For a first great impression very few cities are likely to beat the South Korean capital Seoul. And this was confirmed to me the first time I arrived there as a guest of the government to carry out a series of interviews and write feature articles which I did following a fortnight’s visit.
The bustle of the Westin Chosun Hotel was the first good impression because I am fond of busy hotels with excitement beginning with the lobby right up to the roof. To make their point clear the hotel management advertised the main event in the city that day — nothing less than a beauty parade to choose the most beautiful girl and runners up in the country and a candidate for the forthcoming Miss Universe. This happens only once a year bringing together a wonderful bevy of girls from the whole country for the Miss Korea contest. So we decided to buy tickets for the event.
The hall was packed as not a single seat went unsold. And I was amused to see quite a number of guests using binoculars to make sure what they were watching was real. It was real alright and the night passed in a jiffy.
The city was still alive, very brightly lit and congested but well-organized like everything else in South Korea, from the airport queues to the numerous parks to their matchless restaurants, some of the best in Asia. There was so much to see and visit in Seoul that we did not feel inclined to go outside it but that would be a mistake since we would have missed the other cities, countryside, parks and of course, the huge shops that lay everywhere although the capital had its own great malls to offer.
Only the Korean tendency to eat early luncheons and dinners seemed the only hitch for foreigners like me who preferred to have a late lunch like in the Gulf and very late dinners too. So I chose the only logical way out of this dilemma to carry out my interviews and join my great hosts to early lunches and dinners that were around noon and six p.m. So I had to skip my usual breakfast by having two biscuits and two cups of tea only.
By noon I was ready for a Korean lunch which I ate with a special appetite. By 6 p.m., I beat my hosts at their sumptuous repast. I enjoyed their food and pleased them by spending more time with them indulging in their favorite pastime, which is a long and satisfying dinner.
Although Seoul is a young city having been established shortly after the Second World War II — l946 — it is already one of the finest cities in Asia as it is also one of the original Asian Tigers, which are the most advanced countries in the continent and continues to grow prosperously, as it is the capital of one of the most industrially advanced countries. The well-organized country has been without much of the Asian chaos that we have witnessed in many of our countries, and the people are growing richer in a capital that has had the advantage of solid American protection since the fifties when the Marxist-led northern Korea invaded it and nearly devastated it before the full American military weight fell on the invaders and drove them out of the country. Only a threat to use nuclear bombs is sufficient to stop them in their tracks. The Chinese leader Maotse Tung was reported to have said that even nuclear bombs did not scare him even if they killed and was inclined to believe that the Russians under Joseph Stalin had cautioned their allies to take it easy and get out of the southern part and settle for a compromise.
The city combines all the beauty of a great and clean city with fantastic food and clean entertainment if the visitor opts for that. It has a huge number of museums and cultural centers given its rich tapestry of history of culture and civilization now mixed with the best American traditions and, of course, protection. Visitors can and do crawl from place to place without letup whereas I chose to stay put in one place at a time and leave only at midnight. On some days, I would request a long drive outside the capital during which I would eat lunch and have evening tea before returning.
Seoul is a delightful city whether for business or for the hotel, which is in the center of the city.
With American influence fully present and of course loved by the populace, there is the patent Japanese impact as the country was colonized by the Japanese for nearly eighty years when the Korean peninsula was united before the Second World War.
Korea's development and industrial progress: It was the Japanese influence. During my visit to Japan in another Asian tour, i realized it was the colonial era that was responsible for the whole amazing result. Whether that was true or false remains to be debated but naturally the Japanese did leave an enormous impact just as they did in Taiwan, Hong Kong and other ex-colonies and it cannot be denied that the Japanese rule was marked by greater cruelty. But that is a lot of political history and the people I met preferred to skip it, which I did preferring to talk about the amazing presence and the statistics that speak volumes about the success of the country and its system which I wish could be emulated by our countries. Perhaps, someday at least one of our countries will catch up with Korea without much bloodshed, as history tells me that before the fifties Egypt was more progressive than Korea and had more cash in the bank than Seoul. Yes it is true.
-Farouk Luqman is an eminent journalist based in Jeddah
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