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‘Eat Your Kimchi’ creators move to Japan

December 22, 2015
"Eat Your Kimchi" creators Simon and Martina Stawski (Courtesy of Simon Stawski)

“Eat Your Kimchi” creators Simon and Martina Stawski (Courtesy of Simon Stawski)

By Jon Dunbar

Simon and Martina Stawski, creators of “Eat Your Kimchi” on YouTube, surprised fans last week by announcing they are moving to Japan.

The Canadian couple, known worldwide for their adventurous videos celebrating food, culture, music and more ― mainly in Korea ― announced on their website on Dec. 16 that they were leaving for Japan after seven years here, citing Martina’s worsening health problems.

“We can’t carry on as we always did,” they said in the announcement. “If Martina’s health keeps going at this rate then we don’t have as many good days ahead of us as we had originally foreseen.”

Martina has Ehlers Danlos syndrome type 3, which causes chronic pain, according to Simon.

“We don’t show her in pain in our videos, because we use our videos as a way to distract ourselves from Martina’s pain,” said Simon.

“We want to spend however many days we have left doing as much as we can, following as many dreams we have, and ticking off as many items on our bucket list as possible.”

The decision to move on was made earlier this year. They told their employees in advance, giving them time to find new jobs, and closed their studio in November.

They said they would no longer be a part of the You Are Here Cafe, which they opened near Hongik University in western Seoul in August 2014 with the team behind the language website Talk to Me in Korean.

But the move will not be the end of “Eat Your Kimchi.” In the announcement, they promised to continue making videos wherever they are.

“Our audience is interested in seeing travel, in feeding their wanderlust bug,” said Simon.

“We’re going to do our best to provide them with content that inspires them not just to travel to Korea, or to Japan, but to other parts of the world that they’ve always wanted to visit but might have been too afraid to.”