[HN Gopher] Walking the World: Seoul ___________________________________________________________________ Walking the World: Seoul Author : jbredeche Score : 55 points Date : 2022-06-06 14:43 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (walkingtheworld.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (walkingtheworld.substack.com) | curuinor wrote: | seoul has city planners, hell, my cousin applied to be one. it's | just that unlike in the us, city planners are empowered to get | nimbys to shut the hell up and go and build things | Barrin92 wrote: | it's less a case of city planners being empowered and more a | case of property rights being absolute (similar to Japan, | France or Germany) which gives property and land owners the | right to do whatever they want (within the confines of national | regulation), which leads to development towards economic | demands naturally. | | This is also why Seoul or many Japanese cities look so | individualistic and mosaic like from one lot to the other as | the author describes in the article. | curuinor wrote: | lawrenceyan wrote: | > The younger generation seems to be dealing with the rampant | consumption and materialism, and the emptiness that results, by | embracing the cute. | | This resonates. Didn't realize it until now though. | cm2012 wrote: | Or, cute things are just fun. One of my favorite things about | Korea and Korean products is that they take the time to make | even small things like pens pretty. I would love for American | society to "embrace the cute" more. | livueta wrote: | This thesis always reminds me of Satoshi Kon and _Paranoia | Agent_. | | https://web.archive.org/web/20210820145247/https://sittingon... | | > "monotonous ruins of a nation-state... perfectly realized in | the name of capitalism." | | > Urban isolation and rapidly advancing technology have helped | erode reality in favor of representation. Connection with real | human beings becomes less desirable; cartoon characters to | which you will never be held accountable become ideal friends. | | > a cartoon dog, soft and cuddly, with no blood, no fragile | network of organs, no accountability and no ability to hold | others accountable. | foobarian wrote: | I feel uneasy dismissing this new way of things and harkening | back to the more meaningful old days, because the crispy clear | meaning back then often stemmed from war. When you had | adversaries threatening to destroy your country of course it | felt so much more fulfilling to train to be any number of | supporting or active roles. Without that pressure, things seem | to lose that sharp drive but perhaps we are better off. It is | also probably true that we have not evolved to live in a state | of peace, and have a long way to go as a race to become | accustomed to it. | kcanini wrote: | I wonder whether the threat of attack from North Korea is | felt in daily life in Seoul. | chrischen wrote: | I didn't get that from day to day life, but you'd probably | feel it in things like mandatory military service, and the | fact that escalators going down to subway stations were | deeper than normal. | pigtailgirl wrote: | -- only real issue walking in Seoul is the fine folks of said | city have not yet selected a uniformed direction of travel per | side of any given walkway - that is to say - they meander all | over - i've always found this quite challenging - i like to look | a head a plan my path through the pedestrians - a difficult | endeavor in this city -- that said - still easily my favorite | city in the world for walking around -- | curuinor wrote: | they had a campaign a decade back to get people to walk on the | right side and put stickers everywhere in the subways for it. | didn't work out 100% because the previous direction was left. | when the ad campaign finished, some people reverted | zelphirkalt wrote: | It does not work out 100% anywhere in the world. 80-90% is | sufficient. Not having any order is just inefficient. | anm89 wrote: | > Seoul is not a pretty town, not at least by most Western senses | of beauty. | | Seoul is one of the most intensely aesthetic places on the | planet. It's ugliness wraps all the way around into a kind of | brutalist cyber punk thing that I find to be one of the coolest | aesthetics of any city anywhere. I don't think I've ever found | brutalist stuff to be beautiful outside of Seoul | | Really grateful for the countless hours of my life I've gotten to | spend walking around Seoul between 3-6am | TulliusCicero wrote: | The chaos of people being able to build whatever, wherever, is | probably why Seoul and Tokyo both have remarkably reasonable | rents relative to their size, prosperity, and national | importance. | | These cities are a bit like slamming NYC, SF, and LA together | into a single megacity. And yet rent prices there are generally | much lower than the most comparable big cities in the US. | sva_ wrote: | > reasonable rent | | Surely you mean outside the city center? | chrischen wrote: | I just got a private office in the center of Tokyo (Minato- | ku) for about $400/mo. You can barely get a hot-desk in San | Francisco for that price. | frxx wrote: | Seems to look a lot like Tokyo. Lovely writing and photography | here for sure. | temp8964 wrote: | As someone grew up in similar environment, I don't miss this at | all. | | I would rather buy grocery once a week with a huge load put in | the trunk and drive back home, instead of buy a little bit every | next day and walk home carrying the bags. I don't want to carry a | gallon milk or a