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| An Yu-jeong, who hails from Thailand, poses with Thai pepper plants at the Sawadi Farm in Taean, South Chungcheong Province. / Courtesy of An Yu-jeong |
By Yi Whan-woo
The life of Thai resident An Yu-jeong shows how one woman's craving for food from back home can lead to a business venture that creates awareness in Korea of a diverse range of Thai vegetables.
An from Thailand, 52, whose Thai name is Wattirek Niyomporn, married a Korean man and moved to Taean, South Chungcheong Province, in 2000.
With no nearby markets selling Southeast Asian vegetables, after nine years in Taean, she got seeds from a Thai neighbor and began to grow the vegetables on her own.
"It did not work out well in the beginning," An told The Korea Times on the phone recently, adding she had no farming experience at all when she lived in Thailand's central province of Saraburi.
"I was too naive to think weather during summer season in Korea would be similar to that of Thailand and that the vegetables would grow just fine."
After some trial and error, she was able to harvest the vegetables. The amount produced, according to An, soon became "more than what I needed" and this was when she thought of opening a Thai farm in Korea.
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| An Yu-jeong, from Thailand, poses before the Thai vegetables she grows inside a greenhouse located on Sawadi Farm in Taean, South Chungcheong Province. / Courtesy of An Yu-jeong |
So she started the Sawadi Farm, named after the Thai word for "hello."
Among the major vegetables she grows are peppers, eggplants, lemongrass, morning glory, kalian, rau ram and choy sum. All of them are available from spring to fall, while some are even harvested in winter.
Asked how her farm has helped Koreans become familiar with Southeast Asian vegetables and food, she humbly noted other women in Korea from Laos, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries run similar farms and that she "did nothing much."
However, she also noted that people keep calling her or contacting her on social media to see if they can buy her vegetables.
"Some of them are interested in cooking Thai dishes," An said.
Taking this into account, the Sawadi Farm also offers various programs to help visitors experience Thai culture.
The programs include gardening and cooking classes for pad thai and other Thai noodles and making handcraft toys and musical instruments.
"The farm is open for all of you to come," An said.
All her vegetables are grown without the use of pesticides and An plans to acquire a government-certified organic label and export them.
"My Korean language skills are not quite good enough for me to pass the test to get the label. But hopefully I will pass so that I can export Thai agricultural products harvested in Korea," she said.
She especially attributed her achievement to her father-in-law, saying, "He taught me everything about farming."
She added, "Farming has become my life as well as my dream. This would not have been possible without my father-in-law who encouraged me when I did a good job and overlooked it when I made mistakes."
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