Busan e-FM Week 36: Love Hotels, Sex and Adultery (Banned)

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

It took 36 weeks, but I finally had a script refused for broadcast. When I started doing my weekly segment with Busan e-FM, it was with the agreement that I could be honest about my experiences in Korea, but the question is, does Korea want to be honest about itself?

Ostensibly, the problem was that Love Hotels and Adultery – the main thrust of my piece – were “not appropriate subjects” for the radio. TBS eFM – an equivalent English-language radio station in Seoul had covered these subjects before – but that’s Seoul and this is Busan, which is generally much more socially conservative.

Exploring where these newly discovered boundaries lay, and whether they were strictly sexual, I asked - mindful that the 2011 Dog Meat Festival in Gyeonggi Province had recently been cancelled amidst protests – if the subject I was allegedly considering for the next week – that of dog meat in Korea – would be acceptable. I was of course, just screwing with them. I felt I saw a slightly pained look cross the face of my assigned handler. It was not really an acceptable subject either.

And so it was we reached the climax of our conversation. It was probably best to avoid ‘controversial subjects’. That was the spot I’d touched. The two people I knew that regularly listened to my segment – who for all I know were actually the only two people who listened at all - were surprised. Hadn’t the radio station really been listening to what I’d been talking about before now?

I’ve always found the foreigners who only tell Koreans what they want to hear for the sake of a quiet life somewhat soda-masochistic, even if we’ve all done it from time to time. So I escaped my temporary bondage and continued tackling controversial subjects in the weeks that followed, going on to reference attitudes to homosexuality in Korea, monoculture and corporate enslavement, racism and the often enforced dystopian existence of foreigners, consumer nationalism, chaebol media lies and the absence of critical thought, [stay tuned!] but I did it in my usual style – hopefully relatively gently, diplomatically, and with humour.

I’d like to think that if done sufficiently eloquently, it is possible to speak truth to power in Korea, but whether that’s because people here are truly prepared to have a light shone on certain subjects, or simply because they weren’t listening or didn’t understand, is the loaded question.

I include the script below as an example of the realities of Korean life and culture you can’t talk about on the radio in Busan in 2011.

Introduction – Love Hotels, Sex and Adultery

Last week I talked about ‘bangs’ - such as the ‘DVD bang’ couples go to. This week I’m talking about a related subject, that of ‘love hotels’ or ‘love motels’. I don’t quite know how to translate this because we don’t use the word ‘motel’ in British English, but I’ve seen them called both hotels and motels here.

I think this highlights an issue with the cultural development of language. A motel is described as a ‘hotel for motorists’, and it makes sense this word would emerge from American English because of the long road journeys people have to make in the United States. They don’t have to do this in England because the country is geographically small – so you can normally get to where you want to go in a day. But I understand that many American motels are dropping the word now because it’s seen as being ‘seedy’.

We still have slightly seedy hotels in England – we just call them ‘bed & breakfasts’. But there are no love hotels in England that I'm aware of.

Love Hotels

So I was surprised when I saw the love hotels here, although not totally shocked – Japan is famous for its love hotels and most people outside Japan have probably heard of them. To a Westerner like myself, there seem to be a lot of general cultural similarities between Japan and Korea, so it’s not a complete shock to discover love hotels here, but as I’ve said before, I really didn’t know that much about Korea before coming here, and I certainly didn’t realise how popular they are.

I took them as a sign of social restriction in Korea, in the same way that ‘DVD bang’ represent the same issue. They are both somewhere to go because so many young people live at home. Maybe ‘DVD bang’ are where they go to fool around, and when it gets more serious they graduate to love hotels. I find it funny though how people going there want privacy, but the buildings are usually so very visible and obvious because of their architectural tendency to employ large fake Roman columns, cupid statues, small windows and plenty of neon lighting.

Staying in a Love Hotel

I’ve actually stayed in a love hotel. The first time I went to Seoul it was just for an overnight trip, and my wife and I wanted to save money, so she said “love hotels are cheap... and usually have Internet connections.” I thought ‘why not?’ Anyway, if the word ‘cheap’ didn’t sell it for me, the word ‘Internet’ certainly did.

So we quickly came across a love hotel in some Seoul backstreet near the Blue House, although I’ve learned that in Korea love hotels certainly don’t feel compelled to hide themselves away. That said, they do try to maintain a certain air of privacy, with curtains at the entrance to the drive-in areas to avoid cars and perhaps car licence-plates being seen, which always gave me the impression that a lot of older people might be using the hotels given that younger people generally own fewer cars – and probably don’t care about that kind of privacy as much. This quickly led me to believe that love hotels are frequently the venue for affairs in Korea. But if that didn’t convince me, when we reached the counter it also had a curtain over it, our money went underneath and a hand comes back with a key. No faces are visible and it’s all quite seedy actually, which made me feel vaguely guilty. I felt like trying to look underneath the curtain to say “we’re married”, but then I suppose everyone feeling guilty says that.

