Tag: Gangnam

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Smile Day

Today is Smile Day, which is what Samsung likes to call payday, when once a month they encourage us to leave early, though I usually leave around the same time I always do. The weather here has warmed enough that a post-work wander is pleasant, and this evening the concentration of yellow dust in the air fell to manageable levels, so I stopped off for some Indian food (cooked by Koreans).

Life is good these days. There are buds on the trees, work is interesting but relaxed for the moment, and I have a few interesting events coming up.

TOPIK

On Sunday I took the TOPIK I exam, a test of Korean proficiency that will help me get points toward a residency visa, which is the first step toward permanent residency and also means freedom to change jobs or not work for a while, though I plan to do neither of those things in the near future.

I was recovering from a cold, but the test was pretty simple — I was taking TOPIK I — and I’m confident that I got the 140 out of 200 points necessary to get Grade 2 and a corresponding 12 poins toward a visa. The hardest part of the test was probably just registering for it. To take it, they gave us special TOPIK pens that have one end for writing and a blunter end for filling in test sheet bubbles.

Life among the (three) stars

Things are quiet at work these days, outside of a couple of last-minute apps, as we approach the big product announcement. Right now, our team is testing the new devices, looking for English that isn’t quite up to snuff. It’s kind of fun, and also a reminder of why our work actually matters. When we get it right, we make powerful technology — apps, tools, functions — available and usable for millions of people.

Next week our team is taking the afternoon off to see a touring exhibition of Egyptian art from the Brooklyn Museum. Then I’ll be spending the first week of April at Samsung sleepaway camp: a weeklong training for foreign employees that my colleagues tell me involves a great deal of cheerleading for Samsung (whose name, I have learned, literally means “three stars”), and also an opportunity to learn about the company history, feel more a part of it, and meet people from divisions I know nothing about, like shipbuilding and construction and chemical engineering.

At the end of April, I’ll be headed to Sri Lanka a week off during Korea’s string of holidays — May Day, Buddha’s Birthday, and Children’s Day fall out on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday this year. The national election, on May 9, will also be a holiday, and hopefully a moment of celebration for those who hope for a more progressive Korea. At the end of the month is the Seoul Jazz Festival, with a bunch of amazing jazz and non-jazz artists: Jamiraquoi, Tower of Power, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Zion T, 10 CM, Epik High, Cecile McClorin Salvant, Diane Reeves. And May 20 will be the opening of Seoullo 7017, a park on a converted elevated highway that’s designed by the same landscape architects who did New York’s High Line.

Into the groove

I’m enjoying my life here. Getting into a bit of a groove with it. I went to a Purim party in Itaewon where I met someone who was (probably) CIA. I’ve found passable tacos and kebab sandwiches and New York pizza in my neighborhood and even been to the Shake Shack nearby. I’m doing a little home sprucing and redecorating (Coupang is a dangerous addiction), and maybe this weekend I’ll get down to the Yangje Flower Market and buy a mandarin tree for the balcony.

Spring (and a lot of yellow dust from China) is in the air!

 

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Relief in Seoul

Today at work, I heard the sound of a hundred people all beginning to breathe again at once.

They had been, it seemed, collectively holding their breath as the acting chief justice of the South Korean Supreme Court read out the judgment removing President Park Geun-hye from office. It was a dramatic event, and I was listening to it live online, though I couldn’t understand all that much. At first, the court made clear that it was not considering Park’s response to the Sewol ferry disaster in its decision about whether to remove her from office. For a moment, it seemed as if the court might be letting her off the hook.

The exhale came when the acting chief justice declared that Park had shown contempt for the law. The unanimous verdict was clear some moments before it was officially complete. The sound I heard wasn’t jubilation, but more a quiet sense of relief. At lunch not long after, there was a bit of murmur, and more people than usual were glued to their phones.

I don’t speak Korean well enough to gauge the mood more broadly. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary on my commute home tonight. For dinner, I decided to go get a kebab sandwich at the same neighborhood place where I ate on the night Trump was elected. Gangnam Kebab is now my go-to place for momentous political occasions. The TV news was on.

