Ancient Korean Wisdom for Modern Wellness with Michelle Jungmin Bang [Episode #971]
This Weekâs Episode:
In this engaging conversation, Kimberly Snyder interviews Michelle Jungmin Bang, an eco entrepreneur and author of âSun and Ssukgat: The Korean Art of Self-Care, Wellness & Longevity. They explore the rich traditions of Korean wellness, the importance of self-care, and the balance between modern beauty standards and traditional practices. Michelle shares her insights on mindful eating, the significance of gratitude, and how she teaches her children about their cultural heritage. The discussion emphasizes the value of resilience through tradition in a fast-paced modern world. In this conversation, Michelle shares her insights on Korean wellness practices, emphasizing the importance of using whole plants for nutrition and the cultural significance of self-care. She discusses the concept of âSsukgatâ and its health benefits, the role of nutrition in building resilience, and how to incorporate Korean wisdom into everyday life. Michelle also highlights the importance of postpartum recovery in Korean culture and the need to preserve traditional knowledge in modern times. The conversation concludes with a focus on the healing properties of traditional ingredients like ginseng and the use of natural products in skincare.
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About Michelle Jungmin Bang
Michelle Jungmin Bang is an award-winning eco-entrepreneur and Harvard Business School graduate who spent 16 years living in Asia as a Korean-American from New York City. She is the author of Sun and Ssukgat: The Korean Art of Self-Care, Wellness & Longevity., a wellness guide covering her research, interviews, and personal eco-conscious journey in uncovering centuries-old well-being traditions from her time in Asia and Korea, where scientists project its people will top longevity charts in 2030. She is passionate about driving social impact and serves as a board director and founding member of various mission-driven organizations including GrowNYC which is an environmental nonprofit with a mission to empower all New Yorkers with equitable access to fresh, locally grown food, neighborhood green spaces, opportunities to reduce waste, and care for the environment. Michelle is also the co-founder and founding CEO of The R Collective (formerly BYT), a sustainable fashion brand that creates affordable luxury pieces out of high-end materials that would otherwise have been disposed of in a landfill.
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Guest Resources
Book: SUN & SSUKGAT: The Korean Art of Self-Care, Wellness & Longevity
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Episode Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Michelle Junbing Bang and Her Work
03:01 Cultural Insights: The Korean Art of Self-Care
05:58 The Dichotomy of Traditional and Modern Beauty Standards
09:04 The Importance of Mindful Eating and Temple Food
12:04 Gratitude and Its Role in Self-Care Practices
15:03 Teaching Children About Wellness and Heritage
18:01 Resilience Through Tradition in Modern Times
24:12 The Significance of Sucut in Wellness
27:03 Building Resilience Through Nutrition and Terrain
29:31 Incorporating Korean Wisdom in Everyday Life
34:36 Korean Wisdom for Mothers and Postpartum Recovery
39:09 Preserving Cultural Wisdom in Modern Times
41:07 The Healing Power of Traditional Ingredients
43:55 Natural Ingredients for Skincare and Wellness
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Transcript:
Kimberly Snyder (00:00.984)
Hi everyone and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited for our very special guest. Here with us today, her name is Michelle Junbing Bang and she is an award winning eco entrepreneur, a Harvard Business School graduate. She has been living in Asia part of the time for over 16 years where she continues to, to this day, she splits time between Manhattan and Asia, one of my favorite places in the world.
And she has a new book out called Sun and Sukat, the Korean art of self-care, wellness and longevity. She is also a fellow mama of two. Michelle, welcome to our Feel Good Show. Thank you so much for being here with us today.
Michelle (00:46.441)
Thank you so much for having me. Iâm honored to be here. I love your work.
Kimberly Snyder (00:51.118)
Thank you so much. And I have to say that when your book came across my desk, I was really excited because I actually was able to spend time in Korea some years ago. I was there for about three and a half weeks and it was really impactful for me. I loved the depth of the culture. I loved visiting and learning about the history.
Michelle (01:02.014)
Amazing.
Michelle (01:07.122)
Okay.
Kimberly Snyder (01:17.376)
I loved, you there was so much around beauty. There was so much around wellness. I mean, it really is. Thereâs so much depth that we can all learn from, I feel like, in Korean wellness. So thank you for writing this book and bringing it to the forefront.
Michelle (01:33.823)
Yeah, itâs such a pleasure to be here. mean, so just to add, I have also been trained in functional foods. So that was sort of part of my journey as well, just kind of the firsthand research, but also really formalizing that training and kind of extending that to healthy aging and mother-baby care, which is very important to me as a mother.
