Seoul Coughing

1. Psychiatric exams for bus and taxi drivers
Force ALL taxi and bus drivers throughout the country to submit to rigorous psychiatric exams and personality tests. The results will surprise no one. From these results, determine the acceptable level of psychosis among these people, based on the availability of sane replacement drivers, etc.

2. Ban smoking
Start in the PC bangs (internet cafes) to protect the children then move on to office buildings and eventually to bars and restaurants and finally to public parks and outdoor gathering places. The government has in the past pushed people toward brushing their teeth and eating more dog stew through propaganda campaigns foisted upon the media. They can start telling people that smoking is disgusting and they will all die from it and show famous people not smoking. Peer pressure works in this country. If you want to be considered a first-world country, then follow the lead of the rest of the first world.

3. Get the motorcycles and scooters off the sidewalks
If a deliveryman can’t walk from the curb to the building, then maybe he should get a job as a dispatcher instead. It’s already illegal, so it shouldn’t be so hard to prevent this dangerous and stupid practice.

4. Eliminate Konglish
Hire native-English-speaking government editors whose job it is to walk around the city and force people to correct their English translations on signs, placards or menus or to remove them altogether. Konglish is not English and it is not endearing or cute. It should be seen as an embarrassment.

5. Enforce intellectual property laws
There too many people selling illegal DVDs and fake brand-name products in Seoul. I have not been to China, but on a per-capita basis, Korea must surely compete with the Chinese level of IP theft.

6. Fine people for littering
Police should force people to not only pick up the trash they were seen disposing of improperly, but they should also issue a citation and an on-the-spot fine. If they can’t pay, they are then taken by the paddy wagon to the recycling center to sort recyclables for a few hours.

7. Trash bins at regular intervals
In line with the above suggestion, place public trash receptacles on street corners or near bus stops to discourage people from throwing their cigarette wrappers and ice cream wrappers where they stand. There are a few bins in Korea, which are always overflowing. The fear, I suppose, is that people would take their household trash to the corner can and avoid spending 300 won (about US 31 cents) on a bag of their own.

8. One-way streets
Let’s face it. When they laid out Seoul and many other Korean cities they didn’t think that someday everyone would own a car. Most streets are too narrow for the fruit carts, passing cars and pedestrians. If one-way streets are designated — and it won’t be easy — there will be fewer of the standoffs between drivers coming from opposite directions on narrow streets in which one is forced to back up to an appropriate point to allow the other to pass.

9. Put your damned shoes ALL THE WAY ON YOUR DAMNED FEET!
Another campaign should be started to encourage people to wear their shoes completely on their feet. If there are straps on your shoes, you must have them on and not flapping behind you. People should also not be allowed to walk around on the crushed backs of their shoes. This makes these people appear lazy and mentally retarded (though the few retarded people I’ve seen here have had their shoes on completely).

10. Enforce animal rights laws
And if they don’t exist, copy the laws of the U.S., Australia or Great Britain when setting them up. If I see one more large-sized dog tied up with only three feet of chain I am going to break the owner’s nose and take the dog away. And stop beating them in public. Another infraction that will result in a physical attack by me. And no more dyeing the dogs’ tails or ears. In fact, make it illegal for people to own dogs in Seoul and many of the other big cities in Korea. There isn’t enough room for a dog to have a good life here.

With all that said, I must add that I’m having a great time here. Being in a city of 8 or 10 million brings people that much closer to one another and brings the bad things out in the open. If the above items are all I have to complain about anymore then I must be starting to love this place.

Peace on the peninsula.

Tracey

(From The Korea Herald, Feb. 23, 2006)

By Tracey Stark 

Hidden from the view of most visitors to the misnamed Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom is an enclave of nine soldiers representing the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, an important but often overlooked part of the 1953 Armistice Agreement.

