00:00:10 Cindy
Welcome. I’m Cindy Holmes. And this is Around The Table, a podcast where we bring forward conversations about shared meals, dialogue, spirituality and social justice. Around The Table is a research project and a podcast.
00:00:24 Cindy
In this podcast series, we share our conversations with community leaders from across Turtle Island who have organized intentional dinner dialogues to support community well-being and advanced social justice, anti-racism and decolonization. Today’s episode is being recorded on the unceded ancestral and traditional territories of the lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ Peoples.
00:00:53 Cindy
On today’s episode of Around The Table, my collaborator Fionna Chong and I are in conversation with reverends Min Goo Kang and Ha Na Park about their dinner projects, Friendship Kitchen, Taste of Home and Belonging Dinners.
00:01:09 Cindy
Ha Na Park started Friendship Kitchen in 2017 at the United Church in Meadowood in Winnipeg, MB, on treaty one territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg Cree Oji- Cree Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Red River Metis the project supported newcomers to Canada.
00:01:30 Cindy
and embraced a diversity of experiences. For example, 2 participants came to Canada through refugee sponsorship from persecution of sexual orientation and from the Syrian civil war.
00:01:43 Cindy
Friendship Kitchen built relationships of trust, friendship and community between newcomers and non-newcomers.
00:01:50 Cindy
After Winnipeg, Ha Na and their partner Min Goo moved to Victoria, the ancestral unceded territories of the lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ Peoples, to join the ministry team at Broadview United. In 2023 Min Goo started Taste of Home and intercultural community building programs for newcomers who’ve made Canada
00:02:11 Cindy
their home in the last five years here, participants share food and memories through cooking and eating together, and exchange stories about the cultural significance of the
00:02:21 Cindy
Food. In his role as spiritual care provider in the Student Wellness Center and Multi Faith Center at the University of Victoria, Min Goo initiated yet another dinner program, Belonging dinners, where students cook and share a meal together, build connection and community. It provides a safe space for storytelling Around The Table
00:02:42 Cindy
in a holistic and embodied way that honors connections between body, mind, and heart.
00:02:48 Cindy
Min Goo Kang has a strong sense of place and likes to explore his surroundings. He believes that every place has its unique beauty. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in Korea in 2004 and was admitted to the United Church of Canada in 2010.
00:03:06 Cindy
He has been serving both in a Korean speaking congregation as well as in English speaking congregations in Canada over the last 18 years. He’s currently working at Broadview United in Victoria, BC, as intercultural program Minister.
00:03:23 Cindy
He believes that becoming an intercultural church is deeply spiritual work. It begins with knowing who we are, where we came from and where we belong. With deep spirituality, he integrates his Asian heritages, such as Daoism and Buddhism, into his theology and practice. Min Goo is passionate
00:03:43 Cindy
about creating a space where people can feel safe enough to bring their authentic lives.
00:03:48 Cindy
Ha Na Park is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada, currently serving at Broadview United in Victoria, BC. Her family migrated from Korea in 2007, when her older son, Peace, was seven months old.
00:04:03 Cindy
In that year of transition, Ha Na realized that she had become the moon, which lives by depending on another, and shines by reflecting another’s light while living in the shadow of her ordained husband of two years.
00:04:18 Cindy
Since then, Ha Na has strived to be the sun again and to keep that poetic image as her motivation. Her recent path has been leading her to continue to evolve through various interests and passions. Ha Na has committed herself to deepening her understanding of intercultural ministry, decreasing racism
00:04:38 Cindy
questioning white privilege in her institution,
00:04:41 Cindy
decolonizing herself, her work, and her theology.
00:04:46 Cindy
She believes in friendship and mutuality as the antidote to racism and seeks liberation from patriarchy and racism for women of color. In addition, Ha Na embraces mysticism and spirituality to help build resistance to oppression.
00:05:04 Fionna
Welcome, Min Goo and Ha Na, thank you so much for joining us today and speaking with us. I just want to start off today with if you could introduce yourself and where you’re joining us from.
00:05:14 Min Goo
Hi there. My name is Min Goo Kang. Originally from Korea. It’s a beautiful country blessed by the mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
00:05:24 Min Goo
But one of the things about my country is it remains divided into North and South.
00:05:32 Min Goo
And causing a lot of issues, economical, social, cultural and it has been 70 years. I need to mention that because that separation
00:05:44 Min Goo
always leaves me a deep longing for reunification. I do carry a deep longing. Doesn’t matter where I go. And I also yearn for connection to where I come from, the land my ancestors and culture. It’s been almost
00:06:04 Min Goo
20 years since I arrived in Canada.
00:06:08 Min Goo
And I have moved a lot recently we moved from the treaty one territory, Winnipeg,
00:06:15 Min Goo
to the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the lək̓wəŋən peoples, Songhees and WSÁNEĆ Esquimalt, known as Victoria.
00:06:26 Ha Na
I’ll chime in.
00:06:30 Ha Na
My name is Ha Na. She/they I use as my pronouns.
00:06:34 Ha Na
I am so glad that I’m here to share the stories with you all. The fact that I am on air with everyone, it means it’s not live recorded, but still it’s right here, right in this moment,
00:06:51 Ha Na
we are all on the process. I think the immigration
00:06:54 Ha Na
journey is really accompanied by personal growth and personal finding about who we are. So when I think that I can introduce myself to everyone out it also means that I am mindful of my process.
00:07:10 Ha Na
Which means that it’s always interesting process, how I would introduce myself because as I am getting older and I’m
00:07:18 Ha Na
44, each year I’m changing each day. I’m finding myself a little more in this land, in the people, in the land and with the people who I am around with
00:07:32 Ha Na
And also the all the recent experiences that surprised me with offering new profound learning, I am coming out of burnout and I am really comforted by hearing the message from these podcast messengers that I can use this time as the time for my own healing and
00:07:51 Ha Na
recovering and then just enjoying that will be in the conversation about how we actually heal with food and the table where people are around
00:08:02 Ha Na
and then just be themselves. So I’ll be myself in each minute. I will be continuing to change as I am engaged in this podcast.
