Mayor Song's Big Mistakes

There are big controversies over the construction of a new main stadium in Seo-gu (District) for the 2014 Asian Games, scheduled to be held in Incheon Metropolitan City, South Korea. Incheon was awarded as the host city of the games at the 26th OCA general assembly in April 2007 held in Kuwait and the construction plan for the Seo-gu main stadium was announced by the city officials in early 2008 and supported by the central government shortly thereafter.

The central government actually did Incheon a favor to unfreeze sufficient size land of the so-called green belt in Yonhee-dong, Seo-gu, to construct the stadium and the city officials have already compensated more than 80 percent of the land to those owners on site. And the magnificent design has also been completed as shown above.

The quarrel started as the mayor-elect Song Young-gil visited Kuwait to meet OCA chairman late last month, shortly before his inauguration as the administrator of Incheon, and announced that he was able to persuade the OCA chairman to allow the host city not to build a new stadium in Seo-gu, but re-use the existing Munhak World Cup Stadium, located in Nam-gu in the same city, as the main stadium, a venue of the opening and closing ceremonies for the games, as well as various track and field events, by simply renovating it to host 5,000 more spectators from the existing 50,000 capacity. It is reported, however, that the OCA officials recommend the main stadium’s capacity should be at least 70,000 for the opening and closing ceremonies.

Basically, I share his concerns about the increasing revenue deficit of the city as a newly elected mayor of the city. I believe, however, he made a couple of big mistakes: Firstly, he has brought down the decency and pride of Incheon and even the national image, and humiliated his own supporters, as well as his predecessors, by making a sudden, unscheduled and rude visit to OCA chairman and doing diplomatically ill-mannered and/or immature behaviors from the international standpoint, ignoring the diplomatic channel. As a mayor of the big city like Incheon, Mr. Song should pay more attention to become a good city administrator, rather than a sly politician who is an expert in playing a political engineering game that is still prevailing in domestic political horizon, unfortunately.

Secondly, he should have tried to communicate with his own people i.e. Incheon citizens as a first step, primarily with the Seo-gu residents who would be greatly influenced by any change in this regard before leaving for Kuwait. More haste, says the proverb, less speed.

One thing clear, at this point of time, is that any community in which an individual simply cannot expect even what would happen tomorrow to him or to his family can't be entitled to be called as an advanced and stable society, apart from his inaugural commitment to make Incheon the economic capital of the Republic of Korea. Mayor Song is now leading innocent Incheon citizens into the battlefield and encouraging his own people to fight with each other by his terrible mistakes, intentionally or unintentionally.

It would be appreciated if he could change his mind to build the main stadium in Seo-gu District as originally planned for all concerned, however, because I wish him every success and would like to participate in his success in the forthcoming future as the mayor of Incheon Metropolitan City.

Muchangpo Beach

Thanks to some extra time and budget, I enjoyed a short vacation at Muchangpo Beach, which turned out to be one of ideal places for my family vacation in this country. Personally, I don't like those bustling beach resorts like Haeundae in the south, Gyeongpodae in the east and the nearby Daecheon in the west of the peninsula or even Waikiki in Hawaii where my wife, daughter and I visited for a week to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our wedding in late September 2007, primarily because there are too many things I need to pay attention to, interesting or not, in those well-known beaches, among others. At Muchangpo, however, I was able to relax peacefully, while sunbathing and reading books. One of the good things and virtues the beach provides to me was that I could have access to the beach pretty easily after parking my car at the street beside the beach. And also I could look over the panoramic view of the sea and several islands scattered along the coast with no disturbance from any source while sitting at a beach chair comfortably. (In the photo) My wife was reading a book while comfortably sitting in her beach chair, as well.

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When it comes to accommodation at the beach resort, there a lot of reasonably priced hotels, motels and pensions. In my case, I paid only 40,000 won to check in a nearby hotel room. The price only cover room fee, excluding any meal service like continental breakfast, for example, as usual in South Korea. There are numerous seafood restaurants, pubs and convenient stores, etc. around the beach, instead.

It took just two and half hours from my place near Incheon Airport to reach the beach mostly through the Seohaean or West Coast Highway, including a 30-minute stopover at Hwaseong Rest Area to have lunch and buy some refreshments.

An Old Korean-style Garden

Recently, I was able to take time to hang out with my old friends and their spouses, including my wife, in Jeongseon-gun County, located in the southern part of Gangwon Province, which is one of the birthplaces of the most popular and well-known traditional Korean folk song 'Arirang' around the world. As a matter of fact, there are several types of Arirang Song in Korea, mostly similar, but different in their texts, melodies and rhythms, respectively. Experts, however, generally agree that the Jeongseon Arirang is pretty close to the original form of the Song of Arirang, dated back to some 600 years ago.

The above picture taken from the Jeongseon Arari Chon, a kind of folk village which was established by the county authorities, shows emotional mood of the old Korean-style village, an eternal birthplace in our heart.

My Son's College Graduation

Last Friday, February 26th 2010, I attended a college graduation ceremony for my older son. To celebrate his hopeful graduation and getting a job as an airline employee at this 'decent job shortage' period, almost all of my family members, including my parents, were able to join the event to present a bouquet of various flowers to him, take pictures and have lunch together at a 'Bulgogi' restaurant near the campus thereafter.

Every Time It snows (II)

From the first working day of the year 2010, a real heavy snowfall attacked the central regions of the Korean Peninsula, leading to paralize almost the entire national public transportation system in the greater Seoul and its vicinities, except the subway system.

