Onggi and Autumn Memories

Crowned with fallen ginkgo leaves, gold scattered across clay. Time resting on time.

These tall brown earthenware jars are called onggi, the traditional clay vessels used to ferment kimchi, doenjang, gochujang, and ganjang. For centuries, they sat in courtyards and behind hanok kitchens, breathing slowly with the seasons. The clay is porous. It allows air to move in and out. Fermentation isn’t rushed; it is trusted.

There is something deeply Korean about this image. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just steady. The jars stand together like elders — weathered, slightly uneven, imperfect in the best way. They have endured summers of humidity and winters of frost. They have held spice and salt and waiting.

Fermentation is faith.

You bury cabbage in pepper and garlic and brine, and you trust that in darkness, something good is happening.

The leaves tell us it is late in the year. The air would smell faintly of earth and dryness. Somewhere nearby, perhaps someone is sealing lids, pressing down cabbage, or lifting one jar just enough to check how the kimchi is doing.

In a country that modernized at breathtaking speed — apartment towers replacing courtyards, stainless steel replacing clay — these jars still speak of continuity. Of patience. Of food as inheritance.

They remind us that not everything needs to be fast.

Some things must sit.

Some things must change slowly.

Some flavors only come with time.

And maybe that’s true of us, too.