Tuesday, June 17, 2008

When I awoke this morning, I was still groggy and tired, but ecstatic that I was actually in Seoul. After a quick change into business casual clothes, Natalia (my roommate) and I headed out for breakfast. I knew I wanted to eat food off a cart, and to my delight, there was a cart of food outside the hotel! We quickly purchased an egg, radish, carrot, onion, 1000 Island dressing, sugar and cheese sandwich. It was an AMAZING sandwich and only cost 2500 won (equivalent to $2.50 USD).

We met our student tour guide, Hye Ryung, and her friend who took us to the subway station. Subway stations in Seoul are very pristine clean, very quiet, and very aesthetically pleasing; they are much more formal looking and much more efficient than the stations in the United States. And as we were walking around Seoul, I couldn’t help but notice the intertwined the past, nature, and the bustling city were.

We walked through a park on our way to the Korean Broadcasting Company (KBS) and saw protestors against US beef along the way. They were just setting up some stands and putting up signs when we arrived.

A tour guide took us through KBS and we saw the development of TVs in Korea, the orchestra room, a set-up of the anchor desks, where McKenna and I tried our hand at anchoring the news, a presentation of 3D Korean cartoon and drama shows, and a hallway with holograms of Korean stars in traditional Korean dramas. We got to test out their chroma-key and I tried my hand at delivering the weather, while simultaneously enjoying the blue cape, which allowed me to “disappear”.

We also quickly saw their control room, which looked similar to the ones at CNN and NBC, and their anchor desks. Then we toured their lot and saw the set they use for a talk show, for concerts, which is gorgeous and quite huge and is changed three times a week, and for their music shows, which has free admission and gets people close to their favourite pop stars.

We ate nang myun (cold noodles) for lunch. And the kimchi is ridiculously hot!

On the way back to the subway station, however, the small protest we had seen earlier in the day turned into a medium-sized protest. Korean University student Hye Ryung said the protest was against the high oil prices in the country. The protesters were mainly farmers and drivers, and they were calling on the government to lower oil, along with milk, prices.

Though the cheers were loud, the protest was organized and calm. Some people wore hats that said “Living Rights” and others carried flags and posters, while other protesters sat on the side wearing bandanas of support.

Cheers and jeers were heard from the protestors and Korean music played in the background, but the protest was not out of control. In fact, a sign that it wasn’t were the rows of policemen who were sitting calmly beside them.

This protest only added fuel to the larger beef import crisis involving the government opening up beef trade again with the United States. While government officials argue the beef is safe, many Korean citizens are worried about potential contracting mad cow disease from the meat. College students are also rallying in the beef protest, but their protest purpose is more focused on how President Lee is succumbing to pressure from the American government.

Cultural observation on the subway: people stare at the floor, look at a magazine or stare at their mp3 players instead of glancing around and being loud while talking to others. They seem to take their subway rides very seriously.

We then went to the office of Cho Sun, Korean’s leading newspaper. The traditionally conservative (in Korean, not American, terms) has the highest readership and subscriptions amongst the three national papers. Not only is the newspaper prestigious, it is also leading the way, in both the East and the West, in new media technology for newspapers. The company developed many new electronic gadgets, though many are not yet on the market.

They include an electronic paper, which can be viewed on a LCD monitor, and manipulated just like the CNN computers. Readers can “flip” pages, zoom in on stories, and expand the view of stories.

Cho Sun also created an intelligent newspaper, which allows readers to “tag” their favourite topics and then the server will continuously send articles with those topics to the reader’s personal device, such as a cell phone or PDA. There was also an I-reader. This type of newspaper allows the reader to highlight interesting parts of an article and then add comments, which can only be viewed by the reader and are not added to the article.

The Cho Sun new media lab is amazing, top-quality, and cutting edge. In many ways, East Asia has already developed the system for newspapers to be viewed in the future. Their technology gives the reader greater control over the content and utilizes technology to grab their attention. Cho Sun has designed the new wave of newspaper readership, and American newspapers must play catch up to their better performing Korean counterparts. Cho Sun has a circulation of 2 million, twice the size of the New York Times.

Dinner was held in a Japanese beer restaurant, with the beer being Asahi, a dry, crisp beer. We met with the leaders of Korean journalism, such as two Korean University professors of journalism, the head of the Journalsm School at Korea University, and the Associate Dean of the Journalism School. Since all had been educated at American universities, the traditional Korean ways of greeting, bowing, was thrown out the window and was replaced with hand-shaking. All of the guests were fluent in English, friendly and outgoing, quite the contrary to the traditional Korean citizen.

Sunday, June 15, 2008 - Monday, June 16, 2008

I am now on the other side of the world. Just yesterday, as in Sunday, I was lounging around enjoying my complimentary breakfast at the Hilton O’Hare Hotel. Now, I am sitting on my bed in the Best Western in the heart of Seoul.

Sunday morning, we headed out to the international terminal of O’Hare and were absolutely giddy as we waited at the gate of our Japan Airlines plane. The contrasts between the East and the West were abundantly clear, as throughout the flight, we would get friendly reminders to keep our noise level down for our neighbours and watch videos reminding us to stretch to improve our circulation, similar to Richard Simmons workouts.

As we made our way to Tokyo, since we would have a layover before Seoul, I realized the enormity of Canada. Our flight flew out of the United States, north to Manitoba and then northwest to the Yukon Territories before cutting down to Japan. The flight seemed to drag on as we flew above Canada and that is when the grandiose size of Canada really hit me. We were over it for 6 out of our 13 hours in the air!