Last week I talked about going to DVD bangs with two Korean women, which in retrospect – given the area we were in – looked bad. And in some ways I felt the same way at the love hotel – if the staff had seen my face it wasn’t going to do anything positive for the reputation of foreigners. Then again, love hotels don’t always do much with foreigners for the reputation of the Koreans who run them – last year there wasn’t enough hotel space at the inaugural Korean Grand Prix, so a number of journalists ended up staying in love hotels – perhaps unsuspectingly. Anyway, the main point it that they were charged $310 per night – in other words they were ripped off – which means that evidently the love hotel owners realised they were foreigners early into the transaction – curtains or not.

While it might be cheap – unless you happen to be an unsuspecting foreigner – it’s not necessarily easy to get a good night’s rest there, because my wife was worried about hidden cameras. I don’t know if this is just an urban legend or whether it actually happens – actually I suspect it probably does happen sometimes. So it’s all about undressing in a part of the room where you think the camera won’t see you, then hiding under the covers and sleeping. I don’t want to be famous on the Korean Internet.

So I guess the love hotels are still too much of a risk for some. I was up on Hwangryeong Mountain late one night in Busan taking shots of the city after dark, and there were a few cars parked along the road, spaced apart. There seemed to be some kind of activity in a couple of the cars, and one of them had the stereotypical steamed up windows, and the car was moving around. Given the executive and old fashioned nature of the car concerned, I imagined there had to be an older couple inside.

Adultery is a Criminal Offence in Korea

Of course, adultery is illegal in Korea, so people have to be careful. I was really shocked when I found out about this law, but perhaps it goes some way to explain some of the behaviour I’ve encountered. When my wife and I were at another love hotel, another couple happened to come out of the room at the same time as us, and as soon as they saw us they dashed back inside.

I don’t know what to think about the adultery law. On the one hand, adultery is a bad thing, but on the other hand, in my opinion it seems like the kind of law the Taliban would have, and not something you find in a modern country.

I think the law creates a bad impression of South Korea. Maybe it’s not fair expecting Korea to be socially liberal, but this country is very keen to attract foreign investment and foreign companies, but I imagine business executives in foreign companies look at Korean society as a whole before they decide to come here and think “what kind of country is this?”

What I can’t figure out about this law is that legislators are mainly men, and men are usually willing adulterers – in fact male politicians around the world are known for their affairs – so why did these men create and pass this law? Do they like living dangerously or were they really worried about their lives? [I left this question hanging but I’m convinced that men passed this law to control women in the traditionally misogynistic Korean court system, although more recently judges may have been a little more balanced in their judgements].

It’s also worth making some comparisons between South Korea and other countries. China is not known for being socially liberal, but adultery isn’t a criminal offence there. But then adultery is a criminal offence in the U.S. state of New Hampshire – it isn’t enforced and there are people trying to get it removed from the statute books.

I think the whole issue raises some fundamental questions about freedom and democracy in South Korea. Should the majority be able to dictate to – and criminalise – a minority that don’t meet their moral standards? For that matter, what right does the government have to legislate people’s sex lives?

It’s a dangerous road to go down in my opinion. Some Islamic countries have ‘moral police’ who enforce compliance with Sharia Law – is that really what the police should be doing in Korea? Last year, I read about an incident in Malaysia where the ‘morality police’ were knocking on people’s doors in a hotel, and they ended up arresting 52 unmarried couples. I suppose if the Korean police really wanted to enforce the law here they could just visit love hotels, check people’s marital status, and make arrests. To be fair, they don’t, but the fact that the law exists means that one day they could, or just choose to do it selectively to target certain individuals or groups, which is why bad laws should never be on the statute books. Anyway, as far as Korea is concerned, I think the people should be spending their time arresting motorcyclists who ride on the pavements [sidewalks], rather than getting involved in policing people’s relationships.

Korean Porn Movies

While I don’t worry about getting arrested in a love hotel, I do worry about the perceived issue of hidden cameras and ending up on the Internet, but I haven’t avoided Korea’s love hotels despite this. When we went to a funeral in Namhae we found ourselves in the countryside and it was quite isolated. As you can imagine, there wasn’t a proper hotel for miles, but there was a love hotel just up the road from the the funeral hall. So given that Korean funerals tend to be multi-day events, and given that we didn’t want to sleep in the funeral hall with a heaving mass of older Koreans, we had little choice but to stay in a love hotel once again.

This one was even less subtle because even if the building's fake Roman columns and cupid statues didn’t give the game away to the uninitiated, it had a large collection of pornographic videos outside the elevator on our floor - most appeared to be Korean-made. It also had a great looking Jacuzzi placed centrally within the room, but sadly we daren’t use it because of the potential for hidden cameras.

