North Korea's opening means tourism drive aimed at Americans

For a lot of Americans, I think being able to travel the world without eating un-American food is a big plus. North Korea, fighting!

And of course, a visit to North Korea is always much more pleasant when you have official permission to enter the country. I'm looking at you, Park, Gomes, Lee, Ling, and Koss.

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And coming in at #42

South Korea made the New York Times list of "The Forty-five Places To Go in 2012." Not a single place, but the entire country, or at least the golf courses:

South Korea is redefining just how luxurious golf resorts can be. A slew of new private clubs — the kind with six-digit membership fees, designs by celebrity architects and clubhouses that look like modern art museums — have opened recently in the country.

The most prestigious is Haesley Nine Bridges, just outside Seoul, with a clubhouse covered by a huge, sinuous web of wooden beams (it also features one of Jeff Koons’s giant balloon toy sculptures).

Then there’s the Ananti Club, also a commuter’s distance from Seoul: 486 acres containing three courses nestled in the Yumyŏngsan forest, with a clubhouse, designed by the architect Ken Min, built almost entirely underground. And the futuristic Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea, which opened last year in the financial center of Songdo, has a huge, undulating clubhouse designed by the California architect Mehrdad Yazdani.

In 2015, South Korea will be the host of the Presidents Cup for the first time; apparently there are some tournament-worthy courses to go with all those fancy new clubhouses.

Go and read about the other forty-four, which include the Florence's art scene, luxury accommodations in Antarctica, and the nation of Panama, flush with investors, retirees, and visitors in the wake of the same wave of free-trade frenzy that brought us the KORUS FTA.

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"It's a foreigner... Run for your lives!"

After a discussion with "M" (who is from Kansai) about how average Japanese are nearly petrified to talk with gaijin in English (an issue that came up in relation to The Black Guy on the Bus™), I directed her to this video, which I originally saw at Roboseyo's site (it's also at Popular Gusts).



Yup, she says. That's Japan.

I will say, though, that I don't know which is worse, having the locals run from you (e.g., Korea, Japan) or have them angrily and loudly tell you to speak English, dammit! (e.g., the United State of America).

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AFP video: "North Korea seeks foreign help for controversial resort" at Mt Kumgangsan

It's all in the video, which focuses a lot more on English-speaking Malaysian tourists walking around and looking at things than it does offering any news that would support the title they offered up.



Well, I guess they do have Kim Kwang-yun, director of the Mt Kŭmgangsan International Tourism Leadership Bureau, giving some sort of pitch to the Malaysians, starting at 1:47. But we don't hear him say much, as the AFP video editor seems to be afflicted with ADD. I'm guessing Mr Kim had offered a free trip if the Malaysians agreed to hear a pitch on Kŭmgangsan time-shares.

And who wouldn't want to invest in a North Korean tourism project? After all, it's only on rare occasion that the North Korean soldiers who patrol the place shoot and kill your customers, and the infrastructure is already there, built by and then stolen from the previous investors, so all you have to do is come (and bring hard currency)!

For something more solidly newsy, we have AP instead of AFP, in a separate article, saying North Korea is "looking to China" in a "drive to boost trade and investment":

Chinese travel agents, potential investors and foreign journalists recently traveled into the North to get a look at the special economic zone Pyongyang is promoting in Rason. It lies in the far northeastern tip of North Korea, 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from Pyongyang, but will be about an hour’s drive from China once the road is completed. ...

The market, a 13-year-old experiment in small-scale capitalism, has been so successful that the Chinese managing company, the Tianyu Group, is planning to expand the jam-packed 54,000-square-foot (5,000-square-meter) market to 320,000 square feet (30,000 square meters), Tianyu vice director Zheng Zhexi said.

The AP article is heavily focused on construction of the Chinese highway to North Korea's Rasŏn/Rajin industrial port development, which is a key part of incorporating North Korea into China's Northeastern Provinces, part of what I call the Manchurianization of North Korea.

Back to the video above. The AFP short film does offer a taste of why the Malaysians have come to this part of North Korea: secrecy. Several of them state that they're curious about secretive North Korea because they want to figure out why it's so secret. I guess if I were from a country billed as "truly Asia," then I'd be darned uncomfortable if I didn't know what all the other Asians were up to. 

And maybe North Korea really can rescue Kŭmgangsan with foreign tourists. Stick an affordable ski resort up there, make sure skiing accidents outnumber shooting incidents, and cash-carrying nouveau-riche Southeast Asians will come in droves (that sounds disparaging to the newly rich SE Asians, but I don't' mean it as such; good on them for starting to do well).

