by Chris Tharp
I made a dragonfly. The next time I came into class, I witnessed the following scene: the kids had attacked my dragonfly with pins, impaling its head and totally destroying one of its plastic eyes. They said that it was “very bad” and that they were “happy it is die.”
The Baby Game
The reason I know children are truly terrible beings is from my experience playing the Baby Game with them. It started off in one kindergarten class, where a particularly spunky and malicious little girl would point to any given object and shout, "Teacher – baby!” I'd then take whatever object she pointed to–be it a book, an eraser, a pencil case, or even the clock on the wall–and stuff it under my shirt, as if pregnant. I'd make a popping sound with my mouth, and the baby would then be born. And what would happen next? The WHOLE CLASS would ATTACK THE BABY. They would all try to KILL THE BABY.
This game became so popular that I came up with two variations:
In the first, I’d stuff some tissue paper in my shirt and then pop it out. The class would then grab my "baby" out of my hands. They then would all look at me, giggle like SS leprechauns, and proceed to RIP MY BABY APART. I’d scream "Oh, my baby! My baby!” This only served to accelerate the pace and intensity of the laughter, as well as the ripping apart of my progeny.
The second variation was the most simple and most popular among the kindergartners. I’d stuff a ball under my shirt and say, "Look at my baby.” The youngest and cutest girl in the class would then step forward and pound on my stomach with her fists, screaming in ecstasy like a half-formed harpy. This would continue until the baby was aborted or miscarried, and the fetus/ball would then invariably be thrown and kicked around the room.
I loved that first year of teaching in Korea. The students were beings of pure chaos, the very opposite of the obedient Asian student that I had expected to encounter before I came over. It was open field for imagination, even if I was the butt of most the jokes. Anything went, as long as the kids weren’t harmed and the moms didn’t complain. In fact, all of these sick games just made me more popular among the kids and the parents. I had a hard time really believing it, because if it had been America, I would have been fired after two hours.
INTERLUDE: FEBRUARY 2005
HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM
I sit with Sam at the rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel, an old Saigon landmark. Another friend from Korea, Angry Steve, is here, along with his buddy Josh, a balding, neurotic Philadelphian who never can seem to apply either enough sunscreen or bug repellent. We sip cold beer and bask in the tropical night air. The city slithers underneath us, a flowing artery of motorcycles, infinite in number. From atop the building we can hear the wail of their horns as they make their way down the town’s French-built boulevards–the cry of one huge, slinking organism. Sam and I rented our own bikes today. It was the first time I’d ridden in over fifteen years. We smoked a joint beforehand and immediately became separated in the vast gush of riders. Sam got hopelessly lost, ran out of gas, and had to be led back to our hotel by a Vietnamese Good Samaritan. He was visibly rattled and may have even cried.
It is just three days before Tet, the Lunar New Year, which brings to mind the famed offensive from 1968. Shadows of the war follow us everywhere in this intriguing land. Just today we scurried around the Cu Chi Tunnel complex and even took in a war-era propaganda film which castigated the American “bastards” and their South Vietnamese “lackeys.” It didn’t sound too different than the modern-day pronouncements being made north of the Korean DMZ. Everywhere I look, I imagine the barrels of Kalashnikovs and napalm blasts. Scenes from Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now replay in my head. Vietnam has existed as a kind of specter my whole life, and now I’m finally here, drinking a bottle of beer and thinking about what I’ll eat for breakfast in the morning…
Sam and I are here for just over a week, having managed to escape Korea during its own Lunar New Year celebrations. It was punishingly cold the morning we set out from Busan, with Siberian winds lashing the whole of the peninsula. Vietnam is scorching in the afternoon, but just about as perfect as it gets, come nighttime. We’ll do a Mekong River Tour and then spend five days at the beach in Mui Ne, before jumping on a plane, donning our jackets, and returning to the land of spit, scowls, and elbows.