Korean Culture

Staying in a love hotel is an interesting experience. When it comes down to it, staying in hotels in England is often all the same, but Korean love hotels have character. At the risk of giving Korean newspapers even more reasons to hate us, I think it’s something every foreigner should try at least once. They are part of what Korea is, and part of the cultural experience here.

Planned air date: 2011-06-29 @ ~19:30

Footnote

Five weeks after the planned air date of this piece, South Korea's Constitutional Court overturned the provision in the Criminal Code imposing a maximum two-year prison sentence on adulterers, saying it was 'an infringement on the sphere of sexual life that society should maintain on its own' and that 'the state was excessively restricting a matter of personal decision.'

Busan e-FM Week 6: Busan Festivals, Events and Places

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Background

By the time I reached my sixth week at Busan e-FM, they’d moved from the centrally-based Yeonsan-dong KNN building to Centum City in Haeundae, in the increasingly fashionable Eastern fringe of the city, where KNN are building their monstrous new headquarters.

Introduction

As everyone knows, there’s certainly always a lot happening in Busan, so for my sixth week on Inside Out Busan at Busan e-FM, I thought I’d talk about some of my experiences visiting festivals, and going out to various events and places here in the city.

Busan Fireworks Festival

My first festival was the Busan Fireworks Festival in 2006 – I think it was only the second year they’d held it then. I remember when we reached the nearby subway station many people rushed off the train and walked fast – or even ran – towards the beach. It gave me a real sense that something exciting was about to take place.

And it was exciting. Sometimes it feels that Korea is a little too obsessed with Seoul, but Busan has the sea and its beaches, and you can’t get that in the capital. It was a bit cold, and sitting on pebbles for three hours isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world – but that was the point I thought that maybe Busan was a better city to live in. Actually I was listening to ‘What’s Popin Busan’ on Busan e-FM a few weeks ago, and the Fireworks Festival sounds even better now. Also, showing movies afterwards is good – when we went it just ended and everyone headed off the beach at the same time. There was a crush and it was a little worrying.

I haven’t been again since. I live in Saha-gu so coming to events in Haeundae can mean two to three hours of travelling. I have to admit, it does put me off sometimes. But it wasn’t long before I was back in the Haeundae area for the New Year’s Sunrise Festival.

Being on the beach at 6am

So the Sunrise Festival meant being on the beach at 6am. We don’t have this culture of watching sunrises in England, so I was really surprised at just how many people were there – tens of thousands I’m sure. Unfortunately it was cloudy. Eventually we saw the sun about forty minutes after it rose. And there wasn’t much to do except stand and wait. I’m glad we did it though – it’s certainly an interesting way to start the year. But of course, you can’t predict the weather.

And many other places

Actually, it could have been worse. Last year I went to the Last Sunset Festival on Dadaepo Beach – it was about minus ten degrees and my hands were shaking so much I could hardly take photos properly. It was the same with the Pusan International Film Festival – we saw a movie outside but it was a bit too cold to enjoy it that year. I think PIFF has been held a bit earlier in the last couple of years.

It certainly feels like I’ve been to a lot of festivals in Busan during my time here. I try to get out and do things. Of course, it’s not just about festivals, becase there are a lot of shows and concerts going on. Maybe compared to Seoul, Busan doesn’t have a big reputation as a cultural centre, but I think that’s unfair because there seems to be far more happening here than I’d ever find it possible to experience.

Although there is the language barrier problem

The language barrier presents problems though. Sometimes there isn’t any information in English, even at visiting foreign exhibitions such as those held at the Busan Museum of Modern Art. I’ve been to performances such as the famous Nanta because it’s non-verbal, but I can’t go and watch a Korean stage play, or anything in the Korean language. That works both ways – because when foreign actos come over here, it really has to be for non-verbal performances too. And I’ve seen how that can be a problem.

I’ve seen foreign performers have difficulties here. I attended a French stage play by a famous choreographer as part of the Busan Intenational Performing Arts Festival – it was called 'Comédie!' There was a question and answer session afterwards with the performers, and the first person to stand up basically said "the performance is called Comedy and it’s pitched as a comedy... but it didn’t seem funny." It was really rather awkward. On the other hand, I was quite nervous when the famous British-based mime artist Nola Rae did a performance at Kyungsung University, but the audience seemed to like that.

Music concerts are sometimes easier in terms of language. I’ve seen Jeon Jeduk and Malo here, but I got the impression – from what’s been said – that quite a few famous entertainers from Seoul don’t often come down to Busan, because they don’t feel the need to, which is a real shame if that’s true.

I think – quite often – the costs of these events can be quite high, but actually one of the best performances I attended was by a choir – the Busan Metropolitan City Chorus – and the tickets were only 1,000 won. I think the local government subsidised that.

