By John Scott Marchant

It's big and bold with exposed steel supports and beams holding up curtains of glass and a wonderfully shaped roof that invokes images of seagulls in flight.  Not quite the building you would expect to house Korea's largest and most storied seafood bazaar, but this is the reality of today's Jagalchi Market – the heart and soul of a Busan cultural experience.

Opening for business on Nov 30, 2006, Jagalchi's impressive new home replaced decaying structures perched along the ocean's edge that have long been considered an eyesore and public hazard by Busan city planners. Standing seven stories tall, with two basement levels, construction took just under three years and cost 44 billion won ($47.4 million).  At 4,835 square meters, the complex is touted as one of the largest fish markets in East Asia and is a tourist attraction in its own right. The building's ultra-modern fishery market, marine shopping center and exhibition hall are a testament to Jagalchi's role in the development of Busan and part of the ongoing revitalization of its Nampodong district.

Historically, Jagalchi stood on a site running between Chungmudong and Nampodong next to Busan Harbor. “Jagal” means “small rocks,” and “chi” – a pure Korean word – denotes a village next to the seashore. The name hails from a time before the 1930s when the ocean crashed upon the area's pebble beach.  Land was reclaimed from the sea in the 30s and 40s to allow fishing boats to dock next to the street market, with the title Namp'o-dong Market was coined during the Japanese occupation of Korea.

But it was during the Korean War (1950-53), that Jagalchi's role in the development of Busan came to the fore. As the only major city not to be invaded by North Korea, Busan grew in size and prominence, swollen with refugees heading southwards. When these people reached the sea, many built shacks out of any material they could scavenge, dotting the surrounding hills and Yeong Island with multi-colored shanties. For the new arrivals, survival meant taking up fishing and selling their catch at the market.

With a history as interesting and diverse as Jagalchi's, it comes as no surprise that the people who work in and around the market are the key to its rich tapestry of Korean culture. Ask one of the older fisherman, fishmongers or restaurant owners about the history of the market, and you will invoke an emotional response, marked with stories of heartbreak, hardwork, tragedy and triumph. 

For many of the locals, the new Jagalchi complex represents an irrevocable shift away from the traditions that made the fish market what it is today. 

Jagalchi Market in the past (left), Inside the newly built Jagalchi Market (right)

One Jagalchi fishmonger, who could not afford the high rents being charged in the new building, now shares her friend's stall across the road.  She sits surrounded by red plastic dishes filled with shrimp for sale and is struggling harder than ever to get by.  She can still remember when the market was a place where Koreans repatriated from Japan after the end of Word War II would sell dried seafood on a wooden boardwalk that has long since disappeared.  Another woman selling dried seaweed nearby, traces her links to the market back to the Korean War after she arrived from Seoul and began work gutting and scaling fish.

Inside Jagalchi market, the faces and manner of the fishmongers and restaurant owners may be younger and more refined, but the quality and diversity of the catch has not changed. 

Giant crabs, their massive claws bound by elastic bands, slowly move about steel crates. Octopuses struggle to escape from deep plastic buckets. Fish thrash about in glass and metal tanks. Scallops squirm in their shells. With produce coming from fishing ports around Korea's coastline, nearly every edible kind of seafood is on display; and then some. There are buckets of writhing eels. Tables stacked with shellfish. Shrimp of varying sizes and colors stretched out on beds of ice. Star fish, sea urchins (and bizarre black and red spotted slug-like creatures that look like they would be more at home starring in a Discovery Channel documentary about monsters of the deep than on sale for human consumption.

Andrew Wiseman, an American who was visiting Jagalchi with his wife from Uzbekistan, said the market's transformation had left him with mixed feelings.

“When I first came here in 2002, I was amazed by what I saw,” he said.  “At first, the market seemed frantic and so in your face, but after getting over my initial shock, I quickly realized that this was the real Korea.”

Wiseman described his experience as “eye-opening,” relishing the opportunity to see such an array of sea creatures up close while listening to the powerful Gyeongsang Province dialect of the female fishmongers (Jagalchi ajummas) as they call “Oiso! Boiso! Saiso!” (“Come!  See!  Buy!”).

“It was really moving,” he said.  “These women seemed so tough and confident, but everyone responded well.  With so much energy, you just can't resist such rough and ready charms in a tumbledown setting.  Really, it wasn't until I visited Jagalchi that I felt like I'd experienced Korea.”

But after taking a tour of the new complex and eating a meal at Jagalchi, Wiseman expressed sadness at the market's upscale move.

“I loved this place before; it was authentically Korean,” he said.  “Now, it feels a little sanitized and may have lost that special something which made coming here a real event.  Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful building and the food is still good, but that grittiness and unpredictability seems to have been lost.  For me, Jagalchi will always be the spirit of Busan and Korea.”

To get to Jagalchi Market, take Subway Line No. 1 to Nampodong Station, Exit 2.  For more information, call (051) 245-2594~5 or visit www.jagalchimarket.org.