Korean Job Discussion Forums

[charlieDD]

Once the U.S. military moves further south to their new bases and leaves Yongsan behind, what do you expect will come of the base ? What do you think should become of the base?

My ideas: A premium university campus, complete with housing, gymnasiums, restaurants, etc.

Or, talk about English Village ! Move over Paju ! That would make one heck of an English village.

What I think will happen in reality? L A N D G R A B; pocket lining; wheel greasing . . . and maybe a park greenbelt connecting the park at the other end (that used to be the golf course there) to the military museum at the other end. High rise after high rise everywhere else.

Maybe not. Maybe the government will see it as an opportunity to do something good for the city, sort of like Central Park.

We'll see.

Oh, . . below is something related that I added to another thread which got me thinking about this thread's topic. I'll cut and paste it here:

Reading from a copy of an old Korea Herald from 1993 I believe it was, I came across an article about how the American military had returned an area of Yongsan base that had been a golf course to the city of Seoul.

First, the Korean or Seoul government had to pay the U.S. government some money for it; it was not simply turned over. So, "all your bases are ours" doesn't seem quite to hold up there.

The other interesting thing: The article talks about how there can be found on the land some animals that haven't been seen in Seoul for some time, like certain birds, squirrels, rabbits, frogs, etc. . . . And get this . . . because the land has been closed from the public for so long. Uh, . .. what about all those Americans (and their Korean guests) who had been playing golf on it for all those years? What about all the Americans who lived on the base all those years?

What they should have been saying is "Thanks to the Americans good stewardship of the land, Seoul will be getting a city park that has animals long thought gone from this city."

And now an afterthought: With that area opened as a park for about ten years now, I wonder how many of those animals remain.

[crazylemongirl]

That assumes the americans ever actually move out. Don't assume it's their fault. I remember reading about the head of USFK complaining about the time it was taking for the move.

Seems Korean politicans like to complain about Yongsan, but actually don't want it to move least the public start paying attention to some of their own ineptitudes such as, letting a bunch of North Korean refugee who were former POW families be rounded by the Chinese and sent back to China.

[RACETRAITOR]

I hear their plan is to turn it into a giant park.

What I think they should do is develop some expensive buildings in there, and take the heat off areas like Dongdaemoon and let them stay sort of run down.

[Mashimaro]

[Ya-ta Boy]

I heard most of it will be turned into apartment buildings. (Yippee! Something new and different.)

clg is right. The US agreed something like 20 years ago to move out. It's been the Korean gov'ts fault for moving so slowly.

There's a thread around here somewhere from just a couple of days ago about some documentary being shown (in Hongdae?) about the imperialist American pigs moving down to Pyeongtaek and the Korean gov't's attack on the poor farmers who will lose their land to a golf course.

[Cerebroden]

ok, first off....

the U.S. is granted the land, we don't actually own it if the koreans wanted us gone they would just say so. Second the issues with moving are simple, current squatters/land owners at humphreys are dragging their heals saying they deserve more and dont' want to move.
According to the SOFA we aren't selling the land back because its not ours to sell. When it happens we'll simply pack up and move, we aren't required to do any improvements such as environmental clean up.
Now yes, it will probably get turned into a park, the Korean economy is moving along quite nicely at the moment but when it slows down and people can't afford the newest electronic gadget to make them happy they are going to need free entertainment hence a nice park.

[Kimchi Cowboy]