[INCIDENTAL] “The Kitchen Rosé Chose” by Julie Choi

^{Rosé and her kittens}

By the time Rosé chose the kitchen, it no longer belonged to a household.

The home stood in Bogwang-dong, in a part of Seoul being emptied for redevelopment. The people had gone. Whatever meals had once been prepared there, whatever ordinary arguments or celebrations had gathered around them, were over. The kitchen remained as a room with broken walls, shattered ground, and a little protection from the street.

For Rosé, that was enough to make it useful again.

^{“… shattered ground, and a little protection from the street”}

She was born in the redevelopment area and had been cared for outside by a neighbour. She knew the gaps and quiet places of the block better than any rescuer did. When it was time to give birth, she entered the abandoned home and selected the kitchen for her kittens.

Calling it abandoned is accurate from the human point of view. No one lived there. The building was waiting for its next official stage. But the word becomes less certain when a mother cat is nursing three newborns inside. Rosé had taken a room that the city considered finished and returned it, briefly, to one of the oldest purposes of a home: keeping a family alive.

We did not rush to remove her the moment we learned she was nursing. A mother can move her kittens if she feels threatened, and separating a nursing cat from her babies can turn rescue into another danger. It took roughly two or three weeks to bring the family to safety together. During that time, the empty kitchen was both a refuge and a deadline. It protected them, but it was inside a building whose future did not belong to them.

Rescue stories often compress this kind of waiting. The final version says that a mother and kittens were found and taken to foster care. The sentence is tidy. The actual work is not. Someone has to confirm where the kittens are. The mother has to keep returning. Food and water must be placed without making the space feel unsafe. A foster home has to be ready for an entire family, not one cat. The timing has to respect both the animals and the changing conditions around the building.

Rosé had already done the hardest part. She had kept her kittens alive.

I think about the intelligence contained in her choice. A kitchen is not naturally safer than any other room once a house is empty. It may have broken openings, exposed surfaces, or no reliable heat. Rosé could not know the construction schedule or whether a door would be sealed. She knew only what her senses told her: this space was quieter than the street, hidden enough for birth, and close enough to the routes she understood.

People sometimes describe mother cats as if instinct makes their work effortless. It does not. Instinct does not remove hunger, noise, vigilance, or the need to leave vulnerable kittens while searching for food. It does not guarantee a safe place. In a redevelopment zone, every temporary shelter carries the possibility that it will disappear.

Rosé’s family was moved to foster care together. For more than a month, she continued raising the kittens indoors. There, safety was no longer something she had to improvise from an unused room. Food arrived regularly. The family could sleep without the same uncertainty. Rosé was later spayed, and the kittens eventually went to permanent homes.

That is the ending people expect for the babies. Kittens are easier to photograph, easier to imagine in a home, and often easier to place. The mother remains after the congratulations.

Rosé is now the one waiting.

She is gentle and not aggressive, but she is still cautious with people. That combination can be difficult to explain in adoption language. “Gentle” may make someone expect immediate closeness. “Cautious” may sound like a problem. In Rosé, both are true. She does not seek conflict. She also does not hand her trust to a stranger because the stranger wants it.

With other cats, she is more at ease. She has lived successfully in a foster home that already had several cats. Their presence seems to give her a social structure she understands. A future home should include a compatible feline companion and an adopter willing to introduce them carefully.

This part of her story changes the meaning of the kitchen for me. I first understood it as evidence of her maternal courage. It was also evidence of how she makes decisions. Rosé does not need to be alone in order to be safe. She looks for a workable place, studies what is around her, and adjusts. Her caution is not refusal. It is a method.

The abandoned home had a legal status, an owner, and a place in a redevelopment plan. Rosé’s use of it registered nowhere. She did not become a tenant by giving birth there. No official timeline changed because three kittens were hidden in the kitchen. Yet for the weeks that mattered to them, her family was as dependent on that room as any human family had ever been.

Cities regularly contain these overlapping definitions of home. One is written in records: ownership, occupancy, vacancy. Another is made by use. A stairwell blocks wind. A storage space becomes a sleeping place. A kitchen whose cupboards are no longer opened becomes a nursery.

This does not mean abandoned buildings should remain open indefinitely. They can be dangerous, and redevelopment will continue. It means that vacancy should prompt observation before it becomes permission to assume nothing living remains. A short period of monitoring, communication with caregivers, and safe access for humane rescue can make the difference between finding a family and discovering too late that a room was not empty.

Rosé’s story also resists the easiest rescue ending. Her kittens reached homes, but their mother still needs one. She survived the street, found a place to give birth, allowed her family to be moved, adjusted to foster care, and learned to live among unfamiliar cats. None of that obliges her to become instantly affectionate for a new person’s convenience.

The home she needs now will be different from the kitchen she chose. It should have secure windows and doors, another cat she can learn from, and people who let her approach at her own speed. It should not be temporary or useful only until the neighbourhood changes again.

When I look at Rosé, I do not see an animal waiting to be made complete by adoption. She is already a whole cat: observant, maternal, sociable with her own kind, and careful with ours. Adoption would not give her a personality. It would give that personality time and protection.

The kitchen no longer shelters her. The building may change or disappear. I do not know whether anyone passing the site would guess that a family began there after the human household had ended.

Rosé remembers it differently, if not as a story then as experience held in the body: a place was quiet enough, for a while. Her kittens were beside her. She kept them alive until another room was ready.

The first home she chose was borrowed from a neighbourhood in transition. The next one should be allowed to last.

^{Yongsancats Rescue site | Hannam New Town Demolition Site}

^{How to cite: Choi, Julie. “The Kitchen Rosé Chose.“ Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 18 Sept. 2026, chajournal.com/2026/09/18/the-kitchen.}

Julie Choi is an animal advocate and the founder of YongsanCats, an independent rescue initiative. Bringing together a multicultural perspective and grassroots organising, she has mobilised a dynamic international coalition, connecting locals, expatriates and cross-cultural communities to address urgent animal welfare crises in high-risk redevelopment areas. Under her direct frontline leadership, the initiative has rescued more than 250 street cats trapped in dangerous demolition zones, coordinating emergency medical care, extensive rehabilitation and international adoption networks. Featured in national broadcast and print media, Julie combines hands-on crisis relief with strategic public advocacy, serving as a steadfast voice for vulnerable urban animals and pioneering community-driven solutions to ensure that every rescued animal finds safety and a permanent home.