CHAPTER 5: THE SOUTH’S SECOND CITY
When I was hooked up with my first job in Korea, my recruiter, via email, informed me that I’d be coming to Busan. She really tried to sell me on the job based on location, talking up the fact that I’d be living near the beach in a city with mild weather and, by urban Asian standards, pretty clean air. She made Busan sound like a nice place to live, a laid-back town whose rhythms would be easy to relax into, like a piece of California placed on the rocky Asian mainland. The truth is that I needed no convincing. I would have taken the first job thrown my way, whether it was in Seoul, Busan, Daegu, or some hellish rural outpost. I was eager to jump on a plane, earn some cash, and start the story that would be my new expat life. I just happened to get lucky.
Busan or Pusan? You see it spelled both ways. Busan is actually more correct, phonetically, and is the preferred choice these days, but Pusan was and still is in usage. I didn’t know anything about Busan, but the word Pusan rang a bell. I had read about the Korean War and recalled the Pusan Perimeter, which refers to the last line of defense that South Korean and American troops made during the early months of fighting. The city never fell to Northern forces, mainly due to it being one of the southernmost cities in the country and cut off by the Nakdong River. Pusan was also known to me as one of those mysterious Asian ports visited by American Navy personnel. Surely my Uncle Bob–who had spent 25 years on a Navy submarine–had mentioned Pusan in one of his many stories whispered to my older brothers at family gatherings. These stories always involved shore leave, obscene amounts of liquor, and prostitutes doing unmentionable things with baby turtles and ping pong balls. Pusan definitely figured into this seedy mythology; this Pusan–the one of hooker bars, VD, and Navy brawls–contrasted sharply with the much gentler city described by my recruiter. It just sounded dirtier: Pusan. I’m gonna get me some poon-tang in Pusan.
When I arrived on the peninsula, I noticed at once that people–especially expats–were often asking the question: Seoul or Busan? And at first glance it seemed like a no-brainer. Seoul, with its 20-million-plus inhabitants, is the city of Korea. To many it seems like the only city in Korea. It’s the national capital and the trend capital. It is cosmopolitan, suave, and sophisticated. It’s international, and anything that happens in Korea has to happen in Seoul, right?
This is true in many ways. Seoul is where it’s at, but if you glance at its massive shadow, you will see her little sister, Busan. Sometimes you feel sorry for Busan, since she is so often passed over, ignored in the presence of her more-glamorous sibling. She’s a bit of a Cinderella–never asked to the prom. But like any second city, Busan has a distinct spirit and vitality. I love second cities for that reason. They can never compete with the inflated metropolitan egos of first cities, so they are forced to develop unique charms of their own. Chicago, Marseilles, Osaka, and Busan–these are all places with strong, down-to-earth identities. They’ve had to forge through on their terms, and are always far less pretentious than the bigger, more famous towns.
I found this immediately in Busan. I saw that Busan and Pusan existed at once, in the same place. The new and the old comingled in a way I had never seen before, and it didn’t take me too long to fall in love.
Oiseo! Saiseo! Boiseo!
I thought I knew fish markets. After all, I had spent a few months working in one of the most famous fish stands at Seattle’s Pike Place Market. I wasn’t a very successful fishmonger (I was fired for general incompetence), but in that time I learned a thing or two about slinging seafood. I certainly was comfortable around fish. I had grown up near saltwater, in a family that loved to catch salmon, pot for crabs, dig clams, and eat all of them. I love getting down with most a
ll manner of sea creatures. You could say that the taste is in my blood; it was just something I grew up with, and this appetite has increased throughout the years.
However, Western and East Asian seafood tastes are two different things, and this especially goes for Korea. The Western eater-of-seafood has nothing on a Korean. He is a quaking pansy compared to his Asian counterpart, who will eat almost any form of life that lives in the ocean, no matter how carbuncle-covered, slimy, or half-evolved. In fact, it often seems that the more bizarre and hideous-looking the creature, the more sought-after it is by the Korean seafood fiend. As far as I can tell, the only real criterion for inedibility is poison: if the particular sea being is likely to kill you after ingestion, then it usually is considered best to leave it be.
