Seoul Seeking

The conventional wisdom about Korea, especially among Americans who’ve not been there, is that it is a nation of two activities: commerce and war. As for commerce, Asia’s financial crisis has put a lot of things on hold for this country with such a prior burgeoning economy. As for war, the most recent carnage began in 1950 and lasted three years.

Known widely as “the Korean conflict” or “the forgotten war” to many who fought there, it claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Koreans and Americans until the truce, an uneasy one at best, was negotiated in 1953 at the village of Panmunjom at the infamous 38th parallel, which divides North and South Korea.

The fact is that South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is one of Asia’s best-kept secrets. Part of that secret, certainly, is that the capital city of Seoul is a shopper’s playground--with sprawling street markets, and individual districts devoted to categories of merchandise: for example, antiques or high-quality watches or electronics or gold jewelry at favorable prices by Western standards. And while the exchange rate (960 won to the dollar) isn’t as generous to American buyers as it was a year ago (when $1 bought 1,500 South Korean won), it’s still above the rates of the early and mid-’90s.

I returned in late May from an Asian trip that included a week on the bottom half of this mountainous, California-size peninsula stretching roughly 1,000 miles south from China’s region of Manchuria, lying east of the Yellow Sea and west, across a narrow stretch of sea, of Japan.

Japan controlled Korea for many centuries, as in turn did China. But the peninsula was always governed as a single entity--that is, until after World War II, when the defeated Japanese were ousted and the spoils were divided into two countries. The north was portioned to the Communists, with an ensuing brutal, repressive regime, and the south was deeded essentially to the West (read the United States), which ushered in the present republic. These divisions remain in place today.

I arrived in Seoul early in the morning, with the capital’s skyscrapers thrusting up like ancient monoliths bathed in cloud--looking like an ancient scroll painting, but in fact rising from the city’s rocky, ever-sprawling place on the Han River.

Seoul struck me as unique among Asian cities, though Tokyo comes soonest to mind as a fair comparison. Like the mammoth Japanese capital, Seoul is a clean, modern city superimposed upon an ancient one, a duality I saw in the hour’s drive from the airport as we passed palaces and gates dating from the 14th century nestled among the steel and glass high rises. This superimposition was evident at my hotel, which opened in 1979.

The Shilla, an elegant, expensive hostelry with a Cole Porter stylishness about it, is situated in the heart of the city on the small peak known as Mt. Namsan. It is carpeted with 23 acres of lush woodlands and gardens, and the property is partly enclosed by a wall that dates from 1305, an ancient city boundary. Taking its name from the local dynasty that united the entire peninsula under domestic rule for the first time in AD 668, the hotel is a sylvan retreat from the noise, pollution and traffic of a vital trading center of 12 million people. But the hotel’s business center produced a set of business cards for me within an hour’s time.

Continuing the collisions of past and present, on the afternoon of my arrival I was invited by chance to attend a ceremony presented by the Korean Tea Society. The women were dressed in elaborate high-waisted gowns of reds, yellows and greens that barely touched the floor as they made their formal movements while pouring and accepting tea, an ancient custom of manners and courtship. The hostess was an unmarried 60-year-old hospital manager, while her beautiful and demure charges were professional women as well: bankers, accountants and lawyers, who performed their stylized rituals with the grace and authority of an earlier era.

I spent my few days wandering the expansive grounds of the city’s palaces, where brides-to-be posed for photographers in their wedding gowns, but I felt the pulse of the city most keenly in its markets.

The Insadong Antique Market, or Mary’s Alley as foreigners know it, is reason enough to be in the capital on a Sunday. A narrow, crowded street that seems to run for miles not far from Tapkol Park, it is closed off and lined with antique shops and stalls selling old paintings, ceramics, wooden chests, earthenware from the Shilla era and porcelain from the Choson Dynasty. At the opposite extreme is the Yeji-dong Jewelry and Watch Alley, where blocks of shops dazzle the eye with wares that seem second to none in quality and extremely cheap.

Now this is a situation that calls for prudence. As in any major world emporium, one must be on guard against fakery. I have always believed the best shopping course is to consult the concierge of a reputable hotel. The Shilla was no exception. Its concierge and “shopping guide” provided the names, addresses and map locations of stores where, he said, the authenticity of goods was unquestioned. Thus I was mightily tempted by an exquisitely wrought 24-karat gold necklace, carefully weighed by the shop proprietress, that cost just under $500, far below what it would have sold for in Los Angeles. Nearby, at the Kwang-Jang Market, which sold objects and bolts of silk that were nearly unbearably soft to the touch, I bought two embroidered silk handbags for $3 apiece.

