SEOUL - NOVEMBER 30, 2000
The city of 1,000,000,000,000,000 PC-Bangs. What is a PC-Bang? Well, PC is personal computer. Bang is the Korean word for Room. Basically, PC Room, or Internet Cafe. In Seoul, they come in all sizes and shapes and all kinds of recent technological toys. For $1.00 an hour, they can't be beat.
Everything that I read about regarding computers in American newspapers I can finally experience here. In USA, there are a few internet cafes, but they were so expensive, that I couldn't adequately use them without severe financial stress. With the extremely high prices of the U.S. Internet Cafes, they never really took off in the same massive explosion that they have in South Korea. For whatever reason, they charge you nearly $5-6/hour in the USA On top of that, from what I remember, the computers are just basic, mostly just college students trying to research information on a search engine. Most of my Internet Surfing was done either on my own bottom-of-the-line personal computer or, if I was lucky enough, at my limited access workplace. Its a true pleaseure to be experiencing all that the online world has to offer these days. Its strange how I'm doing it in South Korea though, whereas most (but not all) of the technology is coming out of the USA (and/or Japan).
For one, I have never been able to access so many different television stations and taped broadcasts, and Korean equivalent shows of reality TV (like USA's summer hits, Survivor and Big Brother). They had those shows on the Internet too, but due to inadequate technology, I was never able to adequately view any of that stuff on the computer. Here in South Korea, at almost any PC-Bang, I can access almost any tv show, any movie, any live reality shows, anything from any country, any video, any news broadcast, anything I want, and with high-tech speakers and quality headphones, can sit in any PC-Bang at any time of the day or night (they are all open 24-hours, and enjoy watching anything I want for $1/hour). Unbelievable.
One show that I recently caught at a PC-Bang was called "Twenty Eyes" which is the Korean equivalent to "Big Brother", which are both modeled after their European counterparts. Everything is setup exactly the same, but this time, I can actually view it anytime live with TV like sound and TV like cameras on the computer, which if I had a top-of-the-line computer in USA, I might have also experienced. Now at any PC-Bang, I have that availabity, and its really fascinating. So many new things out there to explore. With the Internet so huge, and access so unlimited, I've noticed young Koreans exploring Japanese Anime animations and Japanese music videos in the PC-Bangs. This is also an interesting aspect of youth culture in Korea, as in the past, due to the long-standing conflicts between the two countries, nothing of Japanese pop culture was really allowed to infilterate South Korea by any means. But these days, Korean pop culture is pretty strong on its own, and while they have the Internet access, there still doesn't seem to anywhere near as much interest in Japan as many of the other Asian countries seem to to be so attracted to Japanese pop culture. Despite the strong resistance, it is interesting to see some of the famous Japanese anime characters showing up on Korean Internet rooms.
As a side note, its interesting to note, that while many cities in the world have China-Towns, Korea, one of China's closest neighbors, never really had one? I have enjoyed Chinatowns all across America, in Brazil, in Peru, in many places in the world. There is a huge Chinese influence throughout Southeast Asian, in every country thoughout the region. But in Korea, there is still yet to be any kind of China Town in this city. I'm amazed at Korea's strong resistance against its neighbors China and Japan. So many things are so similar, yet, Korea remains very Korean in many respects.
Back to the PC-Bang world, at several PC-Bangs I have seen monster-size computer screens for the game technies out there. Almost everything you can imagine. There are also many webcam cameras attached to many computers as well. Here, if you can navigate through the Korean language, you can find some chat rooms where you can see the people online in front of their computer. I haven't been able to navigate through the Korean language yet, but I've watched people with screens of maybe 20-25 other faces all in the same net room, and you can choose who to talk to, based on their live picture on the screen in miniature.
The PC-Bang (Internet Cafe) world of Seoul astounds me. Anywhere in this city you are within five minutes of one.
Also, I have some NEW PICTURES from SEOUL! Go check them out!
To read the Next Journal Entry: December 5, 2000
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