- Overview
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Once a boy who loved the sea and now a marine biologist, Doctor Jung-gu Myung vividly tells about the lively fishes and seas all around the world.
- Book Intro
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(English) A Fish Expert’s Amazing Sea Story
The seas--the place where the species harboring the secrets of proto-Earth live and where the feast of various life phenomena such as the evolution, extinction, and birth of new species is held. The seas of the polar regions, temperate climate regions, and tropical regions are full of diverse marine life, and there the uncharted waters wait for humans to research.
Professor Jung-gu Myung, a recognized fish expert, has traveled seas all around the world encountering diverse species of fish with underwater investigations and has studied the underwater world. The author, who has dedicated his entire life to studying fish, marine ecosystem, and fishery resources, has gathered the stories of his own into a book as he wraps up his research career. He vividly tells stories about the ecology of fish that he has discovered through aquanautics and delivers his philosophy about the sea and life as well as the process of his growth from a marine boy who dreamed about the sea into a marine biologist.
Do fish have good eyesight? Which senses do they have? Is it true that there is a fish that can change its sex? What is the biggest fish? What is the smallest fish in the world? In the first chapter, the fish expert provides mysterious and amazing ecological knowledge about fish. He covers the basic information such as shapes, sizes, sensing organs, breeding strategies, parasitism, symbiosis, and handling of fish with much expertise. The author claims that the senior member of the Earth is fish. What should human beings that live on the land learn from fish? Humans have been destroying not only the land environment but also the marine ecosystem by encroaching upon it. However, marine life including fish has been keeping the order of the ecosystem for billions of years. In the underwater world there live predators such as sharks and whales and small fishes like anchovies, sardines, and mackerels, forming an ecological balance. The author shows how humans break the food chain under the sea by capturing millions of sharks in order to cook Shark Fin soup and overfishing other marine species and insists that humans learn from fish, how to live a harmonious and moderate life.
(Japanese) 魚博士が聞かせてくれる不思議な海の話
海。原始地球の秘密を秘めた生物種が住んでおり、地球の歴史の中で進化、絶滅、新しい種の誕生を繰り返す多彩な生命現象の饗宴が繰り広げられる場所。
自他ともに認める魚博士であるミョン・ジョング教授は、40年以上にわたり世界中の海を巡り、水中探査を通じて様々な魚に出会い、水中世界を研究してきた。生涯を魚と海洋生態系、水産資源の探求に打ち込んできた著者は、研究者生活を終え、これまでの話を一冊の本にまとめた。水中探査を通じて知り得た魚の生態について生き生きと語り、海と生命に関する著者の哲学、海を夢見ていた海の少年が海洋生物学者になるまでの過程を解き明かした。
- About the Author
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Jung-gu Myung
(English) Jung-gu Myung was born in Busan, South Korea. In his school years, Myung enjoyed looking into the sea or fishing at the pebble beaches and off the rocky coasts around Yeongdo and Jodo in Busan. In springtime, he went carp fishing in such places as the puddles under the Gupo bridge, Myeongjin in Gimhae, Maecdo, and the Jomanpo canal. Since watching documentary films about marine life in theaters in the 1960s and 1970s, he began to dream of becoming a marine biologist diving and exploring under the sea and entered Busan National Fisheries University. Myung took diving courses in his junior year in 1977 and pursued a master’s degree and doctoral degree at the same university in the 1980s and finally received a Doctor of Science degree with his study in shapes and ecology of fish in 1992. Starting from the year 1984 to December of 2020, he worked as a researcher at the Ocean Research Institute in the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (currently the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology), conducting researches on various topics such as Korean marine ranching and the underwater ecosystem around Dokdo Island through scientific diving. Believing that seas are not the object of memorization but that of understanding, Myung fulfilled his job as researcher and professor, a position he additionally held. Since the 1990s, he had been an active member of the Korea Underwater Association and contributed to Korean diving research by serving as the president for more than 10 years until 2020. He wrote around 40 books and 100 or so articles, including The Origin of the Sea, the Fish; Our Sea Creatures Met in Ulleungdo and Dokdo; Map of Dokdo in the Sea; and Dream Sea Ranch. (2021. 산지니)
(Japanese) 1955年釜山に生まれる。1984年から韓国科学技術院付設海洋研究所(現韓国海洋科学技術院)で勤務し、2020年12月まで韓国の海牧場研究、独島水中生態研究など科学潜水を通じて研究員生活をした。 1990年代から潜水専門家たちと韓国水中科学会で活動し、10年間会長を務め、韓国の水中潜水研究に貢献した。 『私たちの海の魚類図鑑』、『済州魚図鑑』、『鬱陵島、独島で出会った我が海生物』、などの40以上の著書と100以上の論文がある。