Kimberly Snyder (01:43.022)
Mm.
Michelle (01:55.967)
But the other thing too is that my fatherâs a doctor who is trained in Korea. So I very much grew up in a world of East-West medicine. So itâs a very different approach than Western medicine because it integrates holistic practices. growing up as a child, kind of seeing him, using things that were deeply embedded in our Korean culture like
Kimberly Snyder (02:16.726)
Yes.
Michelle (02:23.41)
holistic measures, using recovery foods for injuries, for surgeries, for pregnancies, and this is very much a normal part of the way we grow up. I just didnât sort of connect the dots until later when I started researching and learning more about it. The other thing too is that later I married into a traditional Chinese family, which theyâŚ
completely embodied this whole, you the traditional wisdom that was passed down generationally. So it just, the book encapsulates all of that, including, you know, my travels across Asia. So it was just really interesting. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, so Iâm very much a, you know, sort of a East West person.
Kimberly Snyder (03:01.772)
Okay. Yeah. So you span both worlds. And you know, itâs interesting, Michelle, Iâll share that my motherâs from the Philippines and she came over in her early twenties with a educational scholarship. And so how I grew up as well, she wasnât a physician and neither was my grandmother, but there was a lot of very holistic teas and soups and stews and practices. And when we werenât feeling well, my grandma wouldâŚ
whether always saying, know, put warm water on your head and, you know, warm your hair and, you know, do this and do that. So I also grew up with this, different approach to wellness, which wasnât just, you know, run and take the Tylenol or the medicine, but really using a lot of these just different modalities, which have been passed down for centuries. And thereâs so much wisdom. And also later in life studying Ayurvedic medicine, which as you know, comes from, you know, ancient India.
and see, wow, there is now so much thatâs being studied formally in Western medicine, but came from our ancestors wisdom and is so needed in the modern world. And I remember going to Korea and going to a lot of the, you know, the spas and doing some of the infrared saunas and just the level of self care and how this was really a part of.
society. wasnât just a once in a while. And sometimes in the spas there was families and it was multi-generational and people would be in there for long periods of time and they would roll out the mats. And so I love how embedded these ideas are instead of being fringe or again sort of auxiliary to the culture.
Michelle (04:44.959)
Absolutely, you what youâre talking about is the traditional bathhouse culture. Itâs called the gym. And you know having spent so much time in Asia Iâve been to sort of the best luxury spas, know, just things that are so exotic, you know with peacocks running around but you know what really fascinated me was that
Kimberly Snyder (04:50.285)
Yes.
Michelle (05:04.028)
This is like what you said, itâs so embedded in the culture, itâs normalized, and itâs actually very family oriented. So you are going in as a child with your grandmother, youâre going there and youâre starting to start seeing how to self care. I mean, youâre building the toolbox to figure out how to take care of yourself. For me, of looking back at that, because I had these experiences as a child and I kind ofâŚ
really dismissed it because I was living in the US and just wanted to become Americanized, be part of the culture here. And then just sort of thinking back and realizing how this is part of why they were living so long. And whatâs interesting about the traditional bath houses is that just for a few dollars, and people, itâs so budget friendly that people do this every day.
Kimberly Snyder (05:39.264)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (05:58.541)
Yeah.
Michelle (05:58.751)
they can stay there for 24 hours. know, people go on dates to go there. You know, it is so normalized. And you know, they have these like, yeah, itâs great. Yeah, so they have these heated floors and theyâre just all sort of like lying down on the heated floors, you know, after going to the cold waters and you know, trying different things and it just becomes kind of like a really fun experimentation. Itâs all really great for your body too. So.
Kimberly Snyder (06:08.724)
hang out. Yeah, itâs comfortable.
Kimberly Snyder (06:28.8)
Yes. So Michelle, have to, you when I was there, was this really interesting dichotomy where I go to the bath houses and thereâd be this, you know, and thereâs the womenâs section and the menâs section and the women would be very, I was like, like confident, like you kind of go in, youâre naked. There was just this sort of like self-acceptance and this confidence I felt. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. And then on the other hand, when I was traveling in Korea,
Michelle (06:28.862)
Yeah, that was fun.
