Pohang: steel and seafood HQ

Oeosa Temple

It’s finals week, which means that students have 4 days of intense examination while teachers get out at noon and pary the afternoons away. On Monday, we all headed over to Palgong Mountain for a delicious grilled beef lunch. On the way over, the teachers I was riding with invited me to a “secret” trip to Pohang post-lunch. So after a hurried lunch, they made some excuse so that we could skip out on the drinking/singing rounds and instead start the one hour journey to the coastal city of Pohang.

Pohang was great – we hiked up some mountain/hill to get to Oeosa temple, which overlooks a pretty lake. Good thing I was wearing my Converse instead of actual work shoes.  The temple was built during the Silla dynasty and according to legend, two priests competed for the revival of dead fish with their power of Buddhist discipline. One of the two dead fish came back to life and of course both monks claimed that it was their power that revived the fish. Thus the name “Oeosa,” which in Chinese characters means “my fish” (…. or something along those lines).

We headed over to a huge fish market where my coteachers choose some crab from one ajuma and some fish from another ajuma. The fish were still squirming as their heads were chopped off and they were gutted right in front of us. It was pretty gross yet captivating at the same time. Maybe I should have pursued a profession where my non-squirmishness would come into use. The fish was served as sashimi and the crab was steamed and served as our second course. 맛있는 음식을! I was kind of weirded out when one of the teachers started emptying all of the green goo out of the crabs into a bowl. When she proceeded to mix rice into the goo and serve the concoction to me in one of the crab shells, I was a bit grossed out. But it tuned out to be delicious! I think the green stuff was seaweed … or at least that is what I am telling myself.

I feel a little guilty that the teachers are having such a good time while the kids are struggling through hours of exams, but then I remember that the kids really don’t seem to care about these tests. Two second graders came to visit me last week and I asked them how they felt about their upcoming exams. The girl said she didn’t really care about their finals because: a) if she studied her scores would only increase by 10 points, and b) these exams are insignificant in comparison to their college entrance exams. So I guess finals week is a win-win situation for both teachers and students.

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