Visions of the Future in Korea
(Update: link to the night shot of Seoul fixed)
Korea likes to present itself as a technological nirvana to the outside world, and things like phones you can watch TV on the subway with or really really fast downloading of porn are certainly all well and good, but anyone spending more than a week here can tell you that Korea still has a lot of unglamorous but simple bread and butter issues to deal with that won’t get mentioned on CNN or Arirang any time soon. Having said that, there is enough of a cyberpunk, Blade Runneresque feel to Korea that it more than adequately qualifies as a fantasy of the future that I had as a child or teenager, and sometimes its nice to sit back and relax with a few Black Russians at night, look out of the window, and remind ourselves how fucking amazing it is to be here and alive in 2007. Seriously, think about it, and allow yourself the huge grin that you can’t help but feel coming on…yes it’s 2007 already, nearly 2008! Hell, I can remember when 1995 was cool.
If you’re not blessed with a view out of your window that does it for you, at least in that way, may I present my desktop wallpaper above (click on it), a night view of Seoul and easily the best non-pornographic choice. Grab a stiff drink and enjoy, and as an added bonus here’s my favorite trance track at the moment too to help you get in the mood:
I do have one quibble though: where’s the damn flying cars from BladeRunner? 2019 is coming up, and I still don’t see any in the pipeline. I could sooo easily be this frustrated anchorman from this Onion news video available here.
I haven’t read the Onion in a while, so I’ve just spent 10 minutes laughing to the point at suffocation at that, and then another hour at all the other videos available on that link, so I think I’ll definitely have to make the Onion my homepage from now on. A big thanks to the blog Paleo-future for bringing it to my attention, and if you’re into SF, history, and historical visions of the future, and if you’ve read this far then you probably are, then I heartily recommend that site.
Have a nice weekend everyone.
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I like this post on several different levels. I totally agree with you that living here has a kind of sci-fi feel to it sometimes. Black Russians are my cocktail of choice. The night time view of Seoul is now my new wallpaper. I work just next to the big tall building in the middle and live 30 mins walk behind it in the other direction so I walk home through the thick of those tall buildings every night. Thanks!
Well, what with what I’ve heard about you from out mutual friends, after learning that we definitely have to hang out next time I’m in Seoul! My wife and I have been meaning to go up for ages, and now that I’m on a break of only two hours work a week until January, then we probably will sometime before our trip downunder in 4 weeks. I’ll keep you posted.
for a country with so much broadband, surprisingly free wi-fi was pretty hard to find….though obviously the cheap PC rooms compensated
Anytime
Given the driving culture, I’m very glad there are no flying cars. That’d be even more car accidents and deaths… but that said, I partly came to Korea as a kind of living-research-project — I expected living in a future-shocked society would be great research for an SF writer. And it is, in several different ways.