PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — And on the 10th day, I ate fish cake soup.
Yes, fish cake soup.
Otherwise known as “eomuk guk,” because fish cake soup doesn’t sound repellant enough.
What is “eomuk guk” you ask?
No, not a fun word invented by Dr. Seuss. Something considerably less entertaining than that.
According to the Korean Herald, “eomuk is processed fish cake made with pureed fish and other ingredients.”
So, pureed fish. And the “other” ingredients. Shaped into a processed sort of cake, which is actually less of a cake and more of a noodle.
These noodles are then added to an anchovy stock. And this concoction is sold by street vendors and in concession stands all across Korea.
It’s like BBQ nachos, without any of the BBQ, the nachos, the cheese or the deliciousness.
But I ate it. A whole bowl of it. And I lived to type the tale.
Of course, coming from a country that invented Velveeta, jello salad and the donut hamburger, I’m not sure I have standing to criticize.
Koreans
A word about our Korean hosts. They’ve been fabulous.
Efficient, cheerful and unfailingly helpful, And if it seems obvious that Olympics hosts would be all of those things — after all, countries pay billions for the right to host the Olympics — I give you Atlanta, where there it was at the very least hit or miss.
Korean volunteers are everywhere. Nearly all of them speak English. They don’t seem to object that most of us don’t even know how to say “thank you” in their language.
Indeed, the volunteers give the impression that this must be the happiest place on earth which — and this is where it gets complicated — could not be further from the truth.
South Korea has the second-highest rate of suicide in the world. It ranked as the 102nd happiest country in the world according to a metric known as the Satisfaction with Life index.
Why?
Because South Koreans work and study astonishingly hard. Ninety-six percent of students do not get enough sleep. Many are still taking lessons after 11 p.m. Until 2004, Saturday was a workday in Korea.
As Daniel Tudor recounts in his excellent book, “Korea, The Impossible Country,” all of this helps explain how South Korea transformed itself into one of the most successful democracies and economies in the world. But it also helps explain why that transformation has not necessarily resulted in contentment.
South Korean Fun Fact of the Day
South Koreans are so obsessed with learning English, there are doctors who offer a tongue surgery called a “lingual frenectomy,” which they say will help improve English pronunciation.
Mailbag
Dear Geoff,
What is a typical day like?
— John
Dear John,
Let’s see. Saturday, I caught a 7 a.m. bus to Phoenix Park to cover women’s slopestyle skiing, arriving at 8 a.m. or so. The Gannett paper in Burlington, Vt., had a couple athletes competing and needed a story. Neither won a medal. But I wrote a quick story and then needed three bus rides (totaling a good two hours) to get to Gangneung for U.S. vs. Russia in men’s hockey. I filed that story at 1 a.m., and caught a bus back to the media village, arriving at 1:45 a.m. Then it was up at 6:45 a.m. for a bus ride to the Yongpyong Alpine Center to cover three men in giant slalom. One for the Gannett paper in Reno, one for the Gannet paper in Salem, Ore., one for the Gannett paper in Burlington. None of them medaled. But I banged out three quick stories on those skiers, then caught a bus back to the media center, where I dropped in on the women’s figure skating press conference in hopes of picking up a column for later in the week. Now I’m on a bus headed to the curling center to write a story on John Shuster for the Gannett paper in Milwaukee.
I have not seen Nathan Chen competing, live or on television. Nor have I seen Nathan Chen or Mikaela Shiffriin or Chloe Kim or Jamie Anderson or Red Gerard. You have seen much more of the Olympics than I have. That’s not complaining, that’s the nature of the beast, especially given my current role covering locals for other Gannett newspapers. On TV, the Olympics take place in a little box. In person, they unfold across a far-flung collection of venues, connected by an endless series of bus rides.
But I did take a chairlift up a mountain to a press box. I did watch a Korean crowd cheer wildly for the unified Korean women’s hockey team. I did talk to figure skater Bradie Tennell, just me and Tennell and another reporter at one point, because everyone else was interviewing Mirai Nagasu.
And I did wander into a press conference today and listen to Nick Goepper talk about winning a silver medal in slopestyle skiing. Except he wasn’t really talking about winning a silver medal. He was talking about winning a bronze medal at the last Olympics, and about tumbling into a depression afterward, and about wanting to kill himself, and about eventually finding the help he needed.
It’s not the extraordinary Olympic performances that move me the most. It’s the extraordinary humanity. All of these athletes have stories. Just like all of us have stories. Life comes with all kinds of challenges, and most of them don’t involve medals.
Quote of the Day
“Um, that double-edged sword.” — Figure skater Mirai Nagasu on what it was like to finish fourth at the Vancouver Olympics. The United States currently has 17 fourth or fifth place finishes at these Olympics.
Read Again https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/sports/columnists/geoff-calkins/2018/02/18/winter-olympics-2018-yes-really-ate-fish-cake-soup/349166002/
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