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Moondoggy
Joined: 07 Jun 2011
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 Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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| mayorgc wrote: |
I have a giant soft spot for Korea, but I sorta hate how Koreans act during International sporting events.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVDz3XfBQa8
1988 boxing brou ha ha
2002/2010 with James Hewish death threats
2006 with bomb threats to Swiss embassies |
Oh man you have problems. |
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definitely maybe
Joined: 16 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Speedling wrote: |
| I'm looking forward to getting some skiing in this winter! Korea getting the olympic bid is re-assuring me that there must be some half decent slopes over here |
None that I've been to, and I've been to a lot. |
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komerican
Joined: 17 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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Asia has changed a lot since the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. There are now hundreds of millions of middle- class Chinese. That should make some difference. Japan was just way too early, the Chinese were poorer then and the Yen is expensive.
This is not about drawing in European tourists but rather well-off Chinese and Japanese and the rest of Asia. but, yeah, it is a gamble.
| ippy wrote: |
I used to live in Nagano. Its a nice place, and its somewhat proud of the fact that it was the host area to the 1998 winter olympics. I mean it honestly should be, it has some great resorts in and around the area (shiga kogen, hakuba, myoko, nozawa, kita-shiga, madarao, and loads of other smaller areas).
But a few things struck me about the area.
The first is the lack of young people. The city, if anything has contracted since the olympics as young people immediately leave for opportunities in tokyo or kansai. I was reliably informed that they all come scurrying back in the winter season, but the rest of teh year its pretty much under 17 and over 40s. Im not just exaggerating, as i say i did live there, and it was noticeable.
Of course, this isnt unique to nagano, it happens not only all over japan, but all over the world (kids leaving for tokyo, just as they leave for seoul or london). What i am suggesting though is that the winter olympics was pretty mcuh irrelevant in the grand cosmic scheme of things. The city always felt very much like it got murdered by the bubble.
You have on the one hand the absolutely STUNNING zenkoji temple around which the city lives and breathes, and then on the other hand you have half empty departo, a snack bar district taking up way more of the very small downtown than it has any right to take up, an indoor shopping area full of the kind of mom and pop stores youd find in korea (no offence korea), and an incredibly small (for a japanese city) international presence in the form of retail chains.
Compared to hamamatsu (where i lived prior to nagano, which is a bustling and vibrant city about 4 times smaller in population, but has much more going on), its pretty evident that nagano was at some point in teh very recent past a city stretched far beyond its own natural limits.
Of course now its found a kind of stable equilibrium (or at least it had in 2008/9 when i lived there (and seemed a bit more fun in 2011 when i visited it again for a couple of nights - but that was mid winter season when 'everyone comes back'). But it feels like its keeping its head just above water and waiting for a rescue rather than capable of progressing on its own.
I honestly have no idea what happened, i dont know if nagano was always on a downward trajectory even before the winter olympics came or whether the draw of bigger cities as the "only place for real opportunity" was actually that big a deal. Im only going by what i personally felt about the place just from ambling around it and comparing it to the other places i lived and visited in Japan.
Its quite a beatiful region and if i had the opportunity to go back there (one i'll probably make for myself in march next year), id do it in a second. I genuinely love it, but the fact is this: i dont know how much the olympics hurt the economy of nagano, but ten years on it doesnt seem to have helped it all that much.
Oh, and about those olympics.
Heres the podium. It was probably set up as a tribute to the olympics after the event to be looked after and cherished. But although nagano people are proud as hell to have been the hosts of it, well, i think the picture speaks for itself.
http://i52.tinypic.com/33c17bq.jpg
Oh that reminds me! Yudanaka (i stayed there this year when i went to shiga kogen).
