If you go down to the South Korean port
city of Yeosu this May, you are in for a big
surprise, not least of which is being greeted by
Yeony and Suny, the human size blue and orange
cartoon plankton that are official mascots for the
2012 World Expo, which runs from May 12 to August
12. And you will be one out of 10 million visitors
to get the treatment.
Until recently,
South Korea had little political presence
globally, but it is now delivering an impressive
overture on the world stage. In addition to
providing a United Nations secretary general (Ban
ki-moon), a president of the International
Criminal Court (Sang-Hyun Song) and now the head
the World Bank (Jim Yong Kim), part of its effort
to make global splash is the Expo in Yeosu, in
Korea’s deep south.
The big theme of the
first Expo, the 1851 Great Exhibition in
London, was the steam
engine and it was at the 1885 Antwerp Exposition
that the automobile was introduced to an all too
ready world. A major theme of Yeosu is how to cope
with the damage to the seas and coastlines
threatened by the collective addiction to burning
carbon based fuels unleashed at those events.
However, unlike the rustbelt tourist
showcases of Britain and America that look back to
history, the Yeosu Expo looks firmly to the
future, showcasing technologies and methods that
will keep the oceans and the planet thriving. It
claims that it should "Raise the status of marine
science, the new frontier for science". But the
foundation on which they are building, the theme
"The Living Ocean and Coast" is in keeping with
the traditions and history of the region.
It took 250 years after the industrial
revolution for Britain's industrial areas to be
museified. Former factory workers and miners or
their children earned a living by acting out the
roles that they used to have. In Yeosu, it has
only taken a generation!
The city's port
area, a former brownfield site of cement silos and
petrochemical plants has been revived as the site
of the expo, with some impressive architecture and
even more impressive technology. The old cement
silos have been recycled as the 55-meter high "Sky
Towers" with one being used to demonstrate
desalination techniques and the two incorporated
into the world's loudest pipe organ (certified by
the Guinness Book of Records), whose strains will
inspire the millions of visitors expected to
throng at the site.
The Theme Pavilion
looks better than one would guess from hearing
that it is modelled on a lugworm - but then how
much more maritime can you get? Most of the world,
looking at South Korea from afar, see only the
broad brushstrokes of the peninsula, but off Yeosu
city, whose name apparently means "beautiful
water", is an archipelago of 365 strikingly
beautiful islands, one for each day of the year.
The islands are functional as well as
aesthetic: they shelter the harbor from storms and
waves. The waters in the region have been cleaned
up, reviving the traditional seafood industry
whose products fill the local markets with their
salty variety and also allowing use of tourist
beaches on the many inlets and islands of the
coast.
Yeosu, an opposition stronghold,
had run down under the earlier conservative
governments, but the impending exposition has
focused spending and investment on the region and
one of its explicit purposes is to be "A driving
force to develop the south coast," creating 80,000
new jobs. The anticipated growth will come from
high-tech marine industries and what is sometimes
claimed to be the world's biggest and fastest
growing business - tourism.
While the expo
site itself has taken 1.5 trillion won (US$1.31
billion) in investment, the associated
infrastructure spending has absorbed over 10
trillion won. The better roads and the high-speed
train that ushers passengers from Seoul to the
expo site in Yeosu in less than three hours are
permanent contributions to regional development.
And they will come, by all accounts, from
across the world. By trains, boats and planes.
Part of the site is a liner terminal for passenger
ships to dock for the expo, and, the town hopes,
to be a regular stop for cruises at the port which
offers a location that is not only scenic, but
pivotal on the routes from Japan and Shanghai.
The plan is that, as well as being a big
attraction in its own right, that the exposure and
development of the region will initiate a future
as a tourist resort. Clearly the eyes of local
business are on the Chinese market, with half a
million of the 10 million visitors expected from
China.
The other attractions of the region
are also preparing for the influx of visitors
during the expo and in what they hope is the
continuing tourist trade afterwards. The Korea Tea
Museum and the surrounding Boseang green tea
gardens, Suncheon Bay Ecological Park, Odong do
island and the Hyangiram Hermitage are all
boosting their attractions. However, foreign
visitors should be warned, Korean tourists seem to
like and expect a lot of healthy hiking up steep
hills. For two hours around new hotels are being
built and old ones refurbished. Even temples and
churches are being pressed into service
While some of the structures for the
exhibition will be temporary, the more spectacular
edifices will remain, like the Big O, "The largest
over the sea fountain," which does with water what
pyrotechnics does with fireworks. Fireworks
themselves will be absent to minimize pollution -
their place being taken by water jets and state of
the art laser displays.
In addition to the
spectacular water displays, the curtain of water
can act as a screen for movies and holograms. In
the flood of superlatives, the aquarium's
6,000-ton tank will stand out for some time, and
for those who like to stay dry while watching
whales swim overhead, the Expo Digital Gallery
boasts a 218-by-30 meter LED screen across its
roof.
The quaintly named MLV (More
Valuable Life) Hotel, a spectacular looking piece
of architecture in its own right, has just opened
its 1,800 rooms to cope with the demand - which of
course it hopes will continue after the official
expo closes.
Over a hundred countries such
as China, Japan, Russia, Spain, France and the
United States have booked displays in the 73
pavilions at the expo - Britain being a notable
exception - Prime Minister David Cameron pleaded
the pressure of a rival attraction, the Summer
Olympic Games in London this year.
South
Korea has built seven "theme" pavilions, which
will showcase climate and environment, marine
industry and technology, marine civilization and
city, including a putative underwater city, and
marine life. In line with the greening of the blue
theme, organizers claim that the Korea pavilion
itself is built from "carbon neutral eco-friendly
materials" while the site is festooned with
windmills and solar panels and backed up with
thermal power from the ocean.
The United
Nations is hosting themed events from some two
dozen agencies in the international hall. Yeosu is
not in isolation. It is part of the road to - and
from - Rio, the major environmental conference in
Brazil in June and at the closure, attended by Ban
Ki-moon, most participant countries will sign the
Yeosu Declaration, a comprehensive pledge to
maintain and improve the conditions of the world's
oceans and coasts.
Between sea level rise,
which would swamp the site, and the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch gyrating over the horizon past the
now-pristine waters of South Korea's south coast
Yeosu clearly has a civic stake in persuading the
rest of the world to look after the 70% of the
world already under water - only 1% of which,
points out Sam Koo, the UN director for the expo,
is legally protected.
Between Rio and
Yeosu there might be hope yet of averting the
threatened sea level rise - but in the meantime,
the floods of investment should help float the
economy of Korea's south coast.
Ian
Williams is author of Deserter: Bush's War
on Military Families, Veterans and His Past,
Nation Books, New York.
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