Pyongyang Naengmyeon, My Own Noodle Road

My grandparents were born in the part of Korean Peninsula that’s now North Korea.

When the Korean War broke out, my grandfather made it to the South first. My grandmother escaped a few months later with my father, barely a year old, tied to her back. They travelled only at night.

One night, she and a group of refugees heard North Korean soldiers approaching. It was a full moon. Everyone dropped to the ground and held their breath. Looking up at the moon, my father let out a gasp of delight.

My grandmother quickly swished my dad around and held him tight to her chest. If he made another sound, they would all be dead.

They held their breath and waited until the soldiers had passed.

Years later, my grandmother told my father, who later told us, that she was afraid to look down because she thought she had suffocated her own child. She hadn’t.

Once she reached South Korea, there was another problem. She had no way of finding my grandfather. No phone. No address. No idea where he was.

In Seoul, there was a public message board where separated families left handwritten notes, hoping to reunite with their lost loved ones. My grandfather went there every day, leaving messages in case she arrived.

One day, she did. That’s how my grandparents found each other again.

After we returned to Seoul following several years in the UK, my father would take us to Woo Lae Oak almost every month for Pyongyang naengmyeon and bulgogi. My brother and I grew up on the very food my grandparents had been forced to leave behind.

Then one day, quite recently in fact. I found out that Pyongyang naengmyeon was now cool and trendy. People debated the “right” way to eat it. They talked about acquiring a taste for it. In fact, all of a sudden, you weren’t a serious foodie if you weren’t into Pyongyang naengmyeon.

We still gather over Pyongyang dishes today. The restaurants may have changed, but our connection to them hasn’t.

My grandparents and me. Seoul, sometime in the 1970s.

My grandparents I grew up knowing. California, sometime in the 80s