In Gwanghwamun, where the protests took place and where the presidential Blue House and the High Court are, things are apparently kind of crazy. Two pro-Park protesters died today, either from suicide or in accidents — the details remain fuzzy. There will be one last big rally tomorrow, and my friend who lives in the area has called off plans to come visit me because getting anywhere will be impossible for her.

The last poll I saw showed that 70 percent of Koreans wanted Park out, but her supporters are a passionate group. Her support is strongest among the elderly, who remember her father, dictator Park Chung-hee, as the man who built Korea. Today their protests turned briefly violent as they tried to march on the court. There were 21,000 police officers deployed to the area, and they got things under control quickly.

What’s next

There are lots of questions about what exactly happens next, but the details are getting clearer. The current acting president, the conservative minister selected by Park Geun-hye, will continue to hold power for now. An election must be held within 60 days, and the leading candidate is Moon Jae-in, from the liberal side. The conservatives haven’t got much in the way of viable candidates, and the acting president is seen as their best shot; if he runs, he has to resign his current position within 30 days.

The election, then, is likely to happen around May 9. There will be primaries before then. Much of the discussion will likely focus on policies toward North Korea, China, and the US — the liberals are likely to want to open discussions with the North while moving closer to China and further from the US — but the biggest issues facing the country right now, I think, are internal: corruption, of course, but also the need to face social issues like poverty among the elderly, family control of the big chaebol conglomerates, unemployment among the young. I’m cautiously hopeful that Korea can make progress on these issues in the coming years.

As for Park, she will almost certainly face criminal charges, and it’s hard to imagine that a Supreme Court that just declared her actions criminal will change its mind anytime soon. She has to leave the Blue House soon, and she won’t get her presidential pension. The trial against top Samsung executives is ongoing as well. That’s about their bribery of Park, plus associated embezzling and perjury. For those who protested against Park, holding these chaebol bosses accountable is nearly as important.

Happy but solemn

This is a happy moment for South Korea, and one that Koreans should be proud of. Their country has reinforced the rule of law through legal means. But it’s not an outright celebration. The joy is tempered by sadness that the situation has come to this pass at all.

One can hold Park accountable and also feel sorry for her. The daughter of a dictator who lost both her parents to assassinations, she is, in a way, yet another victim of Park Chung-hee’s regime. If she behaved terribly in office — keeping secrets, taking bribes, extorting money, blacklisting artists who disagreed with her — it’s not hard to see where she learned her leadership style. It was a mistake to elect the daughter of the dictator. It was a mistake for the daughter of the dictator to run for president.

There is much to be done in Korea, and the next months will be busy. But for now, at least, justice has prevailed.

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Seoul Subway Randomizer Adventure #2: Hakdong Station

Brotherood Kitchen.

For my second Seoul Subway Randomizer Adventure, I stayed closer to home — so close, in fact, that I never actually rode the subway. On a holiday Wednesday, my Korean friend and I set out from Gangnam, which is home, and walked over to Brotherhood Kitchen for what they call “American Home Food” and I call soul food.

Now, I’m no expert on either soul food or Southern food, but what they cook up at Brotherhood is at least tasty. We had the fried chicken and waffles, which is salty and sweet and decadent, with a weird gooey cheese sauce on top. But I think I liked the roast chicken with chili and yellow rice better.

Chicken and waffles.
Roast chicken with chili and yellow rice.

Little houses on a hill

We headed up the hill that starts behind Gangnamdae-ro, an area you’d think I’d know pretty well, but I don’t yet. It’s upscale, with stylish cafes, little shops, and here and there actual detached houses that look like they’ve been around for a while.

One of the most interesting of these houses, just past Eonju Station, is the Nonhyeon flagship store of Gentle Monster, whose sunglasses are amazing, and whose stores are more amazing than the sunglasses. The store in Nonhyeon has an actual ship attached to it, and the interior contains an astonishing array of strange art machines. And some sunglasses, including a line in partnership with Tilda Swinton and some glasses they did with Hood By Air, which is pretty impressively hip company to be keeping. I tried on many a pair, but I still haven’t found the Gentle Monster pair that calls to me. Someday, though, I will get a pair. Surprisingly, while they’re not cheap, they don’t cost any more than a pair of Ray Bans or Oakleys.

A little house.
Get it? Flagship? Gentle Monster in Nonhyeon.
Yes, that’s a pencil.

