War Cry

(If that's all they see, I wouldn't blame 'em...)

The other day, as my subway car ran parallel to the highway bridges that cross the Han River, I saw a procession of army trucks speeding alongside, the only traffic moving at more than a traffic-jam crawl.

But no, the North hadn't attacked. It was, in fact, Korea's version of Remembrance Day, one of the few holidays on the Korean calendar that doesn't involve specially-packaged chocolate purchased from the convenience store. I knew what day it was, of course, since I had the day off work.

I sought to make the most of my last, and somehow along my travels, I managed to accidentally walk past the Korean War Memorial. Given the timeliness, I decided to take a look around.

There's a lot there. A lot of tanks and jeeps and planes and guns and bombs and other pre-robotic means of world domination. There's something a little unseemly about kids playing on a tank. It was a pretty interesting looks at Korea at war, though. Kind of like MASH, except I didn't change the channel as soon as I saw it come on.

The memorial's supposed to honour all of Korea's historical battles, but the Korean war of the 1950s really the main attraction. Interestingly, much like the Vietnamese call their infamous was the American war, as do many Koreans call their latest the American war. I mean, why name a war after yourself?

The thing that surprised me was how overwhelmingly American the Korean war memorial was. The first thing I saw approaching the place was a sign warning that it was US Army property, and I may or not be shot on site for visiting. It's like the Army set up this big monument on Korean soil, thanking themselves for saving the world.

The tourist-y 'I haven't seen enough things in this city' day off didn't end there. I headed to Namsangol, a rebuilt traditional Korean village in the middle of Seoul. I like to call the place Jumong-ville, because it looks like the setting of the inexplicably popular (read: awful) Korean drama of the same name.

The place was a nice spot where Koreans talked and slept and sat and watched Koi swim upstream. The unfortunate thing about Korean historical sites is that so many of them (this one included) are replicas. The problem is basically Japan burned down the whole goddamn country a few centuries ago or so. Ashes don't make good museums, it seems.

Stepping back the history of my week, on Saturday I check an item off my 'things to do before I die in Korea' list. Namely, I ate blowfish. Or swellfish, as it had been hilariously re-mis-translated by the restaurant. Maybe that's a marketing choice, though. I'd much rather be told that my meal was swell than hear that it blows.

The food didn't blow (although it was a bit bland). Nor did eating the deadly fugu fish kill me. In fact, we were dso very alive after eating that we went about the area doing what we do best in Korea - imbibe.

We wandered about the area, in and out of whichever place had the most alluring collection of gaudy lighting.

Lack of attention and a cloudy memory means that I never quite knew where we were. Not that I didn't know where I was, just that I never paid attention to what part of the city I was in. It was a very nice, wildly-lit area, though. Fountains and rivers and people and lights, all hours of the evening. A man sleeping on a pile of glow-sticks. Balcony bars above drunken streets, watching little drunken ant people navigate from bar to bar.

Wandering around like an ant is about what I do now. The last-minute urge to try to see as much of the place before I leave it. Snap pictures of what I can. Quiet scenes of trees and trails. My last glances of neon home.

Now it's time to make fun of Korea, quickly, before things get too serious here.

Now if there's anything Korea takes more seriously than its shitty melodramas, it's technology. In particular, this place is pretty much the cellphone capital of the world. With an estimated 90% of the country using them, they claim that cellphones actually outnumber people in this country. With numbers like that, I just hope that the phones don't turn against us and plan a genocidal uprising.

A student of about six showed me his new phone the other day. It's a crippled phone, in that it can only dial a few pre-programmed numbers (ideally home, for emergencies I guess). I while the intention is pure, I'm sure, it's a bit creepy to see kids who can't ride a bike owning their own cell.

I saw this art piece at a subway station. Only in Korea (or in my head) would people think to combine cellphones and Tetris and try to pass it off as legitimate art.


The last thing here is a Korean ATM. These thing are models of modern tech. With two screens, no buttons, RF detectors, cell-phone connections, fingerprint readers, cheque scanners, and probably a big robotic arm to beat you silly if you fuck with it.

On the other end of Korean technological innovations, there's a curious new product at the local convenience stores. Basically, it's iced coffee in kit form. You buy a pouch of coffee, then get a tiny bag of ice, a cup, cover and straw. You mix it all together yourself.


It's a caffeine fix for the Lego generation.