The snowfall actually began around 6 o'clock in the morning of January 4, 2010, shortly before the morning rush hour, and continued until high noon. And the aftermath of the snow was terrible for most drivers and pedestrians, as well, because they had to crawl rather than driving and walking on their way covered by more than 20cm high snow by exercising extreme caution.

Weathermen announced the snowfall recorded as the highest for the last 100 years in this region, believe or not. In the past, before my village was not urbanized, however, even the heaviest snowfall didn't matter in most cases because most residents, farmers and their school children simply didn't need to go out of their houses since it's their slack season and winter vacation period. They were able to enjoy their comforts by staying at ondol rooms all day long with family members, relatives and neighbors, eating sweet potatoes and playing the game of yut, a stick game.

Every Time It Snows(I)

From late in the afternoon Yesterday, December 27, 2009, it started to snow for the first time in this part of the country, much enough to cover the street up to 3cm height. With the falling snow, the entire village changed into a white world dramatically, making everything on earth clean and pure white. That's probably why most people, particularly children, as well as dogs, are pleased when it starts to snow.

From the eye of a driver, however, a snowfall means a terrible obstacle in maneuvering his or her vehicle in an appropriate manner on the road. The worst case, however, usually come in the aftermath of a snowfall when the temperature drops pretty fast to below freezing point, especially near the mouth of a tunnel. A so-called 'Ecology Tunnel' was constructed last summer at the 'Gingmaeii Mountain Pass' through 'Gyeongmyeong-ro' which connects 'Gongchon-dong', Seo-Gu District to 'Gesan-dong, Geyang-Gu District in the northwestern part of Incheon City.

Some Unknown Facts about the GI Waterway

As a further step over the controversy about the GI (Gyeongin) Canal project, the waterway construction has finally been implemented. Unfortunately, however, the quarrels between the central government and the environmentalists haven’t come to an end yet. As a native Incheoner and local supporter for the project, I was able to take some time to find some unknown essential facts about the waterway as follows;

To understand the relationship between the GI Waterway and the Gulpocheon (Watercourse), we need to know about the Gulpocheon and its history, as well. The Gulpocheon is a watercourse or river which is running across the vast western Seoul plains, including Bupyeong-gu and Gyeyang-gu of Incheon City, Bucheon City, Gangseo-gu of Seoul, and Gimpo City, etc., to Han River. From the administrative eye, it’s a second grade regional river or watercourse which basin size and the length reaches to 134㎢ and 21㎞, respectively. There are more than 1.5 million inhabitants living around the area at this point of time.

The history of the watercourse actually dates back to late 13th century, during Goryeo Dynasty, when the militarists Choi, Choongheon’s son tried for the first time to construct a kind of substitute artificial waterway primarily to transport grains paid as taxes from southwestern parts of the Korean Peninsula more safely, other than through the ‘Sondolmok’, a narrow and dangerous strait between Ganghwa-do and Gimpo, exposed to frequent shipwrecks. It’s late Choseon Dynasty, however, when the watercourse appeared to shape like its present status. The name ‘Gulpocheon’ itself in Chinese character reflects the facts, too. In short, the Gulpocheon is an artificial waterway which can be characterized as a canal from the historical point of view.

A Flood Control Channel Construction was begun to Prevent Frequent Floods

Geographically, the Gulpocheon basin has some problems in treating rainwater because of its pretty gentle slope and the narrow width. And the middle and the lower reaches of the stream basins are pretty low-lying areas with 5.5m above sea level, and therefore rely mostly on the compulsory draining when the Han River water level is rising during the rainy seasons. In fact, it has the structural problem, exposed to frequent flood damages.

In July of 1987, the basins experienced a severe damage, including heavy casualties by a big flood. The Construction and Transportation Department established a basic plan for a comprehensive Gulpocheon water control project in this area in 1991, and the Gulpocheon Flood Control Channel was introduced in 1992 as a part of the plan.

Though the plan was introduced only to prevent floods at the beginning stage, other ideas like utilizing it as a purpose of vessel transportation was later emerged as well, and finally the so-called ‘Gyeong-In Canal Project’ has been formed. As the canal project was delayed, a temporary flood control channel project was implemented in the meantime, and the temporary channel construction was completed in June 2003 with the 20m width and the 14.2km length size after 2 years’ construction period to avoid roughly 2 year-frequency floods (precipitation 114mm/day, flood waters 270m3/second) . It turned out, however, that the temporary channel was not enough to prevent the bigger sized floods than the average 2-year frequency floods. In September 2003, the government made its final decision to construct the permanent flood control channel in the first place and reconsider the necessity of the canal project.
Accordingly, the so-called Gulpocheon Flood Control Channel 2nd State Project that can handle the maximum 100-year-frequency floods was implemented. The core of the project was to expand the width to 80m from 20m, and construct a road on the southern bank of the channel to resolve the traffic congestion problem around the area..


Construction of the Environment-friendly Flood Control Channel and the Organization of a Council for the Regional Development

On August 26, 2004, a council for the regional development was finally formed as local residents, local government officials and related NGO members were participating in the meeting, primarily to discuss the way to construct a environment-friendly flood control channel and to resolve any problems that can be occurred during the process.

In March 2007, meanwhile, the DHV-Saman Consortium which has performed an economical efficiency of the Gyeong-In Canal reported a new result of B/C 1.76, demonstrating an economical side of the project. And the prime minister hosted ‘National Policy Coordination Meeting confirmed to begin the canal project shortly after KDI reported another report of B/C = 1.07, also indicating an economical side of the project. Finally, the construction of the canal started on March 25, 2009.