One of the most widely eaten dishes in Korea began on this hill. And the people who made it had crossed a sea.
A settlement across the water
After Incheon port opened in 1883, Chinese settlers began living on the slopes of Eungbongsan in Seollin-dong, today’s Chinatown Fact. As trade between Joseon and Qing flourished, Chinese restaurants appeared Fact, and the meals of people moving between dock work and trade became the demand of these alleys Estimate. The Qing concession of Ep.2 is the institutional background of this layer.
The inn of 1908
Gonghwachun was not a restaurant at first. When founded in 1908 it was Shandong Hall, a Chinese inn, established with capital from a twenty-two-year-old from Shandong named U Hui-gwang and co-investors Fact. Then in 1911 it was renamed Gonghwachun — spring of the republic — to mark the Xinhai Revolution Fact. A revolution in the migrants’ homeland was inscribed in a shop sign.
The moment it got a name
Gonghwachun is known as the first place in Korea to sell jjajangmyeon under that name Fact. What matters is that this was not a simple transplant of a Chinese dish. Adapted to Korean taste with sweet caramel added and the moisture kept moderate Fact, it became something unlike the original and unlike anything elsewhere Estimate. That is the classic path of a migrant food.
What you see now
The old Gonghwachun building is now the Jjajangmyeon Museum Fact. The red signs of Chinatown are today’s tourist scenery, but underneath lies more than a century of settlement by people who crossed the sea with the opening of the port Estimate. That is why a bowl of jjajangmyeon carries different weight in this district.