Free spirit at the dinner table

Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim teaches a lot about how to prepare food.  And she also teaches about dinner table manners and customs.  Great Grandmaster Kim explains that the Korean dinner table is free spirit, and there are all dishes at the table pretty much at the same time.  The table is overflowing with food, and it’s ok to reach across and get what you want, and to fully enjoy it, complete with sound effects.  Here is a picture of a great Korean dinne table:

In contrast, a typical Western dinner, is “tyranny”, Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim says, with a twinkle in her eye.  “You get one thing at a time,”  she explains, “and you cannot reach across and get things you like.  You have a very rigid protocol to follow – hold your utensils a certain way, the table has to be set a certain way, you eat certain foods with specific tools.

While of course Great Grandmaster Kim can easily and flawlessly maneuver her way through the most complicated traditional Western dinner tables , she loves to relax at a country style Korean dinner, sitting at the familiar low tables.

Here is how Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim illustrates this further:

When you are using chopsticks, Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim explains, you have to have harmony to make the chopsticks work, you have to put your body, mind and spirit together, and gently hold the food between the chopsticks.  And talking about chopsticks – here is one of Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim‘s awesome stories – the difference between Heaven and Hell.

Hell:

A bunch of people are sitting around a table, wonderful food is in front of them, it appeals to eyes and nose and is just fantastic.  However, the people have 4 feet long chopsticks they cannot feed themselves and are eternally starving, with a table of great food in front of them.

Heaven:

The same situation exactly.  Except, instead of feeding themselves, they are feeding each other and this works beautifully.  Everyone gets what they want and need and everyone helps the next person.  How wonderful that is!  “Giving is receiving” as Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim always says!