Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Korea






Well, we have made it to Korea, and suitable fashion, we are just about to leave it again before I have even written anything about it. I havn't really had a good chance to write something decent on Japan either. The scale of it - having spent two months there - makes it a bit difficult to know where to start!

Well Korea was great as well. MOre or less as we imagined it would be, half way between China and Japan culturally, and having suffered at the hands of its neighbours on numerous occassions. The Koreans are a tough lot, prefer elegance to cuteness (cuteness being very big in Japan), directness to politeness (people walk into you the whole time - there is no stepping out of the way) - ques (standing in line) dont exist - which means that nobody ques, not that it is so efficient that there are no ques.

The economy is going pretty well too, unfortunately for the tourist, as the Won is up in value by 10% in the last 2 years. But still, this is probably the only place in the world that it is cheap to travel in taxis. It makes a great change to hitching.

There are many property millionaires as the values of appartments go through the roof. The economy is highly protected so almost everything seems to be locally produced. But everything seems to be produced by hte same 4 or 5 massive combines. Whole neighbourhoods even. Daewoo, Hyundai, LG (Lowe Goldstar) and Samsung being the monster of them all. I think Samsung first cut its teeth on Semiconductor production which is still the bedrock of the economy. You can see their logos plastered on the size of the endemic 30 storey tower blocks every where - they are still springing up. They look for all the world like very well appointed former Soviet Bloc housing, with a lick of paint. And everything works of course too. But the thing is when you are inside them, it is like you are inside one of these companies products, not a building. Everything in the building, including the building itself is designed by, engineered, built by, supplied by, wired by the same company who developped the site in the first place. The visual effect, is , well predicatble and depressing. Korean cities are not ones of great beauty. What they lack in beauty though they certainly make up for in vibrancy.

I knew that we would have succumbed to some sort of complacency after our long sojourn in the safest country in the world, but i never expected that Korean drivers to be nearly as legendary as our friends in Tbilisi.
Did you know that a red light is negotiable here? It doesnt really mean red unless your way is blocked in fact. Of course it does mean 'Stop' but they bend that rule a little too much for my liking. The net result, of course, is that here you do wait for the little green man, and then double check before crossing....mad!

The people are very special though. I suppose a people with a generation and a half of a pointless war (it is still not officially over) -the same war that 2 million people lost their lives in -and then having been able to turn the economy the country and peoples expectations around in such a short space of time is exceptional.

And for a country that has suffered some of the worst excesses of Military Dictatorship in the recent history, here it seems that the only place you will find Democracy is on the street. The Korean Demo puts the proud French Strike to shame. We were in Seoul Two days, and we already walked into two massive demos. All trade and labour related these days, but only a few years ago, there were the massive protests all over the country against the Generals that ran the country. the streets ran red.

Gwangju is a city about the size of Dublin in the South East of the country. It is regarded as the heartland of political protest and home of Korean Democracy. 25 years ago in 1980, many may remember, that there was a student protest on May 18 that was put down with such violence by the police and army (the soldiers bayoneted the protesters) that the rest of the city took up arms. Essentially the citizens over ran the police stations, militia and barracks, siezed the weapons, and drove the military out of town. The army was sent in with predictable results. But the actions in Gwangju ensured that Korean Democracy was not smothered in its cot, even if the cost in loss of lives was so high. But they had to wait over 15 years to see that happen. The two generals responsible for the massacres in Gwangju (Chun Doo- Hwan and Roh Tae-Woo later went on to become presidents in the 90's, and now in retirement they still draw an army salary. The first truly democratically elected president of South Korea in modern times came unsurprisingly from the Jeollananm-do area, the region with Gwangju - he was also the first president elected from outside of the Gyeonggi-do (the region containing Seoul). His name is Kim De-Jung. He actually pardoned the two generals in an amnesty.

Of course with such dynastic families of industrialists, absolute power of the military and tales of real heroes like those in Gwangju comes many a legend. A couple of my favourites are (the totally unsubstantiated - ie legends) the stories of Kim Dae-Jung during his presidential campaign in 1998 and the ongoing smear campaign of the industrialists, particularly Samsung allegedly, and their then CEO Lee Gun-Hee.
On winning the election Kim dae-Jung allegedly demanded that Lee Gun-Hee give him the Samsung landmark tower in central Seoul for the term of his presidency by way of reparation or just a demonstration of pure power, I dont know. If the CEO did not, he Kim dae-Jung would smash Samsung.

Interestingly enough Lee Gun-Hee (former CEO president of Samsung) is now mayor of Seoul.

The other legend revolves around another massive Korean Company, Hyundai - (those of the car). Hyundai is one of the South Korean companies who have being doing most to make inroads into the Northern Economy, trying to get it going in some manner or means. They were instrumental in agreeing a free trade area just accross the DMZ in North Korea. They have a large concern (factory/business) there. But it seems that is a loss making excercise, and one that is closer to the patriotic heart of the Hyundai founder Jung Ju-Young than those of his business minded sons. All apart one of them, that is, his second son Jung Mong-Heoh, who had the credentials to be the next very successful CEO of Hyundai. He too shared his fathers ideals in pumping money into the north.

Whether their ideas were truly altruistic or patriotic I dont know, but it is implied as such, and the disagreements in the family were very real indeed. So much so that the strife finally led Jung Mong-Heoh to jump from the 8th floor of the Hyundai building in Seoul.

Any other country in the west would have immediately jumped on the conspiracy theory here. But, there, emphatically and tragically of course, the sons suicide is the end of story. No further debate or specualtion entered into.

Perhaps there is a real case of lost in translation in all these stories, but even ancient legends, seem to have this bizarre incongruity. famous Buddhist Monks who accidentally fall in a river in order to be taken to the Princess' abode "and this is how the princess finally gave birth to a Son" was favourite one of mine from Gyeongju, home of the ancient Silla kingdom. I am sure they are missing something there. Or maye they are laudably straight forward in their story telling. I come from a country where embellishment and 'aibheal' (exageration) is an art form in itself, and have developed cultural filters to allow me to get to some nub of the story. Anyway. I look forward to reading many more Korean legends, stories and intrigues.

Well, I hope I can write more about Korea and Japan in China. Apparently you cant access this blog from within China co we'll be relying on feedback from you lot to to let us know if our posts are appearing - we'll be emailing them to the site, not accessing it directly, so you'll have to let us know by email.

bye for now

// posted by Dub @ Wednesday, November 30, 2005
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