Recently, I had a choice of sorts. I could either (saving my money not really being in the consideration) go to Taiwan for a brief period, or completely leave the china for a literal/figurative breath of fresh air before my final home stretch. I made the right decision.
Seoul, South Korea, is a real place. This is the kind of statement I can make to anyone who has lived in non Beijing/Shanghai mainland china and they will at least kind of know what I'm talking about. It has all the hallmarks of Asia - black hair, pointy roofs, occasional sewer smell when you're walking around on the streets - but is a 'real place' in the sense that things are easy to find and do there. You want a particular kind of restaurant? Go there. You're trying to find a palace of some kind? Read the English maps all over the place.
Some people would complain about this level of modernity-baiting, but not me. There are something in excess of 150,000 expats in Seoul, and you can tell that the accessibility game has been raised as a result; compare that to the less than 100 foreigners (including non-english speakers) in my city which is just shy of half the size of Seoul. You can tell which place is shittier, without going beyond population demographics.
Is there air pollution in Seoul? Yes. Would anybody who has lived in the china laugh at it in a bemused, Santa Clause realizing he just ate pot cookies kind of way? Oh yes. There are, however, easily visible environmental initiatives...
This is a shot of a river which was reclaimed about ten years ago. At one point they had an ugly concrete highway over the top of it, but, realizing they didn't want their city to be a concrete hellhole (are you listening china?), they took the highway out, and planted willows/native grasses/etc along the banks before stocking it with fish. The largest fish are over a foot long, and were correctly predicted by myself as an object for culinary debate amongst my students when I showed them a picture. Nature isn't always for eating.
I really liked it there, and I'm applying for jobs there. Will I get to go there? Maybe...at any rate it was a great visit, and a tantalizing peek at what Asia can be like if it's not corrupt, not selfish, and thinks about the lives of its citizens.