Resembling a woodland retreat, surrounded by evergreens and rolling mossy hills, it is the home of the Swedish and Swiss contingents of the NNSC whose jobs are to act as supervisors, observers, inspectors and investigators along the DMZ and, more specifically, in the Joint Security Area. 

Palpable tension

(From The Korea Herald, November 15, 2005)

Very few Koreans can imagine the possibility of the North attacking

The following is the second in a five-part series of articles on how Korea is perceived by foreigners and what efforts Koreans should make to enhance its images abroad. – Ed.

By Tracey Stark

It is a commonly held belief in the West that the Korean Peninsula is a powder keg waiting to be ignited by some random event, resulting in a second Korean War.

A foreigner might also believe that in Seoul – a scant 50 kilometers from the North Korean border – there is palpable fear and worry that their northern neighbor, nay, their brothers, are inclined to attack. But ask any Korean or foreign resident walking down the street and they will tell you the same thing: Anxiety over the communist state to the north is minimal and seldom a subject of everyday conversation.

“When I traveled abroad it was something people asked me about often,” said Lim Seung-eun, 27. “I was even urged not to return to Korea by my friends in Australia.”

A teacher in Gyeonggi Province from the United Kingdom, Graeme Armitage, 27, recalled before coming to Korea more than three years ago that although he and his parents didn’t have any preconceived notions about Korea, he had friends and family who continually confused North and South Korea, and thought he was going to live in the communist North.

“There was no concern from my parents that I was in any danger, but other relatives weren’t so clued up on Korea. They knew very little about the place.”

Western media may be partly to blame. News with the mention of Korea is most often sensationalized stories about the looming threat of North Korea, or a story involving large animals running wild through Seoul. (Recently a story about a woman in Seoul whose baby stroller got caught in the doors of a subway is being shown frequently on CNN.)

That is changing these days with international events being held in Korea like the World Cup, Pusan International Film Festival and the current Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit being held in Busan. While the coverage may only last a few days, and then return to the ongoing saga of the six-party talks, it is effective in separating myth from reality.

“Before I came to Korea I didn’t know what to expect. It seems like all the news you hear about the country has to do with North Korea’s aggressive stance,” said Dan Secor, a 34-year-old American, who lives in Ilsan with his Korean wife. “But you get here and see that this country has been neglected by the media.”

Secor added that on a trip home to Massachusetts when he told people he was in Korea the second most frequent question – after the North Korean issue – was “Did you see the elephants run rampant through Seoul?” referring to an isolated event in a very small part of a very large town.

A group of dedicated Koreans have taken up the task of spreading the truth about South Korea. The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea began in 1999 and now has 15,000 members and set its task as the disseminating of the truth about Korea.

“All VANK’s members are guiding overseas Koreans and foreigners so that they can better understand Korean culture, language, or situation, etc. through e-mail or postal-mail and at the same time we are building friendships, bridging cultures and changing the image of Korea as cyber diplomats,” VANK’s website, www.prkorea.com, says.

But the question must be posed: Why would people worry?

For starters, in the event of a war, the initial bombardment on Seoul would be in the neighborhood of 500,000 rounds per hour landing on Seoul, according to the U.S. military. This bombardment wouldn’t be contained for several days. The outcome would be disastrous.

Secondly, North Korea dropped out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and then subsequently bragged about possessing nuclear fissile material – enough for several warheads. They have also advanced in short- and long-range missile technology.

With the breaching of multiple international agreements on the part of North Korea, it is accepted by many in the South that the North’s government can’t be trusted. But with recent progress in the six-party talks and the nuclear threat diminished, the world may be breathing a collective sigh of relief.

Very few ordinary Koreans can conceive the possibility of the North attacking them.

“They look like us and we speak the same language. The only way they would attack is if they were attacked first,” said student Cho Hyun-i. She added that it was unlikely that South Korea would make such a move and pointed to the United States as the most likely catalyst of a war ever starting on the peninsula.

With a population of 48 million in an area about the same size as the U.S. state of Virginia (population 7.4 million), crime can be another worry.