00:08:13 Fionna
Thank you both. I was thinking about what you say, being an immigrant myself as well, and thinking about the longing, that’s something that stays with me all the time as well, right? Because we’ve journeyed a long.
00:08:26 Fionna
In Korea, especially with the longing for reunification and how that translates in the country into places that now that we choose to call home
00:08:37 Fionna
And what does that mean for belonging, right? And what does that mean for connection? And I wonder in the context of belonging and connection, if you can speak about a time when you have personally
00:08:48 Fionna
remembered that first time that you shared food with people and felt that sense of belonging, when did that come to you? What was the setting like? What was your memory of that?
00:08:59 Min Goo
I’ve been invited to dinners so many times, both on the West Coast and in the Prairie, but when I’m invited to dinner, I feel of course, honored and respected, but the still sense that I’m still outsider. I’m a guest.
00:09:20 Min Goo
a visitor.
00:09:22 Min Goo
So, that experience, no matter
00:09:25 Min Goo
how nice he was, didn’t really give me a sense of belonging. The first time I really felt
00:09:33 Min Goo
That I belonged was when I was able to host Thanksgiving dinner, inviting our international friends
00:09:40 Min Goo
when I was at Vancouver’s School of Theology. So I remember the first time I roasted turkey
00:09:48 Min Goo
For Thanksgiving. So I did my best. I sourced the best turkey possible in the market
00:09:54 Min Goo
near UBC, local free range and I cooked my heart out, and one guest who was born and raised in Canada
00:10:05 Min Goo
a Japanese descendant said it was the best Turkey ever and I was so happy and I knew I belonged.
00:10:13 Fionna
That’s fabulous to hear that when we are hosting then that how was the first time we felt that, that’s a wonderful story. Thank you, Min Goo.
00:10:24 Ha Na
So I’m hearing and I’m
00:10:26 Ha Na
listening to Min Goo’s story, so I could
00:10:28 Ha Na
think of mine.
00:10:31 Ha Na
My immigration stories started when we were settled in Burnaby first.
00:10:38 Ha Na
And then that was when we moved to Canada with our older son, who was eight months old at the time. And we were there about about three years more even after that. But because I was studying and at the same time with me, with Min Goo raising the just one year,
00:10:58 Ha Na
our first son, which means the parenting is not yet in my skill set, and I was very lonely. I was not yet finding where I was really. It was so difficult, lonely. I kind of didn’t really put myself much into studying, but I really wanted to do well raising this kid.
00:11:17 Ha Na
So I was focusing on doing both well enough, but I was always hungry for some reason, cooking was not
00:11:25 Ha Na
in my skill set yet, and parenting was not in my skill set yet, and all those challenging…raising the the infant child and all those things. So whenever the Korean Church we attended at that was the United Church, a Liberal Church, the Korean Immigrant Church, where they are really good cooks
00:11:45 Ha Na
Not professional, but they’re cooked by heart like they were because they knew, understood what immigration was like. Probably they were always willing
00:11:56 Ha Na
too, just like what Min Goo said, maybe they were finding belonging by hosting someone or family hey were caring for. So they invited us and then or to their party or to their small dinner or something like that. And then when there was food that I felt that was something that I would love to taste, the Korean food
00:12:18 Ha Na
the simple Korean food, really nice Korean food. I think that I was not grateful enough in that moment to appreciate how effort they made to host us and then help us to feel we are welcome
00:12:34 Ha Na
in this story and the place. So this is kind of the first time I could remember being with people with food and the food was the radical hospitality.
00:12:47 Fionna
Thank you so much. I’m hearing a theme too that flows through both your stories about hosting and how the act of hosting created the connection. But then there’s also the other theme there that I’m hearing about,
00:13:00 Fionna
finding people right? So that through these the meals, whether it is us hosting and we’re finding the people to join us or not journey or in your example there Ha Na, how you found people from them inviting you over, there’s something there that’s really, really powerful. Cindy and I have done some
00:13:20 Fionna
reading and about the projects that you’ve been part of. So there is the Friendship Kitchen, which I believe you did in Winnipeg,
00:13:27 Fionna
right, in treaty 1 territory. And then there is the belonging dinners, which is with the Uvic Student demographic, students from all around different locations, different backgrounds. And then there’s the Taste of Home, which is for people who’ve made Canada their home right in the last five years. So you’ve got sort of slightly different. There’s common demographics there,
00:13:48 Fionna
but also a little bit different. And I was wondering for these groups that you’ve been part of starting and and and and continuing, if you wanted to share a little bit about your motivation for
00:14:00 Fionna
how you got them started.
00:14:03 Ha Na
I will start first regarding the Friendship Kitchen because I think the model that I used was still newcomer focused and empowered, but then I think the programs or the initiatives that Min Goo took on later or even at the time
00:14:22 Ha Na
I am realizing that the model that he was his embracing
00:14:27 Ha Na
It’s much better evolved, evolved only by saying how he does now. I can really reflect on what kind of model I was at or with, and how his model has a different or even better strengths, without admitting all of this
00:14:46 Ha Na
I will introduce you, I was doing with the Friendship Kitchen. It was some years ago when we were still in Winnipeg. I think it was about the 2000 and like that like that kind of thing. So I
00:15:02 Ha Na
was at a congregation and then I knew I would like to really engage with the newcomers, but then I started with myself. What I needed when I just came to Canada or what I was struggling with or what I was really interested
00:15:23 Ha Na
when I first came to Canada, you know, just first few years or something like that. So I will basically read this reflection from my website, personal website about I reflected on how friendship kitchen started.
00:15:40 Ha Na
Because I will go from there. So I can still vividly picture my family venturing into Save On Foods to shop for supper when we first arrived in Canada in 2007, we were like many other newcomer families in Vancouver, Min Goo was pushing toddler Peace in the stroller
00:16:02 Ha Na
And me quickly searching through the food sections, mostly looking for any familiar items from my home country, Korea, especially vegetables.
