Autumn has arrived earlier than usual at Mount Seorak National Park in Sokcho, Gangwon, on Oct. 17.YONHAP
I hope that you’re having a fun and/or relaxing Saturday! In this weekend’s longer reads, we’ll look at how the Gyeonggi provincial government is working to honor a firefighter who died in a factory fire in Bucheon; where Seoul’s Muslim community dines and shops for ingredients; why an increasing number of visitors are buying Korean designer bags during their stay; the newest issue between Korea and Ukraine, which centers on reports that the former provided fuel to Russia; and how baseball fans are saying goodbye to the beloved Jamsil Baseball Stadium.
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Firefighter dies after Bucheon factory fire
One firefighter died after helping extinguish a fire at a factory in Bucheon, Gyeonggi, while five others and two factory employees were injured.
The firefighter, Kim Jin-seok, died at 12:55 a.m. on Saturday while receiving treatment at a hospital. He was part of the first unit to arrive at the scene of the blaze, which broke out at a metal injection molding and printing factory in Nae-dong, Ojeong District, at about 8:38 a.m. on Friday, according to police and fire authorities on Saturday.
According to the National Fire Agency on Saturday, Kim will be posthumously promoted from fire sergeant to lieutenant, one rank higher, in honor of his sacrifice. The agency will also work to posthumously award him an Order of Service Merit and a burial at the National Cemetery.
Taste of halal in Itaewon, where Seoul’s Muslim community eats and shops
A few voices greeted, “As-salamu alaykum,” as this reporter entered a halal restaurant.
It was well past lunchtime on a recent weekday, but diners — many of them Muslim — filled half of Arabesque, a restaurant in Itaewon in Yongsan District, western Seoul.
Itaewon is known for hosting cuisine from around the world, and halal food is not hard to find. But to find out where members of the Muslim community themselves go to eat, simply look around and see who is serving the food and who is eating it.
Foreign visitors to Seoul are adding a new item to shopping lists once dominated by skincare and luxury labels: a handbag from a Korean brand that sells for a fraction of a luxury-labelled one and, unlike a jacket or a pair of jeans, fits whoever buys it.
Such labels — Matin Kim, Marhen J, Samo Ondoh, Archivepke and more — are drawing customers with trendy designs, Instagrammable stores in popular tourist destinations, quality control and relatively affordable prices.
Did fuel leave South Korea for Russia? Records raise questions, but proof remains elusive.
Whether South Korea shipped fuel to Russia has emerged as a fresh flashpoint between Seoul and Kyiv after the two sides clashed over the handling of the transfer of North Korean prisoners of war.
The Guardian reported on Oct. 6 that seven tankers loaded more than 176,000 tons of fuel, mostly diesel, at South Korean ports in July and August and made 14 voyages to Russia's Far East. Of them, three were under British and European Union sanctions, and one took on its cargo at sea, a practice that can mask a shipment's origin.
The Lee Jae Myung administration, however, said its trade statistics show no diesel, gasoline or jet fuel exported to Russia from August of last year through this August. Nor, it said, did any such products leave for Russia through official customs clearance, regardless of where they were produced.
Goodbye to Jamsil, Seoul’s imperfect, beloved baseball cathedral
Fourteen seasons. Somewhere between five and 15 games a year, depending on work, weather and how the Doosan Bears were getting on. Subtract most of 2020 and a good chunk of 2021, when the pandemic first locked fans out entirely and then let a fraction of us back in on the condition that we sat apart, kept our masks on and didn't sing. That's a cruel thing to ask in a ballpark built on singing. Add the hour before first pitch and the slow shuffle back to Sports Complex Station afterward, and it comes to roughly 500 hours. That's three weeks of my life, give or take, spent in one concrete bowl in southern Seoul.
That doesn't include the road trips to every other ballpark in the country, which are a separate and slightly more embarrassing calculation.
However you round it, Jamsil Baseball Stadium is the building in Korea where I have spent the most time that isn't a home or an office. It just doesn't have a roof — yet.