And in the end, if Pyongyang decides that it can rescue rural North Korea by replacing South Koreans with Southeast Asians, they're simply copying what Seoul has been doing for years in rural South Korea.  

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Kvetchpat of the day: Do you know South Korea?

KoreaBeat, among other places, highlighted this video by one David Dutton.



A well-done piece of work, one which tough-guy KoreaBeat himself said made him feel "a little misty-eyed with nostalgia."

But wait, to just let this blatant propaganda slide would be disingenuous, nothing more than promoting false advertising.

See, some people think I only write shiny, happy stories about people in Korea holding hands, that I ignore all that bad stuff because I'm trying so hard to protect Korea's image, whatever that means.

Well, on the off chance they're right — and they might be, if you ignore all the critical stuff I write — I thought I would print, without editorial input, the following comment from one of KoreaBeat's commenters, giving it "equal time" as today's Kvetchpat of the Day:

This video is a great example of how camera + editing = lies. South Korea is a depressing country which thinks that e-sports are better sports than real sports. It has a fast increasing gap between rich and poor. Pollution problems that are as the soundtrack sings 'poisoning your body'. The longest ongoing war in modern history with more than a million casualties. South Korea is losing it's soul as its culture is eaten from the inside out by the gaudy golden arches of Americanization. But don't take my word for it that Korea is to anyone but the most shallow tourist a depressing place, just check the suicide rate statistics...the highest in the OECD. Funny though, the video didn't show anyone throwing themselves in front of a Seoul subway train; an event that happens at least once a day here.

Hmm... perhaps I should fisk this, talk about how anyone who has been in Korea for a significant length of time knows pollution is considerably better than before, not worse, and although South Korea has a serious problem with suicide, the Gini coefficient (a measure of the gap between rich and poor) is fairly manageable, but right now my real-world responsibilities aren't giving me the time to do so.

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A lazy day on the windward side

We are winding our way from Kaneohe to Waimea Bay. We may take in a movie in Kaneohe on the way back. Any suggestions?

This spot is Kualoa Beach Park, not far from the oft films Kualoa Ranch.

UPDATE:
After a hike up to Waimea Falls, site of a couple scenes on Lost, and then jumping off the rock a couple times at nearby Waimea Bay, we saw Bridesmaids. It was pretty funny. Nice to see SNL's Kristen Wiig given a chance to try out a starring role.

Sea turtle at Laniakea Beach

It was "M's" idea to go to this beach along Kamehameha Highway on the North Shore, and I'm glad we did. I took this video with my iPhone4, accidentally covering the mic with my finger in the first few seconds.

Anyway, this is a way cool thing you can see here on Oahu.

Playing tourist (updated)

I'm starting my weekend early by playing tourist. After getting free samples at Dole Plantation and ruining my favorite white tee with plum powder and 파인주스, we have headed to the North Shore for shrimp scampi at Giovanni's Shrimp Truck. 냄새 좋아 ...

UPDATE:
After viewing sea turtles coming ashore at Laniakea Beach (photos forthcoming), we headed for historic Haleiwa for a shave ice at Matsumoto's and then a coconut latte at Coffee Gallery (which closes at 8 p.m. but leaves their wifi-equipped lanai open indefinitely, a cool business model methinks).

This was followed by a delicious ahi (tuna) burrito at Cholo's Homestyle Mexican Restaurant (supposedly the best Mexican food on Oahu, which is a bit like being the best Mexican food in Seoul). While the ahi burrito did not taste like authentic Baja California cuisine, it was still incredibly good (very tender ahi, which tends to dry out when you cook it, which is why I prefer it as sushi).

UPDATE 2:
I should point out that the itinerary was all the work of "M," who is quite adept at figuring out interesting places to go on this island. I don't think it would have occurred to me to spend a leisurely day doing these things without her prodding.

Also, I had no idea Laniakea Beach was such a great site for viewing sea turtles. I had driven by there a number of times on the way to Waimea Bay (which has a great rock for jumping off of, and is a fun place to watch high waves crash during the winter months), but I assumed all the people standing there were just plain old tourists doing plain old touristy things. Is it my fault sea turtles are hard to see from Kamehameha Highway?

Hawaiian economy hurting as Japanese tourists stay home

With the devastating Tohoku earthquake and the ensuing tsunami, even those Japanese from other parts of the country are opting to stay home. And as much as people feel terrible about that tragedy, officials in Hawaii — as well as the general population that works in tourism — are fretting about the blow to the local economy here.

This has highlighted a need to attract tourists from elsewhere, including South Korea (from which flights have recently been expanded).