00:16:12 Ha Na
Many Korean dishes, side or main, are based on a great variety of Korean native greens.
00:16:19 Ha Na
And I knew that without them, the menus I could create for my family, the supper would be limited. So I really needed the Korean native greens that I was more familiar with. And I remember how often I saw it in grocery stores, thinking I cannot make Korean cuisine or even supper.
00:16:40 Ha Na
With just
00:16:41 Ha Na
Spinach, bell Peppers, broccoli, squash and cucumbers. I wish I could take a cooking class. What do Canadians make with these vegetables? I really also wanted to know even some years later
00:16:56 Ha Na
what Canadians or people here make for their kids lunch? Like I really didn’t like the fact that there was very limited option I had like, I really didn’t really just
00:17:09 Ha Na
Ham and cheese sandwich.
00:17:12 Ha Na
For kids every day
00:17:13 Ha Na
So what are the healthier options than just a ham and cheese sandwich for kids every day? And I really, as a newcomer, didn’t have much of learning options and skills and knowledge. So Friendship Kitchen started from my own story and experience.
00:17:30 Ha Na
What if the newcomers, or finding the newcomer organizers or the cooks who are able to create the recipes for the newcomers? The newcomers kind of putting the newcomers to, you know, have the more variety of options, how to live healthy, how to enjoy cooking and how to share supper with their families
00:17:51 Ha Na
Not only with healthy, but with the food that they find, as tasteful, like we cannot eat
00:18:00 Ha Na
The cream and cheese-based, white food all the time
00:18:05 Ha Na
We really needed to find recipes, those don’t have to be unlimited as their own home country’s food, but usually Asian food has a similar some kind of similarity or common taste a little bit.
00:18:20 Ha Na
So the food that we would enjoy should have some flavor that we are familiar with and find then they
00:18:27 Ha Na
are tasty. So with that mindset, with the Food matters Manitoba, we found the newcomer food facilitators that was most willing to work with me, and then we were able to really welcome about 15 to 20 newcomers each week. And then what was so interesting was
00:18:47 Ha Na
It was not only recipe or how they can cook
00:18:51 Ha Na
in this country, from the grocery stores here, but the newcomers really found each other. They were so excited each time that they were safe here, because newcomers provided this program for the newcomers. And then there was some kind of real excitement and joy. So after the all of the sessions
00:19:11 Ha Na
we really had the moment to ensure that they all wanted this program to continue, but then what created that kind of real joy is that it was not only learning cooking, we had the plenty of time in the morning
00:19:26 Ha Na
after all, cooking together, we sat together around the tables. There was a really big table set up and then but with the themed question everyone had talked and shared stories a little bit. Learning something about this culture or something like that, but still we had the time for our conversation at the end.
00:19:45 Ha Na
Of a relaxed pace, children were minded in the other room
00:19:49 Ha Na
So the mothers could just be themselves enjoy themselves, that kind of thing. So I think as a parent newcomer, I understood what other parent newcomer might have needed at their in their especially first at beginning of being settled in in this new country.
00:20:08 Ha Na
That was Friendship Kitchen.
00:20:09 Fionna
There’s such a shared experience that comes from that right? Newcomers like you say you mentioned parents and the kids is such a shared experience of the different challenges that people face, the commonalities and the lived experience. So that’s such a beautiful thing. Thank you for sharing that.
00:20:28 Fionna
Min-Goo do you want to share a little bit about the other projects, Belonging kitchens, taste of?
00:20:33 Min Goo
I enjoy listening to Ha Na’s story because it reminds me of our journey.
00:20:40 Min Goo
And brings me back lots of memories. Yeah.
00:20:43 Min Goo
So as Ha Na said earlier, this conversation surprisingly, is healing for me. Taste of Home is the original Belonging Dinners, so I’m going to talk about Taste of Home
00:20:57 Min Goo
It began, the seed of the program started when I listened to
00:21:03 Min Goo
participants at our English conversation circle on zoom, it is one of our weekly intercultural programs at Broadway United,
00:21:14 Min Goo
and one participant, especially from Hong Kong
00:21:19 Min Goo
said her family tradition got passed on, the family stories, got passed on through foodm sharing food, and she said something about how each dish has a story
00:21:33 Min Goo
especially when it comes to celebrating Lunar New Year, a lot of dishes have meanings.
00:21:41 Min Goo
And I became
00:21:42 Min Goo
curious
00:21:43 Min Goo
and I want to find more about that
00:21:47 Min Goo
and maybe there’s something universal message there.
00:21:52 Min Goo
Because we cannot separate food,
00:21:56 Min Goo
and culture and religion.
00:21:59 Min Goo
Everything, our identity.
00:22:03 Min Goo
So that was the beginning of Taste of Home idea. And during Christmas break I was watching Netflix and Iron Chef. I really enjoyed it and especially how
00:22:18 Min Goo
renowned world chef, how they became emotional when it comes to telling why they cook this food.
00:22:30 Min Goo
It all comes down to their childhood memories.
00:22:34 Min Goo
They still carry that legacy they received.
00:22:39
And they all cry.
00:22:42 Min Goo
I love Esther Choi’s story and how her recipe of Kimchi making is from her grandmother’s recipe. And I was thinking,
00:22:53 Min Goo
OK we can do something about it, and that’s how Taste of Home began, because as the participant from Hong Kong said, every dish has a story.
00:23:04 Min Goo
And just like everyone has a story. So I began to look for newcomers who are willing to share their story through food.
00:23:14 Min Goo
We are not asking them to learn from us, any Canadian way, you know, as if there’s a standard, you know way of living.
00:23:24 Min Goo
But we are asking them to come and teach us how to cook their cultural food.
00:23:32 Min Goo
and especially dishes that remind them of their home childhood memories.
00:23:39 Min Goo
And people began to respond out of generosity.
00:23:45 Min Goo
And that is the power of Taste of Home basically.
