Yet Another Festival

Sokcho Diary

21.10.06

When I first came to Sokcho I heard rumors of a fantastic free for all festival in Yang-yang that would take place sometime in late October that involved beer, liquor, singing, dancing, and fish. What was this awesome festival that had every ingredient needed for a good time? I just had to find out.

This week, after I had forgotten all the rumors of the fishing follies that I had heard about, Kirsty came into work with the news, “the salmon festival starts on Saturday!” and I knew my time for hedonistic pleasure had come.

The Yang-yang salmon festival celebrates the king of fish, the Pacific Salmon, on its return to its spawning grounds up the rivers and streams of the east coast of Korea. As we all know, a salmon makes a trip to the sea as a young fish and then, when it is close to death, returns unerringly to the stream of its birth to mate, spawn, and die. When Kirsty came into work on Tuesday with the news of the upcoming festival, I knew that we had to find a way to take part in this awesome spectacle.

We asked our boss, Yeon-so to call and make our arrangements for us, with our incredible lack of Korean skills, we needed a native speaker to smooth the waters for us to enter the event.

The next day, Yeon-so came back with our answer, she had called the organizers and they had said they would be absolutely delighted to have a couple of waygooks to join in the fun. The only catch was that we had to wire twenty thousand won apiece to the Yang-yang chamber of commerce to ensure our place. This was fairly easy and accomplished at the bank the next day. After we had wired our money we got a confirmation email of our registration and all we had to do was wait for the big day to come around.

Saturday dawned cloudy and warm after the rains of Friday and we met down in the lobby of Dongjin to take the bus to the festival at around 1:30. The usual crowd was there, Kelsey, Kirsty, Helen, me, and we would meet some of our other friends there later, Kelly and Shawn.

Now let me explain a little what our twenty thousand won bought Kirsty and I. For that price we bought the chance to wade into a cold river, in the fall, and try to catch, with our hands, one of the salmon that were confined in the fishing area.

The fishing area stretched from one side of the river to the other and was enclosed by green mesh fences on both sides. The river is about one hundred yards wide and the fences went all the way from bank to bank, enclosing an area of about one thousand square meters.

At three forty we gathered at the starting point, forming a long line with our other fishing folk, men, women, small children, grandparents, all dressed in their favorite fishing attire. Some like Kirsty and I in shorts and tee shirts others in full kit, waders, hip boots, the works, all with the desire to snag one of the big salmon.

Four o’clock came, time for the fun. We were the last group of the day, there had already been two other sessions, and we were the last. From our vantage point we could see men throwing salmon from the damned off holding tank on a small branch of the river into the fishing arena.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOA

What’s going on with this you may be asking. Well folks, the salmon that we are celebrating today are almost extinct in Korea. You see, thanks to the Republic of Koreas massive environmental disasters that plague every part of the country, including the seemingly unspoiled beauty of Sokcho, there are almost no salmon left that come here naturally, the ones we were going to catch today had been caught in Alaska and shipped alive here to Korea for our fishing enjoyment.

Back to the story………………………..

At four came the whistle and a man with a bullhorn and a flag lead us down to the riverbank, like the proverbial Pied Piper of Hamlin. We walked in a straight, slightly meandering line, unusual for Korea because there was very little jostling and pushing, it was fairly orderly, the real shoving would come later at the river.

We got down to the riverbank and squatted in the mud at the waters edge. The man with the bullhorn addressed the crowd, but since neither Kirsty nor I could understand much of what he was saying, we stared at the river where we could see a few ripples as the fins of the fish broke the surface of the flat water. We just squatted and waited, talking about our strategy.

“Okay”, I said, “I think we should work as a team, lets try to drive the fish towards the fence and trap it there were we can get it.”

“Sounds good”, said Kirsty, “lets works as a team, I will push people out of the way and then we should be alright.”

After the man was done jabbering a bit, it was time for the fun. With a bang on the gong, a shove and jostle, we were off!

The water was shallow, probably only ten inches deep, and as we raced across it we were shocked, we couldn’t see any fish. Then, there they were, streaking through the water at high speed, looking like little missiles, sleek and fat, frightened, angry, wondering what the hell was going on. Then boom, boom we were at the fence.

I trapped a big one, bang up against the fence, reached to grab it, missed, and fell over. Then wham, there was another one, streaking out of the grasp of a Korean, and came towards me like a high speed train. I stuck my foot out and blocked him into the fence, trapped it had nowhere to go. I reached to grab him, got him by the tail, but a quick slip and he was out of my grasp. But what was that, next to my feet, another one, even bigger, about twelve pounds. I dropped to all fours, pretty much fell on him, and I had my prize. A very angry male, flipping and flopping, I cradled him in my arms and went to help Kirsty.

With a big fish in my hands, it was hard to help her, but I tried. I used my feet as she flopped around in the water, trying to hold a fish about the same size as mine, but she dropped it as her hands slipped off the slick skin of the fish. But there, there was another one, tired, worn out, but a big pig of a salmon, she reached down, grabbed it near the tail, and wham bam thank you madam, we had our fish, for us the festival was over.

A note about pictures.

1. Me and my baby

2. Sometimes you get to see that rare delicacy, whale meat. While Korea does not hunt whales activly they do get meat somehow, very expensive, and to be honest, not very good.

3. A little kiss for my new friend.

4. Kirsty and I at the start point