Kimberly Snyder (06:58.19)
I started hearing about how thereâs a lot of young women are getting the eyelid surgery and wanting to reshape their faces and lighten their skin. And itâs so interesting because on one hand, I was seeing this very traditional, I am myself power. And then thereâs almost this other part of it. And of course you see this complexity in the US and many countries, but this other side of almost like homogenization. Can you speak to that a little bit when it starts to come?
Michelle (07:19.646)
Yeah, and I think you are hitting the nail on the head. The reason why I wanted to write this book was because I was starting to see these nourishing traditions fade away in our modern world. What self-care means and what it meant for centuries, what you grew up with, what I grew up with, was sort of fading away. And I started seeing that actually
Kimberly Snyder (07:34.978)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Michelle (07:46.429)
when I was, so the beginnings of it was just sort of casually interviewing. I really didnât have an intention to write a book. I was just realizing, here I am living in Asia, a continent that breed food is medicine philosophy. And itâs not just about food, itâs about a whole way of living. So I started casually interviewing. And then I started realizing, so many of the younger folks are actually moving into the city, adopting these modern communities, adopting a new way of
Kimberly Snyder (08:02.509)
Yes.
Michelle (08:15.068)
you know, just being disconnected with the earth, with, you the seasons and, know, and part of it too is just, you know, weâre stuck inside having to, you know, be on our computers all the time, you know, be on the phones. And I think, you know, a lot of things like what you were saying with beauty and self care just started becoming redefined, you know, in the way, you know, with plastic surgery, but thatâs not the way we actually grew up.
Kimberly Snyder (08:19.01)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (08:35.456)
Yeah
Michelle (08:40.671)
It was really about this sort of like internal health. I always think of skin health when I look back to the way I was learning with these traditional populations, it was the result of good living. It wasnât really the focus. was, yeah, they were just eating really well, living really well, and then skin health kind of came as a result.
Kimberly Snyder (08:41.558)
Right.
Kimberly Snyder (09:04.558)
Exactly, instead of this painting on or just about the makeup or the creams or the surgery to look like everyone else. So anyways, but thatâs that. Yeah, thereâs this push pull that you see as we come. And thatâs why bringing this information, having these conversations, you know, writing this book is really important because thereâs so much power when we are in our true self and weâre not trying to look like everyone else.
Michelle (09:07.752)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (09:33.494)
I think thereâs this natural vitality that comes. Thereâs creativity. Thereâs so much that comes when we really are just embodying who we are. And I know easier said than done when so many of us are on social media and you see images and youâre looking at celebrities and the mind starts to compare. But I think really rooting into the self-care practices, for me, which shifted me over from always weighing myself or always trying to get to these goals,
has been the experiential, right? I started to feel better when I wasnât just counting calories and I started to eat more holistically and I did start to have sauerkraut and I started to heal my gut health. I started to just, itâs this embodiment of experience. And I think thatâs where we need to move people towards instead of just metrics or visuals or here, you need to feel how good it is to apply some of these practices you talk about in the book. And itâs, know,
Weâll get into that in just a moment. Itâs not just going to a traditional bathhouse. A lot of what you speak about with temple food and other practices we can do at home.
Michelle (10:40.499)
Yeah, mean, what I, well, just one more thing about the traditional bath houses was that I loved how, you know, you just sort of stripped, youâre stripped away from the demarcations of what, you know, might, you might be identifying with in modern life. your clothes, the brands that youâre wearing, the makeup, you know, itâs, youâre just human to human. So itâs a very, you know, for me, it was just a really wonderful experience. I met so many fascinating people, you know, I sort of,
Kimberly Snyder (10:58.083)
Yeah.
Michelle (11:09.374)
Iâm very sort of detail-oriented. made a spreadsheet. You I was thinking about all of the places that I wanted to go to. And one of the places was going to see the Buddhist nuns in the mountains of Korea and learning about temple food. So what I learned was that a long time ago, the way Koreans eat today with all the little dishes and what they call banchan, the side dishes, actually came from
Kimberly Snyder (11:34.401)
Yes.
Michelle (11:37.181)
the royal family, the dynasty eating, because it was so interesting to me, because I was going into the dossiers about this. They actually used to employ royal physicians that worked in tandem with the cooks. And it was sort of like a very forward thinking, just, OK, so hereâs what might have been a very traditional version of what we know of now as a food journal.
Kimberly Snyder (11:53.356)
Michelle (12:04.302)
So they would take what the royal family would eat and then if they would have a negative reaction to it, then they would eliminate that for a period of time and then go back and sort of think about how they could use the foods to make them feel better. So the physicians would have this dossier, then share their knowledge with the cooks. And I bring that up because the foods there were very, for them it was medicine.