00:23:51 Min Goo
And we had six sessions of Taste of Home and at the end of the program we invited the whole congregation to join us for potluck and we ask everyone to bring a dish and a story just like we did during the program. And there was a huge display, like art exhibition.
00:24:15 Min Goo
Except that we could eat the art! (laughter)
00:24:19 Min Goo
So it was a beautiful intercultural celebration.
00:24:24 Min Goo
And after I took the position as a spiritual care provider at UVic I heard a lot about how students are hungry, how food is expensive as well as, food is not tasty.
00:24:40 Min Goo
Especially international students, they are missing their home food.
00:24:47 Min Goo
So, the hunger is more than physical one. One is a spiritual hunger, longing to connect. So we did a Belonging dinner. Again, the idea is to invite those who are willing to share their stories through food. Honoring where we come from and sharing cultural recipes.
00:25:15 Min Goo
So it’s a similar idea, but it’s a different, yeah.
00:25:21 Fionna
Thank you so much. By the way, I was rooting for Esther Choi and Top Chef, especially that last episode. I was like, go, Esther. Thank you.
00:25:31 Fionna
I wanted to just touch quickly, I know Cindy we will go to you for the next question, but I just want to touch quickly on just hearing about how these three projects link from one to the other and just go back, a little bit for my own curiosity, mostly Ha Na, you were saying how you’re seeing Min-Goo do the projects, the two projects now and how if you were to run another Friendship Kitchen now what would you do differently?
00:25:59 Ha Na
Yeah. So the as the title or the name suggests, it’s a really combination of friendship and the kitchen because probably I needed friendship and the cooking skills (laughter), the cooking knowledge, yeah, grocery knowledge and all those things. If I change a bit, and learning and being inspired by the models that Min-Goo embraced, and coming from his own nature,
00:26:24 Ha Na
I guess I think the way that I provided or offered the Friendship Kitchen and many years ago was more expert-based, even though they are newcomers, one I believe she was from India and the other from the Philippines, but they were professionally trained food facilitators, they have this training
00:26:45 Ha Na
and then they really super understood the needs of the newcomers and they were newcomers
00:26:51 Ha Na
But it was still it was expert-based, because I didn’t really then have this confidence in each one actually could bring their own experts, their, their the story and the home food. Yeah, that’s that thing. But I think that I was so amazed and inspired. When we go start the Taste of Home.
00:27:11 Ha Na
I will quickly share this story and then you will hear more directly from Min Goo. But when Min Goo introduced me, the concept of Taste of Home and the fact that he invited the Korean family or Miyeokguk, his is a seaweed soup based on
00:27:27 Ha Na
Anchovy broth. Ohh I love seaweed soup, but I cannot really wrap my head on thinking that the other
00:27:40 Ha Na
country people, if they were maybe not white people but some other non-Korean people would enjoy Miyeokguk because there was a story, there is a strong connection for every Korean knows about Miyeokguk. When a mother give birth to their child, the symbolism of living life long and and the laboring going smooth. So seaweed is smooth and long. Right so that,
00:28:08 Ha Na
so when you are born, because of that, you really expect if you’re a Korean that your parent or your family would cook Miyeokguk in the morning at breakfast
00:28:22 Ha Na
I know all those symbolism and connections and how I enjoy myself, I eating Miyeokguk, but I really could not think that even Japanese eating Miyeokguk. OK, so maybe other country persons could enjoy Miyeokguk (laughter) but it was so meaningful and successful. I mean Min-Goo can tell you more.
00:28:44 Ha Na
But it was a concept changing, my resistance changing, it really opened the limit. What we could think of around this food and sharing stories how and then actually trusting that others could open to this opportunity to taste the home of others. I’m a picky person
00:29:04 Min Goo
that’s excellent point actually when it comes to cultural food people, it is often associated with the shame and stigma.
00:29:17 Min Goo
So in the past, people from Korea, we are afraid of bringing our cultural food when we travel because of the smell. And we got criticism because of the the smell of garlic especially we use a lot of garlic for many dishes.
00:29:37 Min Goo
Or dried squid. We cannot bring it because of the smell anything. So also as an immigrant I often encounter, I mean, because my mother-in-law graciously, Ha Na’s mother, she’s a good cook and she makes delicious Kimchi for us to pack when he came back to Canada, a few boxes actually full of Kimchi, freshly made.
00:30:06 Min Goo
But going through the customs is always tricky and sometimes they ask us “like what’s in it?” And I said “it is vegetable, is food”. “So what’s in the food?” And I said “this vegetable”, “you’re not supposed to bring vegetables”. So I said “Ohh it’s just fermented cabbage so it’s pickled”. So anyway, they had to unpack everything and then pack everything.
00:30:32 Min Goo
Got through many layers of, you know, barriers. Yeah. There’s there’s stigma and shame attached. Yeah. So when it comes to Taste of Home again, it really opens up space for a lot of newcomers to find a way to share their culture with confidence in a public space, I think there’s also beauty that the sharing takes place not in a private home, but in a public space because that can change the narrative of the dominant culture.
00:31:08 Fionna
That is such a good point. Thank you for sharing that. It reminds me as well, as how, as immigrant settlers, we, at least in my experience, were taught to not take up space when we arrive, you know. And so everything that you’ve said myself and my extended family have gotten through. So I really appreciate that
00:31:28 Fionna
That Cindy, I’ll turn this over to you.
00:31:31 Cindy
Yeah, I just really valuing this part of the conversation, everything you’ve shared, but this last part about stigma and shame and opening, what creates opening and trust and what breaks down barriers for people to feel that they belong, given that there is racism, there is stigma, there is discrimination. And food and smells and to challenge dominant culture is really powerful to me to think about what it means. As you’re saying that these dinners are taking place in public and that they are bringing people together across culture, is really another form of change, transformation, that’s happening in the community, not just at the individual level. So it’s really powerful and I’m really grateful for the insights that you’ve shared.