Sport

Baseball is another cheap recommendation. I went to a baseball game – the Lotte Giants at Sajik Stadium – and it only cost 6,000 won. We don’t play baseball in England, so that was a really amazing experience, especially because of the noisy crowd. A few years ago I watched a movie called Mr. Baseball about an ex-New York Yankee playing in Japan, and it really seemed to capture the atmosphere of Japanese baseball. I kind of hoped that Korean baseball would be the same – and it really was. They have people in the crowd encouraging them to be noisy, it was great. It’s a shame I don’t really understand the game very well, but if I ever get the time I could see myself really getting into it.

I’ve also been to see KT Sonicboom. Basketball’s not popular in England either, so that was the first time I’d seen a game. I expected it to be a bit quieter – but they still had a guy in front of us encouraging the crowd, so it was noisy. I’m not so sure about having very young cheerleaders dancing right in front of me though. That was a bit much. I could see myself developing a taste for basketball though. I guess that as an English person living in Korea, I have to accept becoming more Americanised when it comes to sport, because sports which are popular in England, such as football, really aren’t that popular here – except when the national team plays.

Favourite places

Because I live in the west of Busan, I spend a lot of time in Nampodong. It’s mainly about shopping and eating there, but it has two large cinemas opposite each other, and one of those rare independent cinemas showing more obscure foreign films a little further up.

Bosudong Book Street is nearby, with dozens of book stores and all its cultural heritage. Because of technology, I fear we might be seeing the end of an era there. And despite the distance, I do like Haeundae; it’s nice to eat of drink with a view of the sea – and of course, it’s an advantage Busan has over Seoul.

Then another thing, although I haven’t done it too much, is climbing mountains at night such as Hwangryeongsan, to take photos of the city, because there really are some spectacular views of Busan to be found.

So I can’t see that I’ll ever get bored here. Maybe this isn’t Seoul, but I think the authorities in Busan seem to be trying really hard to make this a culturally interesting city. I honestly feel overwhelmed sometimes by how much there is to see and do.


Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2010-12-01 @ ~19:30

The Battle of Tsushima

Korean Mother went on a two day trip to the Japanese island of Tsushima – which is called Daemado in Korea. You shouldn't read too much into the different naming – it doesn't necessarily make it another Dokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks situation.

However... in March 2005 the local council in Korean city of Masan designated June 19 as Daemado Day, claiming that this was the date in 1419 the island was annexed by the Korean Joseon Dynasty. Therefore, Daemado is Korean territory. But this isn't necessarily just some Tea Party-style fringe movement; in 2008 50 members of the Korean parliament stated their support for the territorial claim over Tsushima, and an opinion poll at the time showed 50.6% support amongst Koreans for the claim. Read on for a little more plot thickening.

So Korean Mother went to Tsushima – or Daemado - and it was meant as a short holiday, not the advanced recon party for a future invasion. Apparently Korean trips to Tsushima are quite popular. I once read that back in the 1980s the best slogan the Korean tourist authorities could come up with for a Japanese campaign was the rather weak but technically correct “Korea – the closest country to Japan” - which is practically apologetic in its lacking of ideas regarding what was attractive about Korea at the time. Now the roles are reversed, because – to paraphrase - Tsushima is the closest part of Japan to Korea.

Unfortunately Tsushima rather projects the image of being the Japanese version of Namhae. Rural and, what the tourism brochures might describe as 'contemplative'. Perhaps Tsushima isn't like that, but if not, the official Korean tour did little to sell it. The tour itinerary included – and I'm not making this up – a primary school and two banks, in addition to two very small temples. At least the latter is more fitting with a trip to another country, I'm not so sure what a 'cultural visit' to a bank really gives the tourist.

Then there's the Japanese hotel experience. It had no toilet paper or anything else which couldn't be screwed down (to be fair I've stayed in a Japanese hotel and it wasn't like this – but then I wasn't on Tsushima). And the meals were apparently minimalistic – even by the minimalist standards of the Japanese. Hunger became the Koreans' constant travelling companion. It made me wonder whether, given the festering animosity the Korean territorial claims have created on Tsushima, these two facts were entirely disconnected.

So when Korean Mother got back, the first place she and her friends visited was a Korean restaurant near the ferry terminal. The manager saw the terrible hunger writ large across their faces and said “You've just come back from Daemado haven't you?”

Oh, and that plot thickening I promised? While they were being shown around Tsushima the Korean tour guide told the assembled visitors... “Daemado was Korean territory you know, but now Japan claims it is theirs, so we have to get it back...”

Horror Hospital

Recently I wrote about some of the problems my wife and I had experienced with the maternity hospital we were in, but things were going to turn out to be worse for other people in what seemed to me like a perfect storm of Korean cultural issues.

The first aspect of Korean culture which differs from my own country lies in the fundamental nature of the birth experience itself. In Korea, women can – within a period of around four weeks - choose when to give birth; they pick a date and then report to the hospital to be induced or – if this is their preferred option, to have a caesarian section to deliver the baby. Now add to this ability to schedule a birth to the Korean thanksgiving holiday of Chuseok, one of those extremely rare times of the year when family might not be out working 12-hours a day, apparently making it a good time to schedule said birth. Next add in the near total contempt some business owners demonstrate for their customers in Korea, nurtured through a pathological pursuit of profit that might even make a financial trader blush. Add a little of the legendary local construction quality on top, and mix all these things together to achieve predictable results.