And things like the fermented condiments were, it was an extremely important job in the kingdom. So only the important people actually got to, it was under lock and key and it was very documented in terms of how much time everything was kept and preserved. And the reason why I bring this up is because the Buddhist, many of the Buddhist nuns actually retired from those kitchens. So it just was this wave of coming, trickling down into community and what we see today in Korean cuisine.
food is really about eating in season, eating with nature, you know, being very mindful about what youâre eating. I actually, loved when I was sitting with the Buddhist nuns and you know after we prepared food together, together they actually made us, well first of all before the egg,
Kimberly Snyder (13:22.318)
Oh, sorry, Michelle. Sorry to interrupt you, but thereâs like a constant hitting sound. So I donât know youâre hitting your mic, John, if we could edit this part out just so we donât do it the rest of the interview. Thereâs like a popping, I donât if itâs with your hand or, yeah, just try not to pop because itâs blowing out the sound. So weâll edit this whole part out. Itâs okay. Sorry, go back in. You were talking about, yeah, spending time with the Korean monks or nuns.
Michelle (13:35.964)
It might be my hands. Sure. Okay.
Okay.
Michelle (13:48.517)
Yeah, so I think what I loved most about, you know, my time with the Buddhist nuns is that they just remind you of this sort of philosophical approach in life. Itâs a very, itâs a living life with intention with mindfulness. mean, even thinking about, you know, what youâre eating in front of you, you know, how long it took to grow, eating the entire plant, you know, from flower to root, and you even the peel, which is actually
the more nutritious part that we often throw away. It was just, yeah, I just loved my time with them. you know, they take time to, you know, before the meal, but also after the meal to make sure that youâre sort of thinking about what youâre putting into your body. Itâs this energy that youâre putting into the body that came from the ground.
Kimberly Snyder (14:37.442)
beautiful. Well, I remember being in Korea and I pretty much ate exclusively at the temple food restaurants because I am plant based and there were so many beautiful options with a kabocha squash. And to your point, just the way they were roasted with beautiful sauces and just had the peel on them was when I make kabocha squash, I also eat it. And it was I also took a kimchi making class.
And it was really easy. I just made it without the fish sauce, which can sometimes be in or sometimes not, but the way it was wrapped and then sort of buried in was really just so much care was put into, you know, as youâre saying, the ways in which the food was treated and handled, which is the opposite of sort of this fast paced, you know, not really chewing well, just getting the food in the body. And so thereâs this, like the centering.
Right? So you go to the bath house and weâre not rushing from one thing to the next. Weâre making the food. Thereâs this, like, itâs like slowing down the hurry mindset, which I think is a really big part of true wellness as we continue to look around. Itâs one of the through lines is not just rushing from one thing to the next, but breathing, being present, allowing for this to unfold instead of this frenetic modern pace.
Michelle (16:00.031)
Absolutely. mean, it was interesting to see, you know, how they were actually self caring daily. You know, particularly with the hidden ingredients that, you know, I kept seeing that they were referring back to. And there was this little lazy Susan that was on the countertop that they kept going back to. And there were these, you know, interesting ferments. And it just kind of made me think about what were the hidden ingredients that I was eating at the time.
You know, theyâre using all of these ingredients that are super healthy, know, good for the gut, good for digestion. And, you know, there were vessels for persimmon, vinegar, which I later implemented, sesame oil, sea salt that actually was sitting for quite some time, and traditionally fermented Korean jang.
Kimberly Snyder (16:28.716)
Mmm.
Michelle (16:51.645)
which is like traditionally brewed soy sauce, gochujang, is, you know, itâs becoming more popular in Western culture, but itâs a red paper paste. And something that I love is tangjong, which is a soybean paste. So for me, this was really, you know, sort of a lesson in understanding and being more mindful of, you know, when I go into a restaurant.
Kimberly Snyder (17:04.579)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (17:09.838)
Mmm.
Michelle (17:16.408)
or if I go to a grocery store, I will think about what is actually going into the making of that dish or Iâll read the ingredients. If somethingâs not healthy there, if I donât understand it, I tend to choose something else, like an unnecessary preservative or a food coloring. And I think they just really taught me so much about mindful self-care. And we meditated together, which was amazing.
