Random Play by Graham Reid

Because I have been invited to participate in one of the roundtable discussions on the future and direction of the Auckland War Memorial Museum to be hosted next week by Bill Ralston, I put the word out here a week or so ago for your comments: what do you like/not about the museum; ideas you might have to help its outreach; improvements and so forth.

The feedback was modest (the donation$/entrance fee$ $eemed to be an i$$ue for $ome) but was more blunt through the private e-mails to Elsewhere. Much appreciated.

Of course what with this about possible staff cuts, the response from iwi and the editorial in today‘s Herald you might be now more keen to have your say.

Let me hear from you before Wednesday.

FYI: my invitation to one of the five discussion panels -- there was one last night and another today, the rest next week -- spoke of the new director Vanda Vitali and said “Vanda 's vision is for the Museum to have a deeper engagement with Aucklanders and their city. To start this, she wants to sit with ideas-driven people like yourself, to share her vision and more importantly hear your thoughts on how we can define the Museum’s relevance to Auckland.”

And so I want to hear from ideas-driven people like you so I can take that to this chinwag. You may feel it seems many decisions have already been made before any consulation process, but the talkfest is a chance to have your voice (through me) heard.

New Zealand Music Month has offered bad news and I am distressed and disappointed that my friend Chris Caddick is on his way out from helming EMI, which he has done so well and for so long.

Under his watch not only were many contemporary bands given a break but Chris was unflaggingly loyal to those whose music he genuinely liked -- even if sales didn’t always follow. Greg Johnson would probably have been let go a decade back by any other record company but Chris and EMI just kept him on -- to give us pleasure and Greg the career he deserves.

What was also less noticed perhaps was EMI’s commitment to older Kiwi music: on their books they had literally dozens and dozens of compilations of Kiwi rock bands from the 60s and 70s, traditional Maori music, themed collections (the Kiwi Classics series) and so on.

And all these albums were available at ridiculously low prices ($10 in many instances). Anyone looking for the breadth and depth of Kiwi rock and pop from the late 50s onwards (from its genius to its sheer awefulness) could find it in collections such as The Very Best of the Chicks, collections of Craig Scott, Max Merritt, Mark Williams, Dragon, Ray Columbus’ solo years, Quincy Conserve, Nash Chase, John Hanlon . . .

This is an aural history of our country, and a resource I draw on regularly for my rambling, unfocused and often eccentric Sidestreets show on Kiwi FM. (The hour that takes you off the main highway of Kiwi music and down the backstreets and alleys into odd.rock, alt.jazz, spoken word and worse.)

Recently I wrote the liner notes for a series of EMI compilations of 60s/70s Kiwi psychedelic music A Day in My Mind’s Mind now up to Volume 3 and as I listened through to that astonishing music (Bellyboard Beat by the Music Convention from ‘68 on Volume 2 is garage band psychedelic surf music like you’ve never heard it before) I was reminded again that a record is exactly that, a record of a place and time.

EMI under Chris Caddick -- against commercial imperatives, pressure from international bosses and the market-driven economy, the rapidly changing nature of the music industry and so forth -- put a lot of Kiwi music into our world. Without him . . .

Chris was and is a music man first, and in the music industry which I know a bit about that is increasingly rare. Chris loved metal and more recently started collecting obscure concept albums, just for the laughs. He has more Jimi Hendrix albums, bootlegs and off-cuts than is sane.

We barely note the passing of music business executives, but Chris being moved out is great blow for New Zealand music. He is also a helluva nice guy and I am proud to call him a friend, although I think our respective partners have felt the fallout when long lunches turned into even longer dinners.

But in a final and more positive note about NZ Music Month, last night I went to see Ruia, and Moana and the Tribe at Galatos. Both were launching their new albums which are noted here.

New Zealand music speaks with many tongues these days as it should. But there is something especially moving about seeing Moana --- just back from Toronto and as you read this packing for a gig in Bonn on the same bill as Bob Geldof -- singing her songs which reference ancestors, moko, the late Syd Jackson, the Maori Battalion and other pertinent local topics before images of this beautiful land and striking artwork by her partner Toby projected on a screen behind.

I believe Moana is one of the most singular voices we have and this gig before a happy crowd which included kuia, confirmed it. She is political but doesn’t browbeat -- and her new song Te Apo prompted by the WTO/free trade agreements burns with righteous anger and hauls in the sounds of street protests she was involved in while in Hong Kong.

