Category: Seoul

The Seoul Queer Culture Festival will go on as planned this year, but in Seoul’s Euljiro neighborhood:

This year’s Seoul Queer Culture Festival (SQCF) will be held as scheduled on July 1 in downtown Seoul’s Euljiro area due to the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s disapproval of its event taking place at Seoul Plaza, according to the festival organizer, Wednesday.

“The (festival’s) use of Seoul Plaza was disapproved by the discriminatory administration of the Seoul Metropolitan Government,” Yang Sun-woo, chairperson of the SQCF organizing committee, said during a press conference in Seoul, Wednesday. “The 24th SQCF and parade will be held in the Euljiro 2-ga area.”

The SQCF, which was launched in 2000 with around 50 participants in the capital’s northeastern Daehangno area, grew in size over the years, eventually settling in Seoul Plaza in 2015, one of the biggest public squares in the capital. This will be the first edition of the event to not be held there since 2015 except for the two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the city government rejected the committee’s request to use the city square in favor of a youth concert by the Christian Television System (CTS) Culture Foundation instead. 

In response, the committee filed a notice of assembly for the Euljiro area to secure an alternative venue. One month prior to the event, 64 activists and supporters took turns lining up at three police stations in the jurisdiction of the locations for 89 hours to receive police authorization for use of the public space. As permission is granted on a first-come, first-serve basis, they had to compete with Christian activists also lining up to book the same spaces in order to deny them a venue, according to Yang. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see what venue they are able to book this year for the SQCF:

A giant rainbow flag is carried aloft by participants at the Seoul Queer Culture Festival in Seoul Plaza, central Seoul, June 1, 2019. The event was joined by over 180,000 LGBTQ people and supporters combined. Courtesy of Seoul Queer Culture Festival organizing committee

For an estimated 2.5 million Koreans identifying themselves as sexual minorities, the annual Seoul Queer Culture Festival (SQCF) is the long-awaited “national queer holiday,” a rare occasion where they feel safe and encouraged to gather and express their identity.

The festival, which celebrates its 24th anniversary this year, started in 2000 with 50 participants on a road in northeastern Seoul’s Daehangno area. The event grew to over 135,000 participants last year, and despite opposition and interference by conservative Christians, it seemed to have nestled at Seoul Plaza, one of the biggest public venues in the capital.

However, the festival now has to find an alternative venue this year, after the Seoul Metropolitan Government earlier this month disapproved the use of the city square for the upcoming festival. 

This two-decade evolution of the SQCF has been a “journey of finding a public space where the country’s LGBTQ communities can be and show who they are,” Yang Sun-woo, the chairperson of the SQCF organizing committee, said during an interview with The Korea Times, Tuesday.

Yang, an activist at the Korean Sexual Minority Culture and Rights Center, has been taking part in the SQCF since she joined it in 2005 as a staff member of the Korea Queer Film Festival, a part of the SQCF. She has been in her current position since 2015.

Amid opposition from conservative Christians and merchants, the festival had to find one venue after another across the capital ― from Daehangno to Itaewon to Cheonggye Stream to Sinchon ― to house the growing queer community and its supporters, she said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

At least some more parts of the old Yongsan Garrison is being used as a public park. Hopefully this continues instead of just filling in this land with apartments:

A repurposed section of Yongsan Garrison, once the U.S. military’s primary headquarters in South Korea, opened to the public as a park on Thursday during a ceremony convened by South Korean President Yoon.

Over 200 kids and parents attended the grand opening of the Yongsan Children’s Garden, a newly developed 74-acre park in Seoul, according to a news release from the presidential office. 

Yoon at the ceremony praised the park’s construction and said there are “no decent fields in our country where children … can run as much as they want,” according to the release.

The opening ceremony took place on the eve of Children’s Day, a South Korean national holiday.

The park is next to the presidential office and includes a cafe, a walking trail lined with sycamore trees, a baseball field and a soccer field. Its location is meant to “serve as a bridge between the government and the people,” the release said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Great job by the firefighters in Seoul for quickly putting out this forest fire before any property damage in the city could occur:

A wildfire on a mountain in central Seoul was completely put out Monday afternoon after 25 hours, authorities said.

The fire started on Mount Inwang, a popular trekking spot in the central ward of Jongno, shortly before noon Sunday and spread rapidly due to strong wind, temporarily forcing about 120 households to evacuate, according to the Seoul city government. No injuries or deaths have been reported.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but no word yet on what the cause of the fire was.

Hopefully firefighters can get this fire under control before it spreads down the mountain slopes towards Seoul:

President Yoon Suk Yeol instructed relevant authorities Sunday to make all-out efforts to put out and prevent spring wildfires, his office said.

Yoon issued the message following reports of wildfires on Mount Inwang, near the previous location of South Korea’s presidential office, and a mountain in Hongseong, 114 kilometers south of Seoul.

As of 2:30 p.m., some 580 officials and nine helicopters had been mobilized to put out the blaze on Mount Inwang that broke out shortly before noon. There have been no reports of deaths or injuries caused by it.

Authorities have banned entry to the mountain, with residents in nearby areas being evacuated. Some 120 households already have been evacuated.

Some 0.23 square kilometers of land, equivalent to the size of 32 football fields, have been destroyed by the wildfire.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This must have been quite a sight for the people in Seoul who saw this zebra running around their neighborhood:

A zebra that escaped from a zoo in Seoul on Thursday was captured in the streets of the South Korean capital after having roamed at large in the streets for about three hours, according to zoo officials and fire authorities.

The zebra reportedly broke free from Seoul Children’s Grand Park’s zoo in eastern Seoul around 2:50 p.m. and roamed around the nearby residential area. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the zebra was safely recaptured and returned to the zoo.