Journal
Christmas lights in Seoul – Last Friday evening, HJ and I decided to take a trip downtown to see what the city looked like right before Christmas. This was spurred by a YouTube video posted by a UK film-maker and writer by the name of John Rogers. He posts walking videos of London and other places around the UK (and sometimes Europe); he has a relatively small channel, but I really enjoy his videos, so I don’t mind giving him a little love. Anyway, his most recent video was a walking tour around downtown London to see the Christmas lights, and HJ and I really enjoyed it. This naturally got us to wondering what Seoul looked like this year, so we planned a brief walking tour of our own.
We took the subway to Hoehyeon Station on the blue #4 line and arrived shortly after dark. The first thing to greet us upon our exit from the station was this tunnel of lights next to the Shinsegae department store.
I don’t know about joy everywhere, but there were certainly lights everywhere, and the recent declaration and rescinding of martial law (all of which happened while we were asleep, by the way) didn’t seem to have dampened people’s spirits. The night was relatively warm—it was still a few degrees above freezing when we left the subway—and the crowds were out in force.
We walked around to the front of the department store and then crossed the street so we could see the display on the massive screens that covered two sides of the building. There was an absolute sea of people here, but I managed to get close to the railing separating the sidewalk from the street to take some pictures.
Still photos don’t really do it justice, but trust me when I say it was an impressive show. That fountain of lights to the right is an actual fountain decorated with strings of lights, and the lights changed color to match the dominant color on the screens. So here the lights are blue, but they also turned green and red when appropriate. Not everyone was as impressed as we were, though. The woman standing next to me was busy taking photos and video, but her friend standing behind us kept complaining about the display. “This is it? This is supposed to be cool? I was expecting something a lot more impressive than this. I don’t even know what they’re trying to say with this. What’s the message supposed to be?” That’s just a sampling of the sort of things she said. She actually kept up a constant stream of griping the entire time she was there, which made me wonder why she had bothered coming at all. HJ and I exchanged bemused glances, and I could tell that her friend was embarrassed at her loud complaining and doing her best to ignore her.
From Shinsegae we headed north to take a look at the Lotte department store, which wasn’t quite as flashy but looked a little more traditional, with a small tree that you can see down in the lower-right corner. We then doubled back to walk down the main strip in Myeongdong, a popular shopping area. That main street is lined with vendors of various snacks and street foods, but it is also a very touristy area and tends to be on the expensive side, so we didn’t bother getting anything.
They did have a tree set up in front of the Myeongdong Theater, which I’ve been in—years ago, before the pandemic, I saw a show there with a large group of students. We continued eastward toward Myeongdong Cathedral, the oldest and most famous Catholic cathedral in Seoul, to see what they had set up. The stairs leading up to the cathedral were lined with lights, but it was the nativity scene at the top that caught our attention.
Notice anything missing? That’s right: The manger is empty. I didn’t spot this at first, but then HJ said, “Somebody stole Baby Jesus!” This seemed pretty unlikely, of course. Our next thought was of Joseon Dynasty paintings of royal parades and audiences. If you look closely at such paintings, you’ll notice that the king’s seat is always empty. There are plenty of portraits of Joseon kings, but those are special as they focus solely on the king. In the parade and audience paintings, which were a form of visual record-keeping, it was customary to not depict the king. For a while we wondered if something similar might be going on. It wasn’t until I was relaying the story to my parents that I suddenly had an idea—an idea that my dad voiced at exactly the same time as it popped into my head: Perhaps Jesus wasn’t there because it wasn’t Christmas yet. That makes the most sense, to be honest.
You may also be thinking that there is something else missing from the manger scene: the three wise men. Well, according to the Bible, the wise men were not present at Christ’s birth—they saw the star in the sky announcing His birth, but they had to travel quite a long way to reach Him. The fact that Herod ordered the execution of all male children two years old and younger leads many scholars to believe that Jesus was about two years old when the wise men finally arrived. I imagine that’s why they are not present in this scene. But they weren’t missing entirely; a short distance away, along the outside of the church, were three large lanterns depicting the wise men (with the star guiding their way).
From the cathedral we turned north and made our way to Cheonggyecheon, a stream that runs east-west through Seoul, south of the main palace. When I first arrived in Korea, there was a highway running over it, but some years ago it was restored and is now a very popular destination in the city. They often have light and lantern festivals here, and today was no exception. We took a quick look as we crossed a bridge over the stream, but we were getting hungry by this point, so we stopped for some dinner north of the stream before making our way back down to the water. The lights and lanterns weren’t particularly Christmas-themed, but they were still interesting. Perhaps most amusing of all were the lanterns sponsored by the ramyeon company Nongshim. The lantern in the foreground of the next photo is a neoguri—a Korean raccoon dog—the mascot of the eponymous Neoguri Ramyeon.
Many of the other lanterns were more traditionally themed, and there was quite an impressive set of lanterns at the western end of the stream. I put my knowledge of Korean folklore and folk arts to use and informed HJ that the lanterns in the following photo depict a Sandaenori. The large construct in the background is a “sandae” (“mountain platform”), an artificial mountain that both serves as a backdrop and a stage for performers.
After climbing the stairs back to street level, we saw something that looked a little more like Christmas. The little elves at the base of the tower looked very much like the elves (particularly Hermey) from the 2001 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys. Beyond the tower was a small oval track set up for a train that carried excited children around the square.
