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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Gangbuk LRT - Naebu v. Seobu, or PARK v. OH?

Out of the blue, Seoul Metropolitan Government unveiled a brand new, 24.8 km, 15-station subway line joining Mok-dong (Yangcheon-gu) to Cheongnyangni (Dongdaemun-gu) along the Naebu Expressway, that disgraceful overpass scarring countless Seoul neighborhoods*.

Construction would start as early as 2021, for a project that was not even part of the 10 LRT projects announced for 2025 in 2015 ("Seoul subway to gain 89 km by 2025"). Yet, it would connect the dots between two of them: the Mok-dong Line to the West (Sinwol-dong - Mok-dong), and the Myeonmok Line to the East (Cheongnyangni - Sinnae).

"서울 내부순환로 땅 밑으로 '강북횡단 경전철' 건설 추진 출처" (Chosun Ilbo 20190212)

*

As you well know, I'm all for new railway lines, but all this seems a bit hasty, if not suspicious:

• such projects usually take years and years to study, and 2021 seems a very aggressive target for starting the construction
• the route doesn't seem optimized for transportation needs, but happens to be on land mostly owned by the city, which may speed up the process
• as we've seen before, subway projects are highly political in Seoul, and countless railway projects announced before key elections have been dumped afterwards. Yet as soon as a project actually starts, land value immediately jumps
• the only date given is the start of the project, and 2021 happens to be the year preceding the next presidential elections
• this Gangbuk LRT / Naebu Line / Naebuseon could cannibalize, and maybe even kill a major project the city and many partners have been working on for a long while: the Seobu Line / Seobuseon, confirmed as a priority by the city not so long ago ("Seobu Line confirmed as Seoul's LRT top priority")
• Seobuseon was initiated under former mayor OH Se-hoon who, like his successor PARK Won-soon, hasn't given up his presidential ambitions, even if, for the moment, both are lagging behind in the polls**
• this new project is supposed to be part of Seoul's third urban railways plan, to be announced later (that's a 10-year plan, last one was for 2015-2025, maybe the plan will be revealed in 2020, but this can't wait because of the elections)
• ...

This may sound a tad cynical but again, announcements related to subways have always been heavily political (whatever the party in charge), because there's so much at stake at the real estate level, and you know how much that counts in Seoul.

*

Now, let's have a closer look at this new line. We don't have the details yet, particularly the list of stations, or how the Han River or Bugaksan shall be crossed (doubling Seongsan Bridge and the Bugak Tunnel? under the Hangang?), but we can get a more than general idea.

Comparing the new map (above) to the one featuring the previous 10 projects (see ""Seoul LRT Projects Update (Part 1/2)", "Seoul LRT Projects Update (Part 2/2)"), and of course the Naebu Expressway, here's my best guess, going from West to East:

• 'Gangbuk LRT' seems to start from the potential Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital station of the Mok-dong Line (west of Anyangcheon, and Dangsan Station). 
• it then seems to intersect with Line 9 at Sinmok-dong Station before crossing the river on Seongsan Bridge
• on the other side of the river, it would certainly meet Line 6 at Mapo-gu Office
• after that, it probably connects with Gyeongui Jungang Line / Gyeongui Line at Gajwa Station, and Line 3 at Hongje Station, with a couple stations in-between (at least one at the intersection of Jeungga-ro and Hongjecheon, between Yeonhui-dong and Namgajwa-dong, and one at Seodaemun-gu Office)
• we know that the new line joins the Ui-Sinseol LRT line at Jeongneung Station (Seongbuk-gu), but it would be utterly stupid to spend millions just crossing the mountain like the Naebu Expressway, and leaving Jongno-gu's Pyeongchang-dong valley completely off Seoul's railway grid. I would rather follow the road (Segeomjeong-ro / Pyeongchangmunhwa-ro), and add one station right before Inwangsan (in Hongeun-dong), and a couple in the valley itself, for example***: 
• one at the feet of Sangmyung University Seoul (Hongji-dong at Jahamun-ro), or at the Sinyeong-dong Samgeori (Segumjung Elementary School at Jinheung-ro)
• one or two at the intersection with the roads leading uphill (e.g. at Pyeongchang 20-gil)
• so far, between Mok-dong and Jeongneung, we have listed 9 to 11 stations, which leaves us 4 to 6 until the end. Judging by the map, I could add up to 5 existing stations: on Line 4 (Gireum Station), Line 6 (Wolgok Station, Korea University Station), and Line 1 (Jegi-dong Station, Cheongnyangni).