00:32:26 Cindy
I’m wondering if you can tell us what you’ve heard from participants about what motivates them to come to Belonging Dinners or to Friendship Kitchen or Taste of Home, I know that there’s something different for each of those and also commonalities, but do participants share with you what has motivated them or why they’re coming?
00:32:47 Min Goo
It is a longing for sharing and finding and making a community and it’s the desire to connect. Yeah, for sure. But I also have learned that when people arrive In Canada and don’t know much about the culture or the language or the people they often feel disconnected also from their land, their culture and there is not enough space for them to be themselves.
00:33:27 Min Goo
So when there is a space where they cannot only attend and learn and make new friends, but also just relax and just be themselves, it is a gift. So I’ll say what motivates participants to come is their longing to connect and longing to just be themselves in a safe environment.
00:33:58 Cindy
Hmm hmmm. Yeah. This piece about safety is so important too, as you say, to belonging and then that ability to be yourself. And you’re creating, you’re creating a safe space.
00:34:11 Min Goo
Yeah. And also people, I found respond more when they know they are needed. And we know we belong when we know we are needed.
00:34:23 Min Goo
So again, I’m not afraid to ask, and I ask a lot so”Would you please be willing to help with this?” I always ask and more often than not they are open and generous in sharing their time and gift and stories.And the program is built on the generosity. What, What newcomers have to bring to the table.
00:34:50 Cindy
That’s really wonderful, the piece about being needed, I hadn’t really thought about that, in this connection, but that and being asked to contribute helps also to create a sense of belonging.
00:35:04 Ha Na
I don’t remember the feedback if I’ve got anything regarding the food cooking process or recipe, but I remember that the participants were so excited. The volunteers for supporting the program from the the congregation I was serving, so all of them were just so excited. And then the feedback was from the the participant. I remember even after many years was that they really wanted to make it even better, even joyful. So they really didn’t make any suggestion about food. They were just happy that they were learning cooking. And they said as one of them suggested, it would be really nice if we could do something special at our last session. And then she said, I really like that red dress that someone was wearing, how about everyone put on red dress and our last session and with all red being red, Canada flag,
00:36:08 Ha Na
I’m sure that they were thinking of Canadian flag. So, everyone’s wearing red and cooking, so the person was not making it something more eventful, but you know, out of joyful, they were making additional suggestion to how this gathering even more
00:36:26 Ha Na
happier for them. So they were willing to participate and even make suggestion. What about we did this? What about we did that? It was not really about food or cooking. It is more about how they can participate in this community, building even happier for them. Even more special make something like that. So we have this picture still about all volunteers and participants, all so happy to find red dress or red shirt or red.
00:36:56 Ha Na
jacket or whatever, all red and took the photo of everyone like in the middle. They wanted it and the photo and everyone was read and then that was the final of this Friendship Kitchen and it’s just from the participants. That was the feedback.
00:37:14 Cindy
That sense of community and excitement going beyond that initial first time people came, but to see that build over time as they felt greater and greater sense of community, is beautiful.
00:37:30 Fionna
It’s lovely to hear the impact that this has on people. I’m wondering, you know, with the model that you have as well where people are cooking together right before they actually share the meal, like there’s that extra contribution pieces there and I’m wondering for you, how have you seen, like, how does the act of not just sharing the meal together. But also the act of cooking together, contributing together and then sharing the meal. How does that shape or influence the conversations that are happening?
00:38:02 Min Goo
So at the beginning of we are all strangers, but it just it takes second. As soon as we start cooking together, we become friends. So the idea of cooking together is such a universal language like everyone knows. Like when you eat food.
00:38:24 Min Goo
Somebody had to prepare the food in advance so everyone is invited to participate fully and actively from the beginning to the end. That is the beauty of the program because you know, I don’t like the model of, the service model, how much we can serve. You know, it’s not really sustainable.
00:38:48 Min Goo
So if we are intentional about opening the space where everyone can share what they can, that’s how we can build community. So conversations happen mostly in the kitchen while we are cooking together whether chopping, boiling, frying and at the beginning we asked the chef of the day to tell us why it is important for the chef to share this food with us.
00:39:21 Min Goo
And then everyone is invited to cook, also that story from the chef sets the tone of the entire session, so we pay attention to the story and at the end we all share our own experiences in response to the food and the story that we heard.
00:39:46 Fionna
I’m wondering also with the conversations that start from there, from going from strangers, right? I notice that Taste of Home, for example, it runs every two weeks, is that right? every two Saturdays it should.
00:39:57 Min Goo
The taste of home. The first one was every Saturday. Now we are doing this every other Saturday. Yeah, yeah.
00:40:00 Fionna
Every other Saturday.
00:40:03 Fionna
Right. So every other Saturday and I’m wondering with the conversations that are shaped and people getting together in the kitchen and then in eating together, have you noticed or how have you noticed the impact on folks going in between the sessions or after the sessions? How are you finding the connections continuing?
00:40:25 Min Goo
So naturally, like friendship is formed and not only people from different cultures, but people from different generations. They connect and, for example, a young person who is from Vietnam want to share like her secret with Canadian older generation, from older generation. And such relationship would not have happened ff there was no space like that and that belonging dinner on campus.
00:41:00 Min Goo
So during the waiting time when it comes to cooking, we sometimes we wait like a while the food is being ready so people exchange their contact information and I also have noticed the people experience the program, they come back.
00:41:20 Min Goo
So we have a core number of people who build up the community and they take ownership and they share their experience with others and they invite their friends to come.
00:41:34 Cindy
One of the things that you’re curious about, and I know in my own experience with gatherings around the table and in communities, that the differences between us and specifically, power differences and inequities that exist across our communities, those can impact our feelings of belonging and safety and how we experience the table and I’m curious if you could share a little bit about your thoughts and experiences about how power relations, or these inequities, influence our time together at the table and or if you have examples of how you’ve addressed
00:42:23 Cindy
this in some of the organizing you’ve done or in the gatherings themselves?