Saddles and chairs

Hakdong Station.

We made our way to Hakdong Station, and from there we followed Hakdong-no to Nonhyeon Station. The whole stretch is full of furniture stores on both sides — not the typical Korean places, but the sorts of places where you can get, say, hideous French-inspired kitsch for $10,000, or a coffee table by Jean-Paul Gaultier. There’s some good stuff in there too, and not all of it at insane prices, but it’s certainly high-end. Still, it’s considerably more stylish and diverse than the sort of stuff you find in the big department stores here.

If I had a lot of money to spend making a very large apartment look like a hip urban hotel, I would come here. Realistically, though, if I’m gonna spend a lot on furniture in Korea, it will probably be on very Korean furniture, like an antique chest of drawers or something. To me, that’s exciting and different. My Korean companion, though, was fascinated by a display that looked like something my Grandma Hannah or my Aunt Belle would’ve gone for, all flower prints and swoopy Victorian curlicues. She grew up in a house full of old Korean furniture, which doesn’t much interest her. What’s exotic, to her, is the sort of Western stuff she wasn’t around very much because no one under 90 decorates that way. She responds to American granny gear the way I respond to weird old statues and tombs here.

Furniture!

Maybe the oddest shop along this stretch is Balio, which is where you go if you want fancy horse-riding gear. Why is it here, in Gangnam? I have no idea, except that people must come here to buy stuff. I wonder if the Choi Soon-sil scandal’s equestrian connection has been bad for business?

Gear for the horsey set.

Fire and rain

With that, we headed back to my neighborhood. By evening, it had started to rain, so we decided to sit by some blazing coals in a neighborhood restaurant that offers unlimited beef barbecue (no more than two hours and a 5000-won charge for leftover meat). The initial course was something like six thin steaks and a big pile of chopped up rib meat, so we never even got around to asking for more. It was smoky and delicious and a fine way to end the day.

Coals for barbecue.
A rainy night in Gangnam.
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冬至點

冬至點. 동지점. Winter arrival point.

Here in Seoul, on the shortest day of the year, it’s a balmy 8 degrees (Celcius, not Farenheit), and rain is pouring down over the city, turning the uneven alleyways of Gangnam into alternating rivulets of rainwater and people.

At this time last year, I was in Georgetown, Malaysia, close to the equator and a little over a quarter of the way through my time in Southeast Asia. There was no winter there, of course. Here, winter is just arriving, though it feels like it’s already been here a while. It has its points. I like bundling up in a nice warm coat, or sitting inside sipping tea while the rain pelts the windows.

It’s been a tough couple weeks — work stress mostly, and I’ll get into that in some detail soon — but I’m starting to feel like I’m coming out the other side of it. As I have learned in another context, what feels like lifetimes and impossible distances ago, This too shall pass.

Holidays

In Korea, when a holiday falls on a weekend, you don’t get a day off. So I won’t have any time off work for Christmas or New Year’s. But other people are taking vacations, and things are slowing down a little. There’s a lot to get done, but it feels for the moment like the frantic, panicky vibe of the last few weeks is tapering off.

I’ll be having an open house on Saturday, for whoever wants to wander by. I went out to Itaewon over the weekend and visited the Chabad synagogue there, so I’ve got Chanukah candles, gelt and dreidels. I’m hoping to confuse some Korean friends with my own weird traditions for once.

And for the moment, I need to remember to go easy on myself. I have high expectations, but there’s a great deal about Korea and Korean culture — including work culture — that I still don’t understand. I’m learning. For tonight, I think the best thing I can do is not write the bigger blog post with the serious ideas. Instead, I’ll put some Stevie Wonder on the stereo, plop a Nature Republic mask on my face, fix a cup of hibiscus tea and watch the rain.

Things that matter most

Oh, I suppose this deserves a mention: my sister had a baby girl a couple weeks ago, and now my brother and his wife have had a baby girl too. (And so has my brother’s wife’s sister, while we’re at it.) And I’m going to visit Phoenix and meet my new nieces in about a month. So maybe that’s lifting my mood just a little.

And in case you’re wondering, I’m feeling all of Stevie’s classic period right now, but I’m especially feeling this.