The main advantages would be to cover two big holes in Seoul's subway map: central Seodaemun-gu, and Pyeongchang-dong, and to add horizontality where it could make sense. But the Seobu Line is far better designed for the needs of Western Seoul, doubling the Naebu Expressway would demand disproportionate investments, and there are probably far smarter horizontals to build.

Of course, the fact that many cars use an urban highway doesn't mean that many citizens would take the same route by subway. Fundamentally, this top-down project doesn't seem fully thought through. I hope Seoul has a more serious and comprehensive plan to not only fix these two holes, but also pave more cleverly the (rail)way for the removal of the city's embarrassing elevated expressways.

*

Anyway, even if this project fails, and even if Mayor PARK fails in 2022, he still can run another marathon: Seoul has just been confirmed as Pyongyang's sister city in the bid for the 2032 Olympic Games (little suspense there, Busan didn't make much geographical sense):

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* most dramatically in the charming Hongjecheon valley (see "Along Hongjecheon, my way or the highway")
** in a mirror fashion, Prime Minister LEE Nak-yon leads against Seoul Mayor PARK while former PM HWANG Kyo-ahn leads against former Seoul Mayor OH (including in the race for LKP leadership later this month, with a vote expected during Trump-Kim Summit II in Hanoi):

2022 poll (JoongAng Ilbo): liberals LEE Nak-yon, RHYU Si-min, PARK Won-soon, conservatives HWANG Kyo-ahn, OH Se-hoon, HONG Joon-pyo (20190103 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/1080637278605570048)

*** that's what I had in mind in the 'second circular line' project mentioned in my comment dated "August 20, 2013 at 6:00 PM"

Land mining Seoul

Seoul is once again* about to lose more of its ever shrinking greenbelt area. The main difference with last time? Mayor PARK Won-soon is opposing the move, because it might hurt his presidential ambitions: even if acted now, the move wouldn't translate into new dwellings before 6 to 7 years, and trees would be torn down too close to the 2022 elections.

'Shame on #Korea's Ministry of Land and Territory, which is considering reducing even more #Seoul's protected greenbelt areas to provide more #housing. When there's already oversupply, and fewer people living in the capital!' (20180921 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/1042933809820446720)

'This time, #seoul mayor #ParkWonsoon is opposing the move, which may backfire for his presidential bid' (20180921 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/1042948381071630338)

Seoul does want to add 62,000 dwellings, by using idle land and relaxing FAR rules. The Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs targets 50,000, but to achieve that goal, intends to tear down greenbelt areas (300,000 sqm).

This good-cop-bad-cop routine between the government and PARK Won-soon doesn't fool anyone. Particularly the week MOON Jae-in all but knighted him as first in line of succession by inviting him (along with his Gangwon-do rival) to Pyongyang for his third summit with KIM Jong-un, pretexting their first-in-line-when-the-gimchi-hits-the-fan-ness (nevermind Gyeonggi-do).

Anyway, MOON's government doesn't have much to lose in taking the blame for destroying Seoul's last lungs: they're not running in 2022, and they are already under fire for their miserable handling of real estate bubbles: everything they try is fueling them now, in anticipation of their downfall. The intentions are good, but like Paris with environment, they leave it up to an ideological ayatollah with little understanding of environmental and economical collateral damage.

Anyway, speculation keeps ruining Seoul. To the point that in some instances, pools of homeowners bully, boycott, and force into bankruptcy realtors who dare post prices too low for their taste.

One thing is sure: there is already an oversupply of dwellings, and Seoul's population has shrunk under PARK Won-soon's watch. Gaping inequalities remain, and heavy regulation is required, but adding further artificial and counterproductive distortions won't help. New social housing projects should propose prices that are fair and affordable, not cowardly indexed at bubble-level-minus-20%.

An opening of North Korea would definitely change the equation. Co-organizing Olympics with North Korea in 2032? Not so much. And where would they be held, without abandoning the one-city rule? Seoul-Pyongyang? Kaesong? Panmunjom?

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* see "We reject as false the choice between our welfare and our well being", "Tighten your greenbelt"... 
** "풀어도 문제, 놔둬도 고민"…서울 그린벨트 '딜레마' (Chosun Ilbo 20180919)

Year of the Underdog

This is, so far, the image I'd keep from the Pyeongchang Olympics: Lee Sang-hwa and Nao Kodaira enjoying a victory lap together*. Beyond the victory of the Japanese underdog over the Korean double olympic champion, the victory of fair-play and mutual respect, timeless values in sport, even more admirable for a decade-old rivalry in uber-competitive speed-skating. 

