Chamsori Gramophone and Edison Museum

The city of Gangneung and its surrounds has several interesting sites for tourists.  One is the ship-shaped (as in, the building looks like a ship, not that the building itself is 'shipshape' if you know what I mean...) resort perched atop a headland.  It pops into your view looking like the bizarre debris of a giant storm as you go hurtling around the coast road.  I was simply too astonished to get a photo.  Luckily, the internet has plenty!!

Another is the Unification Park where in 1996 a North Korean submarine ran aground while spying on a military facility in Gangneung.  All the guide books say that you can poke around inside the 35m submarine, but we seemed unable to locate it on the day we visited...seems like something that would be hard to miss.  Perhaps they took it back?

However, my all time favourite attraction in this part of Korea (and, let's be honest, probably in all of Korea) is the Chamsori Gramophone and Edison Museum.  This museum is an indulgence of the two great passions of Mr Son Sung-Mok, Thomas Edison and gramophones.  The museum houses Mr Son's incredible personal collection.  Mr Son has collected over 10,000 gramophones, Edison inventions and their technological descendents.  Many are on display and a surprising number still work.  As we were the only people visiting at the time, the attendant was quite adamant that we should hear as many of them as possible...these things were LOUD!  The Colonel was not well pleased but Husband and I loved it.

The story goes that Mr Son was given his first gramophone by his parents when he was a child in Wonson (now a port city in North Korea).  When the Korean War broke out and his family fled south, the gramophone was the only possession he took with him.  Several of the pieces in the collection are the only known of their kind to still exist.  One of the most incredible is an American-made coin slot gramophone which is dated from the 1900s.  It was HUGE and looked to be in remarkable condition.

We were truly delighted by this place and by the passion that must have driven Mr Son to build it and fill it with the most amazing collection of gramophones and other technological wonders.  If you are on the east coast of Korea, or a lover of this kind of whimsy then don't miss it.

Sokcho Stuffed Squid

In the east coast city of Sokcho, they make a stuffed squid dish that can not be found anywhere else in Korea.  I first heard about it on the Kimchi Chronicles (skip to about 16 minutes in if you just want to see what I'm talking about - although if you watch the whole thing Hugh Jackman inexplicably appears...always a bonus).

The dish is called "ojingo sundae" - literally translated to squid sausage.  The squid is stuffed with rice and vegetables, sliced and then fried.  The one in the picture was also dipped in an eggy pancake batter before being fried.  After a long morning of hiking in the mountains, this was a very welcome feast!

Goseong Unification Observatory

The Korean Demilitarized Zone is 4km wide and runs 250km across the entire Korean Peninsula.  Most well known is the western end of the DMZ near Panmunjeom and the Joint Security Area - this is where the Korean War Armistice Agreement of 27 July 1953 was signed. 

Hwajinpo Beach (I think)

Beaches a few km from the DMZ

However, a quieter and arguably more solemn experience of the DMZ is the approach to the Goseong Unification Observatory on the east coast.  

Interesting things afoot in the Korean Government

There are some very interesting things coming to light as the new President tries to form her Cabinet.  I don't really feel like I can add any useful commentary...it pretty much speaks for itself: (from The Korea Times) "Illegal drug use, gambling suspected in sex scandal" and (from Korea Joongang Daily) "Defense minister nominee bows out" and "Vice minister of justice resigns in wake of scandal".

Adventures in Gyeonggi-do Part 2 - Spicy Glabi Jjim

In the town of Guri, about 30km from Seoul, you will find a restaurant called 만송골 갈비탕 (Mansonggol Galbi Tang) where they specialise in a range of beef rib-based dishes.  The menu consists of Galbi Tang (a beef rib soup in a light stock with vegetables), regular Galbi Jjim (which I wrote about here) and...*drum roll*... Spicy Galbi Jjim!

Adventures in Gyeonggi-do Part 1 - Namhansanseong

Gyeonggi-do is a province neighbouring Seoul and therefore always a popular destination for a weekend day out.  In celebration of the temperature no longer dropping below zero overnight, on Sunday morning the three of us bundled into the car for some outdoor activities.  About 25km from central Seoul you will find Namhansanseong - which translates to South Han Mountain Fortress - with its fresh (ish) air, birds, hiking trails and plethora of restaurants.

Korea ranked last in OECD on female graduate employment.

Despite months of positive blog posts about life in Korea, there are things that really bother me.  Korea is a tremendous place to live, but there are some changes that Korea as a whole must make.  Many of the things center around the enormous gap between genders.

A recent OECD report has ranked Korea last (last!) in OECD countries for female graduate employment.  An article I managed to dig out of a Korean newspaper can be found here.  Korean women are educated at the same rate as Korean men (63%) but their workplace participation rates are the same as they were 20 years ago (55%).  It seems that everything else in Korea has changed in the last 20 years, but not this.

There have been some policies introduced recently to try and address this issue, including parental leave (Korean men are now entitled to two days unpaid leave - yes, two days, unpaid - upon the birth of a child) and heavily subsidised or free child care.  However, according to the OECD, "as long as workplace cultures involve long working hours, socialising after work, and a seniority-based promotion and payment system which punishes women for leaving their job on childbirth, social policy reform will have limited effect".

The long standing low fertility rate in Korea means that they will need to more actively consider how to improve the female workplace participation rate, or they will face an economically damaging labour shortage, not to mention the wasted intellectual capital of all the highly educated women being pushed out of the workforce.  However, parity in workplace participation will remain unattainable unless Korean men increase their contribution to unpaid domestic labour (current assessments have their contribution at an average of 45 minutes per week).  Additionally, Korean workplaces will need to become more family-friendly, or in fact learn what family-friendly actually means.

If this doesn't change, Korea runs the risk of losing the momentum of economic growth that it has managed to generate.  If birth rate stays low and Korean women continue to shun marriage in greater numbers, Korea will find itself risking stagnation.  Demography always wins.