Watermolen, or push/drag a cart on the street. | | I think people who envy this kind of environment just don't know | how inconvenient it is for a working family with a few kids. But | it is kind of OK if you live with grandpa / grandmom, who will do | grocery almost everyday, or if you don't do grocery just eat in | restaurants or buy food online. | silicon2401 wrote: | I agree. This is why I'm excited to have a house where I can | buy in greater bulk and do groceries less often. Even doing | groceries once a week is a hassle | dougmwne wrote: | I think even in a very walkable city it can be inconvenient not | to have a car. I enjoy buying groceries for the next day or two | and making multiple quick trips per week in tiny stores. I also | like taking the car over to the hypermarket and loading up on | heavy, bulky and pantry items. I also sometimes get free | grocery delivery instead. It's really about choice. In the US, | often your only choice is Walmart. | presentation wrote: | As someone who lives in Tokyo and cooks regularly I for one | don't mind this at all and in fact prefer it to my life in the | USA where all the produce tastes like nothing and all the food | is packed with preservatives to last long beyond their natural | expiry dates to accommodate said lifestyle. | temp8964 wrote: | This actually I do agree, USA food are almost tasteless on | everything. | yongjik wrote: | Counterpoint: Many American parents spend a large portion of | their time simply shuttling their kids between home, school, | and other activities, because none are within walking distance | and buses are all but absent in most places. | | I'm now raising my kids in the Bay Area, and I'm fortunate | because the kids' schools are within walking distance, but | that's a luxury not enjoyed by most people around here. | temp8964 wrote: | Yes. You may have a few things in walking distance, but I | don't believe you can have most things (schools, grocery, | public library, gyms, bike ground, soccer ground, tennis | court, etc.) in walking distance, you will need other | transportations other than legs. | dougmwne wrote: | Around here in Europe, the kids ride the city bus along | with the adults or hop on a bike/scooter. And in fact, most | of the things you listed are within a medium walk or short | bike ride from most urban neighborhoods in my city. It's | not a particularly big or important city, about 400k, but | has extremely human friendly urban planning (hooray | communists?) | rexpress wrote: | Not sure if your comment was confined to the USA or not, | but I live in outer suburban London, and I have the | schools, small Sainsbury's supermarket, libraries, a small | gym, soccer grounds and tennis courts within an easy walk. | Larger gym and larger supermarkets are an easy bike ride | away. There is nothing at all unusual or remarkable about | my particular part of London. | bombcar wrote: | From where I'm sitting a 15 minute walks gets to two | schools, a grocery store, the library, two gyms, a bike | path, and a soccer field. The tennis court is 19 minutes | away, and the high school would be the furthest, at 40 | minutes. | | And this is in a smallish town, one advantage of which is | that things _cannot_ be that far away in a town that takes | an hour to walk across. | pnathan wrote: | Counternarrative: I live a few blocks from a grocery store, | with kid, and frankly, I don't mind it at all. Maybe kid does. | But it's nice to be able to just walk there and not worry about | parking, loading, etc. Looking to move to a place even, | amusingly, closer to the grocery. | | now, the kid might decide that he wants a huge SUV and to drive | to the store every 1-2 weeks, that's going to be interesting. | But for me, the parent, I like it. | temp8964 wrote: | There is almost no parking / loading problem for grocery in | U.S. suburban. Grocery stores have huge parking lots. | ddoolin wrote: | We have two kids born and raised in Seoul. It is a bit of a | pain, but also the price, quality, and quantity of prepared | food outside makes it way more feasible to bring that burden | down somewhat. If your children are small, I could see it being | a pain. We did have the help of a grandma, though pretty | inconsistently. | temp8964 wrote: | When I grew up, we didn't have food market close, except for | breakfast. Grocerying was constant pain when the weather was | not perfect, like too hot, too cold, or raining, snowing etc. | spywaregorilla wrote: | Seoul to me felt like NYC but with more eastern european | presence, and, of course korean. On a whole it felt pretty | familiar. | mark_l_watson wrote: | I enjoyed that article a lot. I just started working remotely for | a South Korean AI startup and I really look forward to visiting. | I worked in Singapore for a while, apparently very different than | Seoul! | skrbjc wrote: | I lived in Seoul for almost two years about 10 years ago and I'm | stricken with how the photos depict it almost exactly the same as | I remember. It seemed at the time there was an un-ending amount | of construction, I suppose there are probably many new buildings, | but seemingly still in the style that I remember. | | I was particularly fond of buying beer and sitting at the little | tables in front of the convenience stores on warm summer nights, | just enjoying the sights. | | He also mentions the number of scooter deliveries, something that | blew my mind at the time, was when we ordered delivery, someone | would arrive on a scooter and drop the food off and it was all on | re-usable plates