one can hear the tiger roar

a distorted view of seoul

Well, let me say that what I know about economy is quite amateurish because I never made any formal studies about it. What you read here is somewhat inspired by my intuition and by common sense, so it might be at least questionable in some points. The main source of information is Wikipedia and I linked many of the articles as a reference, but there will be a lot of errors and inaccuracies. Please feel free to post any criticism in the comments, even if the idea of this post is not to start an endless theoretical discussion on economy, but just to say something about what is going on here and why it might be going on.

a soap bar that I bought manufactured by logitech (or maybe it says that every 10¹° soap bars there is one with a mobile phone inside it)

Ok, so let’s start with some everyday facts. One does not need to stay here for a long time to notice that these people are quite self-sufficient regarding technology. They have their own car (Hyundai, Kia, Daewoo, SsangYong) and electronic equipment (Samsung, LG) manufacturers.

I think I have read they buy a new mobile at least every 11 months

Then they have a sort of economic giant, SK, which does a lot of business in various areas (petrochemical, telecommunications and construction). In brief, they are really advanced in the production and development of highly technological devices and services (just to mention two facts, they are the eleventh largest world exporter and the third in Asia after China and Japan, and they have the world highest broadband internet access pro capita). They can afford this because they rely upon a strongly competitive educational system (they rank first in the world for scientific literacy and second for mathematical literacy) and upon a responsible and trustworthy working class. Maybe this latter thing is going to change in the next years.

korean workers protesting

Speaking of this, there were a lot of problems due to social unrest during the late 80s, because the exploited working class protested against low wages, long working hours (an average of 54.7 hours a week) and lack of safety measures. In practice the economy was booming mainly thank to a legalised form of slavery. These protests were quite unexpected among the ruling class, which did not know exactly what to do and let them go on without being able to find a solution. The way they found was to automate as much as possible the production, which reduced the demand of working forces and the costs, but requested a lot of investments for the acquisition and development of new robotical technologies. Finally however some steps toward a more human treatment of the workers were made and today South Korea (at least in Seoul) looks like a western country with regard to life style. In the photo below you can see that the details are somehow still being discussed, and not exactly in a peaceful way.

workers of ssangyong motor occupying the main plant in august 2009. the strike failed after 77 days.

One of the main problems they have is that they are not energetically independent. The most of Korean natural resources, which are however poor, are concentrated in North Korea, and South Koreans have to import practically everything (coal, petroleum and minerals) from somewhere else. They desperately searched for some offshore oil deposit in the Yellow Sea and in the sea between Korea and Japan, but nothing was found.

nuclear plant locations

Therefore they decided already in 1978 to concentrate on nuclear power and built the first power plant, called Kori Number One, near Busan, in the South of the country. Today they have a total of 20 plants which are located in 4 different centres and which cover 45% of the internal need.

However, they do not have their own nuclear fuel and must import it from somewhere else, but the business seem to be running well, since they plan to build another 8 plants. There was some minor scandal in 1988 about improper treatment of nuclear waste in the Kori plant, but nothing really happened since then.

nuclear waste disposal site

They are trying to do some investments in renewable energies (solar, wind, biofuel) in order to reduce their dependence from oil import, but still no big plants exist.

Concerning food, they are not luckier than with energy. The Korean territory is mainly made up of mountains and only 22% can be exploited for agricultural purposes. They also suffer from a lack of water as compared with neighbouring countries, which might be a big problem if your favourite food is rice.  The situation got somehow better with the urbanization that came when their economy developed a lot toward industry and services, because a lot of areas became free. Anyway the property was too spread, about an hectare pro person, and this hindered mechanisation. Moreover, the labour cost increased forcing South Korea to rise some ban on uncontrolled import.

physical map of south korea

At the same time, anyway, the population increased dramatically and therefore the demand exceeded the supply and they had to increase their food import (almost one half of the most relevant goods is imported).

protest against importation of us beef. it seems that the koreans panicked exaggeratedly when the mad cow case exploded.

Food!

After leaving my stuff at the hotel I started feeling really hungry, especially because I did not enjoy much of the food on the flight, which looked like some synthetic food for astronauts. So I went to a neighbouring restaurant, where for just 5000 Won I filled the emptiness in myself (more or less 3 euros, 1000 Won is approximately 60 euro cents). The food was not that tasty, I ordered a soup and it smelt liked cooked dog and was quite watery.

nice, uh?

It was not that delicious and I must say that the taste confirmed the impressions I had gathered with my nose. What is interesting, however, is that they serve you a lot of side dishes for free, which are mainly vegetables and are known after the name of banchan.

banchan or starters/side dishes

My favourite one, which I had already tried in a japanese restaurant in Berlin, but it was expensive there, is Kimchi, which is a sort of cabbage variety which is really spicy. Of course everything has to be eaten with metal sticks (I do not think they have knives and forks, but I shall ask) and a spoon, which is necessary for the soup. They give you also free freezing water, no way of obtaining room temperature water.

kimchi or spicy cabbage

I cannot remember what else was in the banchan of yesterday, anyway today I went to another restaurant, since it is relatively cheap, and they had this other vegetable, which is somehow harder, always spicy, but with a strange taste, maybe due to a strange combination of the spicy red stuff and the sesame seeds. I do not know how it is called, but you can see it on the top right on the first picture. Then there were also some transparent spaghetti which are on the bottom left of the same picture. The problem is that all these vegetables are cold and it is not that good mixing them with the main plate, which is usually hot. Today I ate some meat which they cooked on the table with some vegetables. It was quite tasty, far better than the “dog” (dog?) soup which I enjoyed yesterday. Anyway the restaurant was a better one, there were families and older people, while in the first one there were just students. I could have sat on the ground and eaten on small tables, but since there were normal ones I decided not to complicate my life anymore.

