Kimchi is more than food. Widely recognized as Korea’s national dish, the fermented staple—made of cabbage, radish, garlic, ginger, and chili—appears on tables across the country. Though it is frequently associated with Korean cuisine, the food transcends international boundaries. Produced and consumed worldwide, it moves across borders and production networks, carrying different cultural meanings depending on where and how it is made and sold.
An assistant professor of Korean Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Heangjin Park’s work follows the diaspora of Korean kimchi producers in China. There, kimchi is made at an industrial scale and moves through global trade networks as both a commodity and a cultural object.
“The majority of food we consume daily is mass-produced, industrial commodity,” explained Park. “I want to focus on how food as a commodity is connected to economic value and moves across the global economy.”
In Qingdao, China, where Park has done extensive fieldwork, kimchi production operates at a striking scale. There are more than 60 factories in the city, each producing roughly 30 to 40 tons of kimchi per day. It’s a system built around volume—with food moving through production lines, packaging, and distribution systems that stretch across borders.
“I was interested in how and why Chinese produce particular food products that they don’t eat,” he said.
The main reason? Economics. South Korea’s demand for kimchi is enormous, making it difficult for domestic producers alone to keep up. At the same time, South Korea has limited farmland, which makes it more expensive to grow key ingredients like cabbage and garlic domestically than to source them in China. But importing raw ingredients into South Korea to produce kimchi there runs into high tariffs, while tariffs on finished goods—including kimchi—are not as steep. Combined with lower labor and production costs in China, it becomes more efficient to produce kimchi there than to move raw ingredients across borders and manufacture in South Korea. Yet economics alone doesn’t tell the whole story.
For many producers, kimchi carries significance beyond profit. It can express cultural identity, maintain traditions, and even signal political belonging.
In Qingdao and other industrial hubs, many kimchi factories are run by ethnic Korean communities in China—people who are Chinese citizens but trace language, family ties, and cultural heritage back to Korea. Their position is neither fully Chinese nor fully Korean, but something in between.
That in-between status shows up in how the product moves. When kimchi is exported to South Korea, it is often labeled as “Chinese kimchi,” regardless of how it is made or who produces it. In that context, questions of authenticity shape how it is received. In China, the same producers can more directly draw on their Korean identity, using it as a source of expertise and cultural legitimacy.
“Sometimes on certain occasions, more important than making money, is claiming their political belonging to Korea and China,” Park explained.
These Korean-Chinese producers bring deep knowledge of recipes, fermentation techniques, and flavor profiles passed down through families or communities. That knowledge isn’t abstract—it’s practical: how long to ferment, how to balance seasoning, how to recognize when a batch is “right.” It comes from experience passed down over time. That generational knowledge shapes not only production practices but also the cultural significance of kimchi.
Park also studies how kimchi is represented visually—particularly how it is represented once it enters the market. With a background in photography and film, he spent months helping factories develop product photos and promotional videos.
Through this work, he realized that visual aesthetics are a crucial way to define what Korea is—and what “Korean-ness” means for kimchi abroad. Small decisions, such as packaging, lighting, and composition, shape how kimchi is read in different cultures and contexts.
Park points out how something as simple as background design or lighting choices in product photos can shift whether kimchi feels “traditional,” “modern,” or “authentic” depending on the market it’s being sold into.
“My whole life as an anthropologist was fed by curiosity of other cultures and cultural differences,” Park said.
For Park, that curiosity is what makes it possible to notice how something as ordinary as food can reveal very different ways of living and understanding the world. He hopes students will develop that same openness—whether they are studying kimchi, walking through a local market, or rethinking what food represents in their own lives.
Park plans to bring this research into the classroom when he begins teaching in 2027, with courses on the Korean diaspora, East Asian ethnography, and food in Asia, that will help students connect global cultures to everyday experiences.
Those classes, he explains, will be shaped by his research on food systems like kimchi production, using them as real-world examples of how culture and the economy intersect daily.
Park hopes to expose students to Madison’s unique Asian food scene, which includes Hmong, Lao, and Tibetan communities. He plans to take students to local Asian markets for an “Asian grocery literacy” experience—learning not just what foods are made of, but how they are made, their cultural background, and the contexts in which they are eaten.
For Park, the research always comes back to the same question: how people use food to navigate culture, creativity, and community. Kimchi, in all its forms, is never just something to eat—it offers a way to follow lives, choices, and connections that span kitchens, borders, and generations, revealing the intricate ways food shapes and reflects everyday life.