So this is what happened. A large number of women checked themselves in to have their babies during the Chuseok holiday, and it was probably double what the hospital could cope with. Normally, the recovery area of the maternity hospital, the 'sanhujoriwon' (산후조리원), takes up three floors – over Chuseok, the hospital expanded it to six by commandeering other floors which were not designed for the purpose. Whereas my wife's room was solely for her with en-suite, a desk, a TV and double bed for the husband to sleep in, the Chuseok mothers ended up in shared rooms with four beds and little else. That makes it no better than a bad British experience, and possibly worse because the already seemingly understaffed Korean hospital had not employed extra personnel for the holiday rush. Crucially for the people here though, this was not what they are accustomed to expecting, and it certainly wasn't what they were sold in the brochure.

And it gets worse. I said the hospital hadn't employed any extra staff, but in fact they'd gone the other way. The cleaning staff had the week off. So you have these new mothers, packed into rooms kept at abnormally high temperatures because of the belief here that this is better for their 'shattered' bodies, there's a lot of sweating and a lot of clothes going in the hospital wash baskets. But now nobody is around to clean them, piles of smelly clothes are building up in the corridors, and mothers are running out of clean clothes to wear. You can imagine the situation with bedding, bearing in mind that many of these women have undergone operations or procedures and were still bleeding.

And then there was the woman in the room next to us. Like my wife, she had been lucky enough to have her baby just before Chuseok, so she had a room to herself as she was supposed to. But the bathroom had a drainage problem. It was fitted incorrectly with the drainage grate too high, so after showering water would just collect creating an indoor pool. The room isn't exactly new so presumably it's been like this since it was built two or three years ago. She complained to the Sanhujoriwon Director - he offered her a small tool to push the water uphill into the pipe. She'd just given birth and could hardly walk, but the Samhujoriwon Director apparently thought nothing of her bending over pushing water around the floor. She protested.

Was he embarrassed? Afraid? His response was “If you don't like it, I have plenty of other women who would gladly have your room.” And sadly he was probably right, because when you're packed into a small room with three other women with no facilities whatsoever, you'd certainly see a single room with an inch of standing water in the bathroom as an upgrade. This is not really a good excuse, and it reminds me of the time I found a long black hair baked into my pizza at an expensive restaurant in Busan, and when we complained, the manager looked at us incredulously and said “well, it's only one.” On the face of it, Korea often seems to have a positive customer service culture – but perhaps only because they want to sell you something – once the transactions is done, attitudes can rapidly change – not always, but often enough to make you feel like you're stepping into a minefield every time.

It must have been bad because the husbands got unionised and all went to see the Hospital Director to complain, and by this time you can probably guess how that went. 'If you don't like my hospital, pick another!' I understand that a private Internet forum for mothers in Busan is now buzzing with anger about it, so word of mouth may at least provide a little karmic retribution.

Given the appalling conditions in the lower decks it almost seems churlish to mention another area in which the experience fell below expectations, but I will for completeness. The 'samhujoriwon' experience is about recovery and education, with mothers attending various classes to help them transition from hospital to coping on their own with their babies. There were no classes during Chuseok which meant that of the ten days of activities promised, many women only got seven. It's understandable that this is just bad luck and while I would expect cleaning to continue during the holiday, educational classes are a bit much to ask for. But there certainly won't be any refunds for the women who were short changed in this and other ways during the holidays. By this time, I couldn't say I was surprised.

Can I name and shame the hospital here? Sadly, probably not. The way things seem to work here is that criticising companies in public can easily lead to lawsuits. And in a nutshell, this tells you a lot about reason why the Hospital Director all but laughed in the faces of his patients and their families.

The problems I detail above effected others far more than they effected my wife. We were lucky – if you can call it luck - to have our own room away from some of the horrors. But I asked my wife, in principle rather than with intention, what could we have done to formally complain about the hospital had we suffered like some others had suffered. I was curious. She really wasn't sure, because often it seems people really don't ask those kind of questions here. I had an idea that ultimately, hospitals had to be licensed, and medical companies that ask new mothers to crawl around the bathroom floors of understaffed hospitals in dirty clothes are probably not what the government have in mind when handing out those licenses. So one imagines there must be some mechanism for calling people who run institutions like this to account. But it's not really my problem and it's a given that the Koreans who suffered won't take action either. Nothing will change. Meanwhile the Korean Government will keep talking about their desire to promote medical tourism to Korea within the Asian region, with discounts for properly qualified plumbers, presumably.

