An Oxford student has become an internet sensation in Korea after an image of him eating spicy chicken noodles and then drinking out of a tap to cool the vicious burn went viral, receiving more than 42,000 Facebook likes and tens of thousands more views on one of South Korea’s main portal sites.
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The spicy concoction, known as “buldak bokkeum myeon” in Korean had quite an effect on Barney Parker, 1st year MatSci: “I have never before had food so spicy that it makes my insides hurt,” he says.
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He blames the incident on the “sadism” of his friend, Sung Hyun Park. The Korean PPEist defended himself: “I was hungry and thought I might offer some to Barney to see how he felt. And for the record he had fair warning beforehand.” He went as far as to show text messages which he claimed showed Parker being warned of the dangers.
It is not clear why the image has become such a hit, although Parker’s extensive facial hair may be responsible for part of the amusement. As Sung Hyun Park notes: “We can’t naturally grow beards of that caliber.”
The thousands of Korean commenters on Facebook seem to have backed Parker. “Most of the comments were on how even Koreans have difficulty eating these noodles and how they understand how Barney must have felt,” says Sung Hyun Park. Parker himself went further, alleging that the commenters were critical of the Korean’s “honour” in his dealings with his friend.
