Why does Korea Keep Ruining its Good Parts?

Piano Street might have been my favorite feature of downtown Seoul. It was unique, distinctive, one-of-a-kind, and instantly identifiable - everybody knew "piano street". It was a reliable a meeting place, as automatically known, as City Hall Plaza, but without the occasionally awesome, but occasionally ham-handed Seoul Promotions. They dug it up a while ago, which blew my mind, and I thought, "They durn better replace it with something way cooler, because other than the broken glass panel thing, this little stretch has a good thing going. Well, they finished renovations. Get Scott Burgeson on the line, because now it's a groddy little strip where people sell crap, and what used to be one of the coolest features of the busiest part of Northern Seoul...now sucks.


Yeah. Seoul really needed another place where you can buy cheap crap. I was walking around Dongdaemun thinking that the other day. Or was it Namdaemun? Or was it ONE OF THE HUNDRED OTHER PLACES YOU CAN BUY CHEAP CRAP IN SEOUL (unlike the only Piano street in Seoul, which was, you know, singular). So, if this eyesore and pimatgol are any indication, it seem Korea's new strategy for urban renewal and revitalization is to take out cool stuff, and replace it with cookie-cutter stuff that sells crap, and has none of the character the original had. See, you know, I don't even have a problem with the idea that decrepit old buildings have to be dealt with... but the La Meilleur building is the bone you're going to toss those displaced restauranteurs on one of the tastiest strips of alley in Seoul? And a bunch of stalls selling useless crap is going to help tourists remember Seoul better than the awesome piano keys? Which yes-man has been whispering in Mayor Oh Se-hun's (오 세훈: I hope you find this on google and read it and cry) ear, and the supposed park space between Jongmyo and Namsan better be pretty goldurn awesome to win back my favor after this Pimat-Piano fiasco. (Oh yeah: not to mention almost getting away with trashing City Hall's lovely old building, as if it were his backyard shed and not ANOTHER of the city's most recognizable spots... in a city starving for recognizable images other than matchbox apartments. Discussion class after class tells me that Seoul, to join the ranks of the world-class cities, needs an instantly recognizable symbol -- an Eiffel Tower, a Statue of Liberty, a Golden Gate Bridge, a Shanghai Pearl, or a Sydney Opera House, to build the brand, so what the HELL are these people doing demolishing what few sweet landmarks there ARE?


What next? Han River Park Shopping Mall? Unesco Digital Market? Kyungju "Tomb" Underground Shopping Arcade? Starbucks in Changdeokgung? (Hey: there was one in the Forbidden City)

I mean, go ahead and make stuff better. You know. Tear down old stuff that isn't doing its job anymore, or that's uglifying the town... but replace it with something just as cool, wouldn't you? Sneak in some office buildings; I understand the need... but can you keep SOME of the winding alley-ways around? Fix up the buildings if need be, and see to it the coolest restaurants get spots in whatever preserved thingy remains... but do SOMETHING, would you? Instead of something unimpressive, modern (read: ugly and steel) and totally divorced from nature (isn't harmony with nature supposed to be the great thing about Gyungbokgung? By the way: nice trees in the plaza. Oh wait: they're NOT trees: they're shad-deficient metal dr-seuss abominations!)

How're those working out for you, then?
(image source... sorry for borrowing this gwn, but it's the only one I could find that illustrated my point about the tree-things)

Now Gord Sellar weighs in with the loss of Wonmisan. Seriously? Improving a mountain with stairs? And you're not allowed to take the other path, even if you WANT to? Yech.

Hand, meet forehead.

Hadn't thought of it that way... Suicide and Swine Flu

This Korea Times editorial brings together a few things:

You see, Korea's GNP (that's Gross National Product) is now 15th in the world. That's pretty tootin' high; however, its GNH (that's Gross National Happiness) is a dismal 68th. Now, the article trots out some of the usual statistics about the birthrate, the suicide rate, the economy, and job stability, but it also brings up this one:

Only four Koreans have died of swine flu so far. Just four. Yet despite only four Koreans dying from it, the response has been not far off from a national panic -- students getting their temperatures taken on their way into school, people flinching at every sniffle beside them on the subway, and government PSAs, contingency plans, and some big talk about canceling all kinds of things. No Korean children have died of swine flu so far, according to the article, yet teachers are making them all pass the ear-mometer test before they come to school.

On the other hand, hundreds of Korean youths commit suicide every year. How bad would the swine flu have to get to equal the number of Korean young people who have killed themselves in the last five years?

So the question of the day is: Wouldn't it be nice if Korea's leadership threw up their hands with equal urgency over a threat that has been killing, and will continue to kill, many, many more people than have been killed by the flu so far? What would that look like, and how would life change for the people at the highest suicide risk?

Asian Poses, and a picture of a friend, and an embarrassing picture of a nemesis

I love eating out with food bloggers (unlike Dan Gray, who likes the same thing, but without the "with"), because you get pictures like this, where everybody's forgotten that food is for eating, not photographing.



And I, for one, want to tell you about Asian Poses: it's a hilarious blog chronicling all the goofy poses that Asians make when somebody pulls out a camera. It's an awesome blog, and you should check it out.

And not only do I want to tell you about the blog, I want to demonstrate a few of the poses... so here goes.