'Even more than the joint North Korea - South Korea ice hockey team forced down a coach's throat, the genuine mutual respect between Nao Kodaira and Lee Sang-hwa in speed skating short track can help bring two people together' (20180219 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/965479212130893827)

So in the land of bballi-bballi, in times of over-speeding news cycles, I'd like to pause and enjoy olympics as they were meant to be. And I sincerely hope that Olympic Athletes from Russia will not be allowed to parade under their national flag for the closing ceremony, particularly after the latest doping scandal (in curling, of all sports!).

And don't forget your gift for the new year: the free ebook of my 2007 short story "Year Of The Dog".



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* no, not that obvious one (see "Closing doors at Pyeongchang's Opening Ceremony")

Closing doors at Pyeongchang's Opening Ceremony

If Olympics are always a mix of sports, culture, business, and politics, Pyeongchang definitely amped up the latter. So KIM Yuna, who a couple of weeks ago was bound to be the queen of the night, let KIM Yo-jong steal the show.

The show? For the Opening Ceremony, a giant display - literally - of Korean technology, with a few moments of awe (constellation hologram, drone swarm), too rare sparks of emotion (the maemil Arirang), and the odd comic relief (the Bermuda delegation freezing their bermudas off - a red-nosed flag bearer followed by a limping old timer). The audience was totally obliterated by the LED screens put behind every seat, which contributed to the visual animation but castrated the atmosphere. When the show was over, we discovered their existence, trapped in the final airpocalyptic fireworks smog.

We did get the photo ops (almost) everybody wanted: North and South Korean athletes holding the same flag and carrying one flame, US and North Korean leaders smiling in the same picture.

'Korea together!' (20180209 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/961936005312868352)

'BREAKING - North Korea bombing the US! Well, photobombing to start with (KIM Yong-nam, Mike Pence, KIM Yo-jong at Pyeongchang 2018 opening ceremony)' (20180210 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/962156364960116738)

That last picture probably proved costly: Mike Pence specifically demanded not to be seated as the same table as / close to the DPRK pair, to prevent the kind of photo op disasters that happened yesterday (a boon for KCNA propaganda). Was MOON Jae-in fulfilling a pledge to North Korea? He certainly strained relationships and trust with the US at the worst moment... and added another bromance between Shinzo Abe and the White House.

'Panda diplomacy, Korea style: Moon Jae-in tried everything to mate Mike Pence and Kim Yo-Jong, to no avail. VP not in the mood, left angry' (20180209 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/961971242621374465)

Over three years ago, in a 'twittering baekduology' focus on KIM Yo-jong (see 'Cherchez la femme'), I wondered if she could become "The next Dear Leader or just a Cheer Leader? Kim The Fourth or Jang The Second?" 

Yesterday, we were granted #rareglimpses (sorry James P.!) of her complex personality: all kind smiles when she let Yong-nam seat first or shook hands with Jae-in, yet cunningly confident as she relished victorious firsts on enemy ground. 

And yesterday, the South may have handed KIM Yo-jong a status of stateswoman on a silver platter.

'Lil sis Kim Yo-jong triumphant ahead of meeting ROK minister' (20180209 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/961833877562998784)

'Kim Yo-jong pretty much steals Pyeongchang 2018 the way O.J. Simpson hijacked the 1994 FIFA World Cup. North Korea propaganda claims the first gold of these winter olympics' (20180209 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/961839042487730176)

'Not much emotion, mass synchronization, huge national flags... Kim Yo-jong and Kim Yong-nam must wonder which side of the DMZ they are tonight' (20180209 - )

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Alert!

Yesterday, the citizens of Hawaii and Seoul received alert messages on their mobile phones advising them to seek shelter - the former from a missile heading their way, the latter from massive air pollution about to hit them the next day. As it turns out, the missile alert in Hawaii was a human error*, and light precipitations have kept - so far - Seoul's Air Quality Index way below the expected Airpocalypse.

Still. In both cases, a bad taste keeps lingering in the air:

• The Hawaiian scare caused a panic wave across America that certainly helps reality sink in for many people who were not taking North Korea seriously, but also fuels the rhetoric of hardliners willing to strike Pyongyang as soon as possible (see "This time it's different").
• The air actually tasted sour this morning in Seoul. And to add insult to injury, the official AQI measures were much lower than the ones reported by other sources. May have something to do with the fact that many of said measures are taken from the top of the capital's lungs (its mountains)...

So let's return to the DPRK, and put aside these Pyeongchang 2018 talks, or Trump's confirmation that he could end up palling around with KJU as easily as he does with other dictators. KIM Jong-un is still itching for a final test with a charged ICBM, and Donald Trump is still itching for action. 

Even the POTUS' putative envoy for South Korea, Victor CHA, 'courageously' took position in favor of strikes... while remaining in D.C., which probably explains why the US Embassy to Korea is still expecting its new boss.

