Inje Ice Festival

pictures
1. Ice fishing, Korean style. This little plastic hut they use to cut the wind would last about ten seconds on a Minnesota lake.
2. Being that this is the year of the pig, fitting we should see a bunch of ice blocks in the shape of the wonderful animal.
3. Rack upon rack of drying pollack.
4. So this was kind of wierd. On the river ice was placed a giant pool into which were relesed a kind of trout or salmon, I never could get a straight answer. The brave men in the pool hunted around, scaring the poor fish into the corners and then kicked them to death with their boots, charming.
5. Just a random child with his little faux animal hat.

Inje Ice Festival

25.2.07

On a cold brisk day in the middle of January we decided to head up to the Inje Ice Festival. I know I know, it is not the type of ice festival that those of us in Minnesota are accustomed to, in fact it was pretty lame compared to what we are used to. What we think of as ice, huge sheets covering lakes and rivers to a depth of several feet, safe for cars where people have little huts on where they spend the short winter days and long nights fishing and drinking, well that is just unknown here, in fact, ice like that would probably scare the Koreans out of their wits, but it is the only ice we have and we were determined to enjoy it.

After a long bus ride, longer than it should have been, up to the mountains high above Sokcho, and a walk through snow on a sunny but cold day, we finally came to the site of the gathering.

A patch of river had frozen, in itself quite a surprise considering how warm it had been this winter, and there, in the bright sun of a midwinter’s day, the festival was in full steam.

Well, not really. As far as festivals go in Korea, this one was pretty damn small.
On the sheet of ice were drilled a few holes with some little plastic windbreaks were some people were fishing with handlines, for what I do not know. The river seemed pretty small, too small to hold anything but a few small trout, and I never did see anybody catch one in the short time I stood in the wind watching them.

After a short while I headed downstream, or upstream, I don’t really know, past the fairly large crowd of people using incredibly sharp stakes that they were driving into the ice while sitting on sleds to push themselves along. Because I was in a fairly dark mood, angry at almost all things Korean I longed to see someone, while they were jabbing their modified ice pick into the frozen river, instead pierce their foot, it was a dream left unfulfilled.

Moving further along the ice I did marvel at the wonderful site that the city of Inje sits in. With jagged peaks all around, Inje sits in a high pass, the site of the road to Seoul. It is very narrow; at this point there is barley enough room for a little town and a small two-lane road. Stretching up the flanks of the mountains were pine trees, and above the tree line, you cold actually see good, solid snow, like what should be down in the valley where we were if we had had a good winter.

A little farther along, really at the midpoint of the festival grounds was the oddest, actually the most gruesome part of the festival. A small type of swimming pool had been placed on the ice, kind of like a little kiddie pool but bigger, and in it were four grown men, stomping around, splashing and kicking. I moved closer through the crowd to see what all the excitement was about.

What I got to see was an example of animal cruelty that I have not really seen for quite awhile. Into the pool were released some fish, a kind of trout or salmon I presume, I never really did get to see them clearly. As the crowd egged the men in the pool on, or at least I presume they were egging them on, I don’t know enough Korean to decipher what they were saying, the men pursued the fish in the confines of the pool, driving them into the corners where they proceeded to kick the fierce animals into submission.