226: Soju (with Dr. Hyunhee Park)

Spirits: Mythology, Legends, & Folklore

Multitude

Myths, Folklore, Society & Culture, Alcohol, Legends, Learning, Urbanlegends, Mythology, Comedy, History, Education, Gods, Educational, Drunkhistory

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We talk a lot about the ghost type of spirits on the show, but what about the liquor kind of spirits? We’re joined by Dr. Hyunhee Park to talk about the global history of the distinctive Korean drink: Soju. Hint: It all comes back to the Mongols.

Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of colonialism, conquest and war, disease/illness, and wealth disparity.

Guest

Hyunhee Park is an Associate Professor of History at the City University of New York, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and CUNY Graduate Center and author of Soju: A Global History. A native of South Korea, she received her BA in Asian and Western history at Seoul National University in 1997, her MA in East Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2003, and her Ph.D. in history at Yale University in 2008. She specializes in the history of cross-cultural contacts in East Asia, Islamic World, the Mongol Empire, and global intellectual history focusing on information/knowledge transfers including geographical knowledge, foodways, and distillation.

Housekeeping

- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders.

- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books

- Call to Action: Check out our merch at spiritspodcast.com/merch, including the expansion for our coloring book!

Sponsors

- Doordash is a fast, convenient food delivery app. Get 25% off and zero delivery fees on your first order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter code creepycool.

- Skillshare is an online learning community where you can learn—and teach—just about anything. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com/spirits and get a two week free trial of Premium Membership. This week Julia recommends

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Find Us Online

If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. You can support us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/spiritspodcast) to unlock bonus Your Urban Legends episodes, director’s commentaries, custom recipe cards, and so much more. We also have lists of our book recommendations and previous guests’ books at http://spiritspodcast.com/books.

Transcripts are available at http://spiritspodcast.com/episodes. To buy merch, hear us on other podcasts, contact us, find our mailing address, or download our press kit, head on over to http://spiritspodcast.com.

About Us

Spirits was created by Julia Schifini, Amanda McLoughlin and Eric Schneider. We are founding members of Multitude, an independent podcast collective and production studio. Our music is "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore.
0:04.2	Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world.
0:07.5	I'm Julia, Amanda's off today, and this is episode 226,
0:11.4	Soju, with Dr. Honey Park.
0:13.7	I am just so thrilled that we were able to get Dr. Park on the show.
0:17.1	It's not often that we talk about the, like, alcoholic spirits portion of spirits,
0:21.9	so to learn about Soju and to learn about the history of it and some of the mythological ties to it
0:27.6	was such a fun conversation to have.
0:30.1	Other fun conversations that I can imagine having would be with our new patrons,
0:34.9	Olivia, Amaraya, Nicole, Woodwich, Danielle,
0:38.7	Kaylee, Brian, Julie, and Mackenzie. Welcome.
0:42.4	Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. We couldn't make the show without you.
0:46.4	We are so grateful that you choose to give us a little bit of your hard-earned dollars
0:51.1	every episode so that you can make the show possible.
0:54.8	And thank you to our supporting producer, Level Patrons,
0:58.3	Alicia, Alison, Deborah, Hannah, Jane, Jessica, Kinzer, Jessica Stewart,
1:02.9	Justin, Keegan, Nezelkins, Liz, Megan Linger, Megan Moon,
1:06.6	Philfresh, Polly, Sarah, Sana, Scott, Skyla, and Zazzie.
1:10.8	And to our legend, Level Patrons,
1:13.7	Audra, Drew, Jack Marie, Key, Lada, Mark, Morgan, Nekro Royalty,
1:18.8	Samny Todd, and BME Episcotti.
1:20.8	It is such a delight to see all of your names every week on the show and know,
	...

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