The Beat November 2002

By M.R. Bradie
Interpretation by Jay Kim

Across the street from the modern movie theaters, a bloody, mutilated eel head stares out from the dirty maw of a street cat under the arches of the fish market. This is a unique part of this ancient city, located in the southern and oldest quarter on the banks of the East Sea; it's Jagalchi, the best place in Korea for fresh seafood, and this cat knows it.

Jagalchi wakes up before sunrise. If you catch it, you'll find thousands of colorfully dressed old ladies with deep set wrinkles and unshaven men with cigarettes dangling from their mouths bustling like crazy fire ants; rushing to get to the early morning fish auction where they buy tons of seafood from the fishing boats who have come back to shore with their haul from a long nights work. The fashion here consists of tall rubber boots and gloves, mismatched baggy pants and sweaters to cut the morning chill. Scooters and rusty old 125cc motorcycles packing loads of ice and crates of frozen squid swerve in and out between the throngs of animated workers; it is a chaotic ballet dance that results in the people of Korea having their beloved fresh seafood in front of them by dinner time.
The name Jagalchi is a play on two words, going back to a time before anybody here was alive. "Jagal" means "small stones from the sea", which fits since the streets in this area are composed of just such pebbles. "Galchi" is the name of a popular long silver fish easily found here in the market. Together, the name brings together two distinct elements, describing the area and purpose of the place known all over Korea as the quintessential market to find the freshest, widest assortment of sea harvest.

Almost on the dock is a large building called Shindonghwa, the live market. Inside, the bottom floor is packed with pools with fresh water constantly flowing in through tubes and over the sides into the drainage vents on the floor. Here you'll find octopus crawling out of the pens and into other pools, thousands of eels writhing spasmodically like Medusa's hair, lobsters, shell fish, large black gamulchi fish, which are said to be good for women after they've given birth, manta rays, giant king crabs which cost about W40,000 per kg, and even gaebul, otherwise known as the 'Sea Penis', a purple-pinkish fleshy tube that is purported to increase the flow of blood to the man's genitals.

The atmosphere inside this loud, teeming building is almost surreal, as one is surrounded with a frozen explosion of life; the constant sound of water and the splashes of chitinous creatures that look like contorted demons sprung up from the watery depths.

After purchasing these creatures from the live market, customers can carry them upstairs and pay one of the many restaurants to prepare them with side dishes and booze for about W30,000. This collection of raw fish restaurants is known to be the best in Korea; it is the eye of the fish storm for the Korean peninsula. It's also said that the similar raw fish district in Gwanganli is infamous for ripping off outsiders, even other Koreans with Seoul accents. So Koreans visiting Busan flock to this area for the best in uncooked fish, which they wash down with soju, the alcoholic effects of which is said to be cut down by the fish.

One street back from the dock is a long row of ajummas (old ladies) hawking every type of dead seafood imaginable, stacked up on wooden crates, packed in ice and arranged in pyramidal piles. The competition is fierce, and they aren't shy about shouting at customers to buy from them as they pass by. Here you'll find the long silver fish of the market's namesake, red chogi fish, which are expensive, as they aren't available in the waters surrounding Korea and must be imported, and the agu fish, the name of which translates to 'ugly fish', because it is, although delicious and known to be good for treating hangovers.

Another common sight here is ajummas quarrelling with each other over money, business, or merchandise, street rumbles between the colorfully clad elderly look something like a pro-wrestling match between Yoda and ET, both wearing black curly wigs and screaming in an unintelligible lighting-fast Busan dialect.

On the side streets leading out to the main street on the far side of the docks are an endless array of restaurants that furnish their own supply of seafood to their customers. One owner, Ok Mal-soon was happy to speak about the nutritional values of the different species, and she had a lot to say, "Eating Octopus is good for cooling down the body temperature, while eating the bones of any fish, very rich in calcium, is known to be good for people with broken bones on the mend. Odori (which looks like a giant prawn and costs about W5,000 per creature) is a good sexual stamina enhancer for men."

“Giant crab is good because at first it tastes like butter and by the time you finish, it tastes like lobster. Shellfish (Sora) is good for removing oil from the body and eating blowfish (Bok) will give women better skin. Eating the eyes of any fish is good for a person's eyesight. And wives flock to the restaurants to feed their husbands the old stamina standard, grilled eel (Jangeo or Gomjangeo) to make hubby go a little bit longer and harder in the love nest. The eel's tail, possibly the most phallic part, is said to be the most potent cut."

Wandering the ins and outs of the market is sure to fill the eyes with pungent sights: conveyer belts stacked with boxes of squid, their tentacles hanging out like high school students on a roller coaster, mounds of moldering, rotten seafood that didn‘t make the cut, fuming up in the heat of the day, scoundrel pigeons, rats and alley cats, pillaging their meals from unwary fish hawkers.

To the left of the live market is a large district of dried sea food shops, where one can find every sort of anju (snack food) originating from the sea: dried anchovies, tiny baby squid, salted mussels, large cuts of dried fish and mini-peppered shrimp. To the right is another district of imitation name brand clothes and watches: Rolex, Gucci, Tommy HippieFinger -- no logo is sacred to these enterprising profiteers. Bargain hungry shoppers may also find hardware carts piled high with everything from steering wheel covers, wire cutters, wall hooks, cheap sunglasses, transistor radios that look like they have tape decks, and a variety of sex products such as nudie playing cards, stay-hard gel, studded tickler condoms, penis-stretching suction devices, Spanish fly pills and low grade amateur porn videos. It a knick-knacker's paradise!

Cheap, dirty and chaotic, Jagalchi is one of those places that resists the modern western style shopping complex glut that is choking the old-world character out of South Korea. It's a zone of gritty hardworking tradition that shows what the people of Busan go through on a day-to-day basis to bring home a living, a bastion of old ways that won't be washed away with the tide for a long time.