Lost in Japan

Dear All (if there are any readers still left after my almost complete absence)

I have decided to do a rather heavy rework of this site and restart it with a somewhat better focus…

I need to update the Wordpress of the site (I’m running 2.1.3 here for God’s sake!) and also redesign the layout, because I’m awfully tired of it (and also, it’s always been a bit of a slow performer due to lots of graphics and bad HTML)

So, in a few days the site will be down a bit and/or unresponsive and/or just simply looking strange (depending on what order I do things)

Johan

Six months hiatus and then I come back and make a post with no content, just a picture and a link to a text about Dubai:

The Dark side of Dubai

Well, the article was truly interesting since I’ve been a long “fan” of Dubai (from a distance, as I’ve never been there) and really wanted to go there, even possibly for work. But the article above contained lots of information that was new to me, and really made me question my opinions about the arabic wonderland.

Well, tomorrow is the last day of the 2008 Olympic Games and being a Swede, you got to think “Thank You, the disaster is finally over….Let’s forget about Beijing and concentrate on London!”

With one day left (without any hopes of more medals), Sweden ended up with five medals; four silvers and one bronze. That places us at 56th place in the country medal rankings. Sweden DID have one more bronze, but you all know that it was taken back by IOC due to Ara Abrahamian’s “unsportsmanship behavior” last week. There’s no denying that his behavior was child like and should go punished, but the fact remains that his actions were in part justifiable as the latest news reveal: “Ara Abrahamian was right” I guess it is a big comfort to him (and to his fellow Swedes) to know that he was unfairly treated in his semifinal match.

Anyway, back to the fiasco that is the Swedish Olympic performance of 2008. To get an idea of how bad it has been, here are the statistics from the last few Games:

Athens 2004: 4 gold, 5 silver, 1 bronze (19th place)
Sydney 2000: 4 gold, 5 silver, 3 bronze (18th place)
Atlanta 1996: 2 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze (29th place)
Barcelona 1992: 1 gold, 7 silver, 4 bronze (27th place)
Seoul 1988: no gold, 4 silver, 7 bronze (32nd place)
Los Angeles 1984: 2 gold, 11 silver, 6 bronze (16th place)
Moscow 1980: 3 gold, 3 silver, 6 bronze (11th place)

By this point, I got tired of writing each game’s medals, so I looked back and tried to find a worse games for the Swedes. Mexico City 1968 saw only four Swedish medals, but two of them were gold. In Rome 1960, Sweden took six medals, of which only one was gold, so you could say that Beijing 2008 was the worst Olympics games for the Swedes in at least 48 years…

However, in such times as these, you have to find happiness from somewhere, and living in Japan you have to join the Japanese in joy for their successful Olympic Games! Japan are in 8th place overall in Beijing; with a total of 25 medals (9 gold, 6 silver, 10 bronze) – which is pretty good, although not as impressive as in Athens were they managed to bring home 37 medals!

I’ m back in neigboring Korea for a speedy visit, and it has been nearly nine months since I was here last. Unfortunately not much spare time this visit, but I’m still enjoying the change of scenery. Also, my living situation here in Seoul is vastly better than last year. I was stuck at mediocre (but good value for money) Best Western Gangnam, whereas now I’m over at the COEX Inter-Continental, which is a world apart, I can tell you that! Just consider a simple thing as the complimentary coffee – at Best Western, it consisted of two sticks of instant freeze-dried; whereas here you get a french press and three bags of fine coffee! Got to be honest here, it’s the first time I ever used a French Press, and I actually had to look up on the Internet how to operate it!!! (It was easier than I first thought.)

Our Korean office has also relocated from Gangnam to COEX and ais a definite step up from the old locale. It even beats our own office in Tokyo as far as stylishness – I’m a bit jealous! Have to try to get sent here a bit more often, I see….

Seeing as I have been in Seoul for about a month now, I know have sufficient knowledge about Korean tradition, culture and society to make a complete comparative assessment of Seoul vs Tokyo in the 21st century…… Yeah, OK, so I am not an anthropological expert or anything and staying just a month here makes me nothing but sick of Kimchee, but I still want to take some time and give you my thoughts on Seoul as seen by the eyes of a westerner living in Japan.

Grab a cup of coffee and sit tight!

One of my first reflections when I arrived here was “wow, Seoul is so much more Asian than Tokyo,” a statement I now shall revise to “wow, Tokyo is so much less Asian than the rest of Asia.” Yes, when you think about it, South Korea is definitely a part of Asia and feels similar to cities in China or Malaysia whereas Tokyo and Japan has a completely different feel to it – it’s less Asian and just “Japanese”. It’s hard to describe in words.

As I said before, I was expecting Seoul to be sort of like Tokyo, because that is the impression you get by watching these darn Han-ryu dramas on Japanese TV. It’s all big flashy cars in modern looking cities and everyone’s rich and fabulous… Turns out – GASP – that these dramas are not so close to reality as one is made to believe! (The horror!) Seoul is a city that has grown at a tremendous speed over the last few years, and it kinda shows. There is tons of construction work going on everywhere, traffic is chaos, public transportation is crazy in rush hour and there are street markets even on the most modern and upscale street where old ladies are selling various kinds of fried foods. It’s a crazy mix of old and new and for the most part I think it’s pretty nice.

But you feel that the soul of Seoul (no pun intended) is not really in tune with the modern facade. Even though the city presents itself as a modern 21st century metropolis where money is made and spent, the “rural” poverty still shines through and it makes me kind of sad, because you see that this country is trying to evolve quicker than what is good for it. For instance, there are a lot of upscale neighborhoods here with nice department stores and boutiques that match those of Singapore or Tokyo, but take a closer look at areas such as Apgujeong, Myeong-dong or Gangnam, and what do you see? Well you see that the big department stores are filled with Chinese and Japanese tourists. You see that the streets are pretty deserted except for the ones lined with street vendors selling cheap knock-off products. You see the beggars sitting around reminding the onlookers of the tough economic reality. In an economically sound country, would you see 70-year old women sitting in the subway station selling packs of gum she bought in a store at a markup to survive? Do you see unemployed business men trying to sell brushes and whatnot on the subway train in Tokyo or Hong Kong?

One other thing that glares you in the face is what seems to be a total lack of city beautification. And I say beautification because I can’t think of a better word – what I mean is that the sidewalks, the roads, the parks, the public areas, the stations, etc. look pretty run down and are not well taken care of. It really doesn’t give the impression of strong economic growth. At the same time, property prices are skyrocketing and Seoul is becoming a city which is more expensive to live in than Tokyo. There is something that is definately bubbly about the current economic climate and it must be just a question of time before it bursts.

Photo by Min