(522) Island Life

By Andrei Lankov

When Koreans refer to ``Yeouido talk," everyone understands immediately what it means. It stands for talking politics, since the island of Yeouido is the major seat of political power. This is where the Korean parliament, as well as major corporation headquarters and think tanks are located.

However, if you come to Yeouido, you will not fail to notice how new everything looks. Indeed, the area which has become the kernel of Korean politics was built anew less than four decades ago.

Historically, Seoul was located on the northern bank of the Han River. So, a sand island a few kilometers to the southeast of the city was not seen as a part of Seoul. The island did not have many inhabitants, since it was subject to frequent flooding.

From 1916 Yeouido was occupied by an airfield, largely used by the Japanese air force, but occasionally available for amateur pilots and, from the late 1920s, for regular civilian flights. For a while a Japanese entrepreneur used the island for a cattle farm, but this did not last for long: The great floods of 1925 virtually wiped this farm out.

In 1958, international flights began to use Gimpo, but the airstrip remained the most prominent feature of the Yeouido area. In the mid-1960s about a third of the island belonged to the airport, about half of which was a sandy wasteland, and the rest was taken up with fields where local farmers grew onions, maize and beans.

As with many other bold projects which defined the present-day image of Seoul, the Yeouido development plan was the brainchild of Kim Hyon-ok, a charismatic and hyperactive man who was the Seoul mayor from 1966-70.

His name is associated with the first city tunnels, the first elevated roads, the development of Gangnam, the introduction of the subway, and many other innovative ideas. For Yeouido, Kim envisioned a new role: This sandy island would become the seat of political power, a place where a new parliament building could be located. And so large-scale construction works on the island began in 1968.

According to the plan, Yeouido would become an embodiment of a ``new Seoul," free from the legacies of the colonial past and traces of destitution. It would become a locale of broad streets, modern high-rise apartment boxes, steel-and-glass administrative buildings, and well-planned rectangular quarters.

All this probably does not sound too exciting to our readers, but Koreans of the 1960s were not very fond of what they saw as signs of underdevelopment (rather than vestiges of the old culture).

The area had to be prepared for construction. Yeouido was a low-island, very vulnerable to periodic floods, so sand and dirt were moved to the area, elevating the ground well above the usual flood level. To stop floods, a protective dike, some seven kilometers long, was built around the island, securing the construction site.

These efforts required a large-scale mobilization, so to complete the new embankments before the deadline, they had to move earth-moving equipment and trucks from across the entire nation. Two new bridges connected the island with the northern bank, providing a transportation route.

The major focal point of the new Yeouido was the large parliament building, located at the western tip of the island which can be seen from afar (it has a large blue dome).

The building was officially opened in 1975. The National Assembly library, the country's largest, was housed nearby. Logically enough, most political parties also established their headquarters in the vicinity of the Assembly building.

Big business gravitated toward the center of political power. In the late 1970s and the early 1980s the headquarters of some major Korean corporations moved to Yeouido. The Korean Stock Exchange is located there, like the towers of the LG Group's headquarters.

The ``63 Building" (for a while the tallest in East Asia) also houses a number of major businesses. In the 1980s, this mammoth skyscraper was a major tourist attraction, and a symbol of Korea's rush to development and success. Finally, KBS, the nation's largest broadcast station, also built its large headquarters on the island. It was followed by its major competitors, so nowadays Yeouido is the center of Korean broadcast media.

When construction began, the old airfield was closed down and its site was remodeled to become a huge square with enough space for 600,000 people. It was sometimes used for large rallies, of which the welcome party for the Pope in 1984 was probably the most significant and memorable.

However, in 1996 it was decided that it was not a good idea to have a large and bare concrete space in the middle of the city, so the square was redeveloped as ``Yeouido Park" (and it was opened in 1997). This park is 1.2-kilometers long but merely 200 meters broad, and this peculiar strip-like shape betrays its origin as an airstrip.

In the 1970s, the tourist guidebooks presented Yeouido as a ``Korean Manhattan." However, by around 1980 it became clear that Yeouido was not destined to play this role.

It remains the major seat of power, but nowadays few people see this area as an embodiment of urban modernity. This role undisputedly belongs to Gangnam, another large new development area on the southern bank of the Han River. Its development also began in the late 1960s, and eventually Gangnam surpassed Yeouido in its symbolic significance.

Prof. Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. He has recently published ``The Dawn of Modern Korea,'' which is now on sale at Kyobo Book Center and other major bookstores. The book is based on columns published in The Korea Times. He can be reached at anlankov@yahoo.com.