Day Drinkers, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Day Drinkers, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Soju in Seoul
Listless, middle-aged Korean women fan themselves atop up-turned beer crates, islands of refuge among pools of water that threaten to merge and flood the warehouse. Windows are boarded up and protests to the government against the market’s forced relocation are scrawled in red paint across the slats. A shy breeze carries with it a pungent, tangy smell from parts unknown.
It’s late afternoon in Seoul’s best-kept secret, Noryangjin Fish Market, and the temperature is pushing 100 degrees.
Record heat or not, it’s business as usual and fishmongers tout their wares to the early evening customers. The catch of the day is sea bass. “You foreigners love it,” a vendor who looks like he was born with the sweat beading across his brow informs me. We bargain for three kilos and he gifts us a plastic bag full of prawns.
With expert precision, the fishmonger’s wife exacts a fatal blow upon our prospective dinner. Switching tools, she guts it and strips the scales. A trail of blood drains into the communal gutter, joining decades of other marine life offal. She points down a damp alleyway, commanding, “First on your left. They’ll cook your prawns and get your drink.”
Cradling polystyrene plates of finely sliced raw fish, we dance our way around puddles of stagnant water to the area designated for on-site consumption of the market’s wares.
“Oe-seo-o-seyo!” call the staff, ushering us to our table. The day drinkers have been busy and tables are strewn with bottles of Hite beer and shelled crustacean. A red-faced salaryman is slumped in the corner; chin on chest, he defies the efforts of his party to wake him.
We sit crossed legged on the vinyl floor and the waitress unloads a stack of side dishes. We peel off slice after slice of sashimi with metal chopsticks, coat it in soy sauce and wasabi, and wrap it in sesame leaves. It has a bite that can only be chased by Korea’s green-eyed monster–soju.
As the afternoon bleeds into the evening the fish disappears and the table begins to groan under the weight of empty bottles. With each round we order the eyes of the waitress grow wider. Impressed? Concerned? No matter. We’ve switched to spicy gochu pepper sauce and this demands chasers.
“It won’t be the same, you know,” the waitress suddenly reflects. “When we have to relocate – higher rent, less space. It’ll be the end of us.” The man in the corner suddenly awakes and she scuttles over to help carry him out.
Emptying our shot glasses we crack another bottle. In most of Seoul’s marketplaces, day drinking is slowly disappearing, displaced by regulated hours and serious men in serious suits. But here, for now, we are holding out–staggering along, carrying the soju-fueled flame.