SEOUL: Combination of Sprawl and Traditional

As an international student who has just freshly arrived in America few weeks ago, I have been to many different cities for educational purposes. The most memorable city in my opinion was Seoul, the capital city of South Korea where I had spent half of my life. Seoul is an amazing city that is smaller than Atlanta yet holds a huge population even bigger than the population of entire Canada. The atmosphere of the city is always crowded and busy, but it surely does possess a charm that can draw everybody in.

The very first impression of the Seoul is that it is like a forest instead apartments being trees, and cars being millions of creatures. The tall buildings and apartments stand almost everywhere, and the long traffic jam sometimes suffocates me just by watching it. On the very centre of Seoul, a huge statue of Lee Soon Shin general stands still. He is the most renowned navy captain that fought against Japanese navies in Japan's aggression to Korean. It is quite bewildering since there is a little park around the statue, and it is placed on the right centre of huge traffic.

Seoul is more amazing in night time. Lights of hundreds of buildings illuminate the city, and the street is still teeming with people even after midnight. Dongdaemun that is placed on the east side of Seoul is a fashion mecca of South Korea. Thousands of clothing stores are concentrated on this area, and surprisingly the peak time when most people come is after midnight. Along the street of Dongdaemun, copious of snack stalls that sell a bunch of appetizer and drinks greet people that come and go out of the stores.




According to Suburban Nation, my community can be classified as a sprawl due to its dominant separation of communication and life. However, it still holds a portion of traditional aspect as one can see in the statue at the centre of the city or the Dongdaemun that still holds its cultural tradition for more than 800 years. After all, Seoul is the combination of both sprawl and traditional aspects. The old statue has been modernized with the centre park for everyone, and Dongdaemun market has been renovated for more convenience while still grasping its tradition. I strongly disagree with the notion that sprawl is 'good', and tradition is 'bad.' It is just an stereotypical image that the sprawl city lacks communication and the old towns are more affinitive. There are still a lot of places that are rational, consistent, and comprehensive; blaming the lack of communication on social tendency is just a bad excuse.

-Geon Hui Yun