[ Investment > Straight From The Heart ]

hat are you doing this weekend?

  Being the father of a four-year old daughter with the energy level of an Olympian, staying at home is not an option. So what are some of our choices?

  Perhaps we will visit Yeouido Park, a kilometer-long strip of clean green in the center of Seoul¡¯s financial district. Overlooked by the steel and glass towers, this park is landscaped with ponds, streams, pavilions, low rolling mounds, the lush trees of an ¡°ecological forest¡± and even a couple of ¡°acupressure foot massage¡± paths.

  If not Yeouido, then maybe Seonyudo (¡°Island of the Gods¡±). Windsurf boards and fishing rods can be hired at riverside spots close by, but we will cross the gracefully curved, slender footbridge, which leads over the water to this park set on a islet in the Han. On the islet, aerated by the cool river breezes, are a cafe, an art gallery, lawns, bamboo groves, elms, watercourses and lily ponds. At the highest point, a traditional lookout pavilion offers views across the broad river to the curved white roofs of the World Cup stadium and the mountains shimmering in the distance beyond.

  Then there is Nanjido, the ¡°Isle of Orchids.¡± Set on and around two oddly symmetrical hills - of which more, later - this is a green ¡°lung¡± on the edge of the city. It is the size of New York City¡¯s Central Park, and includes the Word Cup Stadium, a whole complex of parks, nature reserves, plazas, a lake, and easy access to the riverside lawns and camping grounds. (Incidentally, some complained that the multi-million dollar stadium would become a white elephant after the Cup, but it now contains a shopping complex and ultra-modern cineplex, making it a weekend leisure hub for Seoul youth.)

  If we are feeling energetic, we may go up to Namsan (South Mountain) Park, voted Asia¡¯s second best jogging track in the Wall Street Journal some years back. To reach this, we drive along the spectacular road that curves around the mountain¡¯s midlevels - (how many other capital cities can boast a highway this stunning?) - before reaching the park that clings to the steep slopes opposite the landmark Grand Hyatt hotel. Jogging among the trees, the views across the city are breathtaking. To relax, there is a wild flower garden at one end, or, if we are feeling really pumped, we can exit the park through a little gate at the top, and scale the wooded slopes of the mountain proper.

  As all the above are within a 15-minute drive of my apartment, maybe we will head out of town instead. The satellite city of Ilsan, a 20-minute drive by expressway north of Seoul, is a popular weekend destination There is a range of international department stores, local and international restaurants and discount superstores here, all set to one side of the huge lakeside park, complete with plazas, jogging and cycling tracks, installation artworks, children¡¯s play areas, etc. Another attractive dormitory town to the south, famous for its complexes of parks, is Bundang.

  A Green City Is Planted
  What all the above have in common is that none of them existed 10 years ago, many didn¡¯t exist five years ago, and some - such as Seonyudo Park and the huge Nanjido area - only came on stream just in time for last year¡¯s World Cup.

  Yeouido Park was, less than five years ago, a huge concrete plaza - Seoul¡¯s first airstrip, maintained, allegedly, for the helicopter evacuation of the nearby National Assembly in event of war with the North. Seonyudo was the city¡¯s water works - the bamboo stands and water lily ponds have been set in and around the old holding tanks. Amazingly, Nanjido was the world¡¯s largest landfill site - those two enormous, flat green hills are basically garbage dumps that have been bio-engineered and are now wildlife sanctuaries. The methane gas runoff is channeled to a small power plant between the two hills, which powers the area¡¯s public lighting.

  The most ambitious project of all is still to come. Ground was broken in July for the restoration of Seoul¡¯s Cheonggye Stream. In the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) this watercourse flowed through the center of Seoul, but during the period of industrialization, became little more than an open sewer as the sprawling Dongdaemun Market and light industrial area grew up around it. Seoul¡¯s visionary Mayor, Lee Myung-Bak, is embarking on a huge restoration project, which is designed to become a new ecological showpiece for the city center. With the stream restored, art-deco bridges spanning it, and with entertainment and eating spots along its banks, this project will revitalize the city center. ¡°Once this is completed, Seoulites will no longer envy Parisians the Seine,¡± says City Hall. As a visiting professor of MIT mentioned to this writer last year, ¡°I tell my students, if they want to see city planning on a grand scale, come to Seoul!¡±

  No Fun Please -- We¡¯re Korean
  That the kind of green spaces described above are so recent is not really so astonishing when one considers the pace of change that has characterized Korea¡¯s development. In the 1970s and 1980s, the competitive atmosphere and grueling work ethic earned Koreans sobriquets like ¡°Asia¡¯s hardest workers,¡± and the ¡°Prussians of the East.¡± Economic achievement was all; terms like ¡°leisure¡± and ¡°lifestyle¡± were not part of the vocabulary as Korea¡¯s population produced one of the world¡¯s most astonishing economic miracles from the ground up.

