Through artful food and daily prayers, the lessons learned from a week with the venerable Korean nun have left an indelible impression
When I arrived at the Chunjinam hermitage, Jeong Kwan seunim was outside her house bustling around, lining up the shoes left in front of her terrace. “Good morning!” she yelled out brightly in English, then laughed at herself speaking a foreign language.
Wrapped in grey robes and almost a head shorter than me, she led me and another guest by the arm up a set of stone steps to the main temple. “Pay your respects and then let’s go downstairs and have breakfast,” she said familiarly, switching to Korean.
After we completed our set of prostrations in the temple, she led us again past her house, down a set of stairs into a prep kitchen, then back outside to go further down the hill to a new annex. We finally arrived at her main kitchen, which is a combination of a large modern cooking studio and a separate, more traditional room with blush-coloured walls and antiques.
In her kitchen for the first time, I was swept immediately into the warmth and bustle of a morning at Chunjinam. A man was stirring a pot of soup on the new stove while another nun with shaven head peeled nashi pears. A young woman popped her head in the door and asked if she should call the professor to breakfast. I stood still in the middle of the morning whirlwind staring at row upon row of shelves stacked with vintage Korean dishes and boxes. I was in Jeong Kwan’s kitchen. I tried not to pass out.