The Seoul Metropolitan Government opened “Seoul Oasis,” a portal Web site (www.seouloasis.net) that allows citizens of Seoul to freely exchange their ideas and suggestions on municipal policies.
full story here
seoul’s been going through some huge changes in many ways - environmentally, culturally, and now socially, it seems. i’d be really interested to see how this thing goes. it kind of reminds me of “shinmoongo,” introduced by King Taejong during Chosun dynasty, which was basically a drum that a commoner could come and hit to directly discuss their grievances with the King if the matter could not be resolved through appropriate processes on a local level/s.
seoul’s very exciting. never liked the city before, but the last time i went - early this year - i was really impressed by all the changes that were going on to make it a better place to live. there are lots of interesting galleries and museums, too. would love to go again soon.
Just in case I was too subtle last time about the race and gender politics of the personification of technology in the ‘Get a Mac’ ads, here are two new ones (one, two). I’m speechless.
Japanese salarymen looking for a quick shape up can now get themselves jazzed up in a jiffy thanks to a nifty new speed grooming service, according to Sunday Mainichi full story @ mainichi daily
so the basic story is this: a company called menza has set up some booths around central tokyo for japanese sarariman (salary men). kuse-oyaji (stinky old man) uses his mobile to access menza’s website to locate the booth closest to his current location, and there he gets checked up on various things from creases on his suit to whether his’s got an adequately “smiling face” or not…
// this is my visual interpretation of what it’d be like to be in a menza booth… but unfortunately for me, i’ll never find out… until they open “womenza” :(
my favourite part is this:
Menza.jp employees all line up to send off customers, who can choose whether their farewell will be given in the form of a bow, a wave goodbye or high fives.
i moved to a new place a few days ago, so i haven’t been able to work or blog much, but i thought i really should write a quick blog on this: asiamedia reports that ohmynews has been launched in japan with the help of softbank, a company owned by masayoshi son (or jeong-eui son), a third generation korean-japanese and currently the richest man in japan, according to this article on forbes.
it’s been 6 years since the launch of the original ohmynews in korea, which became a breakthrough success glocally and globally as a leading grassroots journlism site, attracting both everyday citizen contributors around the world as well as famous figures including howard rheingold.
i remember reading in a journal article a while ago that the level of trust the japanese have in the national news media is lower than that of the korean public, so it’d be very interesting to see how ohmynews japan develops.
Reading 24 Hours in Sim City an article on ChongQing (pronounced Chongching) by Asad Yawar (AlexYawar) on OhmyNews led me to watching Jonathan Watt’s short film Megalopolis, to which Yawar kindly put a link (available for free download from The Guardian - click here to view (mp4, 25.5MB)).
The background to the movie is this: Chongqing, a city in Western China that most people in the Western world have never heard of, is now the world’s biggest municipality, with over 31 million residents — more than the populations of Iraq, Peru, or Malaysia. The heart of the Chinese administration’s “Go West” policy to develop impoverished western China, Chongqing expands by 137,000 sq meters of new floor space every day. The city’s per capita income has shot up by 66 percent in the past five years to £731 (US$1,280) per year.
In my (relatively) clean office, surrounded by beautiful tall trees with yellow-green leaves, eating wasabi peas, I learned about the sad, disturbing urbanisation process of this gigantic city of China, where environmental and social problems have already outgrown the size of the city itself. Inter-mingled with the new fast-food generation and rich kids dancing to the likes of techno and french hiphop in this chaotic place are the bangbang men, or the door-to-door distributors. Most of these men came into the city from the countryside in the hope of making enough money to support their families and send their children to school. While they try to balance the weight of the goods hanging on the ends of their bamboo pole, often heavier than their own weight, their dreams seem to become heavier and heavier as the class divisions seem to grow wider every second. A table to rest your danced-up body at one of those flashy dance clubs would cost a month’s worth of an average bangbang man’s work. The young female police officers on rollerblades may be doing their best to clean up the city in different ways, but the social residues that are evident in every corner of the city appear to have become monuments never to fall down, or be taken down.