Not many Kiwi artists sing about politics -- I wonder why not? -- and I can think of none who do it with the fire, commitment, clear perspective and rich personality as Moana and the Tribe.

Her new album is Wha and I think it is important.

And so the final days in Seoul went by in a blur: astonishing digital art and exciting galleries; interviews with an art critic, a digital artist, a musician and a food writer; dinner with the mayor and a meeting with our genuinely nice people in our embassy; the helpful and friendly company of good natured interpreters and hosts; more talk about designers and architects turning Seoul into the hub of Asia, walks through historic areas and hip streets, terrific food, buying CDs and DVDs . . .

And most interesting of all to Public Address readers perhaps, I went to OhMyNews., the online newspaper and spoke with senior editor Todd Thacker and communications director Jean K. Min.

Founded eight years ago, OhMyNews has citizen journalism at its core, now works out of an 18th floor office in the Nurikum Business Tower, one of the most dramatic buildings in the city (actually it is in Mapo-gu about 40 minutes by taxi from central Seoul), and has a code of ethics which all citizen journalists must agree to and sign.

OMN employs about 90 people in its office (stories are subbed and fact-checked which is more than you can say for some mainstream print media these days), and it has its own television studio.

OMN also opened its own journalism school in November ‘07 in Incheon where aspiring online journalists of all ages/persuasions and backgrounds can go for intensive classes in ethics, writing, media literacy, digital technology and so on.

In many ways, although it is cutting-edge in terms of its online focus, there is much which is traditional and familiar about the way OMN operates. But of course it is very different too: copy is created fast and published with an immediacy, it is liberal and opinionated, relies on citizens in the frontline rather than media outlets far away, and has a compelling personality to it.

It is one way into the future of new media convergence -- and has been there for eight years.

This isn’t blogging made big, rather old media reconfigured to take advantage of the new and divergent media possibilities.

Coincidentally across town -- and literally in every part of town -- on the day that I was talking to Min, bloggers were at work on the issue of beef from the US and whether it was infected by “mad cow disease”.

In the absence of supporting science, bloggers started posting dire warnings, horror pictures of crazed cows and people possibly infected, and nightmare scenarios of mass poisoning. In blog-connected Korea where many tens of thousands of citizens have their own websites and people blog like you and I buy coffee, the fear took flight.

Last Friday night more than 10,000 people gathered to protest in the centre of the city -- and OMN was there with portable digital cameras doing interviews.

The beef issue became a lightning rod for all kinds of disapproval about President Lee Myung-bak: over 1.2 million people signed an on-line petition to impeach him and his approval rating was the lowest of any president -- down to Bush-like levels. Opposition parties circled, national pride was at stake, teachers and students weighed in and joined the protest, and prosecutors said they were investigating whether legal action could be taken against those who spread false rumours and fears online.

But rumours spread even more widely -- and some started suggesting Lee had given the disputed Dokdo Islands in the East Sea to Japan. Within days 20,000 people had signed an online petition about that.

As with the mad cow caper, there was very little evidence (none in the latter case actually) to suggest this was the case -- but the blogosphere went ballistic. It was like the “Paul is Dead” rumour for those old enough to remember that one: people were scouring for clues and -- sure enough -- finding them.

Interesting.

Especially when you consider that in the mainstream media a more interesting and potential much more dangerous story was being broken: that Seoul’s first case of bird flu had been identified in two dead pheasants in an aviary near the country’s largest open market in Seongnam outside Seoul.

Infected ducks had infected the pheasants, officials had hastily closed the poultry section.

(A longtime expat resident said, “what with the beef and the birds, dog is starting look like the best option”.)

You can make what you will out of this about blogging's power to perhaps mislead or create mischief as much as broker important issues.

A psychology professor at Seoul’s Yonsei University told the JoongAng Daily, the reasons for the online panic which translated into major protest action was partly cultural in this highly wired and interconnected country: “Koreans have a tendency to put more importance on what others think and say than developing their own thoughts and voice. It is because the authority infrastructure has collapsed and lost credibility among the general public.”

Well, that’s a long discussion about cultural and social mores, how Korea developed as a country over centuries and what happened to it in the last half of the 20th century, and why Koreans are so enthusiastic about the online world.