Usually is the operative word here. Case in point: the blowfish, one of the most venomous fish in the sea. The toxin from one fish alone can easily kill several men, yet it is widely eaten in restaurants around the country. I’ve had the soup on several occasions and have (luckily) lived to write about it, but you never know if that one bowl will be your last. It only takes one careless chef.
The first time I went to Jagalchi, Busan’s famous fish market, was with my friend, co-worker, and original phone-interviewer, Scott. Jagalchiis located in Nampo-dong, Busan’s harbor area and the oldest part of town. It’s a massive complex, both outdoors and indoors, conveniently sitting next the dockside, eagerly taking in the boats’ daily hauls.
Scott and I took the subway across town and got off near the market. The Nampo-dong area, despite undergoing a facelift in recent years, is still a bit hardscrabble. Much of it has a rougher feel than other, more gentrified parts of the city. It is the port, Busan’s old gate to the world, and you can feel this as you walk its narrow alleys and side streets, which are crowded with shops selling T-shirts, ceramics, leather jackets, and bags of dried fish. Hulking Russian men can be seen sauntering through the markets, their peroxide-haired women in tow. Photo-snapping Japanese tourists mix with small groups of South Asian factory workers out shopping, and old Korean moneychangers sit in silence, biding their time for the next foreigner looking for that favorable rate.
As we approached Jagalchi, the selling of goods transformed in the selling of food. Raw fish restaurants, their unfortunate menu items forlornly housed in aquariums in front, lined the road to the main body of the market. At once it became very crowded, with waves of people heading there and away. Drivers honked as they tried to squeeze their cars through the people, who brushed by one another with not even a nod. The smell of raw fish mixed with the smell of grilled fish. People sat at plastic tables in front of the restaurants, slurping down oysters and grilled clams, drinking from clear shot glasses. Seagulls circled above. The place was buzzing, with an energy and chaos that I’ve only ever tasted in Asia.
We walked in silence into the main artery of the market, and let ourselves be led by the slipstream of people heading into its heart. On each side of us were countless stalls with their wares splayed out in front of us. At first it was mainly fish–cod, flounder, mackerel, and monkfish, along with the omnipresent galchi–long, thin, and bright silver–known as scabbard fish in English. These stalls were almost universally manned by tough old women in rubber boots, rubber gloves, and visors. These women sat on squat stools, bundled up against the slicing winds of early March, barking out prices to the river of passersby. The ground was wet and at times there were small puddles of muck: this market was a place for heavy shoes or boots, and I was thankful that I was appropriately shod.
“Check that out.” Scott pointed to an old man in a straw hat who haphazardly manned a wheelbarrow containing the carcass of a huge shark.
To our left the fish stalls began to get more exotic in their inventories. Octopus was now the dominant feature, with huge specimens hanging from hooks. I stopped and clicked pictures, much to the annoyance of the old woman manning the booth, who brusquely waved me away. I ignored her for a short time, too fascinated by the jarring beauty and pure alien form of the cephalopods in front of us. As we walked further, we saw more octopuses, this time smaller and, moreover, alive. They were kept in buckets of seawater. At one point I saw a crafty fellow escape his prison and make a break for it, correctly heading in the direction of the sea. He made it about fifteen feet before his minder–another rubber-and-visor-adorned grandmother–noticed his attempt. She rose from her stool and tromped over to the octopus, grabbed it firmly by its head, and flung it back into the bucket. No gentle keeper, she punctuated this move with a barrage of verbal abuse delivered from the depths of her throat. There is no room for sentimentality at the fish market.
At one point Scott and I headed off of the main concourse, into one of Jagalchi’sraw fish pavilions. This was a giant indoor space–a kind of warehouse. The women were now mainly replaced by men, who wore rubber bibs and manned seafood stations made up of multiple tanks, a prep area, as well as tables and chairs. The open-topped tanks housed not just fish, but shrimp, scallops, octopus, squid, bulbous orange specimens called mongae (sea squirt), and gaebul (long pinkish things that resembled huge, uncircumcised penises). The customers gathered around the stations and picked out their own goods, which were then dispatched, sliced up on the spot, and served raw. As we wandered through the gargantuan complex I was dizzied by the sheer number of workers and customers, not to mention the sea critters themselves. The building was bathed in fluorescent light, and the din of hundreds of Koreans eating and drinking echoed off of the structure’s concrete pillars.
