Korean Job Discussion Forums

[RACETRAITOR]

If you've been in Seoul long enough, you've probably seen one or two abandoned neighbourhoods. These are generally places where the residents have been forced to leave by gangsters, in the name of urban renewal.

I thought I'd share some pictures of these areas.

I had just come from a wedding with my girlfriend. We were wondering how to waste the rest of the afternoon, when both of us saw abandoned homes right outside the wedding hall.

The red spraypaint says condemned. A sign told me that it had been condemned on October 10. This was October 16.



Smashed stairway


Danger



A cat watches us from one of the homes that hasn't yet been condemned.





These are the two houses we entered, as seen from the parking lot of the wedding hall.

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Here's an apartment block in Dongdaemoon. It doesn't look particularly spectacular, or abandoned, from this angle.


How about this angle?



We found a ground floor entrance where some construction workers were busy and slipped past them. We took the stairs up a few flights to about the second top floor. Inside it was filthy, and there was fire damage everywhere. Looking out the window, we could see the bustle of Dongdaemoon Market below us. We looked into some of the apartments, which had been abandoned and more thoroughly cleaned out than the ground-floor houses on the Road of New Hope, in my other gallery.



On the way down, I spotted a sign in Korean. The only word that stuck out to me was CCTV. We buggered out of there fast. As we escaped through the back alley, a police car pulled in behind us and began to tail us. I told Paul to keep walking, and maintain the "We're clueless foreigners--we didn't know what we were doing--we were just looking for the bathroom and couldn't understand all the Korean warning signs" strategy.

The cop car got closer, and we moved politely out of its way. When the driver saw we were both foreigners, he drove past, shaking his head and chuckling to himself. The Korean police can't be bothered to deal with clueless foreigners, especially since so few of them speak English. We got lucky that time.
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Here's one near Daeheung in downtown Seoul.


This is the first home we explored. It looks like a decent enough place, but instead of carpet there's rubble, and instead of a welcome mat there's shattered glass.


Here's a traditional Korean home with one resident left. Looks pretty posh, or probably was at one point.


This used to be a child's room, now ripped open and exposed to the main road.



Interior of a smashed home. Most people left in a hurry.


With bathroom.


Going up a flight of stairs, I found these plastic flowers left behind.


They had a bathtub, rare in a Korean home.


Part of this neighbourhood wasn't abandoned yet. It seems like the destruction had started in one corner and slowly spread outward. This is one resident living on the edge of the destruction.

This translates to "Let's move out as soon as possible." Notice all the little stickers; they're children's temporary tattoos.

Take a closer look at this mattress.


This is the smashed entranceway from when we originally headed down.


Here is looking back down at the area. The street name translates to "Street of New Hope."

The flower on this roof is called the mugunghwa.


If you come across an area like this and you have some spare time, I recommend you go for a walk through it and see the cost of modernisation. Please be respectful though, as there are generally residents still around in the soon-to-be-evicted places, and you can imagine they're probably not waiting for a bright future.

[eamo]

Well. It depends on the cost of the new apartments.

If they are building affordable family apts then I'm guessing not many are complaining. I suspect the residents of those neighborhoods get a sweet deal if they decide to live in the new development. If it's yuppy-style, more-than-a-million-dollors-each apartments then they have to move elsewhere which is a shame.


There might be a few nutty old folk who want to stay in their draughty, falling down, never maintained shack but the majority probably can't wait to move into their 15th floor new apartment. It's a major move up for them. Literally!!!

[just because]

So true and some cool photos....

How can they still let those businesses run in those burnt out apartments concerns me

[RACETRAITOR]

I've seen a few places where older apartments are torn down and the residents are promised nicer, bigger apartments in the new developments. That's not the norm, and the poorer places, like these, the people are simply evicted and left out in the cold.

[eamo]

It's all about if you rent or own.

Those who simply rent and maybe have a few million key-money in the apt will get their key-money and just move out and find themselves another apt.

Those who bought their apt will have to be compensated and offered a deal on one of the new apts. I've talked about this with my Korean wife before. She says most people in rundown neighborhoods are hoping for a developer to move in if they own their apt.

[RACETRAITOR]

I've noticed that the damage is usually worse in poorer apartments and less in nicer ones. My girlfriend told me that sometimes the richer people in the neighbourhood will help the developers out.

And if you think key money is always returned automatically, you haven't tried to find your own apartment yet.

Here are some people looking forward to developers taking over their neighbourhoods.
http://pw87.jinbo.net/bbs/zboard.php?id=pds_text&page=1&sn1=&divpage=1&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=26

More pictures of cranky old people getting saved from their drafty old homes by the heroic government, with story in Korean:
http://news.naver.com/news/read.php?mode=LOD&office_id=047&article_id=0000020344

[komtengi]

perfect places to perfect some stencils before hitting the streets

[eamo]

[kangnam mafioso]

I recognize that area near dongdaemun. aren't they putting in a new highway/ bridge that will make it necessary to relocate some people/ neighborhoods? i don't think the gangsters had anything to do with it, and i'm sure people will be compensated on some level. seoul is in a constant state of renewal and destruction.

[Red]

I swear I saw these buildings like this when I first got here.

[mithridates]

RACETRAITOR, you must be fun to hang out with. I do that sort of thing all the time. I've found places like that even where I live in Samsung-dong.

The other day I even found a friendly stray cat. That was great.

[RACETRAITOR]

[helly]

What's really ugly is that many times, the occupants of these homes are still on the premises when the thugs come through with the sledgehammers. Not sure if that's the case with your photos/neighborhoods but when the gangsters come through, hired by the construction companies, to get people out, they make it really hard for a current resident to want to stay by bashing holes in their walls. Ugly shite, I've seen it happen.

[RACETRAITOR]