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Elderly Man-Cheetah 2024

Back to hill, face to water, that's the way we like to otter.

B R

B R

— 5 min read

29 April, 2023 | Seoul, South Korea

I meet up with Louis near the entrance of the bar the night before, and then walked to the entrance of Changdeokgung Palace.

I hate to sound insensitive saying this, but I don’t really have a lot of photos of this palace because the architecture ended up being…pretty repetitive? I’ll be posting the exceptions, but just imagine this wall and gate like three times in a row.

We caught the tail end of the hourly “changing of the guard” which occurs in the main gate. I had assumed that was the source of most of the shouting we heard as we walked closer, but I was mistaken and would learn briefly what that was about.

These guards are similar to the famous King’s Guard of the UK in their discipline around ignoring randos stopping for a photo, and less like them in that they aren’t actually guarding any head of state.

Like so many things in various parts of east Asia, large portions of this palace are a reconstruction. In this case, it was burnt to the ground by the Japanese in their 1609 invasion…then again in an attempted coup, once again by the Manchu Qing, and…oh what’s this? Oh my, it’s Japan again, taking another swing at it during their occupation of the country (1910-1945), leaving only 30% of it undamaged.

This is the library Louis was briefly trapped by wedding photography in. More notable is the background mountain, marking this as construction more heavily influenced by China than some of the other palaces (there are five, fuck no I didn’t go to all of them) - and specifically by the “principle ‘baesanimsu’ (배산임수, lit. 'back to hill, face to water') in Feng Shui theory“ (Wikipedia)

In my opinion, it is testament to the Korean will to not be a subject people1 that they just fucking rebuilt it exactly like it was before, every time. Unlike dumbass shit like the Freedom Tower - where we can be forever reminded of what was meant by “freedom” right after 9/112 - rebuilding what was there before sends a straightforward message:

What you did didn’t change anything. It was a blip. We are still here, still the same people. Whatever you tried to do, failed. If you tried again, you would fail again, and the resulting devastation and death will have been meaningless. Again. Give up.
Call me a sucker for neat water features. I liked the Osaka moat and I like this pavilion on the tiny circular island - apparently a favorite spot for the empress to have tea.

Having gotten bored of the otherwise monotonous architecture, Louis and I walked toward the noise and shouting coming from the entrance.

What we found was Politics.

Automatic translation leaves a lot to be desired here, but basically this group is pissed off at labor conditions and the privatization of the formerly full-state-owned telcom KT.

I know it’s cliche but, as a Parisian, I figured I would welcome Louis to take the lead on how to get closer and navigate a mass protest in a less-insanely-armed nation.

As with another time in this trip, it was difficult to get close but conveinent large screens showed up both the crowd and speakers. I’m not sure what the elderly man-cheetah was speaking about but I believe every country has a Vermin Supreme and I think that’s beautiful.

As it happens, we couldn’t get too much closer without investing some serious time in doing so - and we were getting hungry.

This is one of the Korean BBQ restaurants that would not seat you without at least one other person. Thin slices of meat are cooked on single stoves on every table. One person tends to take the lead - this time it was Louis; next time we did this, the restaurant was considerably fancier and cooked it for us at the table.

After lunch and a brief break, we met back up at another shared bucket-list item for the city: Namdaemun Market.

Despite the weather - a bit of light rain - this place was packed. Note the Jesus stuff on the left; a little less than 30% of the population is a Christian of some kind.
The lack of pricing is intentional. As far as I could discern, both the audience (“is this a tourist?”) as well as conditions determines the price quoted when asked. I bought a fruit salad and had not finished it before hearing a cheaper quote to another patron - it had since started raining again.
I’m not sure why having theoretical escapees makes these cups more enticing but they were doing a brisk business.

The market was largely overpriced and touristy, so we jumped on the transit to make it to Noryangjin Fisheries - a finally decent recommendation in Lonely Planet.

The market was straightforward - the first floor has the actual seafood merchants and the second floor has restaurants upstairs that will prepare it.
Honestly I had some trepidation - I don’t usually pick out live things for consumption - but it was fine and fresh and definitely better with another person.

Our evening capped off with awkwardly visiting some queer bars that were less tourist friendly. The highlights of this were (1) the hilariously low production gay drama that reminded me of The Room being projected on the wall of a basement bear bar that ended up being a long advertisement for some dating app and (2) the shockingly high quality public health posters:

iSHAP is an acronym for Ivan Stop HIV/AIDS Project, an organization funded by the Ministry of Health that has come under criticism: “a study… found that the program's distribution of condoms was a ‘reconfirmation of abnormality by the state’ [rather] than for the promotion of safe sex practices within the gay community.”

  1. If there is a thesis statement to their history museums, it is that: “Everyone who has tried to occupy us has failed. If you try, you will also fail. We will resist you forever.” I think this is important to keep in mind, considering that the north definitely believes the south lives under effective American occupation. ↩

  2. The freedom to shut the fuck up and support the wars, of course. ↩

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