Hours seemed to drag on when finally we caught a glimpse of the coastline of Japan. The sight of land excited the hell out of me. I saw small piers and little roads. And even simple structured farmland and careening rivers got me more and more excited to touch down in Tokyo. The city is straight-cut organized, with every piece in its place. By even just appearance, Tokyo seemed to be an efficient city.

I was so excited to get off the plane and stretch and have more than a square foot of space to myself. Standing taller than the Japanese people around me, it was then that I realized exactly how I was different. Their dress was formal with a fobby twist. They kept to themselves and were quiet. They moved quickly and with determination. I, on the other hand, was dressed in Western style, a little loud (because everything was fascinating to me), and trying to weave my way through the crowd and terminal, fighting helplessly against the crowd of Japanese people getting off other planes.

Since we had a couple hours for our layover, our group exchanged some dollars for yen and began to check out Japanese culture. I hoped to be seen as different from the rest of the group since I was Asian, and so I tried my hand at saying “aragato” and “konichiwa” to everyone. And to my surprise, they thought I was Japanese!

The terminal was pristine to the max. Every window was sparkling clean and every door was neat and organized. There are no security cameras in the airports because they don’t need them; everyone should know the rules. Every plant is tenderly cared for because presentation and aesthetics is everything to this culture. I watched, and took a picture, as a Japanese worker at the airport straightened out flowers and cared for them affectionately using tools from his flower cart. You would not see this kind of time and attention paid to flowers in the United States. You would not have a store without security cameras. That is just the way America works: focus on yourself and protect yourself.

We passed some of the time away with 200 yen massage chairs. At first I was a little skeptical but as soon as the chair started to work its magic, the knots and tension in my back and legs started to drain away. I would not mind paying 200 yen again for 10 minutes of calm and relaxation with this chair; it was the highlight of my time in the Tokyo airport.

Other small things such as bowing to people out of respect, profane toys at the souvenir shop, and colourful manga popped out at me as I soaked in Japanese culture. Similar yet so different, the Japanese opened themselves to American culture but still kept their own little flavour.

We got on our plane to Seoul. And nothing eventful happened… except that I got a nosebleed as we were about to land! I was in the bathroom, trying to clot the thing up when I heard the sound for passengers to sit down. So I grabbed a wab of tissues and tried to jam them up my nose and prayed that it would stop flowing. Needless to say, my landing in Seoul was not exactly what I had pictured it to be. I had to fight my way through the crowd back up the airplane to fix it up and then was nearly elbowed aside as we were getting out. Koreans move fast and they move with purpose. Our group was nearly overwhelmed at the train station to customs by the hordes of people coming down the elevator and trying to board the train.

And at customs, I received my first ever real international stamp in my passport! I was really happy because I also used my Korean with the customs agent and she smiled. Maybe she thought I was Korean.

My first real glimpses of Seoul came from the bus ride to the hotel, peering out into the blackness. The city was very bright and upon closer inspection, seemed to still be bustling, even on a Monday night. People do not seem scared to be out at night in the city, women walk around freely, businesswomen stand outside their meeting places smoking cigarettes, people bicycle by the river and camp out beside it, food stands still sell things on sticks even at 11 pm. But even with all this going on, the city is not loud. The sound seems almost subdued or muted. That is the way they do it in Seoul.

The city is bright, with lots of lights. Stores and restaurants are still open, leaving themselves to the late-night wanderings of young Korean adults. In all the time it took the bus to reach our hotel, I only saw two homeless people. Or at least, I thought they were since they were sleeping on benches.

Total time it took to travel halfway across the world and arrive in our final destination of Seoul, South Korea = 22 hours. Let the fun begin.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Today was a long day of travel. It began with my early morning SuperShuttle ride to LAX to catch my flight to Chicago where I would meet the other Roy W Howard winners and supervisors of the trip. When I was picked up at 6:50 am, I was mad at SuperShuttle for picking me up so early. But when I got to LAX, I began to see that maybe it wasn’t a bad idea...

American Airlines has very poor consumer service. Lines do not exist; there are only blobs of people, many of whom had no idea why they are where they are and what awaits them at the front of the line.

I was herded first into a line for self-service check-in, which is not uncommon nowadays for airlines. But as I stood in line to check my one piece of luggage, several thoughts entered my mind: 1) I should have crammed everything into a small carry-on luggage as to avoid future baggage lines and 2) the line did not appear to be moving.

With approximately 100 early morning travelers, I only saw around 6 agents. I waited in my stationary line for about 45 minutes. 45 minutes to hand my one piece of luggage to the agent and walk away. I felt very disgruntled with American Airlines, but I thought I would give the airline the benefit of the doubt.

Again, I was disappointed. When I landed at Chicago O’Hare, I was told my luggage would be at carousel 8. Along with the other passengers of AA 54, I waited. And waited. I waited as luggage after luggage was taken off the carousel…by passengers of another AA flight that landed after mine did. Only then were we told that our luggage was actually going to carousel 7, not carousel 8, haha sorry about that mistake. My luggage still did not come out for good 45 minutes.

Other passengers on my flight looked irritated and relieved to be done with AA 54 and with American Airlines. The economy may be going under and airlines may be cutting costs, increasing fares and adding baggage fees, but there should be no compromise of consumer satisfaction.

**added Saturday, June 28, 2008: please note this post was written directly after my unsatisfactory encounter with American Airlines, thus the irritated tone