A professor in politics told the same paper, “the younger generation tends to think of the Internet as a playground that is distant from reality.”

The thing about OhMyNews is that it sees these areas as acutely interconnected, which is why it has an inbuilt series of checks and balances (just like some old-time media) and its voice on bird flu was more measured (although still allowing that there was more to this than bland assurances coming from various officials).

It was an interesting time to be in Seoul -- but then again that is always true. It is a wonderful city and is going to be a great one. If the economic bubble doesn’t burst.

It is a city in a country full of ambition and a work ethic. It also has vibrant arts, hot music of all kinds (some of which I bought to post at Elsewhere), friendly people, an abrasive edge, arcane politics and history, strong liquor . . .

I travelled with assistance from the Seoul Metropolitan Government through the Seoul Selection programme, and they have another opportunity for journalists and/or writers to go from June 30 to July 5. I recommend you have a go (you need to be able to say what outlets you will have stories published in) and here is the link. E-mail me through Elsewhere if you want to ask me some questions about it.

When I get a chance I’m going to take this series of blogs and polish them up before I place them on Elsewhere (they were mostly banged out fast on a keyboard that would revert to Korean if I pushed the wrong key). I will expand them and add more links and relevant photos I took also.

And of course I will be writing more about the individual aspects of my journey (arts, design, music etc) in various outlets -- and an expanded piece will appear at Elsewhere very soon about OhMyNews which will include material from my interview with Min. I’ll let you know when that happens.

Meantime I think this is funny. Today I went into my Westpac on Queen St to try and change a hundred thousand or so Korean won into Kiwi money -- and they said they couldn’t do it. I went to the National Bank down the road and they could, but it would cost me $5. Fair enough.

Then the young woman came back and said actually it would cost $12 because the won was an “exotic currency” and not one they usually dealt with. I joked that Korea was our seventh largest trading partner (our PM is there this week) and noted to myself they had six exchange rates posted, including Canada.

While she went off for 10 minutes to do the paperwork (I got $112 back) I looked at the signage.

Upstairs in this place where my left-over won was considered an “exotic currency” they had a Korean Banking Division.

Finally: Congratulations to Russell and the publicaddress writers for the win at the NetGuide Awards, and to all my former Herald colleagues (of whom there were pleasingly very many) who won Qantas awards or appeared as finalists. I'm flattered to be (or to have been) among your number and am only sorry I wasn't around to congratulate you all sooner -- but as you can tell, I was kinda busy.

So did I mention that right next to the Ahnkook Zen Centre in Seoul is the Seoul Museum of Chicken Art? Or that at the performance of The Princess Who Fell in Love With B-Boy (a cross-genre dance production with pounding hip-hop which is going to Broadway in October) that there were four middle-aged monks behind me in the audience of screaming girls and air-punching young men?

Or that to get to the home of Professor Hwang -- the master of the 12-stringed gayageum and who perhaps single-handedly preserved the traditional music of Korea and has been taking it to the world -- you walk up typically narrow and unglamourous streets and alleys.

Of course once inside his house you get a spectacular view over the low and high-rise buiildings of the city, and his upstairs lounge which is a clutter of papers, shopping baskets of CDs, instruments and documents feels quite remote from the noise and tawdry chaos outside.

Hwang Byungki is an extraordinary man: when he first started learning the gayageum (like a zither) in the early 50s his country was recovering from the Japanese colonial era, the Second World War and the invasion of North Korea and China down the peninsula.

There was very little information about either traditional court music or folk music (none or very little of which was written down) and many of its practitioners had passed on.

"When I began to learn gayageum in 1950," he said, "only about a dozen new gayageum were being sold each year. Now there are 10,000 a year."

For which the quiet and composed professor should take credit.

Now there are well-established music departments teaching traditional music and the sound of the gayageum is so popular that there has emerged the inevitable fusion movement where the instrument is found in the context of synthesisers, drums and electric guitars.

The man who has rarely incorporated Western classical instrumentation with gayagem passes lightly over what he thinks of that.

What he does say -- and he also said how much he enjoyed being in New Zealand for a concert some years ago -- is that Korean music is the least known music from the Orient in the Western world.

That is because the music of Indonesia, Japan, India, Vietnam and so on filtered back to the West through the colonial powers. Korea's colonial power was Japan and so the music remains, and to a great extent still remans, in the East.

