Gwanak-gu

You'll remember from this earlier post that Seoul is divided administratively into districts (gu 구 區) and further subdivided into neighborhoods (dong 동 洞). Last fall Erma and I lived in Seodaemun-gu (서대문구 西大門區), Daeshin-dong (대신동 大新洞), near Yonsei University. This spring I'm living in Gwanak-gu (관악구 冠岳區), Bongcheon-dong (봉천동 奉天洞). This map shows the relative locations of the two areas of the city; click on a marker to see its label.


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(If you can't see the embedded map, or want to see a larger image, you can go here.)

Historically, the city of Seoul was north of the Han River (한강 漢江), and this is where the main palaces, major universities, city government buildings, and most of the sites described in earlier entries of this blog are located. But as the population of the city grew rapidly in the last half of the twentieth century, the fields south of the river became urbanized, and today there is as much city south of the river as there is north of the river.

Seoul National University was relocated to Gwanak-gu from its original location not far from the President's house in 1975. It is widely believed (and may be true) that the government relocated the campus in order to get SNU's politically active students away from the center of town. During the reign of the US-supported military dictators, college students were highly radicalized and spent a lot of time protesting, demonstrating and blockading. As you can see from the map, the current SNU campus is located in the steep foothills of Gwanak Mountain (for which the district is named). This area was once wild and remote; now the city has, in its relentless expansion, almost caught up to the campus. I said I live in Bongcheon-dong, but actually I live in Bongcheon 6-dong. The neighborhood has been divided into at least 11 sub-units. My guess is that since the dong was first demarcated, the population in the area has grown so much more dense that it became necessary to divide up the neighborhood into smaller administrative (or at least postal) units.

(Incidentally, for those of you keeping track, the reason I've just given for the relocation of the campus was the third interesting thing I learned from my teacher, as described in this earlier post.)

The dorm I'm staying in is about halfway between two subway stations on Line 2, the same line we lived near in the fall. It's less than a 10 minute walk for me to get to either one. Although I'm just off a major road (Nambu Sunhuan-No 남부순환로, which I suppose means Nambu Ring Road, although I'm sure nobody actually knows this name), my building is actually on a very narrow one-way street that runs parallel to the road, and there's practically no traffic noise. Which is good, because the place is overheated and I have to leave the window open day and night to keep from roasting.

These are the views to the right and left down my street, from just in front of my building.



I often feel like I'm on a movie set when I walk down this little street. Everything is small and clean vibrant, as if it was all a recently-built facade. There are always a surprising number of people walking around, as if they were extras hired to populate the set.

Two doors down from me, on the left, is a little tteok 떡 mom-and-pop shop.


(Did you forget what tteok is? It's described halfway down this post.)

There are certain types of shop that are over-represented in my neighborhood. They are: real estate agencies, beauty parlors, dry cleaners, and chicken restaurants. And on my little block only, services for little kids. This is one of several music studios for small children.


Every afternoon I've heard rhythmic shouts and chanting of children drifting in through my open window. At first I thought there must be a school nearby. There is, in fact, an elementary school in the neighborhood, but too far away to be the source of the noise. And in any case, the chanting continued into the late afternoon, long after school is out. I finally realized the source a few days ago: above the music studio pictured here, directly across the street from me, is a large Taekwondo studio. It too caters to children.

Let's proceed down the block.

Here's the hair salon, called He-eo Ateu (that is, "Hair Art"). It's actually only one of two on the block -- you can see the other in the first picture of the post, with the sign reading Miyongshil 미용실.


Just a bit farther down the street, on the left, is a small kids' stationery and toy shop. It's called Yeong Ateu 영 아트 (that is, "Young Art"). There are always two or three excited kids crowding in or rushing out any time I walk past. On the sidewalk in front are these two tiny video games with miniscule plastic seats in front of them. There's something really cute about the little kids perched on miniature furniture playing miniature video games. You also gotta love the hula hoops.



(You can see the sign for yet another music lesson place just behind the kids.)

On the corner of my block is a harin mateu 하린 마트, or discount mart. It's small, but carries all the daily necessities, from orange juice to alcohol to bread to packaged foods to toothpaste to toilet paper to slippers. It's not a large store, so they keep a good chunk of their wares out on the sidewalk. It's great to live literally less than 30 seconds from a convenience store. I don't know if it's open 24 hours or not, but so far I've never seen it closed. Need pancake mix or dried squid at 10:45 pm on Saturday night? No problem.


If you were standing next to that woman with the pink purse and glanced to your right you would see a fruit-and-vegetable seller, a taciturn middle-aged man who looks somewhat beaten down by many decades of a hard and lonely life. The first time I visited him he seemed stunned by my appearance. I said "hello," and he said, "Hunh?" I don't think it occurred to him that I would say anything in Korean. I repeated myself, and he said "hello" back. So far he's my main source of cooking ingredients. He also sells me tofu, pulling fresh blocks out of a big soaking barrel.

Not everything is a mom-and-pop store. There's a 7-Eleven on the same corner.


If you are coming from my dorm and turn left at this corner, the one with Young Art, the Discount Mart, and 7-11, you're on another little alley heading toward the main road. You're looking down that alley in the picture above. A little farther along it, on the right, are two restaurants, pictured below. One I think of as the restaurant with the longest name in the world. It translates to something like "Let's make it rice ...! Let's make it noodles ...!" It's where I had my first meal after moving into the dorm.


Next to it is "OH my chicken". I can't tell if this is supposed to be "Oh, my chicken!" or "Oh my, chicken!" I'd really like to know, but I suppose it doesn't matter. The Korean name is Omaichikin 오마이치킨. You'll notice the English word "chicken" in there. Korean, of course, has a perfectly good word for chicken, and that word (dak 닭) is ordinarily employed in the names chicken dishes. The English borrowing chikin is used, so far as I can tell, exclusively for deep fried chicken drumsticks, thighs, and breasts in the KFC style. When I said earlier that chicken restaurants are over-represented in my neighborhood, this is the kind of place I was referring to. There's one on every block.

Next is a Chinese place. It has a typical sign showing a chef pulling really long noodles. I'm a bit afraid of this place and its extraordinarily long noodles. Beyond it, with the yellow sign and red-and-white awning, is a gimbap shop. Gimbap 김밥 looks like a sushi maki roll, but it's made with plain rice, not vinegar rice. It's a commonly eaten food for a snack or an on-the-go lunch.


Finally there is my neighborhood fancy French bakery and pastry shop (or, if you like, boulangerie/pâtisserie), where I buy my bread for toasting and jam for putting on it. I'm not sure what "Self cake" is, but the rest of the sign is self-explanatory.

And that's one of the gazillion real-estate agencies, to the left of the pastry shop.

As soon as you emerge from the alley onto the main road, the world changes. Looking to the right, in the direction of the Seoul-Dae Ipgu 서울대입구 subway station:


And the left, in the direction of the Nakseongdae 낙성대 subway station:


Back to the right, that's my bus stop, marked by the blue sign on the sidewalk. As you can see, I've just missed both the #5412 and the #5528, the two buses that go to the main gate of SNU campus. I'm not worried, though. They come every five minutes during rush hour.


While waiting at the bus stop, I can contemplate this fellow and his fashionable suit. Apparently it is more fashionable if you wear it sockless with sneakers.


Finally, I wanted to throw in this picture. I stumbled across this restaurant a few nights ago, while wandering around. It's a chain that serves juk 죽, a thick flavored rice gruel (known as jook (粥) to aficionados of Cantonese food). There was one just a few yards down the street from our Yonsei officetel that Erma and I frequented last fall, so I felt really happy to eat there. It was like a bit of home.