The numbers show this to be false as well, as 2002 crime rates for Korea were significantly lower than those of neighboring Japan, in most areas, and the United States, United Kingdom and Germany in all categories.

The overall crime rate was 1,674 incidents per 100,000 people in Korea, while those numbers were more than one third higher in Japan at 2,240 per 100,000. The United States and the United Kingdom followed with 4,119 and 11,240 per 100,000 people respectively. Murder rates in 2002 for Korea, the United States and United Kingdom per 100,000 were 2.1, 5.6 and 3.5 respectively. Rape and sexual assault in those same three nations were 19.8, 33 and 86.6 per 100,000 respectively.

“I feel safer walking down the street late at night in Seoul than I did in Boston,” said Secor. He added that the drug culture of the big cities of America were what led to higher crime rates. “Korea seems pretty drug-free.”

An outsider may be surprised to see many busloads of Korean police around the city, but this in no way reflects a high crime rate. They are most often used as crowd control around important buildings or to prevent the frequent protests from getting out of hand around the capital.

“It’s a reflection of our growth as a democracy to see so many protests. Under President Park (Chung-hee) these things would not have been permitted,” said university student Cho.

Although it may not be an urban utopia, Seoul has lifted its status in the world from the center of government of a less-developed, semi-democratic nation, to a rapidly growing, culturally diverse, center for international business and travel. Infrastructure improvements and an economy that made a quick recovery from the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis has proven to the international business community that Korea is no longer a poor Hermit Kingdom.

“Life is too short to worry about such things. We have learned a lot from our mistakes of the past. We will someday be united and that will make everyone in the world safer,” Lim said.

(traceystark@heraldm.com)

By Tracey Stark

They said he wouldn’t go far, but he had proven them all wrong. There he sat in that office with his name on the door, four floors above the manicured courtyard and opposite the stacks, marveling at his reflection in the smoke-stained window.
“I have arrived,” he said, then grinned broadly to his window-self, his bleached-white teeth glowing and fighting for prominence behind sagging rubbery lips. He repeated this every morning since his promotion to Assistant Director of Accounting, Payroll and Pension Department of the Allegheny Electric Co-op.
BUZZZ
“Ms. Lintel, come in here please.”
“Yes, Mr. Bottoms,” a tinny voice replied through the antiquated call box.
 

The door opened and a dour woman of about 50 walked in, ruler straight in posture, gray in demeanor. A smile would surely crack the thin coating of skin covering her angular face. (In certain light, towards the end of a winter’s day, she appeared translucent, Mr. Bottoms had noted.)
 

“I need more, um… notepads and paperclips,” he said, then turned back to the window and resumed smiling at his reflection.
 

Ms. Lintel looked at the stack of notepads on the spare chair and the boxes of paperclips scattered about the otherwise-empty bookshelf, shook her head, and left. She would fill the order by lunch and remain idle until 5 p.m. Then at 5 she would rise to leave for the day and receive one more buzz from Mr. Bottoms. When she went into his office he would invariably say to her, “Good job today, Ms. Lintel. See you bright and early tomorrow, I’m sure.” She would thank him tersely, make an abrupt about-face, and march from the office straight to her car at the far end of the lot.
 

This had been going on for the two months since his move from personnel to accounting, a move precipitated by an accident. Not an accident of paperwork, but an accident involving a filing cabinet and a portion of rotten flooring. (It could be argued that paperwork was involved, as the filing cabinet was full when it fell through the ceiling and crushed his right leg.)
 

The out-of-court settlement was favorable for all involved. Mr. Bottoms was not a greedy man and his request for a promotion to the fourth floor, a small raise, and a parking space among the executives (as well as medical costs, of course) was accepted with a smile and a handshake and delivered before the steel rods were removed from his fractured bones.
 

Through the thin walls Ms. Lintel could hear queer mutterings in different voices. She didn’t ask, but suspected the accident had left him a bit shell-shocked.
 