The Sandman

When I discovered that finance ministers and central bankers from the G-20 were meeting in Busan I felt like I wanted to go and stand outside the hotel to watch because suddenly, as a financial trader, my world was coming to me - here in the relative backwater that is Korea's second city, and I wondered if I would ever again be in the presence of so much collective inaction. But as events transpired, by the time they reached Busan, all I wanted to do was catch a glimpse of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer and shout “Stop letting President Obama kick sand in our faces, Mr. Osborne!” (a long story of Brit-bashing and appalling double standards, especially considering how Britain dealt with Piper Alpha).

But when we reached The Westin Chosun Hotel where the G-20 meeting was being held, it was by a complete coincidence. We'd decided some time ago to attend the Haeundae 'Sand Festival' not realising its proximity to the meeting either on the calendar or geographically. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn't get to see my country's finance minister while walking past a stationary policeman every three meters on wooded path near the Hotel. As much as I would have loved to take a photo of the scene, that would most likely result in arrest in my country these days, and while twenty-three years after the end of military government Korea's normal policing style could best be described as 'apologetic', I wasn't going to push my luck.

My wife expressed a casual hope that the North Koreans wouldn't decide to attack Haeundae Beach while we were there. That's the thing about our northern neighbour - you have to think of the most reckless thing they could possibly do, and assume that sooner or later, they'll try it. It didn't seem quite such an absurd idea five minutes later when the sirens went off and I was treated to the sight of lots of Koreans all looking at each other in confusion. The first people I looked at were the police - who appeared completely unconcerned as usual. I suppose it must be normal. We don't get to Haeundae Beach very often - the poor part of town is too far away.



What wasn't quite as normal was the building that was evidently on fire at the far end of the beach, spewing somewhat unpleasant smoke down towards us from time to time. It probably wasn't quite the image the Korean authorities wanted to their international guests with their grandstand view in the hotel.

I did eventually find a smiling fat-cat, but not from The Westin Chosun - it was a sand-sculpture.

We may have arrived at the beach too early in the day. There weren't huge numbers of sculptures - a number were by the same Dutch artist, Jeroen Advocaat, and although a competition with around twenty amateur entrants seemed to be slowly getting under way it was clearly going to take some time to come to fruition. A dance contest was nowhere near beginning and further down the beach a sand-surfing ramp and football pitches were similarly lacking in activity. What I did find was a rather fascinating memorial to the Korean War - but more on this later.

I reached the end of the beach and the building which was belching smoke. It was not entirely surprising to find that it was having some construction work done - it often seems to be the way.

Unfortunately shortly after taking these shots I saw a casualty being loaded into an ambulance, escalating it from another one of those all-too-common unattended under-construction fires to something more serious.

By the time I was half-way back the football had started, but that was about the only development. Much like the G-20 finance ministers over the last two years, I guess our timing was a little off.

The Choir

The day after the French Comedy I found myself at the Geumjeong Cultural Center ('금정문화회관') in Busan - I believe that around half the districts in the city have their own cultural centre - for a performance by the Busan Metropolitan City Chorus.

Unlike the French Comedy, which had cost 22,500 won per ticket (about £13/$20), tickets to see the Busan Chorus were a mere 1,000 won (59 pence/88 cents) - a special promotion as part of the event's proximity to Children's Day on May 5th and Parents' Day on May 8th. This meant that the tickets only cost us 10 won more than the price of the forty-five minute subway journey to get there.

When I write about the costs of cultural events in Korea I usually add the equivalent British Pounds and US Dollar amounts to provide some context. However, an additional factor is that the average salary in South Korea is lower - according to the IMF in 2009 the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) of the US in dollar terms was approximately $46,000, the UK was $35,000 and South Korea was $28,000. Furthermore, there is a large diversity of incomes in Korea, with Korea's income gap by gender being the largest in the OECD, many people earning less than the minimum wage - not just the young in my experience - and over 3 million Korean households being classed as living in poverty. In other words, attending cultural events may well be largely in the domain of the better off, which is why cultural initiatives priced to be more inclusive is, in principle, such a good idea.

Unfortunately, the price didn't translate into audience numbers in practice - vast areas of seats were empty by the time the performance was scheduled to begin. It crossed my mind that the 1,000 won pricing may have actually devalued the experience. My wife had been a little under the weather due to her pregnancy, and even we had paused to reconsider our attendance beforehand, which had the tickets been more expensive we likely wouldn't have.

So when fifty choir members walked out onto the stage, it was sadly entirely possible that they outnumbered the audience, meaning that unlike the previous day at the French Comedy, if they decided to rush us we were in trouble. I felt rather sorry for them, but if conductor Kim Kangkyu ('김강규') was discouraged he didn't show it as he proceeded to talk the audience through the various pieces with the enthusiasm and smile of a true believer. It was quite infectious.

And the Busan Metropolitan City Chorus seemed equally determined. I have to admit, the 1,000 won pricing had not served to build up any high expectations in my mind, and it wasn't what I expected in a half-empty district cultural centre a little off the beaten track. As they launched into a beautiful rendition of Caro mio ben I thought "Who are these people, and what are they doing here?"

