Seoulscapade

Hi, this site has stuff on my interests and life in Seoul.

After having read The Aquariums of Pyongyang, I knew what to expect with this book, the tale of Soon Ok Lee’s 6 years in a North Korean labor camp.

First of all, it’s all the same to call it a labor camp, a concentration camp, a death camp, a prison, when speaking of prison camps in a Stalinist state. The idea of these camps is to provide cheap labor for gangsters presiding over a country that is an economic basket case. That was why Stalin worked 20 million to death.

The toll of the Kim dynasty–Kim Il Sung and his idiot son Kim Jong Il–is probably now also in the millions. Eventually, the number of deaths they are responsible will come to light, and they will join the ranks of modern history’s most reviled and detested mass murdering gangsters, such as Pol-Pot, Stalin and Hitler.

Tailless Animals shows you why. But it’s no Gulag Archipelago, far from it. Solzhenitsyn’s record is up there with the greatest, it’s a literary classic, and one my favorite books of this “genre,” if I can call it that. Tailless Animals is at the other end of the scale. It is not written well and is pretty simple in terms of expression and ideas. It almost seems as if it were written according to a checklist.

So much is left out. You get stark facts but no real attempt to evoke what conditions were like. On the other hand, as a steady and objective account of the depths of human depravity, it serves its purpose. It could be excused as written by someone using their second language, or as a translation, but I tend to think for such an important subject, perhaps more effort could have been made. And the sketches here and there are a waste of space. They appear to have been Americanized, with hardly Asian looking characters, which struck me as bordering on stupid if not insulting. They make it look like a child’s story. Was it to illicit more sympathy from dumb American readers? Regardless, it was a poor decision by the publishers.

Christian publishers, that is, so you can skip the Christian intro. I could have done without the Christian sentiments toward the end, but I guess they were a part of what the author became. Koreans have a habit of getting sucked in by religion as much as they have been by Confucian dictators. No, god didn’t make the birds fly out at the right time to cover any noise Lee made when seeking to cross North Korea’s border. No, the guards let her into Hong Kong because your fake IDs were good not because of god’s smoke and mirrors. Well, whatever gets her through the night.

The Senate hearing testimony she gave contains details that aren’t in the book. For one thing, the ability to bury all factory workers en masse in underground tunnels, if guards wanted to, are absent; for another, the biological experiments conducted on prisoners. Why were things like that left out? I can only wonder.

Despite my criticisms, everyone needs to read this book, as they do the others I’ve mentioned. North Korea is a poisoned land, operating on corruption, greed and thuggery such that decency cannot survive there. It really gets to me that the world knows North Korea is like this and has concentration camps but does nothing–scared of Chine, no doubt. Politics means that the people that get stuck the the death camps simply have no hope, except for the very, very lucky few.

Some great news today that is keeping me chuckling. AMCO has begun construction! The gates down at the construction site where our apartment will be built are finally open again, signs are up and trucks will be rolling.

This comes after the court ruled in our favor of AMCO, and by extension us, on all counts and booted out the gangster Hanjin. It has also ruled that the trouble-makers, the old residents there, who refused to pay more money and created so many of the problems for us, will have to pay up and do as they are told.

I really laughed when I heard that last part. They have cost me so much money in rent because of their stupidity. Finally, we have some justice.

I also hear that AMCO is a rising star. It has or is building a steel works twice the size of Yeouido—Seoul’s business district—so it’s truly massive. That is raising their profile and will send our apartment values up. At last the wait is over.

But there’s no getting back the years of rent we’ve had to pay because of the delay.

—- Update! —-

Often in my life I speak too soon. You know, I’ll never get married, I’ll never be poor again, I’ll never become a cynical person—things like that.  And yet again, I spoke too soon. It seems that the signs and activity at the site were not AMCO’s doing. It was Hanjin!

