Seoul Village Season XIX

At long last, Korea's miserable month of December 2024 is over. You'd think it'd be hard to top two presidential impeachments sandwiched between two major disasters (YOON Suk-yeol's short-lived martial law and Jeju Air's tragic plane crash), but 2025 doesn't bode very well either for a nation on the ropes. 

Whoever is the next president will have a hard time rebuilding hope and trust at home as well as overseas, provided that's on their menu.

In the short term, acting president CHOI Sang-mok is unlikely to achieve anything significant and until the elections at least, the opposition is unlikely to contribute to reviving an anemic economy it's been undermining for years. As for the long term. this Dark December most probably annihilated that recent, timid demographic uptick (belated COVID rebound?) as radically as those politically motivated budget cuts sacrificing Korea's future growth engines (goodbye innovation and quantum computing).

Korea's competitive edge and survival are also at risk with the return of Trump to the White House.

In the 1991 blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Arnold Schwarzenegger returned as a force of good in total contrast with a first opus where he pretty much destroyed everything. But that's fiction and in Trump's T2, The Donald is unlikely to fundamentally change characters. Actually, DJT already hired 'Dark MAGA' Elon Musk for the role of Robert Patrick: T-!000, a fitter, slicker, updated version of the bulletproof killing machine programmed to help Skynet / Space X control the World. Anyway, doomsday scenario or not, this sequel promises to be less boring than Kamala Harris' short-lived B2: Statu Quo.

Both sides of the DMZ are watching closely.

KIM Jong-un knows he can't trust Trump, and he's already busy with another transactional buddy, Vladimir Putin. With his 'Juche Line' and 'Sunshine Line' in tatters, KIM somehow balances the 'Beijing Line' with a 'Kremlin Line' that provides oil, currencies, and statesman credentials against disposables (weapons and cannon fodder). 

Whoever is in charge in Seoul, lines will change and the US military presence of South Korea will be reevaluated by a man who already proved he could betray and abandon brothers in arms (ask the Kurds and Afghans if they believe one second Trump's commitment to Koreans is ironclad). We know Trump wants to withdraw, and that Mike Pompeo advised him (as Mark Esper revealed) to delay such a risky move to his second term. We know that this time he'll be surrounded by incompetent yes-men in the White House and in a greater section of Congress. We also know that Marco Rubio wouldn't be okay with abandoning Asia to China, but that he won't be calling the shots...

Should LEE Jae-myeong become the next president, he could even accelerate the withdrawal process. And he certainly wouldn't compensate with a NATO style alliance with Japan and Taiwan, like the one floated here and there as a second Trump mandate looked inevitable.

But LEE himself is a very transactional guy, and he could sing Trump a different kind of serenade than the one YOON sang to Biden. 

Besides, Korea Inc have more than a few chips on the table. Samsung, SK Hynix and Co. also fear another kind of withdrawal: the subsidies guaranteed under Joe Bden's CHIPS act. CHEY Tae-won already warned SK might reconsider its massive investment in Indiana, where both senators are Republicans... like in Texas, where Samsung extends its Austin plant and builds a new one in Taylor...

At worst very conflictual, at best very transactional, this year of the blue snake looks pretty sneaky. 

Nonetheless, let's wish ourselves a happy new year 2025.

"#Trump returns. To #KyoboBookstore, #Seoul:" (20241129 post by Seoul Village on Bluesky)

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Masks off

Impeaching acting president HAN Duck-soo was a predictable yet unfortunate move for LEE Jae-myung. We already knew that he would try anything to rush the full takeover of the judiciary system by his legislative majority before his trials and appeals go all the way, and we already knew that they could create any artificial conflict to impeach officials and paralyze the executive power, but the optics of his latest stunt are not very pretty, and kind of bring his own camp almost down to the level of their opponents.

Don't get me wrong: there's no moral equivalence between YOON Suk-yeol's outrageous martial law declaration and LEE's political tactics, but this botched process that even bypassed standard usages to force new supreme justices only feeds YOON's twisted narrative: LEE's DP is abusing its power to de facto rule the nation, and undermining it by forging unnecessary crises. 

If LEE's hardcore fans will applaud a new point scored 'for democracy', his adversaries, including within his party, may be rejoicing for an own goal.