The Chorus was not merely going to limit itself to some arias though, as it broke out of the opera genre and into a rousing and surprising rendition of the Scottish classic Loch Lomand. I thought I detected a couple of 'lubs' rather than 'loves' in there, but generally it sounded for all the world as though they were singing in a Scottish accent. If I'd closed my eyes I could have almost imagine the aftermath of an English rugby defeat. To provide some balance, England's Down by the Salley Gardens was also part of the brief choral tour of the Disunited Kingdom.

The varied repertoire next took us through Germany's Morgen! and Von ewiger Liebe, before returning to more familiar Italian territory with Tosti's La Serenata, and L'Ultima Canzone. The performances were good and I felt more than a little guilty afterwards that we'd considered not attending, because it would have been unfortunate to have missed it.

I was sorry for the choir in that they probably outnumbered the audience, but I learned later that they'd recorded a CD and appeared at more mainstream venues many times, so the day's rather limited audience was probably nothing more than an aberration.

Comédie!

Another weekend another festival. This time it was the Busan International Performing Arts Festival, or 'BIPAF'. Invariably all festivals in Busan are inexplicably 'International', but this one genuinely warrants the name in that it involved productions from France, Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Russia, as well as Korea. We travelled to the 'Busan Cultural Center' in Daeyeondong, Namgu, to see a performance unambiguously titled 'Comedy' by the - according to the announcer beforehand - 'world famous' Nasser Martin-Gousset Company otherwise known as 'La Maison'. I can't speak to the veracity of this claim, but Nasser Martin Gousset does at least have a page on the French version of Wikipedia.

I'm still at the stage in Korea where I'm not necessarily clear on exactly where we are going until I get there, so I was surprised to find that the Cultural Center was perched on a hill overlooking the U.N. Cemetery which I've seen in passing before, but have yet to actually visit despite it being on my list of places to go. On a clear day the views over the city must be good - but this wasn't quite one of them. Busan has very few perfectly clear days in my experience.

The complex itself seems impressive, though I had little time to look around. There's a small park on one side of the grounds, for once reminiscent of a proper English park rather than being a codeword for 'somewhere that hasn't been built on yet'. The large buildings and their positioning relative to the city suggest that this is a place where culture is taken seriously, so Busan did well there.

The production itself seemed to begin in the manner one might expect of a traditional farce. A theft is attempted before the stage gives way to a party, complete with live jazz musicians who play at various points through the performance. The performers do well to bring the supposed 1960's atmosphere to life, but there came a point at which I began to wonder whether it was really funny. Korean humour is not, in my experience, generally noted for its subtlety, and if I, coming from a country noted for its sometimes dark, dry and often odd sense of humour, didn't get it, I wondered how the Koreans were faring. It's tempting as an English person sat feet away from fifteen French people to feel some affinity towards them - we are geographical neighbours after all - but by the time proceedings drew to a close, I was questioning the cultural divide between us was larger than the narrowness of 'La Manche' suggested.

There was a question and answer session after the end, and my wife wondered whether we should stay. It had at least been interesting, and for an event subtitled 'Defining the Boundaries of Theatre', this goal had certainly been attained in the mixing of a stage-play and live jazz music in a performance with an apparently unapologetically disjointed narrative, titled and pitched as something it might not quite be. I'm not going to pretend though - sometimes you just have to call it - it didn't click for me. Maybe that's because it strayed into "L'art pour l'art" - Art for Art's Sake - and being from both a working class and science background I need to find meaning in what I see. Perhaps I'm just not qualified to offer a critique.

The first question was not so much a question as a statement - a man stood up and said that the performance was called 'Comedy' and it was pitched as a comedy, but it didn't seem funny. A horrific silence momentarily descended over the theatre as the translator faced the reality of having to translate that. I wondered whether the BIPAF organisers had been remiss in their descriptions, because they certainly had been when they told a friend of ours it was fine to bring her ten-year old daughter - possible drug-taking, nudity in obvious silhouette behind a lit screen, simulated sex in closets, questionable acts of intimacy in public, cigar smoke wafting over the audience, all mixed with alcohol abuse and stabbings with scissors, might not be what you would ordinary choose to expose your child to. Personally, most of that's more my level, and I always welcome public displays of suggested homosexuality in the hope it encourages greater tolerance. But the director stood his ground, and follow-up questions pressed the issue. Sat in the second row, I felt trapped in the middle of a cultural clash, the mood of which might well be dangerously deteriorating, and even though there were fifteen performers - the most foreigners I've ever seen together in my time in Korea - I comforted myself in the belief that if they rushed us the remaining audience could probably fight them off.

