I thought working at a rice cake shop during the holidays would be easy money

Why I ended up at the local rice cake shop

I’ve always been someone who likes to keep busy, but after spending too much time scrolling through job boards like FoodJob24 and other generic employment sites, I realized that most of the listings for ‘foreign-friendly’ work—like motel cleaning or sewing jobs—didn’t really fit what I wanted. I stumbled upon an opening at a rice cake shop a few blocks from my apartment. It was just a week before the Lunar New Year holiday, and they were looking for extra hands. I remember reading about celebrities trying out these manual labor jobs, and honestly, it made the idea seem almost like a character-building experience. I figured, how hard could it be to pack rice cakes?

The reality of the early morning steam and endless heat

I showed up at 5:00 AM, thinking I would just be standing at a counter. The shop was already a sauna. The air was thick with humidity, and there were these massive machines pushing out long, warm strands of white garaetteok. My job wasn’t just ‘packing.’ I had to catch the hot, heavy rice cakes as they slid out of the machine without dropping them or burning my fingers. You have to handle them while they’re still steaming, or they don’t set right, or so the owner kept shouting at me. It wasn’t like the serene scenes you see on television. It was fast, slippery, and surprisingly physically demanding. My hands were sticky with rice starch for the entire six-hour shift, and I kept worrying if I was moving too slowly compared to the regulars who had been doing this for years.

Trying to keep up with the pace and the pay

The pay was around 10,000 won per hour, which felt okay at the moment but started to feel like very little once my back started aching. Unlike the school cafeteria jobs I’d heard about where things are somewhat standardized, the rice cake shop is pure chaos during the holiday season. I tried to look for other options on those foreign employment websites, just in case, but nothing else was offering immediate cash. I found myself comparing it to the times I had helped out on farm work in the countryside. At least in the fields, you’re outside. Here, it was just the smell of steamed rice and the sound of the machine cycling over and over, every single minute.

The frustration of the repetitive workflow

People think it’s just cutting and bagging, but you’re effectively part of an assembly line. If you hesitate for even a second, the output piles up on the table, and the boss starts checking to see if you’re actually working or just spacing out. I didn’t get to do any of the delicate decorating or fancy packaging; I was strictly on ‘catch, cool, and cut’ duty. It’s strange how something so simple can become so mentally exhausting. By the third day, I was looking at the clock every ten minutes, wondering if it was time for a break yet. I saw a few other students working there, and they looked just as tired as I felt, just moving through the motions without talking.

Why I might not sign up for the next holiday rush

When the holiday finally hit, I was so burnt out that I didn’t even want to eat any rice cakes. The shop kept asking if I would stay on for the next big event, but I made an excuse about needing to focus on my school schedule or some other commitment. It wasn’t a terrible experience—the money was there, and the job was straightforward—but the monotony of it really got to me. I still see that shop when I walk to the subway station, and sometimes I feel a weird sense of relief that I don’t have to go inside and start pulling those long, hot strands of dough anymore. I think I’m done with the food industry for a while. Maybe I’ll look for something less steam-heavy next time, though I’m not entirely sure what that would even be.