Where Do You Bring Your Visitors?

A Rare Opportunity

---

Just last week, I had a number of close friends visit me in Korea for the first time. Seeing them in Seoul was a jarring experience after spending so much time with them in familiar places like Boston and New York. During this short rendezvous, I understood one key idea - The occasional visitor just may be the most effective way to learn about one's city.

Your daily engagement with your city, your neighborhood, and your culture in general is vastly different than that of someone who wants to experience the same in just a few short days. A perfect example is the number of New Yorkers who have actually gone up the Empire State or the newer Freedom Tower downtown. I'd be hard-pressed to find even a few of my fellow New Yorkers who have done either. Still, these types of places are considered the most iconic, the most emblematic of New York's 'energy' and 'atmosphere.' We can debate how true this is and how much an actual representation of a place is more significant than the on-the-ground experience of that same place, but there's no denying a popular focus on these artifacts.

• Source: The School of Life

The same goes for me in Korea. I've visited dozens of times since babyhood, mostly for family and more recently for work. This leaves very little opportunity to make a half-day for the National Museum of Korea or to take the elevator up Namsan Tower (after the subway ride, after the cable car, after the hike to the peak). So it feels strange that even though I'm not actually from this place and I am technically a visitor most of the time, I've never really walked the streets as a visitor or taken a visitor's perspective. I'm a New Yorker that has never experienced many New York landmarks and I'm a Seoulite who has not really given time to Seoul's most emblematic spots.

Show Me Whatcha Got

---

So here's a rare moment when my close friends have traveled halfway across the globe to see a city I've never really 'been to'. To be honest I was at a bit of loss here. Of course we would see places like Gyeonbuk palace and the Bukchon Hanok Village. Below the tier or historical spots and major institutions, there are also the unique cultural bubbles. We would weave through the streets of Apgujeong (the wealthiest portion of Gangnam) and Itaewon (the international 'ex-pat' quarter), making sure to chomp on Korean BBQ and down bottles of soju. Finding a balance of the two was a creative challenge and I constantly asked myself – is this the Korea I want them to remember experientially?

• Only the essentials.

Then there was the issue of how I would frame Korea as an outsider. Would I keep it light and focus the conversation on K-pop and Karaoke? Would I drive a more grandiose conversation with explanations of past kingdoms and dynasties? Would I resort to the underdog story and outline the effects of the Japanese occupation and oppression? And finally, would I be truthful as a 2nd-gen Korean American, pointing out everything that plagues the modern-day citizen and is such a stark difference from our place in the west?

• The one and only Kim Koo

It seems a bit strange, even to myself, of these concerns coming up during such a short visit. I've become more and more personally invested in the state of Korea these last few years, Steemit actually being a major catalyst in that change. Showing a visitor around has become a mixture of showing them what Korea once was, what it (actually) is now, and what the country could be in the near future.

And so I wanted to ask your opinion. How do you show the place that you're from? If I were to step outside of the screen you're reading and spent a few days alongside you, where would you take me? How would you see your place and what it will become? How will you affect it?