My one-day trip to Mokpo Port last week on the SRT was comfortable and very rewarding. People were kind and everyone was eager to help visitors. We seven church friends stayed in the southwestern city for seven hours, eating two meals, walking up Yudalsan under clear blue skies, promenading in the Gatbawi beachfront park, and chatting in the Colombang Bakery and Cafe.

SRT is short for Super Rapid Train, the nation’s second bullet train service which began operation early in December to compete with KTX. Some call it Suseo Rapid Train because it starts from Suseo Station in the southeastern part of Seoul. It aims to draw customers from the Gangnam and Bundang-Pangyo areas with a convenient approach, a little cut in the fares and more spacious seating.

In two hours and 10 minutes, the brand new train carried us to Mokpo Station in the center of the city, the terminal of the nearly century-old Honam Line. The old station building was crowded with people using both KTX and SRT to Seoul. The restrooms double as an art gallery to remind us of the city’s nickname “Yehyang,” the town of artists.

Outside, we went to the taxi stand and asked the driver of a jumbo taxi to take us to North Port Market, where we had made a reservation at a small restaurant. The driver shook his head and kindly told us to walk the short distance to the place. We followed his direction and soon were met by Mrs. Choe, the owner and chef of the old Wando restaurant at the entrance to the marketplace.

She prepared the table with blowfish soup, grilled “galchi” swordfish and a bottle of homebrewed makgeolli. Also on the table were three kinds of kimchi, four kinds of “namul” -- spinach, bracken, green pepper and “gamtae” seaweed -- and little crabs dipped in soy sauce. Mrs. Choe emphasized that both the blowfish and galchi were all from the coastal seas, not from China. We were not surprised when we were told that even the fish market in Mokpo has been invaded with imports from China, Chile and other parts of the world.

While planning the SRT trip to Mokpo, I did a little research on the port city which I had only passed by in previous trips to my hometown of Gangjin and favorite vacation place Bogil Island. First I called the culture-tourism division at the city hall and asked about recommended restaurants and points of interest. Then I spent some time on the internet to collect information necessary for a one-day visit.

A city official told me to go to Dokcheon Restaurant near the railway station if I was keen for octopus dishes. I saved it for supper, and scanned travel tips by online commenters in search of a place off the beaten path for our first meal in Mokpo. Thus, I located Mrs. Choe’s, which was introduced as the place where hungry fishermen come after days at sea. We were fully satisfied with what the 66-year-old woman from Wando offered.

The old Mokpo is crammed in an area of some 10 square kilometers around Yudalsan, famous for the Nojeokbong rocks. Legend has it that Adm. Yi Sun-shin covered the rocks with straw mats to trick Japanese invaders into thinking they were a heap of rice bags large enough to sustain a long siege during the 16th-century war. We strolled in the cool air toward the historical landmark, digesting the heavy lunch, and ambled up the hill to take a full view of the port.

At a distance to the east is the new South Jeolla Provincial Office, which belongs to the Muan County area outside the administrative boundary of Mokpo. This office complex and Muan International Airport are two symbolic facilities the past Kim Dae-jung government established near his political hometown of Mokpo. The people of Mokpo regard them as small rewards for the long disadvantage they suffered for having produced and supported the perpetual opposition leader during the Park Chung-hee rule.

On the main street from the old city to the new town around the provincial office is the huge signboard of Rep. Park Jie-won’s local office. The protege of Kim Dae-jung, who is now a leader of the People’s Party, is regarded as a representative of the political emotions of the Mokpo and Jeolla people in their perennial defiance against central power. His alliance with Ahn Cheol-soo secured 38 seats in the April elections last year.

Young students in the second-floor cafe of the Colombang bakery speak little of the local dialect, the influence of TV being the same as in other parts of the nation. But they are strongly proud of their political tradition, which is expressed these days in their “Park Geun-hye out” rallies synchronized with the weekend demonstrations in Seoul. Their resentment for the president is lettered boldly in placards hanging at churches and other public facilities in the port city.

A change of power may be in sight of the people of Mokpo, but it would not necessarily mean an end to their sense of periphery and mistreatment. The southwest has a smaller population than the southeast, so various political technologies have been tried in previous elections to overcome that weakness. What will transpire in 2017 under a four-party structure is anyone’s guess.

Can we expect the receding of the tradition of parochialism -- the electorate’s loyalty to a party purely on the basis of regional sentiment beyond individual ideological orientation -- in Mokpo and elsewhere this year? Hasn’t time come for Koreans to become politically more pragmatic and explore their future untied to the fates of regional heroes, I pondered.

A visit to Mokpo after many years makes one feel sorry for the city’s unchanging mood of being cast away, despite changes in the cityscape, with many parks, museums, art halls, new thoroughfares and beachside drives. The 4-kilometer Mokpo Grand Bridge dedicated in 2012 spans the port north-south to Heosado and Daebul industrial estate. Other bridges connect several larger islands off Mokpo to the mainland and construction is underway between smaller ones.

I hope Mokpo becomes richer. Tourism is one assured area of development for the port extended to the picturesque islands. Culinary delights of course are a great reward for visiting Mokpo, now easier to reach with the opening of SRT.


By Kim Myong-sik

Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. – Ed.