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]
The new advertisement of Absolut Vodka, which depicted an image of a candlelit rally as the shape of a vodka bottle, has caused controversy among Korean customers. The world-famous vodka brand owned by Pernod Ricard has disclosed the new Korean version of an advertisement on its official Facebook page, Saturday. Read more at the Korea Times.
Another sex club in Seoul has been broken up according to the Korea Times. I had to chuckle when I read that even the janitor got a jail sentence. Fortunately for all of them the sentences were suspended so they don’t have to actually go to jail if they stay out of trouble:
A banner ad for an adult “voyeurism” club in Goyang
This is an imaginative scene at an adult sex club in Seoul called “Voyeurism Club” based on what the operators revealed in a criminal court on Dec. 4.
Seoul Central District Court punished the operators of the club that fed the sexual appetites for perverts, allowing visitors to have sex in an open space or watch others doing so.
The court sentenced the club’s chief operator, surnamed Won, 43, to 18 months’ jail, suspended for two years, and 15 million won ($12,000) fine for infringing the laws of punishing acts related to the sex.
Targeting those with “abnormally obscene desires,” Won managed the bar-like club in Gwanak-gu that he rented twice a month from May 2014 until last July.
The court said he paid two housewives to dance nude in front of visitors and provide sexual service to them.
He also offered 100,000 to 150,000 won admission to members of an online community for couples and single male office workers and asked them to act as prostitutes.
The court also sentenced the club’s pimp, 46, and janitor, 45, to six months’ jail, suspended for a year. [Korea Times]
Amb @mwlippert rode a pedal-powered bike to light the Christmas Tree at Seoul City Hall Plaza, and wished you a great holiday season! pic.twitter.com/yy1XnttGUE
Not a single protester jailed or officer harmed in weeks of mass rally. Lawmaker @bdmin1958 says Koreans deserve Nobel peace prize candidacy pic.twitter.com/oAyOQ4LBFm
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?
Protesters hold a candlelight rally at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul on Nov. 26, 2016, to call for President Park Geun-hye’s resignation. Park has been under pressure to step down over a nation-rocking political scandal involving her and her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil. (Yonhap)
A road is blocked near a subway station in Seoul’s Songpa Ward on Nov. 22, 2016, after a water pipe ruptured in the area around 1:45 p.m. the same day where construction was underway. (Yonhap)
The Korean left has finally found a cause that they can rally masses of Koreans around after sniffing around for the past 8 years since the anti-US beef crisis for another anti-government cause to rally Koreans behind:
South Korea’s deputy prime minister on Friday pleaded for a peaceful demonstration as hundreds of thousands of people are expected to join an anti-government protest Saturday, amid rising public anger over President Park Geun-hye’s corruption scandal.
Lee Joon-sik, education minister and deputy prime minister for social affairs, released a statement ahead of the rally that may draw the largest number of participants this millennium.
Police expect 170,000 protesters to join the rally, involving 1,500 civic groups, while the organizers put the number between 500,000 and 1 million.
“The government is concerned that the rally might turn into a massive violent incident and hinder the opportunity (for people) to soundly voice their opinions,” Lee said in the statement.
“We are well aware that our people are disappointed about the latest scandal, and that they are worried about the operation of state affairs,” he said. “The government is putting utmost efforts to run the country and to lead our society in the right direction.” [Yonhap]