Back in his office, Mr. Bottoms continued to stare out the window thinking about what it had taken to get here. He worked his way up from the ground floor. Five years in the mail room, and then the little incident with the sorting machine and his pinky finger. Cost him the last digit, but earned him a job in customer service on the second floor. Seven years on and then there was the electrical fire that left him with third degree burns on his left arm. Skin grafts and a promotion to personnel (third floor), followed by his longest stint: 13 years. Lucky 13, he thought. The sagging ceiling should have been a dead giveaway, but everyone seemed to regard it as normal. So he didn’t ask any questions and sat at his desk, two inches closer to the ceiling than everyone else, until the distance closed to zero in a matter of seconds on that fateful Tuesday in October.
 

And now he was in an office devoid of computers, sagging ceilings, windows that opened, and furniture that could fall on him. (The bookshelf was bolted to the wall and his chair had no wheels.)
 

Pondering this he realized it was time for him to knuckle down and get to work. But his responsibilities were vague at best. They told him, “We will utilize your expertise in certain areas of accounting from time to time.” But he had no expertise in any areas of accounting, he thought.
 

He also knew there was little he could do about it this day, so he resumed his self-congratulation and continued to stare out the window.
 

At five he buzzed Ms. Lintel once more into his office.
 

“Good job today, Ms. Lintel. See you bright and early tomorrow, I’m sure,” he said and smiled his oversized mouth at her, and gave her a waving salute with his 4 2/3-fingered right hand.
 

Moments later, when he was sure she was halfway down to the lobby, Mr. Bottoms picked up his briefcase (empty but for half of a sandwich and a few notebooks), and walked to the elevator.
 

To his surprise, Ms. Lintel was still waiting for the elevator car to come pick her up. It was a strange sensation, for both of them, be assured, to stand side by side in silence at the end of a day during which they had spent the better part of eight hours one on each side of the wall, like a confessioner and priest.
 

It was Ms. Lintel who spoke first.
 

“I don’t suppose taking the stairs would be good for your leg, would it?” she asked.
 

Mr. Bottoms was pleased by her sudden interest in him.
 

“Well, I guess I won’t know if I don’t try,” he replied and swagger-limped to the fire stairs door. She hesitantly followed and for a moment looked as if she might smile. (She didn’t.)
 

Upon opening the door he was greeted by crumbling and missing stairs, the stench of mildew and a complete lack of lighting. His first step would have been his last had Ms. Lintel not reached out a boney hand and pulled him back with surprising force.
 

“Oh my,” he said grasping his tie and loosening it an inch. “That would have been a doozy of a fall.”
 

“Yes, and you might have made vice president had you survived it,” she said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
 

But Mr. Bottoms only heard the words “vice president” and lost himself in a reverie about a bigger office on a higher floor.
 

“Vice president?’ he asked the air around him.
 

Ms. Lintel followed his gaze and saw that it ended in thin air only a foot or two in front of his face.
 

“I was only being facetious, sir,” she said.
 

“Vice president,” he repeated.
 

Ms. Lintel stepped away from him and toward the elevator. He turned and followed, still lost in those two magical words.
 

“And you would have been the vice president’s executive secretary,” he said to her, his mouth stretched into a frog-like grin.
 

“Indeed,” she said, pondering the implications, and looked toward their small office suite. She noticed the room was still aglow and she shook her head at Mr. Bottom’s absentmindedness. She was taught not to waste electricity, even if you did work at the power company. “Let me just go turn off the lights. I’ll be right back, in case the elevator gets here.”
 

“Of course,” he said and watched her walk through the tall wooden door.
 

A moment later the elevator chimed and the doors opened.
 

“The elevator’s here, Ms. Lintel. I’ll hold it for you,” he shouted, and stepped backward into a starless void.
 

As he plummeted the five floors to the basement, only one thought went through his mind: “Vice president.”