The pleasant Korean port city of Yeosu has won its bid to host International Expo 2012, beating out the Moroccan city of Tangiers and the Polish city of Wroclaw.
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23 Comments
I remember as a kid going to the Taejon Expo in 1993 and riding one of those “hover” trains… don’t remember whether it was actually hovering or just a model (I was 6). I also remember the mascot… it was a yellow Alien with a little moon going around him. Anyone remember its name?
all I remember is, it was the first significant international event to be held in Dae Jeon, Choong Chung Do,
and Dae Jeon became South Korea’s science city.
prior to that, all the good shit was concentrated in Seoul and Yong Nam.
Good for them! Almost wish I could be there.
How about this from the AP:
I guess these people never heard of the Saemangeum Project. If one talks about extreme irony, this would be a perfect example. They should have found a country that is more committed to the theme of the fair or changed the theme to something like “my money is my money and your money is my money”.
While I think Tangiers would have made for a more interesting host city, I wish Yeosu nothing but the best. Hope it is a success. If I’m still here in 2012 - though I kind of hope I’ll be out of here by then - I’ll be sure to check it out.
Yeosu’s a great town, and it’ll be nice for the area to get a bit of attention.
Good to hear this and I’ll certainly attend if still around. Now that they’ve won, I hope they tone down the gorebal warming alarmism crap.
I guess this means that Chung Mong-koo and the whole judicial system are vindicated.
“Now that they’ve won, I hope they tone down the gorebal warming alarmism crap.”
The right-wing cinemagauche strikes again.
Now that they’ve won, I hope they tone down the “…bring peace and prosperity to the Korean peninsula” crap.
There is no correlation between the South holding a global event and the whims of the dictator in the North. In fact, we saw the opposite before the ‘88 Seoul Olympics, when Kim had his goons bomb a plane.
Interesting choice of words, considering that malfunctioning toilets afflicted that Expo in a big way.
#11: Don’t forget Little Elvis’s cry for attention before the 2002 World Cup when his sailors killed 6 South Korean ones.
Actually, now that Yeosu has won it’ll all be about who gets what slice of the construction pie.
I recall the Taejon Expo ‘93 saw the introduction of the 도우미. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2012.
R.Elgin,
Couldn’t agree less.
what is “ironic” about them putting on an event that focuses on the preserving the environment? Just because the government made a boneheaded decision years ago that made a mess of the coast line doesn’t mean that they forever have to wear an albatross. If anything, you could knock them for insincerity for capitalizing on the environmental theme to tug at the heartstrings. But then, you’d have to have a window into their soul to see if they’re really true believers or just assholes.
In a way, I’m glad for Yeosu. As Robert says, it’s a nice place and it deserves some attention. But I have two problems the Koreans’ success in this case:
1: Yet another example of showing up to the party with the most money, flaunting it around and taking home the prize. I think they outclassed their competition mercilessly. That hurts. New Dehli backed off when Incheon threw millions on the table for the Asian Games. Not exactly endearing behavior.
2. This smells like a white elephant. Even though I still believe that if anyone can pull it off, it’s the Koreans, I also believe that better accounting standards will one day catch up with their sleight of hand when it comes to public finances and big events like this one (see World Cup Stadium, Sogwipo Edition) (also wait for public retribution next year when the olympic bid committee gets audited)
well, it’s now officially ten years since the Asian Financial Crisis, and we see that financial governance, most especially for pubic servants, still pervades. are accounting standards and transparency in fact improving?
Stumbled onto this site quite by accident by looking up ‘english mass’ and ended up seeing some great pictures of catholic churces in korea. Definitely love your site! ^^
Anyways to answer bumfromjkorea (comment #1), the yellow alien’s name was 꿈돌이. He had this head shaped liked a mushroom (or so i always thought. ^^;)
Kumdori (and yeah, I had to look it up.)
Anyhow, Yeosu is a nice area… I lived in Gwangyang for awhile, and would always look across the bay and wonder why there was no bridge.
Judy, you live in a time warp.
“Are standards in fact improving?” Yes. As some people point out time and again on this page, the corruption situation is clearly improving and the fact that accounting scandals come to light more today than before is significant. Is it perfect? No.
Perhaps I should be clearer, however. I’m making a distinction between pure business accounting/reporting and the “sleight of hand” accounting that people use in situations like when they don’t want others to know how much money they wasted for silly olympic bids.
Maybe it’s more appropriate to say that brighter lights are being shone in more places that were previously dark than to say that business are keeping their books better.
(That said, I’m not an accountant but every once and a while I read something about Korea switching to the new Basel standard. Can anyone shed light on that? Too lazy to read wiki…)
Nothing to do with accounting.
Korean banks are in the process of adopting Basel II now.
Sorry “mjw” but I had to call *bs* on the hypocrisy of the whole thing. The government had years to turn away from that debacle at Saemangum and they stuck to it like a gambling addict at a sidewalk craps game.
As more public awareness is focused upon the need to preserve the place where they live instead of destroying it for the sake of some won, conditions will improve but this is a very optimistic thought that is not justified in the current policies of the government here. As it is, it is landmines that help preserve the wildlife in the DMZ and not politics, wisdom or good will. Perhaps Korea needs more landmines planted everywhere until the government starts to take the environment they live in more seriously and acknowledges more than just how much money is in the deal for them.
Yeosu is a interesting place and nice to visit but the motivation is far from innocent.
All true, but frankly, if there’s any area of the country that could use several billion won sunk into infrastructural improvements, it’s Jeollanam-do.
Yay for Yeosu, sez I.
R.Elgin, i’m certainly with you against the Saemangeum Project, but i’d suggest we look at a South Korean City being awarded the Expo hosting on a coastal-environmental theme the way we ended up looking at the horrible Chun Doo-hwan government being awarded the 1988 Summer Olympics — holding this thing just might push the relevant issues to the front burner, and shame the Powers That Be into better policies and better behavior… In the long run at least.