Kimberly Snyder (17:42.454)
What are the things you also talk about in the book is gratitude, right? Being really present to gratitude, whether itâs with the food or just moment to moment in life. Can you talk a little bit about how that can weave through someoneâs day and self-care practices and also personal benefits youâve experienced?
Michelle (18:01.586)
I think I was so much a part of this culture of moving fast. In Korean culture, itâs called Pali Pali. yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (18:13.582)
Itâs a term for, yeah. You really see it in the cities. I mean, of course, also in New York City, but itâs just this, Iâm on the train and Iâm getting there.
Michelle (18:24.306)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we forget to slow down, to think about what is actually great in our lives. This practice of gratitude and Iâve implemented it. It really is embedded in the whole slowing down, noticing what is actually great in your life and embodying that. think as opposed to putting in the negative, itâs just really focusing
Kimberly Snyder (18:53.134)
Right.
Michelle (18:53.99)
your energy on what you can be grateful for.
Kimberly Snyder (18:58.42)
One of the things I do with my kids, Michelle, is at the dinner table, we say grace, and then we go around and we say what weâre grateful for in general, and then also in that day. And even we started implementing a challenge that weâre grateful for because we learned from challenges. How old are your kids and how do you teach them about gratitude and also some of these traditional practices?
Michelle (19:23.678)
my kids were on this journey with me. They went to a few of the trips with me, you know, learning to cook and actually being, you know, and, know, the, the other thing too, is that, you know, we, their time in Asia, they actually were exposed to a lot of the healthy living, you know, through, more of the elderly. they are teenagers right now. And, you know, one of the things that I feel like is so important is that,
Kimberly Snyder (19:30.22)
Beautiful.
Kimberly Snyder (19:43.501)
I love that.
Michelle (19:52.829)
My son is, heâs an athlete. He does varsity wrestling and varsity volleyball. And I think for him, it was very much a huge lesson that, you know, this actually could help him to.
I donât know, go through a better process in his life, whether itâs training and getting stronger. These were implemented as he was growing up. So I think as a family, we focus on the process, like you said, going through the challenges and what the lessons are through them versus the results. And through that, thereâs so many lessons that you can take from that.
Kimberly Snyder (20:20.419)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (20:32.45)
Yeah.
Michelle (20:36.934)
I think every time I went to a trip that I would impart all of the lessons to them, especially different ingredients, and they were really interested to learn with me.
Kimberly Snyder (20:47.672)
Do you have a teenage daughter as well?
Michelle (20:49.533)
Yes, I do. she started, so theyâre actually, so theyâre Chinese and Korean and they just started learning more about their heritage through what I was doing. So that was a really wonderful surprise. think my daughter,
Kimberly Snyder (20:51.886)
How do you navigate?
Michelle (21:07.802)
she just doubled down with learning about the language at a more advanced level. So that was really a nice surprise. And this is all self-motivated. It was just sort of osmosis. And I think it goes back to the parents, I think, are very much the first teachers for their children. And they will see what youâre doing and kind of be very exposed and influenced by that.
Kimberly Snyder (21:33.912)
You know, have two sons, Michelle, and sometimes I think about if I did have a daughter, what it would be like in todayâs modern world, how to teach her about her own beauty, right, and to be confident in herself, because I remember being a teenage girl and having such, you know, low self-esteem and wanting to look a certain way and wanting to be thin. So, you know, itâs really beautiful that youâre actually immersing them.
Michelle (21:48.51)
Mm-hmm.
Kimberly Snyder (22:01.998)
in these experiences and that theyâre even open to it in the first place. And of course our children are on their own journeys and theyâll, you know, theyâll find their own way. But, but yeah, itâs just interesting hearing because, you know, youâre so enmeshed in this and then, you know, at the same time youâre raising kids that are in Western modern culture and how to navigate that.
Michelle (22:23.518)
Yeah, think for my daughter, sheâs just gone along the ride with me. mean, she went to the traditional bath houses with me. I think sheâs very comfortable in her skin, much more so than I was when I was crying out. Just because she was seeing everything, like I mentioned before, everyone sort of without their armor.
Kimberly Snyder (22:40.376)
Yeah.
Michelle (22:52.115)
their societal armor and it was just sort of like a very human experience and weâre very much like that with each other. So it is not really about the makeup and itâs not about brand clothing. Itâs about like, what really matters, what you can be really grateful for and being intentional.
Kimberly Snyder (22:53.088)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (23:14.028)
Ooh, I just got goosebumps. You know, your message is resonating with me so much in the traditional and this is the closeness we create in the family within ourselves.
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