When he’s not promising to complete the Ryugyong Hotel, my hometown mayor Ahn Sang-soo is getting himself in hotwater for diverting Incheon city funds for pet projects…in the DPRK.
Inchon Mayor Ahn Sang-soo is at the center of allegations he used city funds to provide aid to North Korea during his recent visit to the communist country.
Inchon city government, located west of Seoul, diverted 1 billion won from the city budget to purchase asphalt mortar to support North Korea before Ahn?????s visit to the North between May 30 and June 2, according to the city government and city council.
The money was part of the budget allocated to support the 16th Asian Athletics Championships to be held in the city on Sept. 1-4.
It was found that the city had purchased asphalt mortar since April and had provided 2,500 tons to the North ahead of the mayor?????s visit. During the visit, Ahn reportedly viewed a road construction site in Pyongyang where the material sent from Inchon was used.
Ahn also promised to send an additional 7,500 tons of asphalt mortar and paint, worth 4 billion won, by the end of July, according to the city officials who accompanied the mayor to North Korea.
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There aren’t that many. Cities tend to swallow up other urban areas, but not suburban or rural areas. Jacksonville FL and Oklahoma City are exceptions to this, of course.
To a lesser degree Seoul, Kwangju, and Pusan, but to a large degree Taej??n, Ulsan, Taegu, and Inch’??n have swallowed up large amounts of rural areas. And they keep getting bigger and bigger. I remember seeing a “now entering Taej??n” sign while in the middle of the mountains and driving for nearly twenty kilometers without ever seeing city. Wonju, which may be the next kwang’y??kshi, is the same way. Taegu, the symbol of North Ky??ngsang, now extends to South Ky??ngsang. And in Inchon’s case, some of the new areas are “counties” (??°) which by Korean definition are not urban.
Calling them “metropolitan cities” is somewhat misleading, and doesn’t even really reflect the ?´‘?? part of ?´‘????œ, methinks.
Um, unless Daegu has expanded in the last year, its outlying areas (like Dalseong-gun) were always part of North Gyeongsang….
For the record, Busan, Daegu, Incheon, and Ulsan have “counties” within their borders, while Seoul, Gwangju, and Daejeon do not. That said, all of them have significant rural areas, with the possible exception of Seoul, whose only large non-built-up area is Bukhansan, which is a park.
Then again, New York City has no fewer than FIVE counties within its boundaries: New York (Manhattan), Bronx, Kings, Queens (Brooklyn), and Richmond (Staten Island).
And yeah, that “Entering Daejeon” sign on the Gyeongbu Expressway is a bit misleading, as while you’re at the city limits, you ain’t nowhere near the city!
Whoopsbig faux-pas! Brooklyn is of course Kings County, not Queens County.
The Inchon prefecture*, by the way, encompasses some far off islands, including Paengny??ngdo, which are very, very, very close to North Korea. Kanghwa-gun County, once separate from Inchon, is also very close to the North.
Maybe he sees this as protection money.
* Our company has taken to translating ?´‘????œ as metropolitan prefecture or prefecture, where appropriate. I encourage you all to do the same.
Doesn’t translating ?´‘????œ into prefecture smack of sakura though? Even if they are virtually the same address systems…
Korea used to have ??? [?¸?], I believe, even before the Japanese. And it’s not as if Japanese invented the word “prefecture.” The French, the ancient Romans (and the Swiss) all used this.
As for the comparisons with Japan, let’s not forget that Korea also shares the Japanese practice of calling a -ku/-gu [~??? or ??€] a “ward.” I don’t see anything wrong with sharing another naming convention in English and referring to these ever-expanding “wide-area cities” (the literal translation of kwang’y??kshi) as prefectures or metropolitan prefectures when they encompass such a large area of non-urban land.
“Prefecture”? The official translation (there’s a 1995 government document for it) for ?´‘????œ is “Metropolitan City.” And the official translation in the same document for ??? “District.”
And yes, during the ?¡°??? ??œ?Œ€, provinces (???; ??“) were divided mainly into ?¶€ (?ºœ) for built-up areas and ??? in rural areas.
