"Fermented Skate and Grilled Cutlassfish Aren't the Only Answer... Mokpo's 'Earlier Scenes' Revealed on a Personal Journey" [Digging Travel]

'Living a Week in Mokpo and Shinan' Condensed into 3 Days, 2 Nights
From Auction Market, Boat Fishing, and Hongmakase to the 700-Year-Old Shinan Shipwreck
Following the Footsteps of the 700-Year-Old Shinan Shipwreck and Modern Port Alleys, Disco

Skate is usually first encountered through the nose. In Mokpo, the order was reversed.

CEO Tae-Yeon Jeong demonstrates the process of breaking down a whole Huksando skate at the Mokpo skate specialty restaurant "Joahong." Before eating the skate, he first shows the process of turning one whole fish into a single plate. Photo by Heeyoon Kim

A large, flat skate from Heuksando Island almost covered the entire cutting board. Jung Taeyeon, CEO of Joahong, set his knife to the fish. He removed the fins, sliced the meat, and took out the entrails. After just a few passes of the knife, the fish—known by the single word ‘skate’—became nine distinct parts, each with its own name. It was freshly landed skate, auctioned that morning at the Heuksando Fisheries Cooperative.

What was interesting was that there was hardly any smell. Instead of the sharp, ammonia aroma we typically associate with skate, what came first was the chewy texture of the flesh. The question, "Do you know how to eat skate?" becomes a bit awkward. When did enduring strongly fermented skate become a test of culinary bravery?

CEO Jung, a native of Heuksando, attended the Skate Slicing School. He now operates a ‘Hongmakase’ where he dismantles a whole skate in front of guests, explains each cut, and then immediately lets them taste it. It’s not just a familiar local food given a new name. He turned the rarely seen ‘pre-plated skate’ into a product that consumers can experience.

At the Mokpo Fisheries Cooperative North Port Auction Market, fish including freshly auctioned croakers are lined up on ice. Wholesale middlemen are inspecting the size and condition of the fish as they participate in the auction. Photo by Hee Yoon Kim

Looking back, scenes like this kept recurring during this trip to Mokpo. Tourists usually consume the final product. Sashimi is already sliced, bread is on display, and relics stand labeled in glass cases. The process and labor that came before these vanish without a trace.

Mokpo is a city that preserves much of this preceding process. At the North Port auction market, it was sound, not smell, that hit me first. The noise of ice being dumped, boxes being dragged, and boots stepping on wet floors. On green mats, fish freshly brought up from the sea were laid out by size. Melted ice water ran along the floor, while people hurried about in between.

When you think of a ‘fish market’ at a travel destination, you might picture stalls and haggling, but the auction market is a place before shopping begins. It is the intermediary stage where fish become products. Here, fish are sorted by type and size and get their prices. Even the fish destined to become someone’s grilled cutlassfish at dinner is, at this stage, just another item waiting for auction.

This is why the description, "Mokpo is a city of taste," is only half true.

It’s not that you can eat a lot of delicious things, but rather, it’s that you can still witness firsthand where that dish comes from and whose hands it goes through before arriving on your plate.

On a hairtail fishing boat in front of Mokpo, a reporter posed holding a freshly caught hairtail. The hairtail, revealed under the attractor light, shimmered its silver body even outside the water. Photo by Heeyoon Kim

A few hours later, I went even further back in the process, venturing out into the sea itself. When the boat left the harbor, the sky was still tinged with red. By the time we reached the fishing spot and readied our gear, night had already settled on the water. As soon as the gathering lights were turned on, only the center of the black sea glowed like a neon lamp. People stood along the rail, gazing down into that narrow band of light.

The tip of the fishing rod twitched a couple of times. I reeled it in. Far below, a thin shimmer of light came rising up. Only as it broke the surface did I realize it was a cutlassfish. It was quite unlike the cutlassfish lying quietly in the supermarket refrigerator. With each twist of its body, it gleamed like metal.

At the Mokpo coastal offshore hairtail fishing experience, freshly caught hairtail fish are being immediately prepared into sashimi salad. This moment captures the hairtail fish caught just minutes ago from the sea becoming a dish right away. Photo by Heeyoon Kim

Even beginners had little to fear. The rods and bait were provided, and the crew explained how to lower the line. The sea was calm that day. As cutlassfish began gathering near the surface, seagulls swooped in around the boat. People watched their lines; seagulls watched the water. The tools were different, but the evening menu was the same.

The most interesting part came after catching them. Some of the cutlassfish went straight to the prep station. The knife flashed, the flesh was sliced, and vegetables and seasoning were mixed together. Right beside us, ramen was boiling. The fish that had twisted on the line just a moment ago was now served as sashimi salad. On this boat, freshness was not just an adjective—it was measured in elapsed time. And that time was quite short. Up to this point, Mokpo seemed a perfect destination for seafood travel.

Fishing vessels for cutlassfish anchored at Mokpo North Port. The boats that set sail at dusk turn on their aggregating lights and head out to night fishing in the waters off Mokpo. Photo by Heeyoon Kim

But stepping into the Underwater Heritage Museum at the National Institute of Maritime Cultural Heritage, the story suddenly stretches back about 700 years. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Korea's underwater excavation program, and the special exhibition "Zitan, Wood That Crossed the Sea" is underway. The stars of the show are neither celadon nor gold, but dark, rough pieces of wood.

