... and they eat belgium waffels, have oxygen masks in the metro, start to work at 10 in the morning, they avoid conflicts, they have good department stores and they know how to take care of their hosts, they have churches everywhere...... They don't speak so much english and it's not possible to have a doctor to visit you directly, but you need to go to the hospital, it's very difficult to get a thermometer if you have fever and even more difficult to let yourself understand into a pharmacy.
Most of this impressions I got in the few days I spent around Seoul (or in the bed of the hotel because of my flu) confirmed me that this is an atypical world-city, like other sisters in Asia, like Tokyo. It is still a very "national" place even though the skyline would rather suggest the contrary, confirming the fact the importance of public actors in shaping the spaces in developmental states. Still it is a city I have not been able to "grasp" yet as I would have liked. I feel a stranger here, but not really "lost in translation".
Most of this impressions I got in the few days I spent around Seoul (or in the bed of the hotel because of my flu) confirmed me that this is an atypical world-city, like other sisters in Asia, like Tokyo. It is still a very "national" place even though the skyline would rather suggest the contrary, confirming the fact the importance of public actors in shaping the spaces in developmental states. Still it is a city I have not been able to "grasp" yet as I would have liked. I feel a stranger here, but not really "lost in translation".
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