Traveler's Memoirs

The tangerines in Korea are amazing. I don’t know what it is, but even when I was there in the winter, they were somehow still in season. Either that, or the ones in the summer are even better, which I can’t even imagine.

In the Anam district of Seoul, not a whole lot of people speak English. Aside from the international students at the university, like myself. Everything is pretty much exclusively in Korean. Yet, I still somehow managed to purchase a few tangerines from a local man who spoke no English and would park his truck on the same street in Anam every day. He was older, and stayed there all day, collecting cash. Sometimes, it would get late, and we would find him sleeping in the back of the truck. But he would abruptly get up to sell us tangerines.

I would hold up one finger, signifying that I wanted one pack of the fruit. He understood and figured out a way to tell me that it would cost 2,000 South Korean Won, which is a little less than two United States Dollars.

I would pay and take my bushel of tangerines, maybe unwrapping one to eat on my climb back up one of Seoul’s steep hills to my dorm. It was juicy and sweet and just the perfect amount of citrus and sugar. That was one of the beautiful things about Korea.

During my trip, I went with three friends to Jeju Island, an island off the southern coast of Korea. Jeju is known for its tangerines, like Atlanta is known for its peaches. But Jeju is more proud of this trait than Atlanta. I find it hard to come across an actual peach tree when driving through Atlanta, but Jeju’s roads are lined with tangerine trees. Every stop, every tourist destination is themed around them. People will wear orange, and they’ll have tangerine shaped hats. A lot of Jeju Island merchandise is themed around them. I bought a tangerine T-shirt and a tangerine tote bag. And one

of the many tangerine vendors on the island gave us all free tangerines after coming back from sightseeing at a waterfall at one of the beautiful beaches.

On that very beach, we bought some fresh seafood from a few women, speaking in Jeju dialect, or the accent of the island. They had literally just fished it out of the water. I took my chopsticks and prepared to eat the freshest fish I had ever had. Even though I knew it probably wouldn’t taste too great. But one of the fish, a conch, looked like a tangerine.

It certainly didn’t taste like one, but made me crave one. So I was overjoyed when the vendor near the beach handed us free fruits.

Tangerines are a part of Jeju Island’s culture, and Koreans seem to associate them with the place. In fact, Seungkwan, a member of popular South Korean boy band, Seventeen, is from Jeju, and fans often nickname him with the fruit and associate it with him, simply because he grew up there.

But I noticed the tangerines I bought out of the back of that truck in Seoul were delicious, too. Maybe not to the extent of the ones in Jeju, but still amazing. Better than any I could find in America. Even though Jeju is known for tangerines, to an American like me, they’re delicious all over Korea.

Since I got back to the United States, I have still been enjoying tangerines with my family. Even though they’re not Korea’s perfect tangerines, they’re still delicious and I can’t stop snacking on them, especially as summer comes. They’re the perfect summer fruit.

It’s something so simple, but it just makes us a little more connected I think. Going to Korea made me realize even more that all of us humans are so much more connected than we think. So when I do something as simple as eating a tangerine, I think of Korea and the many people enjoying them there in Seoul and Jeju Island, where they’re so famous. So this summer, grab a tangerine or a few at the grocery store. It’s just a fruit, but I promise you’re not the only one enjoying one this summer. There are people across the world celebrating their culture with this simple fruit. And we can all be more connected by sharing a snack from 6,000 miles away.