Evenings invariably found me wandering the Namdaemun (South Gate) Market, a closed-off street with sidewalk cafes offering everything from suckling pig on rotisseries to fried squid. Makeshift stages became arenas for transvestite skits before audiences that included children. But the main attraction was the shops, many peddling frankly imitation name-brand clothes and pocketbooks. One store owner proudly produced a Paris catalog displaying the up-market wares--Louis Vuitton bags and the like--that he so assiduously copied and insisted he improved upon. I bought three beautiful bags. Fake they may have been, but quality fakes, in my opinion. In each market I visited, the sales personnel were models of decorum, helpful but never hassling.

The day before my departure brought one of the strangest and most oddly unsettling episodes in memory, a visit to Panmunjom and the Demilitarized Zone. I was too young to have fought in Korea, but as a former Marine Corps officer, I had been required to learn the story of every battle on the peninsula. I also knew that there are 37,000 American troops still stationed in South Korea to bolster the tense border--a 4,000-yard-wide, coast-to-coast ribbon of minefields--at the 38th parallel.

I departed in a bus from the hotel just before 9 a.m. with others as curious as I: Koreans, Japanese and Americans. The trip, fewer than 40 miles, took 90 minutes with stops at various monuments along the way. We passed through undistinguished farm country with rice-field workers in knee-deep water, their skirts hitched and gathered, along with the occasional standing white heron.

Suddenly the so-called “Highway of Freedom” abruptly ended, and we turned into a station for passport checks by the R.O.K. military. Here picture-taking was strictly forbidden as an unsmiling armed guard boarded the bus to inspect our credentials. The bus proceeded high on a narrow trestle across a river, then into the United Nations camp, where we were ushered into a mess hall for lunch followed by a briefing.

“At the conference room the military demarcation line runs down the middle of the table. Please do not gesture to any North Korean officer, as you’ll be photographed and the incident used for propaganda purposes,” we were told by the young soldier assigned to us, who then issued us temporary badges.

The bus wound slowly up a hill toward the DMZ, stopping twice at checkpoints for a sentry’s inspection, then proceeded past anti-tank fortifications and minefields, scattering the occasional pheasant from the thick brush at roadside.

Arriving in the DMZ camp, a cluster of low military buildings of the sort seen the world over, we noticed South Korean guards standing at the ready at the corners of buildings facing north. We got out and were ushered into the MAC (Military Armistice Commission) Building for another briefing, while North Korean officers on the other side stared at us through the windows.

Afterward, the bus followed a winding road to an observation hill affording a 360-degree view of the border, where we were allowed to get out. In the distance to the north a sign in stone on a rise read in translation, “Self-Reliance Is Our Way of Life.” The hill stood against a horizon barely distinct in the yellow glare of approaching summer. It was warm and still. In the foreground a narrow river, the Imjin, fringed by woods, divided the two countries and was spanned by a bridge known as “The Bridge of No Return.”

Loudspeakers atop a checkpoint across the river blared propaganda songs sung by a woman in a high-pitched voice, while North Korean soldiers faced their enemy through binoculars. Industrial smoke rose from a Communist village beyond the checkpoint, and the North Korean flag hung limp from its post. The tenseness was palpable; here we were allowed to take pictures.

Needing a tonic after the day’s events, I returned that evening, my last, to the Namdaemun Market, where there was music and the scent of barbecue wafting in the air and the bustle of trade in the streets. I drank it all in, while marveling at the deep schism dividing the vibrant south and the impenetrable north, so close and yet so far.

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GUIDEBOOK

Heart of Seoul

Getting there: American, Delta, Asiana and Korean Airlines fly nonstop from Los Angeles to Seoul; round-trip fares begin at about $700. Northwest and United Airlines have connecting flights, changing planes in Tokyo; round-trip fares start at about $655.

Where to stay: The Shilla Seoul Hotel, 202, 2-Ga, Jangchung-Dong, Chung-Ku, Seoul; telephone 011-82-2-233-3131, fax 011-82-2-233-5073, Internet https://www.shilla.samsung.co.kr. At this elegant hotel doubles are $360 plus a 10% service charge and 10% tax. Also recommended: Hotel Lotte, 1 Sogong-Dong, Chun-Ku, Seoul; tel. 011- 82-2-771-1000, fax 011-82-2- 752-3758. Double room, $260 plus service charge and tax. Buses depart from here for the DMZ at Panmunjom. Warning: Hotel prices, following economic up- and downturns, have fluctuated widely in recent years.

Where to eat: Seoul’s hotels have excellent restaurants, but try a teahouse and/or restaurant in Seoul’s Insadong shopping district. As always, look for locals dining and go where they go: for example, the Jun Tong Cha Jip teahouse (ask a native for directions). Also in the district, Dae Jung Um Shik Jum restaurant, where seafood is a specialty and two can dine for under $15. Tipping is not customary.

For more information: Korea National Tourism Organization, 3435 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1110, Los Angeles, CA 90010; tel. (213) 382-3435, (800) 868-7567, fax (213) 480-0483, Internet https:// www.knto.or.kr.