00:42:31 Min Goo
So in Taste of Home, we are very intentional about who is invited. So we set the tone from the beginning of the planning because it it’s easy
00:42:44 Min Goo
when we open the space to everyone, people from the dominant culture, they have time, they have money, they’ve got lots of resources to. It’s easy for them to take space. We don’t want that to happen. So we are very clear at the first belonging, no the Taste of Home program,
00:43:07 Min Goo
I actually had to interview people, just briefly, like I I need to find out who they are, where they come from and just to make sure that we are on the same page.
00:43:17 Min Goo
And it was also to create a safe space for those participants who are new to Canada. Yeah. So that is one thing. And also with the belonging dinner,
00:43:30 Min Goo
we work with partners such as Global Community, so they look after international students and their lives and or activities. So they are also intentional about this program is for you who just arrived in Canada trying to find a way, to find the community.
00:43:56 Min Goo
So we say very clear at the beginning, but like not everyone, I mean everyone is welcome. But you know this program is for you who are new to Canada, yeah.
00:44:08 Cindy
Yeah, I think that intentionality from the very beginning is so important. I’m wondering when you are gathered, have you had experiences where racism, transphobia, homophobia, have these come up during the gatherings at all in ways that have impacted or has this been something? I know, I guess I’m asking in part because I know how intentionally you both are in your work at Broadview and at the university in
00:44:45 Cindy
addressing transphobia, racism, homophobia and there is strong commitment to creating safety for queer trans people, for people of color, Indigenous people.
00:45:01 Cindy
Don’t know if you have any experiences to share with us about that or thoughts about what makes us safe space?
00:45:08 Min Goo
That’s a good point. Who you have had people from such diverse background. Not only cultural differences, but also gender and sexuality.
00:45:18 Min Goo
But that has never been an issue. So I think the intention that we set from the beginning that it is OK, just to come as we are. That makes people think that it’s OK for them to be who they are and sometimes the conversation, because at the end of the dinner everyone get to share their own experiences of the session.
00:45:52 Min Goo
Sometimes the conversation goes deeper than we have anticipated. For example, how the experience at the session made impact on them on a deeper level. For example, one student who was born and raised in Canada, she was born to a family from China.
00:46:15 Min Goo
And when she was growing up, she didn’t appreciate how her parents didn’t understand the Canadian culture, whatever that may be.
00:46:24 Min Goo
And as she was growing, she began to search. Seeking her identity, her cultural identity, who she is, where she came from.
00:46:37 Min Goo
And Belonging Dinner provided the language for her to reclaim her cultural identity. And when she said that it was like an Aha moment. How much cooking together and sharing with the everyone else can make a difference. And she made a gift, like hat, for an Indigenous elder for the Bannock making session. And she gifted the elder with this beautiful hat. It was like wow, there was something beautiful. Connection happening. That we never anticipated in the first place.
00:47:24 Cindy
I love hearing that story and this impact at the individual and collective level is what I’m so inspired by with the power of what you’re doing and what is happening when we gather intentionally with these values of welcome, I think you use the word radical hospitality, Ha Na. And to me, that kind of spirit of coming as you are and an openness to learn about the differences amongst us, but with the space of respect and the belonging for everyone. The Bannock making that you’re referring to Min Goo is a powerful part of the program. I know you told me a little bit last year about making the connection with the elder and preparing for that session, but would you be willing to just maybe share a little bit about your reason to do that and what that session involved?
00:48:28 Min Goo
Yeah. So I’ve been going to Native Friendship Center, just get to know the community and to build build up some relationship.
00:48:38 Min Goo
And there was an elder, because I was looking for someone, and not because I needed a chef, but because of longing to connect with the community. And she was introduced by someone from the church. And when I met the elder Edith,
00:48:58 Min Goo
she’s from Alert Bay, she invited me to her kitchen, and she showed me how to cook the Bannock in a way that she was like my relative. She welcomed me right away into her kitchen, and she began to tell her story.
00:49:14 Min Goo
And. It was just like as if I met someone that I always knew.
And she treated me, like her own family member.
00:49:25 Min Goo
So we invite her to come to UVic for Belonging Dinner.
00:49:31 Min Goo
And this is what stood out, uh for many of us, like when she cooked Bannock, she is well known to the community. She often makes hundreds and hundreds of Bannocks and share with unhoused people on the street.
00:49:52
She wakes up early in the morning and she prays to the Creator and she puts love into the Bannock making. It is the love that makes Bannock tasty.
00:50:06 Min Goo
And after we learn from Edith, all the other sessions that we do with the Belonging Dinner, we are very intentional about putting our love into the food we are making. So, she taught us a lot.
00:50:23 Cindy
That’s so powerful. Bringing that love right in through the food, and how that then carries forward into the rest of the dinners and the rest of the work you’re doing. Beautiful.
00:50:36 Fionna
It reminds me also of I think I read this, I think it was Belonging Dinners where there was a quote in there about nourishing the whole embodied self and taking that holistic approach that combines the body, the mind and the heart, right. So this act of putting the love into the Bannock reminds me so much of that. But it also reminds me of what you said earlier that we cannot separate food from
00:50:58 Fionna
religion from politics and so forth. So it got us kind of thinking about like, if we were to think about social justice and spirituality, right? So one of the themes that has been coming up is the shared meal as a sacred space and site of healing. And we’ve talked about, you know, healing conversations, it’s been a repeated theme across the initiatives that we’ve been doing research on and talk to people about. So some people have suggested that the experience of gathering to share food and conversations in community can be a spiritual experience, and this doesn’t, does not necessarily need to be connected to any particular religion or faith, so I’m wondering if both of you can comment on how spirituality hold a place in your work of organizing these conversations, the act of cooking together these projects, how the spiritual hold place there?
00:51:51 Fionna
And how do you see that connection between spirituality and social justice?