'Could you be more specific, @VictorDCha? What do you mean by 'limited strikes' on North Korea? To achieve which goals, beyond scratching Trump's itch, and causing the destruction of Seoul?' (20171224 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/944844826373079042)

On Christmas Eve, Victor CHA tweeted 'Limited Strikes on North Korea Are Past Due', an hawkish piece by a retired US Navy Captain, David Allan Adams, known for his poor judgement - he was against the 2009 surge in Afghanistan, and the nuclear submarine he had in charge had an embarrassing accident. The US Naval Institute published this 10 years after rewarding Adams in a essay contest for his already evocative 'Preemption without Regime Change'. As we'll see, Adam's rationale is scarily cynical, but it's even scarier to know that the would-be Ambo to Korea supports it. 

Adams' 'escalate to deescalate' 'strategy' could be summed up by 'let's gamble that shithole peninsula right now, once and for all': 

'the only way to absolutely discern the true nature of North Korea’s provocative decisions may be to gauge the regime’s response to limited military action' (...) 'if a limited military move against North Korea prompts an irrational shelling of Seoul and a wider war on the peninsula, then it is better to find out sooner than later. The only thing worse than a devastating war on the Korean Peninsula today is a war against an irrationally behaving, nuclear-armed North Korea capable of demolishing Honolulu, Tokyo, and Tumon tomorrow'.

It was probably a good thing to relieve this guy from the command of that nuclear submarine. Adams doesn't seem to realize that even today, even regardless of nukes, the effects of 'a wider war on the peninsula' would not be limited to Korea. Maybe he never heard of a country named China. Maybe he believes that Tokyo can't be hit today. Maybe he realized only yesterday that Honolulu was only 20 minutes away. An eternity seen from Seoul (toasted within a minute), but not much considering the 38 minutes it took to cancel the false alert (not to mention the time to reach Trump on his golf course**).

Trump to KJU: 'Drop your weapons! Now! Er... let me rephrase that...' (KAL cartoon in The Economist - 20170902 - kaltoons.com)

So hold your breath.

And welcome to Season XII of this excuse for a blog.

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* by 'human error', I don't refer to any specific head of state, but to staffers who issued by mistake an alarm ubi et orbi during an innocent drill.
** as usual, the POTUS tweeted today that the buck didn't stop anywhere near him.

-----
20180117 addendum - Seoul's official AQI website*** is misleading:
- bad air looks bright yellow instead of the advertised orange
- measures are 15-30% below rival estimates
- 30-80 is green and 'standard' here, but elsewhere, 50-100 is generally yellow and 'bad'

(20180117 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/953407244728614913)

 *** launched in 2009 - see "Clean Air @ Seoul"

One last gold medal for Korea (the usual one)

Korean broadcasters perfectly wrapped up their coverage of the Rio Olympics by masking the parade of world athletes with the portraits of national competitors they already aired 99% of the time during the whole competition - I actually switched from MBC to SBS because there, that patriotic display filled less than half the screen:

Even when other nations are on screen at Rio 2016, Korea broadcasters manage to show national athletes (20160822 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/767507917016698881)

So once again, Korea claimed the gold medal for national chauvinism on TV, a domain where the country faces much tougher and diverse competition than in archery.

In case you missed the Rio games and the previous editions, here's how it works: 

• all major broadcasters sharing the same rights for the games, the competition among them is all about populism and fueling national fervor
• if a national champion is competing, major broadcasters must also air them live on their dedicated sports channel (and when it's PARK In-bee, throw in that dedicated golf channel for good measure) - when that's a second rate athlete, use the sport channel to rerun the exploits of top tier stars.
• on the last day, when there's 0% chance of medal, start one hour later and replay past medal bouts
• otherwise, may be aired live only universal legends in the very exclusive Usain BOLT - Michael PHELPS league (two more games required for Simone BILES, and Team USA B stood no chance with none of that 1992-dream-team material) - these legends are part of the comfort zone, their presence providing both the 'international' label, and the 'sport domination' alibi
• success basically always relies on the same sports - difficult to grow new vocations without 'training' the audience with a decent pedagogy of Olympic diversity...

Baseball returns to the Olympics for Tokyo 2020, and you don't know what may happen if Korea faces Japan in the finals.

