Hotpots

Hotpots

On average, a typical Kent four-year Korean gets a minimum of six working hours from hotpots and water heaters that teachers take away. All that we desire is to be able to cook a stew or noodles, or even getting boiling water for a cup noodle, or even hot cocoa, but it gets hindered by constant teachers who barrage in and take the appliances away for “being against safety codes”. Once in a while, where the dining hall food is unbearable (by the way, which is far too many times a week) and they decide to offer Beef & Broccoli Stir Fry or something that takes way too much effort to force down one’s throat, we decide to go back to our rooms and eat the spicy noodles as a remembrance of home, or cook up a stew. However, we always have to make sure the windows are open so we can ventilate the entire room, and that the door is locked, in order to keep teachers out. Every time we hear someone walk past the room outside, we have to hold our breathes and hope that it is not a teacher who smelled something that was not the “chicken with Harold’s secret sauce” and decided that they wanted to give us hours to work on the various labor-like chores the school provides for us.

There are many things we can cook in our hotpots if they are not taken away. We can cook kimchi stew and eat a nice meal with hot rice and some side dishes like vegetables. We can cook jjapagetti, shin ramen, nuguree, and all kinds of different noodles and dishes. We can even grill meat and make stir-fried vegetables. Why the policies are that it has to be regarded as a potential fire hazard and has to be taken away is beyond my understanding.

The matter all “boils” down to the question of if the hotpots are such a dangerous fire hazard that have such a high tendency to burn down the entire dorm and has to be taken away immediately. Out of my 4 years at Kent, there was not a single report I heard of a hotpot causing even the smallest fire, but Kent always seems to be preoccupied in taking away the single pleasurable meals out of the week we eat to bear with the food in the dining hall. As a result, we have to constantly order and buy more hotpots when we get ours taken away, in order to eat the meals that allow us to divulge in the unique, spicy taste of Korea.