It has seemed to me that the yellow dust pollution from China has gotten worse every year and this study now confirms that it in fact has:
Seoul’s government is trying its best to counter the gunk in the city’s air.
But it admitted Thursday that sources of pollution from outside Korea, including fine particle pollution from China, have increased in the past few years.
“According to our research conducted in 2011 and 2016, Seoul’s contribution to pollution grew from 21 percent in 2011 to 22 percent in 2016,” said Hwang Bo-yeon, head of the Climate and Environment Headquarters of the Seoul Metropolitan Government. “But the contribution to air pollution by international factors, including fine dust from China, grew from 49 percent to 55 percent in the same period.
“The city will do all it can, including increasing city-to-city meetings with Beijing to address the problem together.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
I hope Thae Yong Ho has protection from stopping two women approaching him from behind with VX while walking around streets of Seoul pic.twitter.com/7VPC67zLee
— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) April 3, 2017
Considering how densely populated Seoul is I just don’t see how more bike lanes will help reduce traffic? Plus the risk of an accident and just dealing with inclement weather is another major turn off from using bikes in Seoul. Additionally I don’t see how more bike lanes will cause increased use of an already heavily used mass transit system:
Darren Bean, left, a representative of the Seoul City Foreign Residents Council, which comprises 38 representatives from 23 countries, presents a policy recommendation to the Seoul Metropolitan Government on Wednesday at the Seoul City Hall. [PARK SANG-MOON]The Seoul City Foreign Residents Council gathered once more this year at City Hall to address how the city can improve for all Seoulites, proposing policy recommendations to the city government on Wednesday.
Created on Dec. 18, 2015, in celebration of the United Nation’s International Migrants Day, the committee is the first one in Korea to be affiliated with a local government and comprise only foreign residents, totaling 38 people from 23 countries. Unlike the first general meeting in July, the propositions voiced at the meeting on Wednesday concerned not only foreigners but Koreans.
“I have been in Korea for three years,” said Karolina Zasadzka from Poland, speaking in Korean, “but I still cannot get used to the terrible traffic jams and air pollution.”
“The city needs to encourage more people to bike to work or take public transportation to cope with the worsening environmental pollution,” she said. “In Europe, there is a system called Park & Ride, where people can drive their car or ride their bike to a subway or train station near their house, park their vehicles for free or at a low cost, and get on the public transportation to get into the city for work.”
She added, “And for more people to bike to work, I think the mindset of Korean people needs to be changed, because not many are very careful drivers who would stop for a person crossing the street, and most bike lanes remain blocked by parked cars.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Over at Korea Expose there is a great article about a nondescript set of stairs near the US military’s Yongsan Garrison in Seoul that is actually a reminder of some interesting Japanese colonial history:
Haebongchan neighborhood with the 108 Stairs pictured on the right via VisitSeoul.net.
There’s a stairway on the outskirts of the hip Haebangchon area in Seoul — one that doesn’t really merit a second look. No impressive characteristics beyond its steepness, nothing spectacular in its surroundings. No chic bars, no hipster coffee shops. There’s no reason to remember, much less visit, it unless you’re a resident walking up and down the hilly area.
But the 108 Stairway, as the steps are called, is one of Haebangchon’s oldest residents. In existence since the colonial era, it saw the evolution of Yongsan, the district Haebangchon is in: Streams, woods and tigers in the early twentieth century, the tents and slums before the Korean War, the bombing and destruction, and eventually the clusters of red-bricked houses (and increasingly coffee shops) today.
Situated near the U.S military base, today’s Haebangchon boasts one of the most culturally diverse pool of residents in South Korea. But very few of them have actually used the 108 Stairs for its original purpose.
“My friends and I would rush up, panting, and skip two or three steps at a time,” says 82-year-old Seo Jang-hun. “At the top, there was this huge area, covered with gravel. And there was this temple, where adults threw coins into a box, clapped their hands three times, and prayed.” [Korea Expose via Gusts of Popular Feeling]
You can read the rest at the link, but the staircase once led to the Gyeongseong Hoguk Shrine that was built in 1943. Residents that lived in the neighborhood were forced by Japanese authorities to pray at the shrine for Japan’s war dead. After liberation in 1945 residents tore down the shrine and today the steps are all that remain. Soon even the steps may be removed to be replaced by an escalator.
This all poses the question of what Japanese colonial relics should be allowed to remain and what should be tore down?
