Last month I was complaining about waves of rental scooters showing up and basically choking the street corners of Daegu. Turns out I'm not alone in my distaste for these things:
"The number of complaints relating to the use of electric scooters this year reached 1,951 as of end of July, according to data from the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission. For full-year 2019, the number was 1,927, and in 2018, it was 511.
'We receive at least 10 complaints a day about electric scooters parked on sidewalks or at subway station exits where lots of people pass by,' an employee from Gangdong District Office’s transportation policy department said. 'When we actually visit the location, the electric scooter is no longer there as it has already been taken by another user. It’s really difficult for us to regulate them.'
Operators of scooter-sharing services are making efforts to tackle the backlash. Olulo, operator of Kickgoing, and PUMP, operator of Xing xing, established 24-hour-a-day hotlines for local district offices so that company employees can clear their scooters within two hours of a complaint.
Some critics argue that foreign companies have recklessly increased the number of scooters in pursuit of revenue, to the point that it has become nearly impossible for them to respond to problems."
If they are left on public streets or sidewalks, they are literally pieces of trash. Treat them as such.
Seoul is a lovely capital city, as far as these things go, but there is a growing push to move it -- or at least its most important government functions -- 75 miles south:
"In a National Assembly speech on Monday, Rep. Kim Tae-nyeon, floor leader of the DP, proposed that the National Assembly, Blue House and key ministries in Seoul move to Sejong. He said the relocation would decentralize Seoul and nearby areas and curb skyrocketing housing prices in the overcrowded capital region.
According to a DP source, Kim floated the idea based on a survey conducted by the party last week. The DP conducted a poll on July 17 and 18, the source told the Joongang Ilbo.
'In our poll, 62 percent supported the idea, while 33 percent opposed. Five percent did not answer,' the source said. 'We concluded that public sentiment is different from 16 years ago.'
After he was briefed about the poll on Sunday morning, Kim decided to include the proposal in his National Assembly speech Monday.
Building an administrative capital city in the Chungcheong region was a presidential campaign pledge by Roh Moo-hyun in 2002. He took office in 2003."
There's a lot of inside baseball going on here but the gist is this -- about half the population of the entire country is packed in and around Seoul and the surrounding area. Residents in smaller cities, especially young folks, feel pressure to move to the capital in order to find the best jobs and educational opportunities. Those smaller cities in turn feel abandoned, and complain they don't receive adequate development resources from the central government.
What the article doesn't mention is that Seoul remains within missile / artillery distance of North Korea, thereby ensuring it will never be the Asian finance hub that Hong Kong was and Singapore and Tokyo remain.
"In one account, the lawyer said Park saw a bruise on the secretary’s knee and said he wanted to make her feel better, before he “laid his lips” on the area.
'He summoned the victim to a bed inside a room in his office,' Kim relayed, 'and physically touched her by asking her to embrace him, and invited her to a secret chat room [on the encrypted messaging app] Telegram to constantly send her promiscuous messages and photos of him in his undergarments.'
Kim claimed that the Seoul Metropolitan Government was aware the victim was in pain because she had described her encounters with Park to her colleagues and asked for help. The office, however, did nothing to save her and kept denying Park’s unsolicited sexual advances, saying he’s 'not that kind of person,' the lawyer continued.
The secretary asked to be transferred to another team, but the request was not acted upon promptly, Kim implied. The lawyer said her first consultation with the secretary took place on May 12."We all have a long way to go to crush and stamp out workplace sexual harassment, and sexism in general. But I just choke on the line "not that kind of person."
"Even with the amount of cases in Korea ballooning at the time, I felt I would be safer here than anywhere else. The reality is that my job provides me with housing and national health care. If I were to return to America, I’d be unemployed and uninsured. How would I get by if I actually did contract the virus? I also didn’t want to risk bringing the virus back with me, especially since my mom is older and has health conditions that compromise her immune system. The choice seemed clear.
Some of my fellow teachers pulled what we call 'midnight-runs' (leaving Korea unannounced) and fleeing to their home countries, out of fear of the virus compounded in part with the financial stress of possibly losing their jobs if schools remained closed. At first, I wondered if I should have done the same. But my faith in the South Korean government's ability to handle this pandemic has proven to hold true, because it feels like the situation is improving here with each passing day. The amount of new infections has significantly decreased, from thousands each week to fewer than a hundred per day."Short of a family member having an emergency there's no way in hell I'd consider leaving Korea right now or for the foreseeable future.
"These shops are a key part of Seoul’s healthy functioning, past and present, says Park Eun-seon, urban activist and founder of the collective Listen to the City.
'This area is now the oldest area in Seoul. Everything else is postwar. Here we have some originals. The people worked here for a long time, making their own history – and now the government wants to make it offices and apartments. Ridiculous.'
She points out that the government has past form in demolishing first and asking questions later. In 2003, when the Cheonggyecheon stream was originally developed, more than 30,000 street vendors were moved out after an elevated highway was demolished to restore the original river underneath. The waterway is now a favourite socialising spot for Seoulites, and its success helped propel then-mayor Lee Myung-bak to the presidency."The possibility of violence is far from zero:
"There are no signs of violence in the current dispute, nor any suggestion that Hanho Construction was involved in any past confrontations, but the Korea Times has reported that the firm has sent aggressive letters to shop owners, bypassing their official tenants’ association. Many of the letters asked for double rent, or claimed damages of up to 500m won (£343,000) for unspecified obstruction, the newspaper said."I'd only add, anecdotally, that South Korea landlords can be just as terrible as American ones.
"The term oppa is a Korean word that means older brother that women use to address older male family members, friends or romantic partners. Often used as a term of endearment, many female fans of Korean actors or singers from around the world refer to their favorite stars as oppa.
Although the oppa that tourists meet up with may not appear on popular television dramas or be a powerful stage performer, they do share good looks and a warm personality.
This special tour service, which officially launched in April after running a successful pilot service for about a month in December, targets foreign visitors hoping to meet an oppa like the ones they have seen on TV or in music videos."I guess this strikes me as -- mostly harmless?