From here we turned north to Gwanghwamun Plaza, where we were greeted by the terrifying red-light-green-light doll from Squid Game. As you can see from the “2” at the end of the Korean title, they are coming out with a second season—in fact, I think it might have already started. We won’t be watching it, as we don’t have a Netflix subscription anymore, but if I hear enough about it I may have to watch it at some point.
My opinion at the moment is that the first season was a self-contained story that ended where it needed to end. Sure, there were “hooks” into which a sequel could be built if the show was successful, but I don’t think it really needs a second season. I might also just have “sequel fatigue” in general. This goes beyond just sequels to the tendency of studios wanting to milk every last penny out of a franchise. Can’t stories have endings anymore? Does there always have to be more content? I’m perfectly fine with the stories that were told in the Star Wars, Avengers, Harry Potter and other universes ending. Why can’t we let things go and tell new stories? I know the answer to this, of course—because studios want to make money and existing franchises are safe bets compared to new narratives—but that doesn’t change my feelings.
Anyway, we passed by the doll without getting shot (this will make sense if you’ve seen Squid Game) and continued north to the Christmas market they had set up (and which you can see in the background of the previous photo).
The market was absolutely packed with people browsing the various stalls that had been set up. We took a look at some of the stalls; they mostly seemed to be small artists selling their wares, which was nice to see, but it was also getting colder at this point and starting to snow. So we walked north through the market without doing much in the way of shopping. We were really there for the lights and decorations anyway.
At the north end of the market is another Christmas tree, which was a popular spot for photos; I’ve deliberately cut off the bottom here as there were a bunch of people standing there. We decided at this point that we wanted to head inside to warm up for a bit, so we stopped in a nearby Godiva for some hot chocolate. I had wanted to go to Läderach, but that would have meant backtracking to the south; Godiva was nearby and in our direction of travel. Their hot chocolate wasn’t bad, but they only had two options, “dark” and “milk” (we both got the “dark,” of course). All of their other options were either iced drinks or ice cream, both of which were very popular with the customers. In fact, it seemed that everyone under the age of forty was eating or drinking something cold, despite the now freezing temperatures outside. The only people drinking hot chocolate were people our age or older. At any rate, I wish we had gone to Läderach instead, as their hot chocolate is much better.
We continued north to Gwanghwamun, the front gate of the royal palace. They apparently have a laser-and-light show there in the evenings during the winter festival, but when we got there we heard someone asking a nearby policeman when the next show would start, and he said nine o’clock. It was a quarter to nine, which doesn’t seem bad reading this now in the comfort of my study, but in that moment we really did not want to stand there in the cold for fifteen minutes waiting for the show to start. So we didn’t. We turned around and walked back south toward City Hall. If it’s any consolation, I doubt photos would have done it justice.
Like Cheonggyecheon, the area in front of City Hall looked a lot different when I first came to Korea—it was, in fact, a huge roundabout. But some years ago they rerouted the roads and made a large plaza here. In the summer they will sometimes have festivals here, but in the winter they set up an ice skating rink—Seoul’s answer to Rockefeller Center, I guess (although I think the rink here is significantly larger than the one in Rockefeller Center). By this point the snow was coming down pretty good, and you can see it in this photo here. The “snow” on the rink is not actually fallen snow but ice shavings from the hundreds and hundreds of people skating; the rink desperately needed the services of a Zamboni. We had no intention of joining the horde shuffling around the rink and instead continued on south.
This is the Christmas tree you can see in the background of the previous photo. You may have noticed that it is topped not with a star but with a cross. I thought it was an interesting choice to top a tree for a holiday that celebrates Christ’s birth with a symbol of his death (and resurrection). I’ve always assumed that the star on top of the Christmas tree was a representation of the star that guided the wise men to Jesus and thus a Christian symbol. I guess they wanted to make the tree more overtly Christian, as people might not associate the star with the birth of Christ. Perhaps it speaks to the commercialization of Christmas. At any rate, it was a unique tree.
With this we ended our brief tour of downtown and Seoul hopped on the subway. On the way home, I reflected on how much things have changed since I first arrived almost thirty years ago. Back then, you wouldn’t have seen anything like this, in large part because many of the spaces didn’t exist yet: Cheonggyecheon, Gwanghwamun Plaza, and City Hall Plaza were all still yet to come. Seoul has become a lot more pedestrian-friendly, but it has also become a more beautiful city, with the palaces and other traditional elements supplemented by the newer urban spaces.
That urban renewal has come at a cost, of course. I have fond memories, for example, of heading to Pimatgol, a small alley downtown that dated back the Joseon period and was packed with restaurants that served broiled fish. But it was dirty and run-down, and fires would break out every now and then, so the whole area was bulldozed some years back and rebuilt shiny and new. It’s a very nice neighborhood now, but it also feels a little lacking in soul (no pun intended).
There are other elements of old Seoul that are slowly disappearing, and I always miss them when they go, but for the most part the urban renewal is bringing Seoul into the modern era and making it a destination for people from all over the world. HJ works downtown, and she says that there are far fewer tourists now since the declaration of martial law, but I imagine the shock of that incident will soon fade and people will start coming back. Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed that quick tour. I’ll wrap up today by wishing you a Merry Christmas and—if I don’t post again before then—a Happy New Year!