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| Robert Fouser in Seochon in central Seoul / Courtesy of Robert Fouser |
By Lee Suh-yoon
Robert Fouser, a self-employed linguist and writer based in Rhode Island, holds many titles here.
He's best known in Korean media as a hanok preservation activist and a former professor at Seoul National University's Korean language education department. But in relation to Seoul, a city he called home for 13 years, he prefers to call himself "a lifelong aficionado and student."
"I'm someone who finds Seoul fascinating and is always learning from it," he said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. Fouser published a book recently on Seoul and other cities he lived in, in Korea, Japan, the U.S., U.K. and Ireland. The book, written entirely in Korean, is titled "Exploring Cities."
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| "Exploring Cities" / Courtesy of Robert Fouser |
The juxtaposition of all these cities in one book provides a contextual lens for understanding the changes, aesthetics and possible futures of each city. Why Seoul's Gangnam feels so "artificial and improvised" becomes clearer when you place it alongside a contrasting commercial center like Tokyo's Yamanote, which "emerged organically over a long time" after the 1868 Meiji Restoration rather than being drawn up on a table by a military dictatorship.
The multi-city contextual lens is also useful when exploring common urban dilemmas like gentrification and redevelopment.
In Fouser's eyes, Seoul holds a more hopeful position than other megacities. Neighborhoods are gentrifying fast and walled apartment complexes ― "undemocratic military bases" in Fouser's opinion ― continue to wipe out the "entire footprint" of neighborhoods. But at least conflict and resistance to such destructive changes is visible. As it proved itself throughout its tumultuous political history and democratization, Fouser says, Seoul is a city that "uses conflict as a momentum to carve its own future."
It can also heed the cautionary tales of more developed megacities as it navigates ahead, taking the example of how excessive gentrification affected London and New York.
"I don't want Seoul to become a city with a curated playground for tourists and the rich, surrounded by an ocean of drab bed towns full of tired middle-class commuters mixed with hidden poverty," he said.
One place to start would be to discard its "fringe" complex in relation to the four central megacities like London, Paris, New York and Tokyo, as well as the resulting obsession on branding and image making.
"Seoul is Seoul, and its global standing doesn't have much effect on the quality of life of its residents."
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