The question is not whether YOON will be impeached, nor even when, but whether LEE will at long last face justice. And whether the good guys within his party, who'd make much better presidents than he, will have the guts to defy him instead of waiting for five years.

Meanwhile, former finance minister CHOI Sang-mok becomes the new acting president in this Squid Game version of the musical chairs.

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On Seoul Station and Seoullo Station, covered and uncovered railways...

Over a year ago, Seoul initiated an overhaul of Seoul Station area that left all options on the table, including covering railways and removing the Seoullo eyesore ('Tear down that Seoullo?'). Here's what they came up with for 2028.

The good news? 

• As expected, goodbye ugly tracks, hello street level vegetation and pedestrian-friendlier infrastructures.
• The original Seoul Station, now Culture Station Seoul 284, recovers its majesty (don't get me wrong, not talking about its Imperial Japan era origin - besides, the architect was inspired by the Lucerne Station in Switzerland).
  
• At least one traffic lane seems to have been removed on the Tongil-ro / Hangang-daero side, at least in front of the old station.
  
• In the same green vein as the Gyeongui Line Forest Park, railways shall be replaced by a linear park that will go all the way to Hangang. 
  

The usual caveats? High rise multipurpose buildings that will coopete with other hubs. 

On the northen section: a cluster of towers between Seosomun Park and... Seoullo?

Now something puzzles me: Seoullo 7117 is still there. Which means that the project was not fully thought through.

At least, this micro heliotropolis connected to all major means of transportation including Incheon Airport looks more integrated to its surrounding neighborhoods than all previous avatars of this decades-old project. 

***

Speaking of public transportation, another update: the elusive Seobu Line could be back on track. This key vertical LRT axis passed an important hurdle at the Ministry of Finance, but the consortium has to be reactivated. Other more or less new projects are in some kind of pipe (a few of them are familiar):

Like Goyang earlier to the north, Anyang city declared its intention to extend it to the south, along with the Wirye Line, from SNU to Anyang Sports Complex and Pyeongchon New Town. It certainly would help Anyang, but could further delay the Northern side of the Seobu Line, which remains with Pyeongchang-dong the biggest hole in Seoul's grid.

The 6 'new' lines in red on the big map above:

• Seobu Line (Saejeol - Seoul National University Entrance) - see previous posts related to it. Note two extensions (in green on the full map) to the existing network: on the Seobu Line from SNU Entrance to SNU, and on the Shillim Line from Saetgang Station to Seobu's third and easternmost station on Yeouido.

• Gangbuk Hoengdang Line (Mok-dong - Cheongnyangni horizontal) - 25.72km, 20 stations that would connect Pyeongchang-dong to the grid.
  

• Ui Line extension (Ui-dong - Banghak-dong) - 4.13km, 6 stations
  

 

• Myeonmok Line (Cheongnyangni - Sinnae-dong) - 9.05km, 12 stations
  

 

• Nangok Line (Boramae Park - Nangyang-dong)

 

• Mok-dong Line (Sinwol-dong - Dangsan Station) 
  

 

Besides, 2 existing lines are upgraded (in blue on the map):

• Line 4 (Danggogae - Namtaeryeong): express
  

• Line 5 (Dongducheon-dong - Gupundari)
  

See all posts related to Seoul Station, transports, and subways.

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Welcome to our Korean Errlines! Follow Seoul Village on Facebook, Bluesky, and X/Twitter, follow me on Instagram.
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One more job to finish

As expected*, YOON Suk-yeol's suicidal martial law folly resulted in his impeachment, and Korea democracy prevailed. Now the following steps are equally foreseeable: 

• PM HAN Duck-soo will act as interim president the time for the Supreme Court to confirm YOON's ousting**, 
• presidential elections will be held and crown a member of the opposition,
• as one of the only 3 PPP lawmakers who had the decency to take part in the first impeachment vote last Saturday, AHN Cheol-soo will once more run and fail to coalesce around a center that can't emerge in such an utterly divided nation. 
• the PPP itself will once more change names and fail to reform, plagued by self-destructive forces (hardcore ultra-conservatives, anti-feminists, bigots, K-MAGA conspiracy theorists...)
  