Host resort town for the olympic village. Looks like any other semi run-down onsen village in japan. Lots of half empty hotels and the big money comes from the snow monkeys as far as foreign tourists go. There's a few olympics memorabilia in the area, but lifes gone very much back to normal. And normal is pretty much every other small town orbiting nagano city (i lived in one of them). Again, you wouldnt know an international event even come to the area. Aside a couple of bigish hotels (and we arent talking hilton here - we're talking big motels like you get in korea), it looks like it looked in teh photos from 40 or 50 years ago. Probably deliberate, but still if theres been a flood of money and redevelopment here, its hard to know exactly where it went. |
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mayorgc
Joined: 19 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 10:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Moondoggy wrote: |
| mayorgc wrote: |
I have a giant soft spot for Korea, but I sorta hate how Koreans act during International sporting events.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVDz3XfBQa8
1988 boxing brou ha ha
2002/2010 with James Hewish death threats
2006 with bomb threats to Swiss embassies |
Oh man you have problems. |
Nope, you do. |
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SMOE NSET
Joined: 25 Feb 2010
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 10:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Correct me if I am wrong but I remember during Korea's presentation that they would move some of the arenas to the Seoul area after the Olympics were done. I remember the hockey arena was supposed to at least which could also double as a figure skating rink. |
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ippy
Joined: 25 Aug 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 11:09 pm Post subject: |
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| komerican wrote: |
Asia has changed a lot since the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. There are now hundreds of millions of middle- class Chinese. That should make some difference. Japan was just way too early, the Chinese were poorer then and the Yen is expensive.
This is not about drawing in European tourists but rather well-off Chinese and Japanese and the rest of Asia. but, yeah, it is a gamble.
| ippy wrote: |
I used to live in Nagano. Its a nice place, and its somewhat proud of the fact that it was the host area to the 1998 winter olympics. I mean it honestly should be, it has some great resorts in and around the area (shiga kogen, hakuba, myoko, nozawa, kita-shiga, madarao, and loads of other smaller areas).
But a few things struck me about the area.
The first is the lack of young people. The city, if anything has contracted since the olympics as young people immediately leave for opportunities in tokyo or kansai. I was reliably informed that they all come scurrying back in the winter season, but the rest of teh year its pretty much under 17 and over 40s. Im not just exaggerating, as i say i did live there, and it was noticeable.
Of course, this isnt unique to nagano, it happens not only all over japan, but all over the world (kids leaving for tokyo, just as they leave for seoul or london). What i am suggesting though is that the winter olympics was pretty mcuh irrelevant in the grand cosmic scheme of things. The city always felt very much like it got murdered by the bubble.
You have on the one hand the absolutely STUNNING zenkoji temple around which the city lives and breathes, and then on the other hand you have half empty departo, a snack bar district taking up way more of the very small downtown than it has any right to take up, an indoor shopping area full of the kind of mom and pop stores youd find in korea (no offence korea), and an incredibly small (for a japanese city) international presence in the form of retail chains.
Compared to hamamatsu (where i lived prior to nagano, which is a bustling and vibrant city about 4 times smaller in population, but has much more going on), its pretty evident that nagano was at some point in teh very recent past a city stretched far beyond its own natural limits.
Of course now its found a kind of stable equilibrium (or at least it had in 2008/9 when i lived there (and seemed a bit more fun in 2011 when i visited it again for a couple of nights - but that was mid winter season when 'everyone comes back'). But it feels like its keeping its head just above water and waiting for a rescue rather than capable of progressing on its own.
I honestly have no idea what happened, i dont know if nagano was always on a downward trajectory even before the winter olympics came or whether the draw of bigger cities as the "only place for real opportunity" was actually that big a deal. Im only going by what i personally felt about the place just from ambling around it and comparing it to the other places i lived and visited in Japan.
Its quite a beatiful region and if i had the opportunity to go back there (one i'll probably make for myself in march next year), id do it in a second. I genuinely love it, but the fact is this: i dont know how much the olympics hurt the economy of nagano, but ten years on it doesnt seem to have helped it all that much.
Oh, and about those olympics.