Oh, and the aforementioned ?°±?…???? (Baegnyeondo; not sure of the Hangul spelling offhand) is part ofwait for it??¹?§???° (Ongjin-gun), one of Incheon’s two counties (gun; ??°; ??¡) along with ?°??™”??° (Ganghwa-gun). What’s interesting about ??¹?§???° is that it’s named for the city of ??¹?§? (Ongjin) in what is now ?™???´ ??¨??? (South Hwanghae Province) in NK. The reason? Between 1945 and 1950, the small sliver of Hwanghae Province south of the 38th parallelincluding Ongjin-gunbelonged to the southern zone of the country, and was made part of Gyeonggi Province. The offshore islands remained under South Korean control after the end of the Korean War. When all the Directly Governed Cities (?§??????œ) were upgraded to Metropolitan Cities (?´‘????œ) in 1995, Ongjin County became part of Incheon.
Sorry, Baengnyeongdo (Paengnyngdo; ?°±??¹???; ?™½?¿??³¶). There’s a Korean Yahoo! article on Ongjin County here.
And I get your point, Kushibo, regarding the incongruousness of referring to a bunch of far-flung islands as being part of a “city,” but there must surely be lots of similar examples in North America of cities that encompass distant, rural lands (although I can’t think of any offhand).
Curious, I meant that Taegu now touches South Ky??ngsang. To my knowledge it hasn’t taken over any of its territory.
And I made the distinction between the boroughs of New York (its counties) and the -gun/-kun (Korea’s counties), since the latter are non-urban by definition (e.g., -kun/-gun turn into -shi when get big enough).
Yes. Sorry for being so pedantic.
(Although while gun get upgraded to si when they are part of provinces, they would get split up into gu if they were part of cities….)
It is interesting to note that in North America and Europe there are no distinctions made between ??œ and ?³¼????œ. A city is a city if it has its own government and is recognized as such by the provincial and federal governments. As for areas of cities being divided up that is something that doesn?€™t happen either. Yes areas of large cities are known locally by a certain names such as Olivera St in LA or China Town, North Beach, Japan Town and the Mission District in San Francisco but those designations are not part of official addresses. As such, some might argue that ?´‘??¼ ?´‘????œ might be best translated Simply Kwangju with the ?€œKyeonggi Kwangju?€? being distinguished as such. After all, how common is it to see Seoul Special City? I am sure it is out there but I do not think it is common.
I have seen “Seoul Metropolitan District.”
And in Los Angeles, at least, the divisions (e.g., Koreatown, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, Fairfax, South Central, etc.) do in fact have some administrative meaning, in terms of government services, voting, etc.
I have always thought that “precinct” is a good word for -??™ and that “borough” (after New York City) is just as good as “ward.”
As for “ward,” I have also read places where -??? were referred to as “district.” I have even written that in places where the reader might not be expected to know what a -??? is. But I believe that, officially, they are called “wards.” Even after the NAKL Romanization simplification, I think the new signs still say “ward.” I don’t drive by ?????°????² as much anymore, so I haven’t been able to check.
Well, we’re in the process of moving, so I’ve packed the dictionary that listed the official designations, but there was a table from the government published in 1995 or so that gave the “official” English translations of the names of the administrative divisions. I always thought the best translation of ??? was “ward” (or even “borough,” which they have in London as well as New York)or even arrondisement, which is what the numbered divisions of Paris are called. But the translation in that table was “District,” if I recall correctly.
For what it’s worth, the English home page for the Seoul city government says at the bottom, “Seoul Metropolitan Government” (contrary to what I claim the “official” translation should be), which interestingly is analogous to “Tokyo Metropolitan Government” (T??ky??-to; æ?±?º???½), which is what Tokyo calls itself on its English home page.
Alright, alright - but what’s ‘asphalt mortar’?
Bitumen, maybe? Not that I know much about asphalt….
Okay, I was wondering about that too. Evidently, the asphalt used for paving road surfaces is a mixture of aslphalt proper and aggregate. So maybe they’re referring to the asphalt proper. There’s more than you could ever possibly wish to know (unless you’re a civil engineer) here. Bitumen is more or less synonymous with asphalt, or includes both asphalt and tar.
Is this guy looking to buy himself into something, like DJ bought himself the peace prize? Maybe he’s looking to be in the running for the presidency.