00:51:57 Min Goo
Good question. First of all, I cannot separate between spirituality and religion, so because spirituality is the soul of religion, and I also cannot separate, and who get to decide what is sacred and what is mundane? So also challenges the separation. So, I have learned
00:52:21 Min Goo
so much about religion through the food making process. For example, in Christianity we have a ritual with food called communion.
00:52:32 Min Goo
You can Eucharist OR the Lord’s Supper. So the basic idea of communion, despite some differences across denominations, is to remember Jesus, believing that Jesus is present at the breaking of bread and the community that takes part. Also, I’m from Korea, one of my tradition informs my whole cultural heritage is Confucianism,
00:53:05 Min Goo
and we have this ritual that honors our ancestors, known as ancestor veneration or ancestor worship, so I never made the connection between the communion and ancestor veneration, until I discovered the power of smell or power of remembering with food. When I was in Winnipeg,
00:53:35 Min Goo
a few years ago, my father passed away. He was in Korea and I was in Canada and I couldn’t visit because it was one of the times when the travel restriction was in place.
00:53:48 Min Goo
All I had to do was to rely on the only source I had available which was memory my memory over him.
00:54:00 Min Goo
Especially around the food we share together.
00:54:04 Min Goo
So I began to think about what we ate together.
00:54:11 Min Goo
And I remember this dish that we ate in a restaurant and I cooked the food and I shared with my family.
00:54:20 Min Goo
And I also shared my memories of my father because my immediate family didn’t really know my father that well. And I was so healing. And then I understood, finally, what Jesus just meant by remembering me. When you break bread together, it is the sharing that opened the eyes, open their hearts, of the friends, Jesus’ friends, so they could continue to be in community.
00:54:50 Min Goo
Yeah.
00:54:51 Min Goo
So maybe perhaps other people in Christianity may disagree with me on this, but I have learned by doing food program that connecting with our ancestors and our cultural roots and spirituality all came together all come together when it comes to food. Food itself is sacred ritual, it’s a communal ritual. It’s not separate from what we consider as sacred, you know, or spiritual.
00:55:30 Fionna
Thank you, Min Goo.
00:55:32 Fionna
Ha Na, is there anything you want to add to that with your experience, spirituality, sacredness, food, social justice. So a lot there to unpack.
00:55:47 Ha Na
I’m not that spiritual (laughter) person or when I eat.
00:55:55 Ha Na
When I was growing up, I was not a kind of a child who was very keen in eating. I told my mom that I hope that there is a pill that, I take a pill, then my own nutrients come in, so that I don’t eat. So (laughter) probably that’s why
00:56:08 Fionna
Yeah.
00:56:13 Ha Na
For example, our Friendship Kitchen it’s really about friendship and the kitchen experience, but not really about food. So I really think that there’s the powerfulness in Min-Goo’s program because it comes from on top of everything that he mentioned about the importance of memory and even if something was only sourced from remembering his father, relying on memory, that and then memory with the food and that kind of thing. But for me, not so much with the food. So I learned from Min Goo, but I would like to touch on the equity part.
00:56:48 Ha Na
Because my spirituality is more connected to making sure that there is equity (laughter).
00:56:55 Ha Na
So I think that when we offer a program, we think that we have this boundary of understanding that when we offer a program, we are all about it, like the program’s there and we focus on the program. But what is even more equally important is the surrounding. So for example, when I was, it was really super many years ago, I was a participant to the kind of gathering, and then I was so excited we would have a great buffet or something like that.
00:57:23 Ha Na
Yeah, in a nice place, just because I was a participant. And then I went to the building and then I saw it was in Toronto many, many years ago. And I saw the tired janitors who worked in the building. The building was the organizers’ building right?
00:57:39 Ha Na
This was a church building, the National Church Office building. And then this tired janitors, or those who worked there offering their services, paid services but tired and then their ethnicity was not from the Caucasian or white background, right? They probably are the parents or even grandparents of immigrant family or something like that. Then even if just, I was thinking that even if we were offered, then the participants, the non-Western food just to appreciate the diversity of while I was walking the stairs and seeing this tired workers whose background probably was more connected to mine than the others, then hmmm, it doesn’t feel right, being there doesn’t didn’t feel.
00:58:28 Ha Na
Right, that kind of thing. So, we also did this food program and that if the surrounding is still quite White-focused or not safe enough racially or transphobia is right there or so, so let’s say that. So what I hope to point out is that when we offer program, it’s not just it.
00:58:48 Ha Na
Program is like an island but surrounded by the ocean or even surrounded by the larger context, and every participant senses and notice what which space they are going into. I think the success of the Friendship Kitchen in the newcomers’ perspective, from the newcomers’ perspective, the meaningful success of the Friendship Kitchen or Belonging Dinner or Taste of Home partly comes from the fact that the organizers are newcomers.
00:59:16 Ha Na
Just they could see the reflection of who they are, a little bit, partially or something like that. And they can really relate to the organizer. The organizers also are joyful that they are related to the folks, the same folks or kindred spirit folks or whatever. I think that is really important.
00:59:36 Ha Na
that I introduced myself to the participants and then they know what position I come from or in this white congregation or white space or something like that. Still, they see the difference, something is broken down for them as a really nice thing. So who organizes this is so important and and the surrounding is much more important. So program is not an island. It’s surrounded by, you know what each participant take a sense in where they are coming into.
01:00:05 Fionna
The concept of who gets to set the table and who sets the table and make that space.
01:00:11 Cindy
Well, you’ve shared a lot with us about what you’ve learned and how that learning has influenced the programs that you’ve developed over the years, but I wonder if there’s any lessons you’ve learned from your work that you think would be helpful for other folks who are either doing this work of gathering people together to cook and share and eat together, or any kind of dinner dialogue project. If there’s people who are thinking they’d like to start something like this, or people who are organizing around social justice. Any lessons learned from your work you would like to share that you haven’t already?
01:00:51 Min Goo
So, I don’t think we are doing something entirely new. Humanity have been doing this for a long, long time.