Heres the podium. It was probably set up as a tribute to the olympics after the event to be looked after and cherished. But although nagano people are proud as hell to have been the hosts of it, well, i think the picture speaks for itself.
http://i52.tinypic.com/33c17bq.jpg
Oh that reminds me! Yudanaka (i stayed there this year when i went to shiga kogen).
Host resort town for the olympic village. Looks like any other semi run-down onsen village in japan. Lots of half empty hotels and the big money comes from the snow monkeys as far as foreign tourists go. There's a few olympics memorabilia in the area, but lifes gone very much back to normal. And normal is pretty much every other small town orbiting nagano city (i lived in one of them). Again, you wouldnt know an international event even come to the area. Aside a couple of bigish hotels (and we arent talking hilton here - we're talking big motels like you get in korea), it looks like it looked in teh photos from 40 or 50 years ago. Probably deliberate, but still if theres been a flood of money and redevelopment here, its hard to know exactly where it went. |
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you definitely have a point. One need only look at the people buying up swathes of niseko at the moment. Far from it being a little piece of Oz (as its often portrayed), it seems that the biggest movers in the past few years have been the chinese. Not only (according to one of the dudes on snowjapan that lets property), are they filling up some of the highest price sublets, and not only is chinese new year the busiest time by FAR, but i believe its a chinese company that went ahead and bought most of hanazono.
http://www.snowjapanforums.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/410715/New_stuffs_at_Niseko_from_our_.html#Post410715
I should also stress that despite the cynical impression, my post really should have been couched by the following declaration:
When you talk to korean people, you get a sense that the '88 olympics were a real line dividing modern korea from old korea. Theres always this kind of hushed reverence and implication that the '88 olympics transformed the country in a way that just cant be measured financially. Of course, the transformation isnt always seen as being great depending on who you speak to, but many people here see it as a watershed moment when the outside world finally became aware of korea as a non third world free trade IMF sweatshop (that eats dogs)... or whatever it was. Either way, its different and the olympics whether rightly or wrongly is seen as a defining moment.
...for some people.
I like qualifiers 
My point was really linking to the point about gangwon do suddenly blossoming. The truth seems to be that a town (like nagano) has a natural equilibrium that no amount of cash thrown at it will fix. Nagano wanted tobe a big player in the yokohama/osaka/kobe/nagoya sphere of things. But once the olympics were gone, it went back to how it was (or maybe even contracted a bit as it became easier to find jobs outside the rural economy in one of those cities).
If all the opportunities are still in tokyo/seoul, then aside a bit of tourism in the winter and summer from the new rail network, its still not going to be a place where people want to live. The same was true for nagano, and it'll likely be true for pyeongchan is all. I dont mind that, i think thats how it should be, places have a natural equilibrium despite the presence of a huge international event and it will naturally head back to how it was (only with a few more empty hotels).
Still, maybe pyeongchan is a beautiful region on a par with the beaches of thailand or the mountains of japan, or the energy and vibrancy of tokyo, or the history and culture of beijing, and people just need someone or something to get us all to look in their direction. My assumption though is that its probably pretty, but nothing altogether breathtaking unfortunately. |
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Yaya
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 6:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Ruby Thursday wrote: |
| Moondoggy wrote: |
As for the ESL industry in Korea things changed. Recently a lot of people come to Korea to teach English because they are genuinely interested in Korea. |
Where did you get this from exactly? Ariyang TV?
From almost anyone I've ever talked to this isn't even close to being true. The influx of ESL teachers is mainly due to the disaster in Japan (their 1st choice but fear pushed them to look for alternatives) and competitive salaries.
Still, in 2011, its rare for me to meet someone in my home country who knows ANYTHING about Korea other than the fact they eat dogs. Truth. |
The influx of ESL teachers is because of the disaster in Japan? My, you are one uninformed idiot who needs to get out more. Korea has been attracting LOADS of people wishing to teach English and this was going on years before the earthquake.
And most people know about Korea because of NORTH Korea, not because of Koreans eating dog meat. |
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