Dammit, I'm awesome! I'm totally entering this video in their contest!

Next, it's good to hang out with food bloggers, because there's usually good food nearby if you keep them on your speed dial.

Plus, there's always the chance you'll get some embarrassing pictures of them. Especially when they pose for them. (I don't know why they pose for embarrassing pictures when a blogger's holding the camera... even the ATEK guys saved their really juicy stories for the second or third time I met them: not the first time.

But anyway, enjoy these pictures, because I never actually got permission to post these from Joe or Dan or Evan, so I might have to take them down. Even though once it's on the internet, taking it down is kind of moot... but whatcha gonna do?

So, without further ado, here's a picture Joe might not want you to see.


Next: here's my buddy Evan.

Doesn't he resemble this guy?

Finally: here's G-dragon.

Doesn't my buddy Dan resemble him?


Yeah I thought so, too.
Dan is trying to dig up some dirt he can use to embarrass me, but unfortunately for him, last time we hung out, he got so drunk he couldn't remember all the scandalous secrets I told him, and the Asian Poses video is the best he could do. Shouldn't have finished that first beer, Dan!

Really, I should be posting this video once a year.

After yesterday's post, I might have trouble convincing you this lives up to its name, "The most terrifying video you'll ever see"... but it's also an important video to see and think about, explained really clearly and simply.

Yeah, I posted it at Roboseyo before... back when nobody read me.

In other "save the world" news, I've gotten involved with the KIVA loan thingy, and it's awesome. You can sponsor micro-loans that help people improve their lives in clear, tangible ways, for as little as $25.00USD.

Been busy and stuff. More on Community building

first of all, posts are taking longer now that I resize photos to take up less space. Blogger only gives me a finite amount of space for posting pictures.

Second: been busy preparing logic and rhetoric and public speaking curricula for a really cool class who wants to learn about the art of persuasion. It's been interesting reading up on that stuff. It's also interesting how, back in the days of the greeks, logic and rhetoric were considered part of the same field, where now, logic is usually considered the domain of philosophy or sometimes science, and rhetoric would more likely be found on a languages, composition, communications or media course calendar. Plus, logic is generally trusted, but rhetoric has that slight taint of mistrust.

Anyway, it's been interesting reading up on it. Really interesting. Like, "I might want to pursue something like this in a postgraduate way" interesting, but hard packaging that in a way that will get my students to talk about it, rather than in a way that gets ME lecturing about it.

So, until then... saw this really cool video on facebook. Turns out they totally captured Michael Jackson's ghost on camera when Larry King Live sent some cameras to the jackson mansion.

Warning: not for the jittery. Dad, don't watch this. Everybody else: the audio's a bit low on the clip, so it's better if you turn the volume up.


next:

After being a bit disappointed by the level of response I had to the Community posts I seriously spent all month writing, it looks like things are looking up. Chris in SK responded with a great post, and now Ask the Expat has picked up the ball, and has proposed getting the K-bloggers together, to start with, in order to position ourselves to have a larger and more positive impact in the community at large. He also suggested in a comment that some of the long-termers living in various regions take on a more prominent role in getting the expats in their areas involved in community reachouts at a more organized, formalized level, in order to build up some goodwill and positive PR to counteract the negative press (that's right: he's not just starting an exclusive bloggers-only club: there's an endgame here that's more inclusive, if I'm reading correctly, and if that's not part of the plan, if elected as president, I'll push for it). By that same token, I remember hearing (though I can't remember where) that AFEK was working on pulling together an outreach-type event involving AFEK members and their families, and maybe inviting the press. If Mike Y or other AFEK members read this, would you care to share a progress report with the rest of KBlogLand? I for one, would love to hear how your community is developing.

In other community news, ATEK is having presidential elections. I'll write more about that when I have some time, at The Hub of Sparkle. There are currently two candidates for president, unless things have changed since before. I have more to say about that, but I'll save it for the full write-up.

Aaaaaand... some of those resized pictures for you.

Rather than get into hot water by commenting on the way this ad pretty egregiously uses sex to sell... wine, I think... though it might be engine oil... I'll just wait for Gomushin girl to explain why it's better than the other ads that use sex to sell in the comments.

Been taking nice pictures lately.
Around the blue house compound, west of Gyungbok palace:
this was actually the square where Park Chung-hee was assassinated.

Next: you may or may not have seen the Kim Yuna ads at Smoothie King. I don't know how being white ties in with drinking the yuna smoothie, but several people bought one while I waited in line.

In other "be white" news, I needed something for a bit of razor burn I got from shaving too closely one morning before I went to meet Girlfriendoseyo. When I got to her house, I asked Girlfriendoseyo if she had anything for dry or irritated skin, and she couldn't find one bottle of balm or lotion WITHOUT whitener in it.
More nice clouds. This time near samchungdong.
And the last thing I'll share today: I've always loved the way a bright sun filters through layered tree leaves. Always. Well, I was bopping around Ewha Women's University with Girlfriendoseyo, and stopped under some absolutely perfect trees, on what might have been the brightest and hottest day of the summer, and snagged these amazing pictures. The original files are maximum size, and they're amazing, and we're totally blowing them up and framing them to put up and reflect upon, on those days when the busy city and smoggy traffic is just too much to handle.




have a good one, readers.