From the Honolulu Star Advertiser:

Hawaii's tourism industry took hits by the Kobe earthquake in 1995, the swine flu epidemic in 2009 and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., but this month's disaster could surpass them after a blow that occurred during what continues to be recovery from a worldwide recession. Japanese visitors to Hawaii numbered 1.2 million last year, down by 1 million from 1996.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority expects April will be the peak of the shortfall. It plans to launch a marketing campaign in Japan after helping in the disaster recovery effort.

David Uchiyama, HTA vice president of brand management, told the Star-Advertiser's Allison Schaefers that it will concentrate on new business from North America, Oceania, Korea and China to offset the shortfall in Japan market.

A special marketing program will be aimed at secondary cities such as Portland, Ore., Dallas, San Diego, Sacramento and Phoenix, according to John Monahan, president and chief executive officer of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau.

Much of the emphasis in marketing has been on Japan, the third-largest tourism source outside the western and eastern U.S., and for good reason. Beyond the sheer numbers of visitors, Japanese tourists spend an average of $274 a day on food, hotels and shopping, while visitors from western mainland states average $146.

Similarly, Japan is hurting from an expected downturn in tourists to their country (which is something South Korea is perhaps setting itself up to take advantage of by easing visa rules to the ROK).

A stroll in Seoul

The South Korean capital's traditional central district was #29 on the New York Times list of thirty-four "Asian Odysseys":

Spend an afternoon wandering through the Samcheong-dong neighborhood, which is filled with traditional houses called hanoks converted into stylish cafes and shops. Try some Korean temple cuisine at Baru, a new Buddhist restaurant that’s part of a temple in the city center, and then sleep over with Buddhist nuns at Jinkwansa, a 12th-century temple in a park in northwest Seoul.

That sounds rather nice, and if the other thirty-three are comparable, I'll give them a try (quite a few are in Japan).

Anyway, enjoy the article while you can, because the NYT is moving toward paid access beginning March 28, 2011.

8 million ways to die visit a country on the verge of war

When they said there would be 8 million visitors per year to South Korea by 2010, they laughed in the faces of the Korea National Tourism Organization. Ha ha, they said. Who would ever want to go to Korea?

But lo and behold, Sun Renzhou emerged from a Shanghai-to-Inchon plane and became the eight millionth visitor to South Korea this year. And just in time for all the fireworks: "Welcome to Korea, now go home!"

Ms Sun will receive a round-trip ticket to come back to Korea again, a stay at the Shilla Hotel, and a digital camera to record all her memories.

Frankly, among friends and relatives — non-kyopo and kyopo alike — who have either visited me in Seoul or have gone there after I began my studies in Hawaii, all have had a great time. In Hawaii or California I meet people who have visited Korea and they rave about their trips. There is a lot to do and it's easy to get to, and it can be "more of the same" or a respite from whatever they were seeing or doing in China, Japan, or Hong Kong, if those were also on their itinerary.

LAT on Chejudo's (actually Marado's) female divers

John Glionna of the Los Angeles Times has an article on a perennial favorite of the Western media (and South Korean tourism authorities): the haenyŏ (해녀/海女, literally sea women) of the southern island province of Chejudo and its outlying islands.

It is a familiar narrative of an almost matriarchal culture where women have enjoyed a much higher status than their mainland counterparts:

Like six generations of women before her on this treeless speck of land in the East China Sea, the young mother of two is preparing for a dangerous job no man here is allowed to perform: free-diving for minutes at a time to catch abalone and other shellfish.

Kim is learning to join the ranks of the haenyeo, or women of the sea, whose role as ocean hunter-gatherers has long given them special status in a Korean culture dominated by men. These women on a group of islands south of the South Korean mainland have turned tradition on its head.

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For decades, divers here have groomed their daughters for a life at sea. They teach them how to conserve oxygen to extend their dives and stress the importance of working in groups, like a herd of watchful seals, vigilant against shark attacks, rip currents and marauding motorboats that buzz the surface.

The diving, with its daily hazards and emphasis on teamwork, has molded the women into a cohesive group that has often gathered by the campfire with the day's catch to make decisions about village politics.

I haven't been to southern Chejudo in a few years, and I recall the women looking a bit older than Ms Kim pictured above. It would be nice to know that a younger generation is carrying on this iconic tradition (and making decent money off it).

And once again The Marmot rubs it in our faces that he gets paid to go to neat places

This time it was Hyangdan. I've been there, it's nice. Even better if you're with the right company. 'Nuff said.

