A few years ago, a rice cooker awakened Jaha Koo from a deep depression. The South Korean composer and theater-maker had been losing friends and acquaintances to suicide at a rate of roughly one per year for a decade. When suicide took one of his closest friends, Koo retreated into himself.
At the bottom of his own black pit, an unlikely voice called out to him and lifted him up. “Cuckoo has finished cooking rice, please stir,” the voice said.
Every South Korean home has at least one electric rice cooker, Koo explained to me over Skype, and his apartment was no exception. Like a lot of high-dollar electronic appliances, Cuckoo, which is the top brand in the country, talks to its users after it completes certain tasks. When the rice cooker informed Koo that it had cooked his rice, he said he felt touched.
“I was by myself, but suddenly I felt less alone. It sounds strange, but I felt encouraged by the rice cooker,” Koo said.