Why is Hanjin suddenly motivated to look like it is a real building company and actually turn up at our construction site? Well, of course, it’s just a front for their gangster operation. The reason they are attempting to look busy is to get more money out of AMCO. AMCO has to pay for work already done, so Hanjin is putting on a pathetic and fake show to impress the idea that it has done and still is doing lots of work.

It’s yet another tactic that shows what a scumbag company Hanjin is. They’re not fooling anyone with such an amateurish production.

Saturday is the second McEwan novel I’ve read and for me it suffered from the same thing the first did: the drilling down into minuscule detail of mental processes, beyond which for me is realistic. Perhaps I lead a dull inner life. But that would surprise me to learn.

It was also the tangential excursions, not just of emotions but of the intricate descriptions of surrounds and objects, such as the details of Henry’s cooking that drove me to question their relevance. OK, Henry, the main character, can cook, he is a competent modern man—we get it, we don’t need pages of how he cooks to labour the point.

Character introductions or establishments were forced for me, too contrived, such as descriptions of blues guitar playing that not even most blues players would recognize or jargon filled neurosurgerical procedures. I wonder what blues player would analyze “playing off triplets against two- or four-note clusters.” At least, I never did. The impression is that a lot of the novel has been, well, over-researched, which is fine, but you know it only too keenly.

The family at the centre of the novel is very well-to-do. They are so well off that the son can pursue a career in blues music and the daughter in poetry. Half their luck! Their well-to-do upper-class parents, a lawyer and a brain surgeon, don’t seem to mind having kids bordering on wastrel, which might strike some as very unrealistic. On top of that, offspring with such easy fortune put me off them pretty quick.

Here is a well-balanced family, then, the artists and leaders of society as their parents. Henry, the father and surgeon, is hard on himself for lacking artistic sentiment, but not to outdone he has his own highly lauded craftsmanship. He also good at creating fictions to avoid trouble, so he is not totally devoid of creativity. He appears to be cast as truly a figure of British accomplishment in an age when there seems to be so few of them around.

It didn’t feel so much as Henry’s perceptions of the times as McEwan’s idea of what we should be thinking of them. Against the backdrop of an anti-Iraq war rally, much of it seemed like a modernized rendering around the theme of a “stiff upper lip” or promoting the sentiment British World War II posters used to proclaim: “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

Spoiler warning: the family encounter their own form of home grown terrorism. But for me the parallelism here of world and local terrorism was too pat. I enjoyed musing, however, that the local terrorist was on the path to becoming a raving lunatic (because of a medical condition), and how that seemed to imply as much of the nature of Islamic terrorists—that is, they are insane.

So, the family, offspring and parents, prevail through their own little war on terror using their collective and superior talents. Then they help the terrorist and give him as much ease as possible. Again, I couldn’t help drawing parallels with what this suggests about the terms of the international drama in the background, a drama that is still going on—the rich Western nations helping to rewire the brains of the poorer (invariably Islamic) troublemakers.

I would never say McEwan wasn’t the master at taking a very simple story and padding it out into a book of many intricacies. It’s happened in both of the books of his I’ve read. But it’s too much padding for me—the scenery in fine detail, the mental process excessively probed. It’s like McEwan was giving film makers every last detail for a film, saving them all the work. This is just not my thing, not in literature: too much served up on a plate, too much like watching a movie.

One small flower and big stupidity created all of the problems and delays we’ve had for the past 3 years.

Imagine the scene in 2003. A community vote is being held to nominate the builder of the Songdo redevelopment. All the people there are residents, whose homes will be demolished and who will gain an new apartment for a small payment of 250,000,000 won ($250,000). Not only that, they will be given money, possibly 100,000,000 won ($100,000), to live on, while they wait for the construction to be completed. Pretty good deal, I’d say.

There they are with a new strut in their step—community leaders are swaggering about, everyone’s puffed up and happy because they’ve hit the jackpot. They are nobodies in a poor neighborhood, not too smart, and mostly elderly, but here they have the power to vote who will build their new expensive homes.