After the lunch they brought a sweet cold drink which had the colour of tea but tasted quite sweet and was good. The strange thing about this restaurant is that it is on three floors and that they serve just meat, maybe a total of six-eight different courses. Of course, before accessing the rooms where the tables are, one has to put off his shoes, as in every place in Korea. Also before getting into my room at the Beaver House I leave the shoes at the entrance of the floor corridor. I must say that it is quite pleasant to eat without your shoes on.

cinnamon (or whatever it was) punch and tteok (chewy rice cakes)

In a bar in the ancient royal palace, which I visited in the afternoon, I also tried some rice cakes called tteok and wanted to order some hot tea because there was a freezing wind outside. The rice cakes did not taste good at all: the consistence was like chewing gum and the taste was something between nothing at all and rotten. Many dishes here have this unbearable rotten backtaste, I really do not know how Korean can go on eating this stuff.

On top of that I discovered that what I had ordered was not a warm tea, but a brown cold punch with a sweetish taste. I think it would be wiser to look for some locals that could give me some help in the choice of food, I have lived too many displeasing misadventures. There were also some children in the table in front of me drinking tea or chocolate and sucking some sweet white sticks which had the size of a carrot and that they carried in a small plastic bag. Another woman was drinking a violet stuff, maybe some flavoured chocolate. After finishing I looked desperately for a normal coffee, which they call “americano” here. One americano costs approximately 2000 Won, so 1,20 euros, more or less like in Germany.

Incheon Airport and arrival at the Beaver House

somewhere inside the airport

The airport of  Seoul is really huge. I landed to a terminal and, after walking and descending  a series of escalators for a long time, I arrived to a point where I had to take a train (!) to move to the main building of the airport. Before arriving to the custom there was a woman checking the temperature of the passengers with an infrared ray camera. If you look too red on her screen, she will be happy to be able to do something else than sitting all day and will put you in quarantene in case you are an evil carrier of the infamous swine flu.  They seem to be quite concerned about it and a lot of people wear a mask on their mouth in order to prevent infection (of themselves or of others, that is not yet clear). If I manage to shoot one, I will put a photo of one of these masked Koreans.

Everything looked as clean and polished as it is in the picture. Wikipedia says it has been ranked the best airport of the world since 2005.  Quotation of some luxurious absurdities which I unfortunately did not witness because I was too sleepy after a 13 hour trip and wanted to reach a bed as fast as possible: “The airport boasts many unique luxury features such as a golf course, spa, private sleeping rooms, a casino and indoor gardens”. Maybe I will try to play some golf before checking in on my way back..

the airport is on an island!

As you see in the picture above, they have built the airport on an island facing the city, which is on the right. After arriving to the main building I took the subway to go to the city, which crosses a shallow stripe of sea. The first part is actually mud and then deep water appears suddenly after a dam. What is strange on the platforms is that the train track is separated with a wall of glass which opens when the train arrives. I think it is to prevents suicides or accidents in general, but I like it more when you can see the train arriving and the mice running between the rails, like it is in Berlin.  The subway was incredibly clean, but the landscape after one gets inshore is quite gloomy. There are tall gray residential skyscrapers which have something in Korean written on them and then usually a number that marks each building.

main terminal, the other one is on the far right, outside the photo, and they are linked by an underground train

Finding the place where I sleep now, which is called the Beaver House, was quite difficult. I managed to arrive to the Sinchon station of line 2 of the underground following the instructions that Wolfgang, a colleague of mine, had sent me. But when I emerged outside of the station I ended up into a totally chaotic street full of people, noise and neon signs and there was no way of finding the hotel. I knew the street where it was and I thought that I had just to walk along it till when I found a sign with its name, but it did not work this way. Here you enjoy a night view of the street, which I later discovered to be the center of one of the biggest student areas of Seoul.

There are a lot of mobile phones shops, cafeterias and restaurants. The way they advertise is quite annoying: they just put some loudspeakers on the street and pump loud bad music against the passers-by. I had to stop a lot of young guys before I found one that could speak a useful english but then this guy was so kind to show me to the university, which is not far from there, where I collected the exact address on my mail. On top of that, he brought me to the door of the student residence. My first experience of the korean kindness. They bow their head when they want to thank you, and probably they do it more if you cannot understand their language in order to be clearer. I also tried to express with some analogous movements that I was thankful.

Hi dear visitors!

Hi everybody! This blog tracks my stay in Seoul in November 2009. I will try to update it with photos and comments as often as possible. Enjoy it!