The Yeosu Kimchi Chronicles: A Cross-Border Spicy Adventure

In which an anthropologist, a plastic bag of fermented vegetables, and a nose flute conspire to create one of the most unusual mornings of my academic career.

I met  with my colleague in the lobby that morning with the noble intention of visiting the old Yeosu Expo grounds—you know, the sort of dutiful cultural tourism that responsible conference attendees engage in when gifted with a free morning. But then a Japanese professor materialized with a Fish Market counter-proposal that would forever alter my relationship with pickled cabbage.

Now, this wasn’t just any Japanese professor. This was a man who had done fieldwork in Congo, carried mysterious musical instruments, and possessed that particular brand of academic confidence that comes from spending years studying people in the deep south of the Japanese archipelago where he hold a 50 years long conversation with  a local seer. I thought to myself, “This could be promising.”

Here we were in Yeosu, in south Korea, attending the World Islands Forum—a gathering of scholars and practitioners who spend their time thinking Very Serious Thoughts about archipelagos and maritime communities. But with the morning stretching before us like an uncharted sea, what does one do? Especially when one’s previous Korean experience had been roughly as inspiring as airline food and twice as forgettable.

But this time felt different. The weather was fantastic, islands dotted the horizon, and everything felt familiar in a coastal Pacific Ocean way.

We climbed into a taxi, and our driver—bless his broken English—immediately launched into that universal interrogation: “Where you from?” As we approached the fish market, anticipation building like a proper academic argument, the professor made an offhand comment about kimchi, not sure what exactly, I was not paying close attention.

I was already halfway out of the cab, one foot touching the ground, when the driver suddenly performed what can only be described as an automotive pirouette. “New Zealand, get in!” he commanded, as if kimchi had just trumped fish in some cosmic hierarchy I hadn’t been informed about.

Before I could process this unexpected plot twist, we were spinning across the bridge from the fish market and coming to a halt in front of a little shop. “Best kimchi in Yeosu,” our driver declared with the authority of someone delivering state secrets. “Fish market just across bridge. You go after. Goodbye.”

And there we stood, abandoned by our taxi prophet in front of what appeared to be kimchi ground zero.

The shop was a study in carefully organized sparkling clean order: enormous bundles of green ingredients unique to the region stacked in the corner, while big metallic containers held the raw materials of fermentation. A group of women sat around a table at the back in what appeared to be either a pre-work coffee break or a much-deserved respite from early morning kimchi warfare. It was 9:30 AM—a time when civilized people consume coffee and contemplate the day ahead, not fermented cabbage products.

But hospitality, as any anthropologist worth their fieldwork boots will tell you, transcends the boundaries of appropriate breakfast foods. We were invited to taste test their morning’s production.

Now, let me be clear: I am not a kimchi enthusiast. My relationship with Korean fermented vegetables could generously be described as diplomatic—polite, cautious, and marked by mutual suspicion. But when faced with three small metal containers of fresh kimchi and a woman explaining which was most spicy and least spicy (a distinction that, to my palate, was roughly equivalent to “very hot” versus “molten lava”), one does not simply decline.

I let my colleagues go first—a strategic move that allowed me to gauge the appropriate facial expressions for survival. When my turn came, I discovered something remarkable: fresh kimchi in Yeosu tastes exponentially better than whatever I’d encountered in Seoul twenty years prior. It was like comparing a symphony to someone banging pots and pans.

It was then that the professor made his announcement: “I would like to buy some kimchi.”

I stared at him. “Really? What are you going to do with it? We’re here for two days. I don’t think you can take kimchi back to Japan.”

His response revealed the deep cultural wisdom that comes from years of anthropological training: “Look, someone has to buy something. We can’t just leave without buying something. Early in the morning, being the first customers and leaving empty-handed—that would bring them terrible luck.”

“Ah,” I thought, “the Congo fieldwork training in action.” Here was a man who understood the delicate economics of cultural exchange, the sacred relationship between guest and host that transcends mere commerce.

The kimchi was ceremoniously packaged with the precision of a NASA mission: plastic bag, Styrofoam container, professional-grade ice packs. Koreans, it appears, do not mess around when it comes to maintaining kimchi integrity during transport. This wasn’t just food packaging; it was temperature-controlled preservation technology.

Armed with our precious cargo, we finally made it to the fish market, which unfolded like a perfectly orchestrated theatre of maritime commerce. The formal section was spotlessly organized, undeniably a woman’s domain—every stall owner female, their licenses and photographs displayed with bureaucratic pride. The abundance was overwhelming: tanks upon tanks of fish, some of which were staging dramatic escape attempts.

But here’s where the professor truly distinguished himself: he was carrying this extraordinary musical instrument—a nose flute that produced melodic sounds when properly deployed. He used it as a cultural icebreaker, creating instant connections with the market women. Some were enchanted, others looked at him as if he’d landed from Mars carrying a kimchi container and making strange noises. Both reactions seemed perfectly reasonable.

We moved from the formal fish market through increasingly informal layers—covered arcades filled with makeshift stalls, women with basic buckets and boxes selling the day’s catch, the organized chaos spilling out into the streets where people sat under the sun hawking miscellaneous treasures.

Throughout this maritime exploration, the professor dutifully carried his kimchi cargo like some sort of fermented holy grail. Then, in a moment of sartorial panic, he announced: “I didn’t bring a white shirt for tomorrow’s conference presentation. Do you mind if we find one?”

And so we found ourselves meandering through back streets, searching for appropriate academic attire while carrying a container of kimchi that was probably approaching optimal fermentation temperature. He eventually settled on a shirt that was white-adjacent—not completely white, but the best available option in our kimchi-carrying circumstances.

Back at the hotel, we encountered our Korean host, and the professor recognized his moment: surely a Korean would appreciate fresh market kimchi! The anthropological gift exchange could reach its logical conclusion!

Alas, our host’s response was less than exuberant. “Well, kimchi ferments very quickly, and where am I going to put it while traveling?” he said, politely declining what the professor had clearly envisioned as the perfect cross-cultural offering.

We all stared at the kimchi container, performing rapid mental calculations: could three academics consume this much fermented cabbage in two days? The professor, demonstrating admirable optimism, deposited it in his hotel  room fridge with a “let’s see what happens” shrug that perfectly captured the spirit of academic adventure.

The conference concluded, farewells were exchanged, and we dispersed to our respective corners of the Pacific Rim. But the story of the Yeosu kimchi was far from over.

Just a few days later, scrolling through Facebook with the dedication of a proper social media anthropologist, I spotted a post from my new Japanese professor friend: a photograph of rice accompanied by kimchi, with the caption noting that his rice, coming from his own farm, now had a proper Korean condiment.

I immediately messaged him: “Did you actually manage to get that kimchi through Japanese customs?”

His response was pure academic gold: “Well, there was a dog sniffing around me, and I had to declare I was carrying something from Korea. But because it was properly sealed, they let me through.”

And there you have it: the epic tale of Yeosu kimchi’s international journey, a fermented vegetable’s triumph over bureaucracy, customs dogs, and the general improbability of academic tourism. Somewhere in Japan, a Congo-trained anthropologist who plays nose flute is eating Korean kimchi with his own rice, creating the sort of beautiful cultural collision that makes this strange profession of ours worthwhile.

The kimchi had travelled further than most conference papers ever will, crossing borders, surviving customs inspections, and achieving what all good research should: connecting people across cultures through shared experience, one fermented cabbage leaf at a time.