01:01:00 Min Goo
When I was younger, attending university, I didn’t have to have money in order to survive. I could just visit my friends and then we ate together. So there’s a sense that the community holds the shared resource. And I am supported by
01:01:23 Min Goo
the friendship network. And it’s not like one person has it all. So the idea of either Belonging Dinner, or Taste of Home. I’m not doing this because it’s my job. I’m doing this because I believe in people. What I have to share and what it does to me, it changes me. One of the things I I experience is how existing boundaries dissolve right away. When a family from Colombia, they cooked, they invited us to cook our Colombian food, and they set the table and everything. It was so beautiful of family of four. They were the chefs of one session at Taste of Home.
01:02:09 Min Goo
And as as soon as I I did one bite of the fish we cook, it brought me back to my mother-in-law’s kitchen because I was always offered fish every day, and I realized that I was Colombian. Really. I mean, so I told them that I was Colombian and he’s he was so happy.
01:02:39 Min Goo
You know when, like a writers, when they write something that speaks to people from different backgrounds and we can be someone else you know there is no boundary.
01:02:53 Min Goo
Food is a powerful tool that can dissolve all the existing boundaries.
01:03:00 Min Goo
So Ha Na mentioned about equity, so whether it’s we are using art or food or anything else available, there are lots of resources we can use and particularly about food is the sense of smell is in our body. We embody the smell by memory. At both Belonging Dinner or Taste of Home, we rarely use recipes. There is no recipes we have to use our memory and sense of smell
01:03:31 Cindy
One of the things I love is that you just make this happen. And I think it is because, as you’re saying Min-Goo and I think this is true from what I’ve heard from you, Ha Na, is that this “not doing this because it’s a job”,
01:03:46 Cindy
doing this because of the shared humanity, and a belief in what others share and can bring to community. To uphold and build community, that we care for each other, this collective care, and that this is what motivates your work, is really powerful and takes us outside of capitalism, and white supremacy and neoliberalism and all of these, you know, isms that are really about actually breaking down community. And instead, what I see when you think about this embodied self and this moving from the heart and moving from a sense of collective care, it’s powerful. We can all do something today. We don’t have to wait for a grant or an organization or an institution to give us permission to organize or gather around the table to build communities. So that’s what I’m taking away from what you’ve shared.
01:04:50 Fionna
We’re kind of coming to the end of our questions here, but I’m wondering if there’s anything that we have missed or that you would like to talk about.
01:05:01 Min Goo
So I can share just a couple of things: while I’m doing these programs, I also learn the importance of a land based approach, to honor the land and its people and our relationship with one another.
01:05:17 Min Goo
So food is very much political issue as much as it’s a spiritual matter so,
01:05:26 Min Goo
for example, when you go to grocery stores, this tiny little section is called International Food Corner.
01:05:34 Min Goo
What does it say? He says that the majority of the people in Canada use standardized section, that’s the normal thing. While a person like me, who still has to keep the taste of my home can go to tiny little section.
01:05:53 Min Goo
So it comes down to the point who gets to decide? What do this political issue?
01:06:00 Min Goo
So I think land based approach is the way to go, so thankfully at UVic we are now has access to a plot where we can grow our own food. My dream is one day we can harvest, especially culturally appropriate plants, including we call kkaennip (Perilla leaves). I grew up eating those a lot and then we bring them to the kitchen and cook together. That’s the idea. Yeah. That’s I, I want to mention about how the food program continue to evolve.
01:06:38 Fionna
That’s wonderful because we were also going to ask if you had any other projects in mind in the future for both of you. So thank you for bringing that up. Anything else that you want to add? Any other ideas or even blue-sky thinking, things that you’d like to see happen?
01:06:56 Min Goo
Maybe one thing is you can add it, a new addition to Taste of Home because Taste of Home is starting again the season 2, It’s going to have every other Saturday, we’re going to have five sessions, OK, people from diverse culture. We are cooking Thai food, Brazilian, Korean, Mexican on weeks without sessions.
01:07:22 Min Goo
We are going to invite participants to pair up with the volunteers from the church to share our whole meal.
01:07:30 Min Goo
So the place and time can be arranged. It can be a place of Canadian family or it can be a place of newcomers home. So,
01:07:41 Min Goo
I have noticed that inviting people to their home is becoming rare, especially on the West Coast. Maybe prairie people still do that exceptionally well (laughter), but we we are lacking that kind of intimacy on the West Coast. I think a lot of people can agree that we are lonely. Many of us are isolated, you know, in own way. A lot of people feel comfortable in their own bubbles in this part of the world, so we want to break the barrier down.
01:08:19 Fionna
That’s so great to hear. One of the big changes for when I moved here is also growing up. I remember people just going from door to door and anybody could come in at any given time and then when we moved here, people had to call back then there was no cell phone. So we had to call landline to make the appointment. Could we come by at this time?
01:08:38 Fionna
And all of that, those were big, huge changes for myself and my family. So the thing that you said about here on the West Coast, especially how being invited to a home is is a really different thing or culturally very different from the way, maybe not sure about Korea, but definitely where I grew up in Brunei, that kind of more open door policy sometimes it’s it’s just so much more inviting and neither good nor bad about it, just different. So thank you so much, both of you for joining us today. I really, Cindy and I really want to extend our gratitude to you for sharing this super rich conversation.
01:09:17 Fionna
Thank you for taking the time to participate for sharing your experience, your knowledge for all the inspiring work that you’re doing. We’ve got to touch on so many things and I am deeply, deeply honored and the huge gratitude to you both. Thank you so much.
01:09:36 Cindy
That’s it for this week and I look forward to seeing you next time. If you’re enjoying this, you can subscribe at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us at our website aroundthetabledialogues.ca. Around The Table is produced by Cindy Holmes, Fionna Chong and Leslie Williams on the unseeded ancestral and traditional territories of the lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ peoples. Support for Around The Table comes from the University of Victoria, Vancouver Community College. The Sharing Farm Society Podcast editing is provided by New Leonard Media and Music is by Olszewski Kapalanski.
Around the Table 