Cheonggyecheon video (and other things from Flying City)

(Update, Jan 24, 2007.The link to the video has changed; as of today, the video appears to be available in the page I've linked to, but it opens very slowly. The Flying City site has been overhauled meanwhile to the degree that none of the links to Flying City below work any more.) Went to see if there's anything new at Flying City, a site about urbanism in Seoul. The place seems to be under update, but there's something anyway. There's a very interesting 22 minute video called "Talkshow Tent" (Iyagi ch'ônmak about the merchants of Cheonggyecheon, on top of all with English subtitles. I haven't had time to take a look at yet, but it looks very interesting. Click the captured picture to get to the Flying City page that contains a link to the video. Alternatively, here's a direct link to the video file (wmv, 363 kbps, 52M). As of today (Jan 24, 2007) the file opens very slowly. Never heard the proverb that the man in the caption quotes, 장사똥 개도 안 먹는다. Instead I'm more familiar with 장사돈 개도 안 물어 간다, "not even a dog touches merchant's money" - perhaps someone came up with the former proverb based on the latter... Update. Watched the video yesterday evening; after the two interesting interviews it turns into a report on the activity of the Cheonggyecheon to-be-evicted street vendors, who don't really manage to present their case very convincely. But at least the second interviewee is worth watching; a vendor who's been around Cheonggyecheon since the 1970s, first in 4-ga and in the later years in front of Doota shopping mall. He says during the 5th republic (Chun Doo-hwan's era) the crackdowns were the hardest, but the police didn't mind about him selling rat and lice poison. Once when chased by the cops he run from 3-ga all to 7-ga Flying City에서 또 한 가지: 성남시에서 철물점을 하시는 최씨 아저씨를 만나 보십시오. 아저씨가 ‘종업원’이 아닌 ‘사장님’으로서의 삶을 시작한 건 아줌마의 말을 빌리자면 어쩌다 이다. 새로 이사 간 봉천동 집에 자리가 남았고 누군가가 슈퍼는 회사를 다니며 동시에 할 수 있다는 말에 시작한 슈퍼란 진정 슈퍼맨을 요하는 가게였다. 결국 최씨 아저씨는 1979년 11월 5년간의 롯데제과 시절을 마감하고 슈퍼에 열중, 김포, 낙원상가 등으로 자리를 옮기며 진정한 사장님으로서의 인생을 시작한다. 김포에서는 새벽 5시부터 밤 12시까지 문을 여는 19시간 ‘근대화 슈퍼’를, 그 후 종로 낙원 상가에서는 123카바레와 같은 층에서 123카바레 웨이터 청년들이 간식으로 즐겨먹던 우유 넣은 허연 라면을 파는 슈퍼를 한다. Update 2. Wonder if the Flying City people got the idea of presenting the wonderful panorama pictures of housing and urban change in Seoul as smaller ones to be seen on one page and for the original big ones to be clicked (see "굽어보기" 시리즈) from me (my earlier post). I'm happy if I provided the idea - the pics are truly worth seeing and valuable as documents. The pics are by the way taken with a film camera, the film scanned and the scans then attached to make the panoramas. Categories at del.icio.us/hunjang: businesskeepers ∙ self-employment ∙ Seoul ∙ urbanspace ∙ modernization