It started with a bottle of Worcestershire sauce.
Someone mentioned they’d just finished theirs.. and for reasons I can’t fully explain, it yanked me straight down a rabbit hole. Suddenly, I was back in a Korean kindergarten, the air heavy with the sharp, tangy smell of kimchi.
Funny, really. Worcestershire sauce and kimchi aren’t so different. Both start off confronting, even revolting. Both need time. Back in the 1830s, two chemists in Worcester, England, John Wheeley Lea and William Perrins, tried to recreate an Indian sauce. Their first batch was an abomination. Overpowering. Fishy. Completely inedible. So they shoved it in the cellar and forgot it. Eighteen months later, it came back transformed: rich, complex, addictive. A forgotten mess became a global sensation.
That memory, pungent and strange, carried me straight to the kindergarten classroom. Not the bright lights of Seoul, but the small chaos of four and five year-olds: sticky hands, beaming smiles, and the infamous kimchi kisses. For a chilli-allergic Aussie, it was an assault on the senses... but somehow, it was worth it.
Turns out, sometimes the things that hit you hardest at first… just need time.
Talk about culture shock. And outside my apartment, my neighbours had kimchi pots. The smell was rather pungent.
I became accustomed to the smell, though I never enjoyed it or ate it. I was, after all, in their country and I adapted to my new home.
Every morning, my students greeted me with unfiltered joy - sticky hands, beaming smiles, and those infamous kimchi kisses. Little lips planted firmly on cheeks carried the full force of fermented cabbage and childhood affection.
I endured it all because, somehow, those kids made it worth it.
My quiet revenge?
Vegemite on toast.
Not the thick, warlike smear that would have scarred them for life - no, I was kinder than that. Just gentle dabs on warm, buttery toasted bread. Enough to introduce Australia’s salty, yeasty national treasure without triggering an international incident.
The reactions were priceless - wrinkled noses, dramatic grimaces, the universal what fresh hell is this? face.
Not a single child came back for seconds.
But they kept coming back for hugs.
The bond held.
Among them all, one little boy stands out like a beacon: Hugo.
Hugo was four years old and already a force of nature. My honourary Aussie larrikin - cheeky, bold, utterly himself. He had no time for compromise.
One afternoon, I tried reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff, building suspense with the troll under the bridge.
Hugo wasn’t interested.
Arms crossed, he delivered his verdict with the authority of a tiny king:
“Cat in the Hat.”
When polite insistence failed, he escalated.
He grabbed the craft scissors - blunt, thank goodness - and made his point.
He stabbed me. Not hard, but clear.
Billy Goats Gruff was not for Hugo.
The classroom had CCTV - standard in Korean hagwons. The director reviewed the footage, parents were summoned, and poor Hugo was made to perform a full formal apology: a deep kow tow, eyes down, saying sorry to the foreign teacher he’d just “assaulted” over literature. I can still see him prostate on the ground in front of me .... at four years old.
I found the whole thing mortifying. He was just a kid with strong opinions about chaotic cats in striped hats.
From that day on, The Cat in the Hat became a classroom staple.
Hugo won.
But he wasn’t just a literary rebel - he was a master of observation. He’d grab his favourite toy car, sling one arm out the imaginary window like his dad, reverse carefully, and answer his toy phone in a serious little voice:
“Yoboseyo.” My spelling is wrong but bugger it... I am an Aussie....
That sing-song Korean “hullo?” echoed through the room as he went about his business, utterly absorbed. A perfect miniature of the adult world.
One minute a fierce defender of Dr. Seuss, the next a tiny commuter navigating invisible traffic.
Hugo would be in his early 30s now.
I like to think he’s somewhere in Seoul traffic, one arm resting out the window, answering a call without thinking - “Yoboseyo” - still carrying that same larrikin spark.
That classroom was a messy, beautiful collision of cultures. Worcestershire sauce - born from a forgotten, foul-smelling experiment - felt like a distant cousin to the kimchi fermenting in every home.
Both start sharp. Confronting. Even off-putting. Both need time. Vegemite fits right in.
Another acquired taste. Another thing the world resists - until it doesn’t.
I never really learned to love kimchi. But I loved those kids.
Their energy. Their affection. Their small rebellions. They taught me patience, resilience, and how to laugh at myself when a four-year-old wins an argument with scissors.
Years later, that last drop of Worcestershire brought it all rushing back - the smells, the kisses, the gentle dabs, the echo of “Yoboseyo” in a room full of tiny lives just beginning.
They’re grown now, living lives I’ll never fully know.
But in my mind, they’re still there - small, chaotic, and endlessly lovable.
They grow up fast.
The memories don’t.
And Hugo - wherever you are, mate ... thanks for the larrikin spirit.
You made the job worth every kimchi kiss.
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