A squid fishing boat loaded with a large number of fish-attracting lights has returned to the port of Sokcho

I found myself wandering through Sokcho, a city perched on the eastern coast of the Korean Peninsula. Structurally, it occupies a peculiar place in geography and time: it sits south of the current military demarcation line, yet north of the old 38th parallel. This means that before the Korean War erupted, this land belonged to the North. Perhaps because of this historical knot, a subtle, weathered melancholy seemed to drift through the corners of the streets—though, of course, it might have just been my imagination. Undeterred by the heavy ironies of history, the local seagulls danced lazily through the air, drawing my steps toward a tranquil fishing harbor.

Standing on the quay of that peaceful harbor, I watched a large vessel return from the sea, cutting through the water and leaving a trail of white foam in its wake. It was a squid fishing boat, its hull draped with an astonishing number of oversized lightbulbs. Squid are drawn to light, and so, beneath the cover of darkness, these blinding arrays are fired up to illuminate the black ocean and lure them to the surface. I’ve read that fishermen once used the flickering flames of torches for this very purpose; today’s vessels rely instead on a relentless row of electric bulbs, which must look brilliantly radiant out on the night sea. Under the bright afternoon sun, however, they merely hung there, limp and powerless—hollow glass beads showing a somewhat clumsy, foolish silhouette.

Yet, that somewhat foolish display of hanging bulbs followed the exact same mechanism you see on squid boats in Japan. No matter how deeply human beings clash over borders or political whims, when faced with the singular, pragmatic goal of outsmarting a squid beneath the waves, different nations inevitably arrive at the exact same shape of human ingenuity. Not that it matters to the squid, of course. Whether lured by a Japanese light or a Korean one, they are equally deceived and hauled into the air—making the whole brilliant apparatus nothing short of a nuisance.