These are zitan timbers carried on the Sinan Ship, a trade vessel that sank off Sinan in 1323 on its way from China to Japan. In 1975, a Chinese porcelain caught in a fisherman’s net started it all. The subsequent excavation, which lasted from the following year until 1984, yielded 28 tons of Chinese coins, 1,100 zitan timbers, and about 27,600 pieces of ceramics and artifacts. In the end, a fisherman’s net drew up what would become the starting point of underwater archaeology in Korea.

Looking closely at the zitan wood, you see something else: Chinese characters and numbers like "Tianliu" (Heaven Six) and "Huangwu" (Yellow Five), official Yuan Dynasty Phags-pa script, Japanese characters, and various other markings. Recent research has revealed that these symbols were detailed logistics information for identifying shipments, owners, and recipients. Sometimes, numbers were attached to Thousand Character Classic logograms to classify the cargo. In modern terms, these were 700-year-old shipping codes. At that moment, the morning’s auction market overlapped in my mind.

Chinese characters and symbols engraved on the surface of zitan wood. The special exhibition "Zitan, Wood That Crossed the Sea" at the National Institute of Maritime Cultural Heritage allows us to explore traces of 14th-century East Asian maritime trade through these markings. Photo by Heeyoon Kim

There were number tags in front of the fish, and 700 years ago, there were characters and symbols on the zitan wood. Of course, these are not the same system, but regardless of era, items that crossed the sea had to be named, divided, and matched with an owner. Before a harbor is simply a place where ships dock, it may be where the status of goods is transformed: the things of the sea become products on land, and cargo from distant countries is assigned to a merchant. When this process accumulates, you get a city.

Mokpo is often described as being at the southwestern tip of the Korean Peninsula. But when you come upon the National Route 1 and 2 monument in the old town, that phrase feels a bit misleading. When the modern road network began to take shape, National Route 1 ran from Mokpo to Sinuiju, and Route 2 from Mokpo to Busan. Route 1 started construction in 1906 and opened in 1911. Though routes and starting points changed afterward, traces remain that Mokpo was at the core of Korea’s modern road network—a place that was both an end and a beginning.

Mokpo opened its port in October 1, 1897, and quickly grew as goods and people poured in. Records from the 1920s describe mountains of cotton piled along the shore and a boom in construction. The port’s prosperity, fueled by agricultural output from the Honam region, was inseparable from the exploitative structure of the colony. Today, the former Japanese consulate—now Mokpo Modern History Museum No. 1—and the former Mokpo branch of the Oriental Development Company—now Museum No. 2—face each other on the same street, showing both sides of that history. Mokpo opened its port on October 1, 1897, and subsequently developed its urban framework around roads, railways, and a port.

At the ‘2026 Jeonnam Gwangju Art Festival Jeongwangseokhwa’ held at the Mokpo Modern History and Culture Street. Exhibitions, performances, and experiential programs are taking place throughout the old alleys and unused spaces, with citizens and tourists moving along the streets. Photo by Heeyoon Kim

This is why the Modern History and Culture Street is less a sightseeing area for a few buildings, and more a place to trace how the port transformed into a city. These days, Mokpo is placing new uses into its old framework. In Songjart, a former rice mill, the smell of coffee now fills the air. Loaves of bread rest among old household items, paintings, and posters, while local ingredients like Shinan salt and regional figs are added to the menu. What’s interesting is that not all the old spaces have been entirely renovated to look new.

The easiest way to make an old city into a tourist spot is to fully restore it and attach plaques. That’s also often the most boring way. When people begin using an old space again, the story changes. A rice mill becomes a café, fish processing turns into a performance, and zitan wood that was once cargo on the sea now explains international trade from 700 years ago.

This is exactly where Mokpo tourism feels fresh. Rather than just displaying the past, it transforms past functions into experiences for the present. I spent two nights in Mokpo. On the first night, everyone kept their heads bowed, glued to the tips of fishing rods and the dark sea surface, lest they miss the bite of a cutlassfish. The next evening, at Peace Plaza, it was the opposite.

The marine W show fireworks displayed over the sea in front of Mokpo Peace Square. The sea fountain, lights, and fireworks combined to transform Mokpo's night sea into a massive outdoor stage. Photo by Brian Heeseong Kim

When the music of the Marine W Show started and fireworks shot up behind the water fountain, people all tilted their heads upward in unison. The same sea was seen from two opposite postures in just one day. During the day, if you take the sea cable car, you can look down at Yudalsan Mountain, Mokpo Port, and the islands all at once. At Gatbawi, you see strange rocks carved by wind and waves. If you only look for ‘things to see’, scenes like these are what come to mind when capturing the essence of Mokpo in photos.

Yet, oddly enough, what lingered most after returning wasn’t the scenery. It was the wet floor of the auction market. The flash when a cutlassfish leaped out of the water. The tip of a knife slipping through skate flesh. A few characters that remained carved on zitan wood for 700 years. Everything was at the moment just before completion.

When the cutlassfish boat returned to port, the lights of Mokpo Bridge rippled long across the black water. Just earlier, dinner had been pulled from those same waters, and the next day, I learned that the same southwestern sea had cradled a 700-year-old trading ship. To describe Mokpo just as ‘a city with a beautiful sea’ is to leave out something crucial. This sea has worked for a long time. It has provided fish, transported goods, made pathways, and helped the city grow.

Perhaps what Mokpo should show as a tourist destination is not merely the sea itself. It is the process by which the sea becomes a city.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.