My good friend Lucy has once mentioned that having a fancy mobile phone in China is a big deal. People put in their utmost effort into acquiring the latest mobile phone represent the owner’s social status in China. Back in the old days, the Big Three Acquisitions, or da san jian, were a watch, a bicycle, and a sewing machine, which evolved to the “New Three Acquisitions” of a washing machine, a refrigerator, and a colour television. Now the “Super Three Acquisitions,” apparently, are a house, a private car, and a computer, which seem to be pretty much in line with the consumption aspirations of developed countries. As an outsider living in Australia, the image of the bang bang man seems very surreal. Illusionary.
It makes me wonder just how much longer their currently opaque existence can last before it becomes completely transparent in Chongqing, the West Pure(ly troubled) Land of China. And I wonder, in China so full of people, where are the people? Where is the mind?
I’m only starting now to learn more about China, but I highly doubt if I could ever find the answers to these questions.
Recently South Korea’s has unveiled its plan to become the leader of the global mobile industry.
As an integral part of the Mobile Number One (M-1) Project, The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) plans to build the Mobile Special District (MSD). It’s going to be a ”mobile paradise” where, according to Ho-ick Suk, MIC Assistant Minister, ”all existing and burgeoning mobile technologies in this planet will be used” to create a a free technology zone that will create a new mobile environment. It will play the role of test-bed for up-and-coming wireless platforms” (See Korea Plans to Build `Mobile Paradise’). Different technologies will be fully integrated in MSD in the following order:
2007: GSM
2008: DVB-H
2009: TD-SCDMA
2010: 4G
MIC’s got a budget of 460 million Won (apx. AUS$66,247,000) for this project, which of course means that the actual cost will be a lot more than that. Still suffering from the Asian Crisis (whether the government wants to admit it or not), this is not an insignificant amount of money for Korea; but MIC claims that this investment will secure 50% of global mobile terminal core-parts market, 30% of terminal market, and 15% of 3G system market. I don’t know how ambitious this sounds to others, but I think this is a highly feasible plan, considering the enormous technological developments Korea has achieved in recent years.
Who would’ve thought that this tiny largely unnoticed place sandwiched between two giant powerhouses - namely China and Japan - could achieve the highest broadband penetration rate in the world? I remember back in my high school days, our teacher asked us which country Sony was from. Everyone knew the answer of course. Japan. But when it came to Hyundai, people went silent until someone yelled out “Japan,” to which a few responded with nods in agreement. But now companies like Samsung and LG are changing the scene. Korean mobile phones are recognised and popular for their functional quality and design. One evidence would be the film “Elizabethtown,” in which Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst are seen with a Samsung Anycall and LG Cyon respectively; that wasn’t a product placement (the actors try hard to cover the logos with their fingers etc, but it doesn’t work all the time ;) ).
Korea was the first country in the world to launch DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) services. Korea is also the birth place of WiBro (Wireless Broadband), which is expected to be commercially available within a few months in Korea. These kinds of radical technological developments is one of the main factors that make Korea such an interesting research subject in so many different realms including media, communications, psychology, and sociology. A lot of people are still baffled and stunned as to why and how the Korean Wave came about and remains persistently strong. But when you think about it, the answer is simple: its techno-social development. The virtual reality is no longer a separate imagined reality in Korea; it’s intrinsically inter-related to the reality itself, and the distinction between what is virtual and physical is becoming more and more blurry every moment. People are constantly exposed to media, and virtually become the media itself. When that happens, the cultural productivity and developmental rate naturally increases. Yes, it is a global phenomenon. But in Korea, this socio-cultural shift is a lot more acutely manifest and experienced. It’s unbelievable.
My PhD thesis will be a triangulation study of Japan, Korea, and China. I plan to focus on the role of mobile media and technologies in shaping (youth) culture within each nation and the East Asian region. I’m really excited about what I’m doing and am going to do, but I do feel that I need to have a broader network where I could share information and get help from people who know a lot more than I do. Sometimes it so scary to think how little I know. Just how much can you learn within a three years (and a bit)? I know that I will always be a curious person, so will always be searching and researching. And I hope what I do will somehow benefit the world. Brad Haseman, an associate professor at QUT whom I like and respect very much, always says that PhD is only the starting point - when you need to train and prepare yourself for greater and amazing research that you’re going to do in the future. I do agree but sometimes it does feel pretty scary and ridiculous to be here in Brisbane, so far away from all these unprecedented radical transformations happening everywhere but here.
Anyway, back to the point. MSD. Very exciting. Korea. Very exciting.
My research? Very exciting. Definitely for me. Hopefully for you, too.