Not Isabella Bird reincarnate

So, South Korea got a few mentions in Catherine Price's "101 Places NOT to See Before You Die," as told to PBS. Here's an excerpt:

While working on a project in Korea, Price had the opportunity to visit the DMZ. She expected it to be a "Berlin Wall-type thing" and was surprised to find "it's actually more of a sidewalk curb" with North Korea on one side and South Korea on the other with "soldiers on either side just staring at each other."

The tunnel is an organized tourist attraction — visitors are told to store their personal items in cubbies, don helmets and step onto a little train. Price says she was "lulled into complacency because it kind of seems like a Disneyland ride." But that didn't last long. "All of a sudden, with no explanation, they take you down into this narrow, claustrophobic tunnel blasted into solid rock."

Lest you mistakenly think the tunnel was designed with an invasion in mind ... think again! North Korea insists it's just a coalmine.

From what PBS reprints, it seems Ms Price is a boorish visitor who doesn't bother to read up on anything about the places she's going before she actually gets there, and she thinks that everyone else should be as amused by her resulting ignorant rants as she is. You can see the same professional malpractice at play when she does the Temple Stay in Kanghwa-do:

In theory, an overnight stay at a Korean temple sounds like the perfect activity for anyone struggling to escape the pressures of modern life. You'll meditate, you'll learn about Buddhism, you'll go vegetarian. Concerns and cares will slip away as you drift into a blissful state of conscious awareness.

Unfortunately, that's not what it's like.

I signed up for one of these sleepovers through a program called Templestay. Created in 2002 by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism — the largest Buddhist order in Korea — the Templestay program aims to allow visitors to "sample ordained lifestyle and experience the mental training and cultural experience of Korea's ancient Buddhist tradition." In other words, it's a chance to test-drive life as a monk.

The meditation center I visited, about two hours from Seoul on Ganghwa Island, seemed like the sort of place that could inspire calm. The grounds are nestled between rice paddies and a leafy forest, and the center's brightly painted temple sits several stone steps up from a gentle brook and a small pond stocked with lotus flowers and koi.

When my friend and I arrived — several hours late, thanks to trouble reading the bus schedule — the Templestay coordinator introduced herself in fluent English and led us to the room where we'd be staying. It was empty except for sleeping pads, blankets, and small pillows stuffed with plastic beads. After we'd dropped off our bags, she handed us our clothes for the weekend: two identical extra-large sets of baggy gray pants and vests, along with sun hats and blue plastic slippers. We looked like we'd stepped out of a propaganda poster for Maoist China.

I'd assumed that most temple life involved sitting still and cultivating enlightenment, but instead our first activity was community work time. Clad in our Mao suits, we followed the coordinator to the garden, where eight other Templestay guests squatted between raised rows of dirt, piles of potatoes scattered around them. They gave us hostile glances as we approached — thanks to our late arrival, they'd been forced to harvest potatoes for three hours in eighty-degree heat. I couldn't blame them for their animosity; if I'd been digging in the dirt while some assholes took the slow route to Ganghwa Island, I'd be pretty pissed off too.

I mean, did she really not know there was a tunnel at the DMZ Invasion Tunnel... and then mocked the whole tour because of her own ineptitude as a travel journalist? And is she actually knocking Buddhist monks for not living up to the navel-gazing caricature she imagined them as?

It's not like I'm coming to my dissatisfied opinion just because she dissed Korea. No, I'm equally bewildered by her smug bashing of the Blarney Stone in Ireland (kushibo may be some one-eighth Irish, hence the reddish hair of my early youth seen in my gravatar), which she instructs us is not worth visiting in part because of how unclean it would be to kiss it as so many prior visitors have. But this research-eschewing travel writer is later told, apparently after publication, by the Blarney Castle's employees that indeed, "you can actually request a special cleaning of the stone before you kiss it, if you would like." Imagine she'd done her homework, then she could have taken advantage of the eloquence an oral encounter which the stone bestows.

Ms Price's tome tops my list of 101 books you shouldn't read before you die*, while Ms Price herself is the reason why Asia should stop allowing tourists.

UPDATE:
Brian has written on this same topic, and a lively discussion follows.

UPDATE 2:
I would like to give PineForest a hat tip for the PBS piece. I most assuredly would have spotted it on my own in my regular news troll an hour or so later, but I did first notice it in his comment at The Marmot's Hole, wherever that was.

* I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with that one.

Tourism plots

The Japan Times is reporting that Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo are plotting ways to "lure" (their word, not mine) some 26 million visitors to the three countries by 2015, nearly double the 13.5 million who visited in 2009.