To meet this man was one of the highlights of this visit to Seoul and when I asked for an interview with him -- like a Korean journalist going to Wellington and asking if they could pop around for a chinwag with Peter Jackson -- I never expectd to meet him.

And yet . . . .

That's pretty much what is happening here: doors are opening, tea is drunk, many hours are spent cross-legged and there is the usual hurry-up and wait.

Much of what I am picking up will of course make its way at greater length and with more consideration into other media outlets in NZ and abroad, and today -- after stumbling on terrific gallery of cutting edge art -- I have a meeting with someone who is going to talk about the digital art movements here which I have encountered at the Venice Biennale and elsewhere. If there is one thing Korean artists, and the people in general, are comfortable with it is technology. They use it in every aspect of their lives frm social networking to reaching out into the world via the arts.

Today there is also a meeting at our High Commission which I have requested -- and much more before dinner with the mayor of Seoul. That's why I packed the jacket.

Meantime if you want to hear some gayageum music by Professor Hwang turn your ears here. I find it beguiling.

May I also say that I have appreciated your comments about how you would like to see the role of the Auckland War Memorial Museum and how it can have a deeper engagement with the city. Feel free to let me know your ideas via the discussion thread here or, if you wish you can make some more private comment through the e-mail link at Elsewhere.

Righto, off to encounter yet another cultural collision which I will not only survive but be delighted and informed by.

Graham Reid is in Seoul as guest of the Seoul Metropoliatan Government

Okay, here's what's going to happen -- and we leave aside the ifs, buts and maybes for the moment, of which there are a few. But the future of Seoul will be like this: a modern city which will look like bits of Dubai (with greenery) will rise alongside the Han River and it will be fed by didgital services, incorporate retail and residential, be a business hub for Asia and of course be eco-friendly.

It will, in short, be as perfect a vision of the future as you can imagine -- outside of that old movie The Shape of Things To Come.

Frankly, on paper and in the slideshow presentation I was treated to yesterday, I was hugely impressed. It does of course have a name: Dreamhub -- and doesn't that just make your pulse pound?

It wil tranform Seoul -- the presentation was full of slogans such as "A Clean and Attractive Global City" and "The Hangang Renaissance" -- and the assembled journallists were told it would change Seoul from "a Hard City into a people-oriented Soft City".

In slides which showed Rome and London as the hubs of their empires, Seoul was presented as being prepared to become the centre of the world and Dreamhub will be its heart.

Now I have been to such presentations before and hyperbole and data-show presentations are par for the course: but there is something about the Korean capacity for work (they are the hardest working people on the planet) and their relentless drive for progress that makes me think that at least some of this will happen. (In fact some of it already is.)

They don't have much time however and have set themselves 2020 to get the job done (not to mention the overhaul of various other parts of the city, the creation of satellite cities and so on). But I think they will get on with the job in a way that would have Eden Park redevelopers swooning with envy.

Of course the whole thing is fraught with questions (there was very little question tme and we were all too stunned by the images of landmark towers and so on).

Among the questions will be what happens to the current inhabitants of those areas, how can this be steered through consecutive metropolitan governments over the next decade, what happens if the economic bubble bursts (as it has in the past), and . . .

Okay, here is what Seoul has going in its favour to realise the planners' dream: the average age is 36.7, this is a plugged-in society (an average of 1.4 computers per home, 91.8% internet penetration), digital and design businesses are cornerstones of the country's growth and are having government and private investment poured into them; Korea has the 7th fastest ecomonic growth rate in thw world, and Seoul itself (population 10 million, 24 million in the greater Seoul area) has only one mayor and three vice-mayors.

It has the infrastructure, the will, a streamlined development and planning process -- and it has slogans to inspire: "Centre for the Future, the Centre of the World" and "We Will Realise These Goals".

Of course progress comes at a price and some are rightly concerned that the special nature of this vibrant city -- which I alluded to in the previous post -- will be lost and buildings of character will be torn down (that is happening already).

But you have to admit Zaha Hadid's vision for Dongdaemun Stadium is stunning
.
And hers is just one development project among dozens.

After that high-powered briefing it was a delight to go to the home of the Zen master Soo Bool Sunim for an hour of typically bewildering discussion and questions ("Can you see your own eyes?")

