Posted on 02/22/2019 11:52:11 PM PST by blueplum
From the main street, the Euljiro neighbourhood doesn’t look like much: some shabby retail stores, cold-noodle restaurants, a Starbucks.
Enter one of the small alleys, however, and you’ll find yourself in a kind of manufacturing anthill: thousands upon thousands of shops, each crammed to the rafters with bolts, circuit boards, iron castings, gauges, wires, lights, switches, tools and innumerable tiny objects that defy description.
This incredible warren of machinists is the manufacturing heart of Seoul. There are 10,000 shops here, with 50,000 tradespeople, many of whom have been working here since the 1950s and were integral to South Korea’s postwar economic boom, the so-called Miracle on the Han.
But even as the tour guides at nearby Jongmyo Shrine extol the history, foibles and eating habits of the long-dead Joseon dynasty, here in Euljiro a living history is about to be unceremoniously wiped out...
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
No, it doesn’t sound like a good idea...
Yes, after 1950, South Korean should’ve set up a new capital within the Pusan perimeter. Canada moved its capital to Ottawa because the old location (York, now Toronto) was too exposed to enemy invasion. Even St. Petersburg was too vulnerable; the Russians eventually moved the capital back to Moscow.
The area and it’s products are no longer needed. The area is obsolete
Korea can do like the rest of the world......... buy castings from India.
Wooden models are no longer required when castings come from India.
Hand made Wooden models are no longer required when one can be built up in a fraction of the time by a computer printer
“One thing I will never understand. They left Seoul where it was and even built it up for 70 years. If Stalin could move all of Russia’s manufacturing east of the Urals, why didn’t they move that city?”
If you cannot say that was intended to be sarcastic then you must hear that it was one of the dumbest statements ever said on this forum.
The same thing fascinated me about Taiwan in the 80s. Downstair was the shop where they punched metal or sewed garments or extruded plastic. Upstairs was where the family lived.
I realized that anyone willing to do that, and saved like they did, was eventually going to be rich (and eat America's economic lunch) - and many were already, despite appearances.
The loss of the district will cost a lot of Korean industry some of its present cost advantages with competitors. Many big companies will have to internalize what this district is now doing. It will cost them more to do those things than what having this district do it for them now costs. Small is better sometimes and this district has epitomized that for at least 50 years.
I think this is one time I think Korea’s big conglomerates should get political and ask the Seoul city government to step back from their plans.
It seems Seoul has been built by and for the real estate development industry alone.
“One thing I will never understand. They left Seoul where it was and even built it up for 70 years. If Stalin could move all of Russia’s manufacturing east of the Urals, why didn’t they move that city?”
“Yes, after 1950, South Korean should’ve set up a new capital within the Pusan perimeter.”
I don’t see that happening. First, it actually is a very pretty city with the mountains surrounding the original part. Second, there is a tremendous amount of history to that city, having been the capital since the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty. Third, the city site was selected by the Joseon rulers (the Yi Dynasty) because of its “perfect” feng shui characteristics. That is, you had the mountains surrounding 3 sides of the back of the original city, and then Cheonggyecheong Stream and the Han River in front of it. Not only is that good feng shui, it theoretically makes it more defensible (not that that stopped the Japanese during the Imjin Wars in the late 1500s).
Busan and the surrounding area, on the other hand, was always seen as vulnerable to Japanese invasion, and that did happen a number of times. Remember that Korea’s number one enemy over the ages has always been Japan, and much of Korean history is about protecting the country from Japanese “pirates.” Korea still does not have the greatest of feelings about Japan. It only takes one little perceived slight by either Japan or Korea to get the other ticked off, even though some of the disputes seem pretty childish at this point.
Seoul fell to North Koreans most recently, and at this point regardless of their history Japan and South Korea are part of the Red China containment system. Japan has a strictly regulated military, with US troops still in the country.
I’m speaking simply from a practical standpoint in 2019; there may have been many reasons to set up Seoul, but I would much rather be further down the peninsula. During that unresolved Korean War, Seoul changed hands a few times.
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