we are.

- Wow.

- Looks like a bird's head, right?

- [Danielle] Yes, it.

- It actually looks, both sides.

I'm not sure if this will work, but we'll try.

- Ooh.

- Does that work?

It's a bird.

- It's gorgeous.

(upbeat music) - Now we're going to cut the cheese.

- Okay (laughs).

- A really fun word play for me is, "Cheese."

This will be the base of a camera, and then we're gonna get the lens.

Alright beautiful.

- This is so fun.

This is why kids love to play with their food.

- Right, 'cause it's the imagination.

- Yeah, say cheese (clicks tongue).

- [Tisha] Let me take a selfie.

- The double selfie.

I had so much fun today, and really the best part was getting a peek into your imagination and your process.

I love that when we came over here, you probably did not know that this was what you were gonna make today, and so it's just such an organic process.

- [Tisha] Well, thank you.

- Alright, so what would you name this?

- Toucan do it.

- I like that.

- So two can do it.

- And if you ever need an assistant, you know where to find me.

- Stop (laughs).

- [Danielle] If I learned anything from these travels, it's that people around the world use food to nourish their souls as much as their bodies.

When it comes down to it, food can be art, pop culture, and even a viral sensation.

And as delicious as it tastes, someone else might see what's on your plate in a totally new light.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Funding for Lucky Chow has been provided by.

(upbeat music) To learn more about Lucky Chow, visit luckyrice.com.