Teaching How to Make Chapjae (잡채)

As it turns out, you really can get Italians to fall in love with Korean food.

Chapjae (잡채) is one of the most common dishes to be served at the holidays. Chap (잡) means "to mix" and Jae (채) means "vegetables". It was first created during the Josun Dynasty (somewhere between 1608~1623) supposedly when a servant of the king made the dish of mixed vegetables to please the king. In later centuries the noodles (sweet potato noodles) were added to the dish. Now, there are several kinds of chapjae.

Tonight, I taught my half-Italian roommate how to create such a wonderful and tasty dish. "It's actually very simple...," I said, "Just boil the noodles and then fry them in soy sauce and sesame oil. Then mix in the vegetables (carrots, onions, cucumbers, maybe meat, peppers). Then add some sesame seeds. DONE!" He did an excellent job. . . and our other roommate wanted some as well!

I originally learned how to make Chapjae from a former Korean companion. In this teaching experience, however, I realized that I found a lot of joy out of sharing something so interesting to me with someone who also liked learning something new. It makes me think that the attitude of the learner makes a big difference in the obtaining and teaching of knowledge. If my roommate didn't care so much to learn, he may not have cared what I said. But, because he thought it was fun (or maybe he was just hungry. . .) it was a lot more fun.

How many times do we sit and listen to someone teach us something when we really do not have much interest in what they are saying? It's the same in the gospel, right? If you don't put forth the effort, then there is no increase in knowledge---just no movement. Especially for me, as the teacher, the attitude of my roommate helped me feel more willing to teach and share what I knew. It seems as though with sophic, the sharing of the knowledge is done based solely on a self-promotional premise. Like Hugh Nibley said, the whole idea of going to school and receiving "an education" is not correct. We go throughout life adding to our education. What we learn and to what extent we learn it depends mainly on our attitude.