wrapped in plastic. When you were done, you put | the dishes in a bag in-front of your door and the delivery person | would come back later to pick the dishes up. I wonder if that | still happens. | givemeethekeys wrote: | > I was particularly fond of buying beer and sitting at the | little tables in front of the convenience stores on warm summer | nights, just enjoying the sights. | | You'd love the coffee and beer culture in Hanoi =) | pnathan wrote: | I love Chris' writing. He seems to be more of a "regular guy", | not a "writer", and it comes through in his work. | pigtailgirl wrote: | -- he's in his 60s - had a lot of practice :) -- | freewizard wrote: | Really liked his book _Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row | America_. | ogogmad wrote: | Regarding religion, I've heard that the Talmud is a popular book | in South Korea. I'm surprised by this. Is it appreciated for | being analytical? For its tradition and lore? I'm Jewish, so I'm | really curious about this. | | [edit] Some Koreans are interested in extending the method of | Chavruta (friendly debate) into general education: | https://www.timesofisrael.com/talmud-inspired-learning-craze... | | More on Chavruta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavrusa | curuinor wrote: | it's stereotypes about jews being rich, i'm afraid. | [deleted] | lifthrasiir wrote: | I'm less sure about this as I ponder. So there is definitely | such a stereotype, and there is also a long-running meme of | "be a rich" (bujadoeseyo), originated from a 2002 credit card | advertisement, which cemented a notion of money being a | virtue to the general public since then. The problem is that | the Talmud craze definitely predates this meme, probably | dating back to 1980s. But I can't conclusively say that this | was nothing to do with that stereotype at that time---it | might be just that jews are seen as a model minority. | yongjik wrote: | As far as I understand, Talmud was sold as a distillation of | "Jewish wisdom" that raises smart kids, and Koreans are | _really_ crazy about raising smart kids, and somehow the | marketing stuck. There may be other aspects to it but I think | this is the biggest factor. | | But then again, books purporting to teach you how to live your | own life have always enjoyed a steady demand in Korea, and | Talmud (at least as seen in Korea) fits the mold very well. | MarkusWandel wrote: | Coming from an European aesthetic background, but having had a | little bit of street-level Asia experience... the 4th picture is | actually very nice. | jannyfer wrote: | I think there are many, many beautiful and charming spots in | Seoul, but I don't see any of them here. And through thousands | of years of history and various wars, Seoul definitely is a | mosaic. | | My impression is that this author doesn't have a particularly | great sense of photography - he just faces a storefront and | snaps a photo. | | I enjoyed reading someone else's perspective, though. | tus666 wrote: | > Seoul is not a pretty town, not at least by most Western senses | of beauty | | Korea is not a particularly pretty country in general. I think | people got there for the culture, people and food. | | Contrast this with Japan which is stunning almost everywhere. But | with a very different culinary and cultural experience. | | I like both countries, but if it was natural or urban beauty it | is Japan hands down. | presentation wrote: | I live in Japan, I don't really find most day to day | architecture to be "stunning" but on the other hand I think it | remains aesthetic thanks to the people and the integration of | the whole urban form, not its individual buildings. Western | cities usually do have nicer looking (but less functional) | architecture. | tus666 wrote: | I think the low-key, unique, quirky and tranquil aesthetic is | what people find stunning about urban Japan. | ajmurmann wrote: | I think some of it also the absence of cars in places you'd | see them in the west. In particular absence of parked cars. | I didn't realize that that was part of it till I learned | that street parking is highly restricted in Japan and now I | cannot unsee it. Similarly the tiny backstreets are super | charming and also not car friendly. It's human friendly | though. | | Edit: another thing that really sticks out as adding to the | charm is the more diverse usage of building space. You | might find businesses on floors other than the ground floor | and many of them are much smaller than you'd ever find a | similar business in Europe and especially not the US. It | gives a feeling that there are always things to discover. | [deleted] | smcl wrote: | It's weird, I visited Seoul a lot and I guess I've internalised | the fact that it is not pretty ... but it doesn't really | register when I was there. It's a fairly buzzing city with a | decent transport system, good food and a lot going on ... so it | kinda doesn't matter on some level that it's a bit | unspectacular visually. | TulliusCicero wrote: | > Places where the only thing that ends up happening is fiddling | around the edges. Like building bike lanes through neighborhoods | where nobody ever bikes. | | This stood out to me within the article as a rather dumb | statement to make. Like writing, "nobody ever seems to drive | through this plot of land that has no roads." | bombcar wrote: | It could be read as "bike lanes are added to roads where nobody | bikes" or "bike lanes are added, and nobody uses them". ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-06 23:00 UTC)