When Scott went to pee, I found myself standing alone, self-conscious as I felt the eyes of many patrons drawn to me, a lone foreigner who was clearly dazed by the pure force of Koreans digging into some crazy seafood. Four older men were sitting at a table near me and staring hard. One motioned for me to come over, a big grin overtaking his flushed-red face.
“Hello hello hello! Soju?”
He held up a bottle. The other guys erupted in noisy approval.
“Sure, why not?”
Old Korean men inviting me to join them for a few glasses of soju–this was a phenomenon that I would get very used to over the next several years. Drinks were poured and glasses clinked.
“Gonbae!”
I managed to get several glasses down–as well as a couple of slices of fish, before I saw Scott making his way back from the pisser. The liquor warmed my insides against the late-winter chill. I waved goodbye to my new friends and walked with Scott back out into the thick of the market.
Jagalchihas been around for over six hundred years, making it one of the oldest continuous seafood markets on the globe. It is its own unique place–the most purely “Busan” of any place in the city. Jagalchi is so distinct that it has its very own dialect–known as saturi–which is only spoken by the people who work there. This is reflected in the market’s slogan: Oiseo! Saiseo! Boiseo! (Come! Buy! See!).
The deeper we got into Jagalchi, the weirder it became. We passed by a whole section dedicated to the eating of raw shark meat, which gave way to dolphin, then whale. Seafood no longer held exclusive rights, as I took in places selling frogs, live turtles, and a few severed pigs’ heads. The crowd briefly split as a beggar made his way through their midst. He lay on his stomach, underneath which was a board on casters. In front of him was a donation box, as well as a car battery connected to a portable stereo, on which played a repetitive Buddhist chant, complete with knocking wood sounds. His legs were shriveled–useless it seemed–and covered by leggings made from tire rubber. He propelled himself by his arms–literally dragging himself over the wet and filthy pavement. He looked like a sad merman, and would be the first of several more I would see that day, a common sight throughout the old markets of Busan.
A bit taken back, we walked in silence, until Scott asked, “So, what do you want to eat? There’s plenty to choose from.”
“Hmmm…” I considered my options, which were intimidating in number. “Let’s walk a bit more and see what grabs o
ur eye.”
As we continued, I noticed several places selling live eels, which swam and slithered in the display tanks. Men sat at in chairs, eating sliced bits of the things frying on tabletop gas stoves.
“That looks interesting.”
An old woman working at one of the joints sensed our curiosity and shouted our way, urging us to come in and eat.
“Mashisseoyo!”
I recognized the word–it was one of the first I had learned: delicious. She scuttled out to where we stood and smiled, waving us in and pointing to one of the empty tables in her stall, where, before we knew it, we were seated next to a portable heater, sharing a bottle of sojuand waiting for our pan of undulating chunks of eel.
Perhaps the most interesting–or horrifying–thing about Korean fried eel (known as geom jang-eoh) is its preparation. The eels are plucked from the tank, one at a time, and literally pinned to a wooden cutting board by the head. The cook then skins the thing alive and chops the wriggling body into easy-to-eat segments. These still-moving bits–which squirm for some time after death–are thrown onto some aluminum foil over a pan, and fried up with red pepper paste and a liberal amount of onions. They twitch and jerk until the heat of the pan finally renders them still, and are then wrapped in sesame leaves and eaten, along with some side dishes. This is almost always accompanied with soju. Goem jang-eoh is most popular with older men, who value the bony tail above all, for its alleged properties of stamina.
We were ignorant of the alleged sexual properties of fried eel that day, choosing it instead for its exoticism. While eel is eaten in many European countries, it is generally scoffed at in North America, where it’s considered a low-quality fish–a scavenger–almost never sought-after as a meal. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that eels do resemble snakes, and this primal fear of snakes is more than enough to keep eels off the menu back home.