of the young people- and tourist-friendly HongDae neighborhood this afternoon nabbed me this small trove of images: a Mona Lisa; a Doraemon; a Moai; a Shin-Chan; a Mexican wrestler; and a whole bunch of "climbing Santas":
Oh, and lest I forget, a giant teddy bear.
I took this photo this afternoon in the Hong'ik University neighborhood (the origin of the name Hongdae). When I looked at the downloaded image I was immediately struck by its visual similarity to another shot that I took a few years ago (check the reference below). But that earlier image was quite different in feel; it was intended to exploit the ominous, dystopian anxiety of being alone in the midst of an anomalously empty urban environment (wow, I so can wax poetic sometimes), but this new image was definitely in a different category. So I decided to emphasize that difference by modifying it with various editing tools, running it through filters, etc. The result is a page out of an imaginary picture book dedicated to nostalgia, longing, and faded memories that will die with me.
If you were around in Korea back in 2007, you might have heard of the TV drama The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, or just Coffee Prince for short. It was a very popular series. I was living in Los Angeles then and missed the original airing, but was later able to obtain a DVD set. It was about HanGyeol, an irresponsible but likable playboy scion of a wealthy family whose imperious grandmother finally gives him an ultimatum: get a job and prove yourself, or else.
After some anxious brain-wracking he gets the bright idea to open a coffee shop near a women's university and staff it only with good-looking guys. We are also introduced to EunChan, a poor tomboyish girl who gets mistaken for a guy all the time (albeit a handsome one). The show revolved around the unlikely romance between the two of them, with HanGyeol, who thinks EunChan is a male, worrying about his attraction to her, thinking that he might be gay.
It so happened that I had an opportunity to visit Seoul the very next year, and I got to visit the actual cafe in the HongDae (short for Hong'Ik University) neighborhood where they shot the series; I guess it was a kind of pilgrimage, after a fashion. The colorful sign proclaiming the shop as "Coffee Prince" was still there -- they must have renamed the place permanently -- and it was decorated with multicolored lights outside and with props from the show and signed messages from the cast within. Even the flower mural, whose production had been worked into the plot, was intact. All in all, it looked to be doing fair business.
Well, guess what, all these years later I happened to accidentally pass by the place again a little while ago, and man, was I surprised. It was totally derelict, and to all appearances it had been that way for a long time. It was practically a haunted house. The gate was chained shut and the forecourt was completely covered with rotting leaves. Vegetation had taken over the whole building and I'm certain no one's visited the property in years. It was totally out of place, taking up space in a smart neighborhood full of businesses catering to young people. I guess the flower mural must still be there on the wall inside, but I don't know about the handwritten messages from the show's stars. Probably not.
