Where DOES our food come from?

Daejeong, le 20 mars 2021

Students at school are required to do extra curricular activities. Teachers and staff are also required to participate in these activities. Even though I am retired and not part of the staff, I volunteer to coach Bike Club. Every Friday afternoon after school, I take a little over a dozen students on a bike ride. Most of the students at our girls school are city slickers. A vast majority of them come from huge cities like Seoul or Beijing. Also, a majority of them live in residence on campus. The less than ten year old campus is very modern and reproduces some of the city life. Meanwhile, our part of Jeju-do, where this school is situated, is mostly forest and farms.

The Bike Club doesn’t limit itself itself to riding but I won’t bother you here with safety measures or the maintenance of your bike. I like to take the Bike Club girls off campus, on back country roads. The reactions vary. Some of them are nervous and ask: “When are we going back?” Others can’t get enough. And then, I get:

“Wouuuh, what’s that smell?”

“It’s manure” I answer.

“What’s manure?”

“Well, it’s poop that goes on the ground to serve as fertilizer for the crops to grow better”.

“You mean our food grows in this?”

“Yes, see over there the broccoli and on this side of the road, this is garlic.”

“Yak, I will never eat vegetables again!”

Well there you go, I guess you just have to take the shit with the good!

4 thoughts on “Where DOES our food come from?”

  1. I remember talking one time with a girl who loved the skin on Kentucky Fried Chicken until she realized it was actually chicken skin! It’s amazing how disconnected from food sources so many people are.

  2. My husband says people think food magically appears in store shelves, and we live in a large potato growing area of Idaho. Your post makes me long for the bike rides I took as a kid to my relatives’ homes. I love riding those country roads and soaring up and down hills. Thanks for the giggle. If those girls only knew what they eat.

  3. Haha…that’s funny that they had no idea. What are we teaching them?!? 😉 I didn’t know that thee senior school could go off campus for CASE. That’s really neat and good of you to volunteer!

  4. That’s hilarious! I can totally picture that conversation and their response. I’m happy you were involved in a very important educational moment.

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