The only question that matters now is will LEE Jae-myung manage to pull a Trump and succeed in eluding justice and accountability all the way to the elections?

YOON's political suicide gave him a unique opportunity to pose as a hero and gain global attention, even if few international media mentioned LEE's darker sides (let's put that on the demonstration dopamine and the euphoria of witnessing history, if not on fixers who don't always share the same journalistic standards).

The fact that YOON Suk-yeol deserves impeachment doesn't mean LEE Jae-myung doesn't deserve to be judged.

The fact that the LEE Jun-seok and Co. are appalling anti-feminists doesn't mean LEE Jae-myung shouldn't be criticized for labeling his nephew's double femicide as mere 'dating violence'. 

The fact that the PPP must reform and purge itself of rotten apples doesn't mean the DP doesn't have to do the same.

Korea can't afford yet another disappointment. 

Following PARK Geun-hye's impeachment, we've seen two presidents elected to restore justice but failing on their core mission: MOON Jae-in by betraying the memory of ROH Moo-hyun and perverting the balance of power and justice, and YOON Suk-yeol by betraying his promise through double standards for justice and the nation through an outrageous martial law.

If Korea proved once again that it remains a vibrant democracy, it has at least one more job to finish.

'#YoonSukyeol 2nd #impeachment vote starting with floor leader #ParkChandae's speech.' (seoulvillage.bsky.social/post/3ldaqxeojwc2k - 20241214) - The eventual score was 204 yes, 85 no, 3 abstentions, 8 invalid.

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* see "Double Feature Night: '12.3 The Day' + 'The President's Last (going with a) Bang'"

** the opposition may try to impeach HAN in order to put its assembly speaker WOO Won-sik in his shoes, but shan't get a 2/3 vote. Removing the last resistance to LEE Jae-myung in the justice system could prove much easier, but would retrospectively prove YOON right on one of the justifications he used for his appalling martial law.

Double Feature Night: '12.3 The Day' + 'The President's Last (going with a) Bang'

Last night, YOON Suk-yeol's political suicide lasted less than one hour. There was no scenario in which the lamest of all ducks could implement an actual martial law on the ground, and when I saw the media at the National Assembly and MPs walking in, I knew for sure I could go back to sleep.

 

Proving once more that he has no political skill whatsoever (was he following advice from his expert in anal acupuncture?), YOON decided to go with a bang, declaring the first martial law since the Gwangju massacre era, almost on the anniversary of CHUN Doo-hwan's coup...

Last night's double feature: '12.12 The Day' or 'The President's Last Bang'?

All that to make a point and denounce the way the opposition is abusing its legislative majority to undermine the nation.

Even if the argument is not unfounded, YOON has not been a model of probity himself, and using the ultimate political nuclear weapon is not the way for an utterly unpopular president to treat democracy and an assembly democratically elected in a landslide one year earlier. 

Furthermore, unlike the controversial 2020 landslide (international media criticized the timing, which resulted in a referendum on the handling of COVID by the MOON Jae-in administration, who would have lost massively if the elections had been held a few weeks earlier during the Daegu crisis), last year's rout was mostly owned by YOON: yes his record was torpedoed by the legislative branch, but he scored too many own goals to deserve any shot at victory.

Needless to say, both sides of the aisle (HAN Dong-hoon and LEE Jae-myung) denounced yesterday's folly, and now YOON Suk-yeol has no choice but to step down or to face impeachment and give way to the next lame Duck(soo) in line, Prime Minister HAN Duck-soo.

My post right after the announcement of the martial law:

#YoonSukyeol declared #martiallaw in #Korea to make a point: accusing the national assembly of 'dictatorship', of willing to impeach him and take over judicial power, of undernining the nation, and for some MPs, of working for #NorthKorea. A radical move naturally denounced by both sides of the aisle (#HanDonghoon & #LeeJaemyung), who have the power to undo that move by vote, provided they manage to convene.
Reminders: Korea's #balanceofpower worked perfectly to remove #ParkGeunhye but was later distorted under #MoonJaein to protect LJM and friends from #justice. Named by Moon to reform justice, YSY refused that unplanned distortion of #democracy and resisted, eventually rising to win the presidency against LJM, but without a legislative majority.
Like Moon before him, Yoon disappointed on core principles. His outrage vs outrage strategy seems likely to backfire considering his abysmal popularity ratings.