Aaah, Tokyo 2020! Different flavor of ultranationalism there. Today, the Olympic flag was handed to Nippon Kaigi darlings Yuriko Koike (the newly elected governor), and Shinzo Abe, who popped up dressed as Super Mario:

Inspired by Queen Elizabeth II's cameo appearance for London 2012, Shinzo Abe showed up as Super Mario. A weird solo performance (lacking the humor and Bond sidekick), particularly from an elected politician less iconic than British royalty... Imagine Erdogan doing the same for Istanbul 2020. If Abe's less into personal ego than into the revival of the fascist regime, he never misses an opportunity to show his face on an international stage (e.g. featured at the end of each ad of the Japan government's ongoing PR campaign on CNN)

Super Tojo ready for Tojo 2020 - let the Nippon Kaigi games begin!

BREAKING - Shinzo Abe unveils new logo for Tokyo 2020 (Hideki Tojo 2020) (20150911 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/642228805260570624)

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.

Worst followers

As Korea is working on shifting from the "best follower" position to the "leader" seat, the country seems to take a step backwards with LEE Myung-bak's blitz visit of Dokdo, a first for a Cheong Wa Dae boss.

 

Cheongwadae's webpage this morning

The event comes as a convenient diversion for a ruling party struggling with embarrassing corruption cases that ruined recent rebranding effort* and compromised PARK Geun-hye's run for LEE's seat.

MB himself didn't need to boost his popularity, and he's not running for anything. But he has nothing to lose either. And thanks to this visit, the ultra conservative and ultra nationalist base somehow found a way of leveraging on the country's record harvest at the London Olympics. Picking the day of a major Japan-Korean game maximized the political impact, and Korea eventually claimed the bronze medal, as if boosted by the 'event'.

Of course, the Japanese retaliated by announcing visits of ministers to the utterly controversial Yasukuni Shrine, the traditional pledge of allegiance from a government to the local extreme right. For good measure, they'll even say hello to the remains of imperial war criminals on August 15, Korea's Liberation Day.

And of course, we cannot put both visits at the same level:
. Visits to Yasukuni are deliberately meant to honor the worst exactions of Japan's Imperial regime, and to please the extreme right minority that destroys Japan from the inside. "Takeshima" claims are also about keeping this fascist ideal alive (see "Save Dokdo = Save Japan").
. Dokdo is Korean territory and a visit by the President is fully legitimate. It is a strong signal to reaffirm independence and the end of colonization where it all started. Such a visit would make perfect sense following for instance skirmishes between both fleets at the vicinity of the island, to the condition that the President delivered a speech resolutely embracing peace and denouncing sterile hatemongering provocations from all sides, with a clear ambition to put all the venom away. But now, and this way?

I'm not criticizing the visit but the circumstances and the motives, apparently following a national(ist) agenda that shamelessly copies that of Japan's extreme right. If Mr LEE himself may not belong to the club, his government has multiplied suspicious decisions that, to say the least, have raised fundamental questions at home and abroad. Recently, it's as if Korea's extreme right pushed the whole right wing in a suicidal race, not AGAINST Japan's extreme right but IN TANDEM WITH they (and ultimately against the republican and democratic right wing). They really seem to be benchmarking this successful minority that even without public support manage to control Japanese governments to the point they cannot survive without pledging allegiance to them. Since they can't reach power democratically, they control the agenda through guerilla marketing operations with a maximum return on investment.

Again**, all extremists are impostors: the worst enemies of Japan's democracy are Japanese, the worst enemies of Korea's democracy are Korean, and both need each other to survive. That's why extreme right Japanese are very happy to see Korean partners ready to play with them (the more the merrier, the same is happening with China). Fundamentally, Korea's extreme right are jealous of their Japanese and Chinese counterpart, and the government doesn't seem to be doing anything to prevent them from getting bolder as elections loom.

Once more: both the Japanese people and the Korean people have the power and the duty to get rid of these enemies by exposing their impostures and by refusing the sick game of mutual hatred.

And once more, make no mistake: this is not about Japan vs Korea, but about Japan v. itself and about Korea v. itself. And if we're used to sepukku provocations from the archipelago, Korean extremists have recently** proved to be very apt pupils.


This year, in Korea, the real political debate should not be between right and left, but between on one side people from the right as well as from the left who defend the values of democracy and the republic, and on the other people who want to undermine the nation.

As planned, I visited Seoul Museum of History yesterday for the opening day of the exhibition about 100 years of Koreans in Japan (more about that later). I didn't expect such a massive turnout but I hope, and even believe, that LEE's visit had nothing to do with it. I was glad to see more than a few Japanese visitors. And sad to see how much remains to be done for these two peaceful nations to fully love each other.

And I really hope this visit won't make the pilgrimage compulsory for all Presidential hopefuls.

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* see "Saenuri, a brand "new" wor(l)d"

** I'm sincereley tired of listing each time all the posts related to these negative issues - please check the lists of posts and labels on this website.