Odds and Ends: Oct 4, 2011

Because what’s better after a Mixed Bag than an Odds and Ends?

GIs ruining Itaewon. Again.

Ye Olde Chosun bemoans the fact that Itaewon has gone to hell since USFK let the boys out of their cage. From the translation provided by Korea Beat:

37-year-old office worker Mr. A went to Itaewon last weekend for an office dinner when he was shocked by what he saw in the street.

A foreigner and a Korean woman were sitting in a corner on the sidewalk, embracing each other so heavily it was as if they were having sex. Mr. A said: “I had thought I was going to see the Itaewon of the past, and to have to see that shocking scene made my co-workers feel awkward…. I had the thought that Itaewon has changed so much in just a few years.”

The atmosphere in Itaewon has changed drastically in the past few years. The change is the consequence of the increasing number of foreign tourists, but is also because of the increased number of US soldiers. Local office worker Mr. B said that “since a year ago when the curfew on US soldiers was lifted, the streets are something you don’t want to look at, and you frequently see foreigners talking loudly or having an argument.”

Granted, I don’t usually hang out in Itaewon on weekends, but I haven’t noticed it getting any worse recently. Sure, on a Saturday night, civilizational norms end at Noksapyeong, but wasn’t it like that before the curfew was lifted, too?

Anyway, this problem doesn’t seem like anything a good Taser couldn’t fix.

Nigerian ambassador upset

According to the Korea Times, the Nigerian ambassador is upset that some 30 Nigerians have been sent home over the last six months:

Nigerian ambassador to Korea Desmond Akawor criticized Korea’s policy on immigration, saying the country’s treatment of many Nigerians here amounts to a policy of deportation.

In what the ambassador described as both unnecessary and unfair, he said some 30 Nigerians — some of whom had lived here for more than a decade, were sent back to their home country in the past six months.

In an interview with The Korea Times on Sept. 28, Akawor said so-called “double identity” issues, whereby an individual has two different names on official or legal documents, had cropped up for many Nigerians living and working in Korea because they initially found their way here through Korean employment recruiters that treated them as a collective workforce without considering their identity.

Could BCC do for Busan what Guggenheim Museum did for Bilbao?

Great piece in Hollywood reporter about the new Busan Cinema Center in, oddly enough, Busan:

The $15 million Cinema Center could make having an expensive and shiny new screening venue a must-have for film festivals, much as Frank Gehry’s spectacularly sculptural Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, spurred other arts institutions to build architectural marvels to lure audiences. Yet there are potential pitfalls to banking too much on “if we build it, they will come” architecture, as cultural organizations around the world have learned.
[...]
But some cultural institutions have embraced “starchitecture” as a silver bullet that will draw visitors, only to find they are faced with burdensome debt once the novelty wears off. For all of the success of a Disney Concert Hall (which has helped revitalize downtown Los Angeles), or going back to the Jorn Utzon-designed Sydney Opera House (which went beyond branding that city to become a cultural landmark), there have been cases like Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, built by Rafael Vinoly, which opened in 2001 at a cost of $235 million. In April 2011, the Philadelphia Orchestra filed for bankruptcy protection, citing among its problems $2.5 million in rent and other fees owed to the Kimmel.

Hope it works out for Busan. Really like that city.