Erasing the past to build the future

The Korea Herald has documented the lives of those that have come out on the losing end of gentrification planning. Over a dozen interviews were conducted over the past 12 months. Part 1 was published Jan. 19, part 2 on Jan. 20. This is the last installment in the series. - Ed.



By Matthew Lamers and Hannah Chang



Kang Yong-im lives every day of her life knowing she will soon be evicted from her home and business, just as most of her neighbors have been.

Many non-Koreans are familiar with her guesthouse. For the past three decades, Inn Daewon has been a popular residence for tourists seeking a more authentic Korean experience than most hotels could offer. But the alley that successfully hid her "hanok," or traditional Korean home, and some other restaurants for years is probably the last that remains in the downtown district.

Now it`s half demolished. Fourteen of the 25 buildings are gone. Only 12 of the 82 families remain. Once a unique snapshot of an old life in the midst of modern skyscrapers, its days are numbered. Every month or so, another building in the alley gets razed. It will be this way until there are none left - a time in the not-too-distant future. Kang`s is one of the few that remain and her guesthouse is still open for business, fighting on.

Its central downtown location - right between City Hall and Gyeongbok Palace - make the plot of land prime real estate for developers. In a sense, it`s nothing short of a miracle that this alleyway made it 10 years into the 21st century. In a matter of time it will be home to the city`s newest commercial space. Tourists currently pay only 20,000 won for a night in this hanok, but if a hotel is one of the buildings that takes its place, they`ll be lucky to get a room there for 10 times that.

<**2>

Voice trembling, hands over her face, she describes what it`s like waiting to have her livelihood pulled out from under her.

"I have been doing this business for 30 years already. When my family came here there was nothing. But we advertised in dozens of countries around the world and gained international notoriety, including in Canadian media. It`s not only a material loss for me; it`s also a cultural loss for international tourists," says the 70 year old.

The guesthouse has seen better days. Kang and her husband say they haven`t done much maintenance on the place since they found out a few years ago it was going to be torn down. Even though they have been tenants, they were the ones that have been responsible for most of the maintenance and renovations. They didn`t build it from the ground up, but it would have fallen to the ground years ago if it weren`t for their efforts.

The sign above the front door reads "Inn Daewon, welcome to Korea." In its glory days, the guesthouse offered a friendly, Korean-family style of atmosphere. For the most part, it still does.

"In Seoul`s big hotels, customers have individual rooms to go into. They close the door and that`s it. They aren`t even in Korea anymore. But here the atmosphere is Korean. So it`s always like a family and I think this is the thing that makes this place special," Kang describes.

Kang and her neighbors see it like this: They moved into the area decades ago and spent their own money building up their businesses. They took out bank loans to make repairs to their buildings. They built up their customer bases. She paid her rent on time every month for thirty years. "We worked hard and the customers came. Then they tell us they are going to evict us and we don`t have any say in the matter. Why? And where are we to go?" she asks.

Kang says she understands both sides of the debate and that redevelopment here is inevitable. But she says that redevelopment should be done in a way where tenants are not left worse off than they had been, before adding, "I have nothing else to say."

What outrages her husband, 73-year-old Kim Yong-gil, the most is that they were offered no compensation by the owner. "He wouldn`t even let us have 10 won (9 cents)."



The big picture

The Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affairs said in 2008 there were 231 districts where redevelopment projects had been started, completed or were pending across the country. The total affected land area was 17.2 square kilometers.

The number of household units removed, or slated to be removed was 111,448. A representative from the ministry could not tell The Korea Herald the number of people that have been displaced due to redevelopment, saying "I don`t know why, but those numbers have never been gathered."

Considering all the data from 1973 to 2008 and assuming that one person lived in each household, at least 343,000 people have been or will be evicted from their homes.

According to the 2008 data, the 111,448 homes would be replaced by 253,897 homes. The problem, critics say, is that the vast majority of the homes were occupied by low-income tenants, while the new units are almost all for middle- and high income earners and the original occupants can`t afford to move back in.

By region, Seoul saw almost half of the redevelopment plans. In 2008, 45 percent of the 231 projects were in Seoul City. Second came Busan, at 26 percent, Incheon was third at 10 percent, followed by Daejeon, Daegu, Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province and Ulsan at under 1 percent of the projects.

The ministry`s latest figures for redevelopment are for 2008 and were released in October 2009.



The case of Yu Young-sook

Yu Young-sook has two children. The oldest is a freshman in college while the youngest is a second-year high school student. Since her husband was killed on Jan. 20, 2009 in a police raid, she says she is worried about their futures. The building he and other protestors had occupied became the focal point in a years-long dispute over tenant evictions in Yongsan District 4. Four other evictees and one police officer were also killed.

Yu and her husband ran a business in a different part of Seoul - Joong-gu, Sunhwa-dong - until they were evicted in 2007. Her husband joined the Yongsan District 4 protest because of his affiliation with the National Evictees` Alliance.

"Our children have been perplexed by the sudden disappearance of their father," she says, when asked how they have coped with the loss.

Yu and the other four widows came to an agreement with the government on the last day of 2009. But she says while it is a positive step for Seoul to pay for the funerals, the case is far from settled.

"No progress has really been made except that the government and the redevelopment association paid for the funeral. It`s not only me that feels this way, though my husband was killed in the incident. No further solutions were made for the remaining evictees. All we can say is that it is a step in the right direction," says Yu.

Yu and the other widows of the men killed are demanding a full accounting of the events that transpired on that cold January evening. Of the 10,000 page report on the incident by the Seoul Prosecutors Office, one-third has been kept secret.

"Until the actual facts are revealed about the incident, though the funeral was held, I will not have comfort in my heart.

"We still have a long way to go. The hardship I`ve been having during the year is the hardship that is no different from other evictees, until the facts are revealed."





To comment, e-mail mattlamers @heraldm.com - Ed.