His home is soot of emblematic of so much of this city and its odd juxtapositions. He lives in a suburban street and across the road is a low-rise of brick apartments. Above the traditional roofline of his home you can see the cross from the Presbyterian church just up the road. Step out from his quiet garden and rooms and you are in the world of hip restaurants, wine shops, art galleries and cafes.

I guess none of that collision of life styles, cultures and attitudes will exist in the new supercity areas of Seoul?

The master spoke in those questions and riddles that tickle th mind, and one thing he said really struck home. I asked if there was such a thing as change, or is everything changeless.

Through the translator there was a convulted answer which was peppered with other questions and I think maybe even a mild rebuke, although his shining and beaming demeanour would deny that.

The translator said, "do not be held captive by words".

The master smiled.

I asked the translator later if he would pass on something to the master from me, that those words in particular struck me as important but also very funny: I am a journalist.

He told the master, and the master's gentle expression of benign good humour didn't change.

It may be the only thing I've seen in Seoul which struck me as permanent.

By the way I briefly met Robert Koehler whose writes the bst blog about contemporary Korea. Check him out here.

And many thanks for the "Seoul" and "Korea" variants as titles for these missives but as you can see I went lateral this time! It sorta seemed to fit.

With a good Metro system and useful street signage (aside from not naming streets), Seoul is an easy city to get your way around in -- but more fun when you get lost.

That's easy to do too, just come out of a Metro on the wrong exit and walk a few metres the wrong way and you are suddenly disorientated and happily lost.

But then another Seoul becomes evident.

As with many Asian cities -- I'm thinking of Tokyo -- Seoul is made up of small districts, 21st century villages if you will, which retain almost ancient characteristics.

And so although Seoul boasts high rise, public sculpture (nice Oldenberg), the newly developed river walk (which might look faux but does follow the old stream, cost squillions and offers an area of quiet -- except for the families and kids -- and all the other trappings of a modern city, you also find street stalls selling various kinds of food from broth to squid kebabs, women on the footpath telling fortunes, and old men selling those shapeless beige clothes that so many women over 50 seem to take pride in here.

These villages -- which have local restaurants and bars, parks where old men play board games and the visible homeless sleep under the trees, and various churches, temples, 7-11 stores, veggie shops and sellers of dried fish -- are scattered throughout central Seoul just down alleys or sidestreets away from the more well walked streets.

The fact these local areas thrive in the face of development gives Seoul a . . . well, you know how that has to end.

Much of this interesting stuff exists at ground level and is quite visible. In fact around one of the bigger Buddhist temples I was tripping over Buddha-detritus and people hawking cheap trinkets to the faithful.

But Seoul also goes up and down: bars, bookshops, cinemas, hair salons and so on can be five flights up or two floors down. That makes this city a constant discovery -- and for me rediscovery.

I'm stayin near Itaewon (I can hear your groans if you know Seoul) but got as far away as quickly as possible, and the Metro was very helpful in that.

I saw a wonderful exhibition of paper art in a gallery inside one of the stations, took photographs of lots of interesting buildings (anceient and modern), walked for hours, ate, shopped, got sort of lost afew times, saw worrying things (I guess we'll get Internet Dating: The Musical in due course) and thoroughly enjoyed a long day.

Right now Seoul is full of the joys of spring: kids, blossoms, balloons, face-painting, bands playing, lanes so crowded your walk is reduced to a slow shuffle . . .

The weather is mild, the sky cloudless and the mounatins which are suprisingly close and visible from many of the wide roads in the city centre are a gorgeous pale blue.

I have bought my replacement shirts and some K-pop and hip-hop CDs, the mango icecream was delicious, and the baseball cap necessary to keep the sun off my nose which, of course, feels even more noticeable in this environment.

As does the height, the beard, the hair and the clumsy pointing to things and stuttering something entirely wrong in a language which sounds like a threat of serious violence when shouted but seduces like rippling water when whispered.

My meetings start in earnest after my time of reorientation and given Seoul is going to undertake some major redevelopment I guess my job is to ask how much of what I love about this place, those little alleys into villages thriving in an urban environment, are going to survive.

I better get dressed up for my busy programme (which actually has "rest" written at 22.00 hours).

I can't wait.
I've even got my shirt picked out.

Graham Reid is in Seoul as a guest of the Seoul Metropolitan Government