About HanStoryPages
Welcome to HanStoryPages
HanStoryPages is a place to discover Korean food, culture, and the stories behind everyday life in Korea.
The “Han” in HanStoryPages comes from Han (韓), meaning Korea. “Pages” reflects the idea of opening a book about Korea, one page at a time.
Korea has countless stories. Every dish, every place, every tradition, every scene, and every part of everyday life can become another page that tells us something about Korea.
That idea is captured in the HanStoryPages slogan:
Discover Korea, One Story at a Time.
If you are new to Korean food, you may have many questions. Why are there so many side dishes on a Korean table? Why do Koreans eat seaweed soup on birthdays? Why do Koreans use both a spoon and chopsticks? And what do Koreans actually eat at home?
HanStoryPages goes beyond simply introducing the names of Korean dishes or explaining how they are prepared. I want to share how Koreans actually eat, why we eat the way we do, and the culture and stories behind our food and dining traditions in a way that is easy and enjoyable to understand.
The first pages of HanStoryPages began with Korean food and dining culture, and the stories are now expanding into the everyday food we actually cook and eat at home.
The Story Behind HanStoryPages
I was born and raised in Korea, where I spent more than 50 years of my life. I grew up there, got married, built my career, and experienced Korean food and dining culture as part of everyday life. About five years ago, I moved to the United States, where I now live.
Living outside Korea gave me a new perspective on things I had once taken for granted. Foods and dining customs that felt completely ordinary to me in Korea could be new, interesting, and sometimes puzzling to people experiencing Korean food for the first time.
I realized that people may be curious not only about what a Korean dish is or what it tastes like, but also why Koreans eat it, how we eat it, and what cultural stories are connected to it.
That is why I created HanStoryPages—to share the Korean food and dining culture I have experienced throughout my life with people who are discovering Korean food for the first time.
Many of the stories here come from my own experiences: meals with my family at home, dining with friends and coworkers, and the everyday food traditions I naturally encountered while living in Korea.
As HanStoryPages grows, those personal experiences are becoming even more visible. In Our Korean Home Kitchen, for example, we share dishes my wife actually prepares at home, the way we make and eat them, and photographs I have taken of the food we actually enjoyed together.
Of course, my experiences do not represent every Korean person or family. Food preferences and dining habits can vary by region, generation, family, and individual. I hope you will see my personal experiences as one real-life perspective on Korean food culture and everyday Korean life.
Korean Food & Culture
Korean Food & Culture is one of the main parts of HanStoryPages.
The motto for this section is:
Every Korean Dish Tells a Story.
Korean food is often about more than ingredients and recipes.
Some foods are connected to particular seasons. Others are associated with birthdays, holidays, or special occasions. Some bring back memories of family meals, while the ways people eat and share food can reveal something about everyday life and culture in Korea.
That is why HanStoryPages is interested not only in “How is this made?” but also in “Why do Koreans eat this way?”
The goal of Korean Food & Culture is to help people who are new to Korean food understand not only the food itself, but also the everyday life and culture behind it.
Our Korean Home Kitchen
Our Korean Home Kitchen brings the stories even closer to our own table.
This is where we share the food my wife actually cooks at home and that we eat together. Some are Korean dishes and banchan, while others may be pasta, curry, or fusion dishes influenced by different food cultures.
These are not meant to be professional restaurant recipes or the only “correct” way to prepare a dish. They are simply the way we cook and enjoy food at home. Whenever helpful, we also share ingredients, simple preparation methods, substitutions, and small ideas that make everyday cooking easier and more enjoyable.
Through these dishes, we hope to offer a small window into everyday life in a Korean home—not only what Koreans traditionally eat, but what one Korean household actually cooks and enjoys today.
About the Stories and Images
The stories on HanStoryPages are based on Korean food culture, research and explanation, and my own experiences from living in Korea for more than 50 years and now living abroad. Personal experiences from our family life and everyday meals are also an important part of the site.
The images vary depending on the type of story. In Our Korean Home Kitchen, we use photographs of dishes that my wife actually prepared at home, including photos I have taken of meals we made and ate ourselves.
For other articles, particularly when an image is used to help explain a dish, dining custom, or cultural idea, we may create original illustrative images with the help of AI rather than taking photographs from other websites. These AI-assisted images are used as visual references and may differ in some details from the actual appearance of a particular dish, restaurant, or place.
Whether a story uses our own photographs or an AI-assisted illustration, the goal of the image is the same: to support the story and help readers better understand the food, culture, and everyday life being described.
Where HanStoryPages Is Going
With Korean Food & Culture and Our Korean Home Kitchen, HanStoryPages is beginning to show Korea from both a cultural and an everyday-life perspective.
There are still more pages I hope to add in the future.
One area I would like to explore is Korean dramas and the food that appears in them. Rather than simply reviewing dramas, I want to look at the dishes shown on screen, when and how Koreans actually eat them, and what those scenes can tell us about Korean food, everyday life, and culture.
Over time, travel, traditions, places, culture, and other parts of everyday Korean life may also become new pages in the HanStoryPages collection.
The subjects may be different, but they all come back to the same idea:
Discover Korea, One Story at a Time.
Turn the Next Page with HanStoryPages
Korea has countless stories—in its food, people and families, places and seasons, traditions, and modern everyday life.
Rather than trying to tell them all at once, HanStoryPages hopes to unfold those stories one page at a time.
Some pages explain the food and traditions that have shaped Korean culture. Others come directly from our own kitchen and everyday life. And in the future, new pages will take the story beyond food.
Every Korean Dish Tells a Story will continue to express the idea behind our Korean Food & Culture stories.
And the larger journey of HanStoryPages continues with:
Discover Korea, One Story at a Time.