The truth is it must be hard to face the cultural divide after working so hard for ninety minutes, and I really felt for them. It seems the French just can't catch a break in this country. Still, there is one stereotype in which English people radically differ from their French neighbours - our supposed 'stiff-upper lip' forces us to hide our true feelings in the face of adversity - something I find to be an extremely important survival attribute in Korea. French people on the other hand, have a rather delightful if possibly misunderstood reputation for not always hiding their unhappiness. I noticed immediately once the questions began, but said nothing. The Koreans in our party noticed anyway. Somehow the photo I took of the question and answer session reminded me of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, and the mood was about as ominous.

5,600 miles is a long way to travel to be told you're not funny. I know.

The clash of cultures continued as Korea's hierarchical society next wanted each performer to state their age. One lady answered 'twelve'. Bravo!

Fortunately some less controversial questions and statements were made, and then the mood was somewhat salvaged by the Asian performer on the stage. She was asked via the translator if she was Korean. Logically, the chances of this were astronomically low despite the Korean-Wave belief that Koreans might in fact be secretly involved in every facet of society overseas. But she was. This was a major revelation for almost everyone concerned, including it seemed, our Korean translator who had seemed to struggle in her role. The Korean-French performer then largely took over the answering of questions, the mood warmed up, everyone left more placated and a fight was avoided.

Surviving Picasso

"Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth." - Pablo Picasso

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has an exhibition on tour in Korea entitled "Monet to Picasso". Having spent three months at the Seoul Arts Center, where it attracted over 100,000 visitors in little over a month, it's recently arrived at the Busan Museum of Modern Art in Haeundae-gu for a two-month stay. As the title suggests, the exhibition features famous masterpieces from artists such as Monet and Picasso, in addition to Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Matisse, Renoir and van Gogh. According to the Museum the insurance cost for the exhibition was around 1,000bn won (£586m/$894m), which I suppose puts the collected value into some sort of perspective.

Given that Haeundae-gu is on the other side of Busan from us, it took an hour to get their by subway. It would have been forty-five minutes by bus, but if you have to stand that means a forty-five minute physical workout as the driver alternates between emergency braking and acceleration. Haeundae is an interesting part of Busan which has a number of places of cultural interest in close proximity - the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center for example - better known as BEXCO, is just across the road from the Museum. Unfortunately Haeundae isn't in any way centrally located, being out at the very edge of the subway network, so it isn't very convenient for many. On the other hand, given that Haeundae is the Dubai of Busan, perhaps the museums and exhibition centres are in the right place.

The ticket price was 12,000 won (around £7/$11) per person. Audio guides could be rented for 3,000 won, which read an explanation for 33 of the 96 masterpieces, providing a total running time of 50 minutes. This would have been quite useful, given that beyond the name of the artist, the year of their birth and death, the name of the work and the year it was created, there was no attempt to explain anything specifically about the piece, but unfortunately it was only available in Korean. That's a shame because one can imagine the exhibition attracting tourists with an interest in art from nearby countries such as Japan and China, not to mention the English-speaking expatriate community within Korea.


It's also possible to go on a guided tour of selected artwork within the exhibition, but I wouldn't recommend it. While we moved around the Museum a herd of around 40 people stomped their way around in a hot and chaotic pursuit of their guide, who had to talk from a platform with a microphone. It was clear that views of the paintings were hopelessly obscured.

The exhibition itself was arranged into four galleries each with a separate theme - respectively Realism and Modern Life, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, Picasso and the Avante-Garde, and American Art. Each at least had an opening explanation in Korean and English for those without audio guides. Most works were paintings, but amongst the famous sculptures were Constantin Brâncuşi's The Kiss (1916), Rodin's Eternal Springtime, and Picasso's Owl.

Photos aren't allowed within the exhibit of course, although a couple of copies of the genuine paintings visitors have just seen hang on the walls of the 'photo zone'.

Beyond this, the Chosun Ilbo currently has an reasonable overview in English and Korean, and the Philadephia Museum of Art's website carries information on such representative works as van Gogh's Still Life with a Bouquet of Daises, Manet's U.S.S. "Kearsarge" and the C.S.S. "Alabama", Renoir's Portrait of Mademoiselle Legrand, Degas' Ballet Class and Matisse's Yellow Odalisque.

The nature of the audio guide meant that my wife stopped at particular paintings for much longer than others, so rather than browse each one equally I was left waiting at certain pieces and then passing over others more quickly than I might otherwise had done. Unfortunately the friends we'd arrived with were making their own pace too, so we didn't want to be holding them up at the end.

After the main exhibit, we went to investigate a couple of side galleries containing the work of Vietnamese artists, and had just entered another containing a Japanese collection when a member of staff politely told us they would be closing in a few minutes. We'd entered the Museum at the admittedly late time of 3.30pm, but apparently it was now 7pm. Somehow, the time had flown by. It was a pity because there was clearly a lot more to investigate in the Museum, and while the genuine art enthusiast must consider coming face to face with an original work by the likes of Monet or Picasso as something of a pilgrimage, I was equally happy looking at the paintings of Kim Chong Hak, so perhaps a return trip is on the horizon.