And the choice? Hanjin or LG. It’s a no-brainer. LG is the biggest and the best. It’s a forgone conclusion that LG should be voted because the apartments will be top quality and their resale value will be very high. All residents were going to choose LG. But wait! At the door of the voting place are Hanjin representatives with a rose for each person. It worked.

The elderly community, largely poor, largely uneducated and unintelligent were swayed by Hanjin’s flower. They changed their minds and voted Hanjin. Fucking morons. Had they voted LG that day, we would be now living in a rather expensive apartment and looking quite well off.

Since that day of the Hanjin vote, all the problems started. The community leader handed over his official stamp to the community manager, who then proceeded to stamp everything. Another builder, Daemyung, got involved. No records were kept of where money went. Illegal activities were done. Now an accounting firm has to be hired to track down what happened and where money went.

After years of problems because of these clueless pea-brained residents, we are at some final voting on Saturday, July 4, and they all walk out! This is not before they demanded a special contract different to everyone else, where they didn’t have to pay a cent more. That would mean everyone else would have to pay for them.

During the explanation of voting, the old fogies were standing up demanding to be heard. They were running up the front and shouting. The audience was shouting them down. It was clear there were two factions there. The elderly idiot residents and the younger later purchasers like us. Finally, a wall of people was put across the stage to prevent violence. Then a debate ensued, the culmination of which the old residents walked out.

While it was all happening, the conniving old fool, the community leader was sitting like a snake behind a rock, watching intently. Finally he got up and said he would go with the other residence and they all walked out the door.

Another debate followed to decide whether the vote should go ahead. Everyone wanted to do it, even without the old fogies.

All of this took 5 hours to resolve. I was sitting their shaking my head at the stupidity and greed of the old resident’s demands. They should giving us money for all the trouble they have caused. My wife was full of hatred for the old community leader. He has been at the center of all the feeble minded stupidity that has cost us time, money and frustration.

Hanjin, the builder that behaves like a Korean gangster organization, accepted that if members of the development community voted them out, they would leave. Everyone did vote Hanjin out, opting for Amco instead, unanimously. However, Hanjin does not want to go now, not without blackmailing us for as much money as possible.

The case has gone to court and decisions will be handed down in August. In the meantime, Hanjin has sent out documents asking community members to select them as the builder. These documents contained the threat that if Hanjin was not made the builder, nothing would be built. This is bizarre since everyone has already voted them out. It is also very indicative of the thuggery that characterizes Hanjin’s mode of operation.

Here is what this gangster builder is demanding.

1. Cost of construction to date: 55 billion won (around $55 million US)
2. Compensation for damages: 23.5 billion won (around $23.5 million US)
3. Compensation for breach of contract: 23 billion won ($23 million US)

So, in total, the Hanjin thieves are demanding $101.5 million US to move out and let construction begin.

The cost of construction they are demanding is a ridiculous figure, given that 1) they have not actually done anything except clear land and that 2) they have only completed about 1% of the total project. Their other claims are ludicrous since Hanjin is the one that has caused damage and failed in its obligations.

Apart from dealing with these thieves, other issues have to be resolved. One is to get rid of that 70+ year-old bastard, the community leader, who has caused so much grief and trouble to everyone. Personally, I think they should string him up, but unfortunately this against the law nowadays. He’ll just be voted out, leaving the damage behind.

Next issue, which will be pursued in another court, is getting compensation from Hanjin for wasting everyone’s time and for criminal behavior. The fact remains that if it had not been for Hanjin and the other morons involved in all of this, we would be living in a our new apartment about now.

Finally, there is the issue of how much we are actually going to pay for the apartment. The price is no longer fixed and it will depend of market fluctuations.

Many of these issues will be discussed at a meeting July 4, 09. Meanwhile, we’ve been sent a book showing Amco’s apartement redesigns, which look better than the ones Hanjin came up with. Here are the 3 different 84 square meter designs that are relevant to us.