Living in Seoul for the last nine months, I thought I’d seen it all as far as weird food was concerned. I’ve tried blood sausage, spicy chicken feet, live octopus, and silkworm larvae, and that’s just to name a few! But as I headed down to Busan on the South East coast of Korea this weekend, I had only one type of food in mind: seafood.

Busan is well known within Korea for its fish market, supposedly one of the largest in Asia. However, most Westerners overlook the fishing industry in Korea, turning instead to Japan – well known throughout the world for its unethical fishing methods and enormous seafood turnover. But it isn’t just Japan whose appetite for seafood has them harvesting the ocean for weird and wacky marine life. The Korean fishing industry has recently been under the scrutiny of Greenpeace who claim that their annual catch of tuna goes way over international standards. The fish market in Busan has also been criticized for the illegal selling of whale meat. With this in mind, I faced a moral dilemma. On the one hand, I was fascinated to see to visit a fish market where, quite literally, anything goes. On the other hand, as someone with an environmental conscience, I wasn’t sure that I would enjoy contributing to something that I am essentially against.

Even though I knew it would be big, the Busan fish market still came as a shock. It stretched out for miles, with fish (both dead and alive) staring out of tanks, having their heads ripped off, being weighed on scales, splayed alive, tied up, and piled on top of one another. The air was pungent, and the congested crowd of haggling Koreans and shouting fish sellers touting their catch was quite intense to say the least.

There were skinned eels wriggling in dishes…

angry crabs being weighed upside down on scales…

squirming octopi held up for show…

tiny sharks trying to escape their tanks…

Some giant chunks of unknown fish…

and thousands of fish on hooks hung out to dry…

 

After a long walk around, my friend and I decided to bite the bullet and tuck in to some of the weirdest seafood we could find. We ordered an assorted sashimi platter for 20,000 won (roughly 20 dollars). Since I couldn’t name most of what was on our plate, I’ll show you in pictures instead.

 

and here it all was served and ready to eat….

 

 

So – the verdict? Well I have to say I actually thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the fish market. At times it was nausea inducing, and I certainly have no wish to try 90% of the seafood again, but it was an amazing cultural experience. Korea has a modern face on it that can often feel quite bland. With Baskin Robins, Macdonalds, and Burger King lurking on most streets it can occasionally be hard to feel like you are really in a foreign country. The fish market, however, seems to be a place where time stands still. It offers a glimpse of what Korea was like before widespread Americanization, at the same time as showing off the magnitude of sealife that can be found in the surrounding ocean. Whilst I don’t agree with the splaying or eating of live animals, it is one of those cultural differences I have come to accept, and with my acceptance comes a kind of appreciation of Korea and its unique relationship with food.

What are your thoughts on Korea’s fishing industry? Is it a step too far? Would you ever try any of the fish here?