My post after the confirmation of its withdrawal:

Votes cast, #martiallaw withdrawn. As expected, point made totally inaudibly and counter-productively...

The lamest of all ducks, #YoonSukyeol proved once more his total lack of political skills. This suicidal stunt not only fuels the opposition but also undermines the last counterpowers standing.

#Democracy wins, but #Korea's #balanceofpower remains broken, and leadership change remains needed on both sides.

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The Dessert of the Tartars

A bit like Nessie or Buzzati's fabled Tartars, we kept waiting for it every year but it never showed up. And all of a sudden, it just landed. 

Korea's first Nobel Prize in literature. 

The prestigious award didn't crown a veteran in the HWANG Sok-yong, YI Mun-yol or KIM Hoon tradition (the poet KO Un has long been metooed out of the race), but a confirmed 50-something author who (sorry KIM Young-ha and Co., but that makes it even better) happens to be female. 

After her 2016 International Booker Prize and last year's Prix Medicis, HAN Kang completes a powerful global hat trick.

Great to see a modern author claim the spotlights - I'm sure other sides of the highly diverse Korean literature will also receive the exposure they deserve.

This sweet victory comes right after Korean cuisine brilliantly showcased its incredible diversity and creativity through Netflix's droolingly addictive 'Culinary Class Wars'.

As K-pop faces growing signs of 'K-fatigue' and the local movie ecosystem struggles, it's really refreshing to see Korean literature and cuisine grab the headlines... In case you needed positive answers to the question "Can Korea sustain its cultural leadership?"...

If you love Korean food, don't miss CCW. Fantastic dishes, amazing chefs, and a fun jury duet combining PAIK Jong-won (not always that demanding for his own venues) with ANH Sung-jae (merciless but fair)

Not a HAN Kang miracle; yet another prestigious international nod

Sorry boys, you lost these Literary Class Wars. Gotta up your game for Season 2!

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Summer Hit Wave

Sorry Seoul, I was out of town this Summer. Equally glad to miss your crushing, record heatwave, and thrilled to enjoy Paris 2024 and the most spectacular olympics and paralympics.

Rooting for both nations, this Parisian Seoulite was lucky enough to witness 3 gold medals for Korea:

• Archery at Invalides (NB: silver for France):
  
  Little suspense there: as expected, KIM Woo-jin, KIM Je-deok and LEE Woo-seok destroyed all competition, kindly tipping France with one set in a final played under a merciless sun in a postcard setting (the Invalides at 9 o'clock, the Eiffel Tower at 12, the Pont Alexandre III and the Grand Palais at 3).
  

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• Fencing at Grand Palais (NB: bronze for France):
  
  In that very Grand Palais, arguably one of the most spectacular venues of the Games, OH Sanguk, PARK Sangwon, GU Bongil, and DO Gyeongdong had a tougher time defeating Hungary. But nothing could stop the men's sabre squad from claiming gold for the third time in a row, not even that eruption of the stands when Leon Marchand won his race in the middle of the final.

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• Badminton at Porte de la Chapelle Arena (NB: no frogs in sight except in the stands):
  
  Another expected triumph for Korea; this time for AN Se-young who let HE Bing Jiao remain hopeful for two thirds of the first set before switching to cruise mode all the way to victory.
  

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Kudos to Paris, France, and Tony ESTANGUET for pulling out a fantastic event and particularly the most successful paralympics ever. FOMO brought Parisians who skipped the Olympics back for that 'return match', and over 95% of all seats were not only sold but also fully animated, even when audiences weren't allowed to make any noise (a silent 'ola' during blind football games? simply brilliant).

After the 2002 World Cup in Korea, I didn't think I could experience another moment of national communion around such a major sport event, particularly in a city where protesting is the national pastime. I'm happy I was wrong.

Needless to say, in both cases, the magic eventually rubs off, and national unity quickly collapses; but for all their defaults, I'll keep rooting for my two favorite countries. With this gift tee that pretty much wrapped up a smoking hot Summer:

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Seoul Village 2024
Welcome to our Korean Errlines! Follow Seoul Village on Facebook and Twitter, follow me on Instagram.
Download 'Seoul VillageS', the free ebook.