  But it came at a price. The price of that success was that Seoulites were a serious, dour, rough-around-the-edges bunch. Seoulites appeared to thrive solely on hard work, fuelled themselves on cigarettes and caffeine, competed incessantly, relaxed only over copious glasses of soju (Korea¡¯s vodka-like national spirit), and generally regarded foreigners with suspicion - or, at best, as a nuisance to be tolerated. Do I have time to socialize? Hell no, I have to stay late and impress my boss. Can I take my family out this weekend? Well, I have got that export order to fill - it¡¯s probably best if I just head home for a few hours on Sunday afternoon. Should I take time out to assist this foreigner? No, I can¡¯t speak English and don¡¯t want to embarrass myself, and what¡¯s in it for me anyway?

  Chances were, if you had asked any Seoulite what his/her hobbies were a few years ago, he or she would have answered (with no trace of irony), ¡°Sleeping.¡± If you caught one in a good mood, he or she might have answered ¡°hiking¡± - and that would have been the extent of his/her leisure activities (or leisure ambitions, for that matter).

  Official polices seemed designed to keep fun at bay. Curfews shuttered entertainment establishments at midnight. Anti-consumption campaigns were inaugurated at the drop of a hat any time the balance of payments looked shaky. Citizens were encouraged to save, save, save, releasing capital for the chaebol to borrow, invest and expand. In short, Seoul was a city that offered a hothouse atmosphere conducive to making money - and not much else.

  Kool Korea: Lifestyle
  Today, things are different. Koreans continue to work some of the longest hours in the OECD, but values are changing, and the society of today is very different to what it was just 10 years ago.

  In the early 1990s, Koreans were permitted passports for outbound travel for the first time. In the era of globalization, the importance of English education became paramount. Koreans took holidays abroad and began studying overseas in huge numbers. A consumer society developed, and Koreans began to hanker after the same kinds of things the middle classes in other capitalist societies desired. International trends in film, fashion, music, food, drink and leisure activities all began making a mark on what had been a defiantly insular society. Today, values like productivity, individual initiative and creativity are at last taking precedence over simple hours worked.

  Anyone in the Seonyudo or Youido parks mentioned above over the weekend cannot fail to miss the hordes of inline skaters and cyclists. Another sight that would not have been visible a few very short years ago is the prevalence of pets: in any park, dogs are now a common sight. (For a nation that was once infamous for putting dogs on the plate, putting them on a leash is a step forward).

  The Han River now offers water skiing, windsurfing and jet skiing - how many other inner city rivers can boast this kind of recreation? Every Korean under 40 - and most over that age - is armed with the latest gadgetry: cell-phones, PDAs, digital cameras. These are not essential possessions for any economic reason, but are owned largely for fun and fashion.

  In the evenings, Seoul¡¯s many entertainment districts are alive with coffee shops, bars, domestic and foreign restaurants, karaoke saloons, video rooms, computer game rooms, saunas, nightclubs and flashing neon. The curfew is ancient history - now you can eat, drink and dance all night. And of course, the giant street carnival that the World Cup became last year proved that Koreans know how to throw a party just as well as Latin Americans.

  A BusinessWeek cover story that came out at the time of the World Cup was entitled ¡°Cool Korea.¡± In it, Korean American families returning to their homeland after years abroad registered their shock when their children told them that Seoul was as hip as California. The famous travel writer Bill Bryson, in Seoul to cover the World Cup for The Times of London, told a colleague of mine how astonished he was at the modernity of Seoul.

  All these are very new phenomena. Korea¡¯s leisure industry is coming of age, and Koreans are learning that life is not just work, work and more work. A five-day workweek is one of the goals of the Roh administration, and this plan will have further beneficial effect on the leisure industry.

  The new, green Seoul is symptomatic of wider trends transforming Korean society. The environment is no longer something to be abused, leisure is no longer something to be ashamed of and globalization is no longer something to be afraid of. These trends are good news not just for the native Seoulite, but also for the expatriate worker or family. All combined, they make Seoul a pretty darned pleasant place to live.

  So if your company offers you the choice of a Northeast Asian posting in Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei or Shangahi - give Seoul a look. It¡¯s got heart.

By Andrew Salmon
(Andrew_Salmon@kr.bm.com)

Andrew Salmon
Senior Consultant, Merit/Burson-Masterller
The writer is a long-term Seoul resident and author of the
restaurant guidebook "Seoul Food Finder." Merit/Burson-Marsteller
is Korea's leading international PR firm, having handled campaigns
for the Korean government for the Seoul Olympics, the launch and
branding of Incheon International Airport and the World Cup. The
firm also provided international crisis communications on behalf of
the Korean government during the 1997/98 financial crisis