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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
This article shows how urban life in Seoul under the Lee Myung-bak government combines neoliberal political economy priorities with an immense accumulation of spectacles. It examines the Cheonggye stream restoration, which has been promoted as upgrading Seoul to become a cleaner, greener and competitive global city. The Cheonggye stream project points to a new form of governance which looks beyond the display of national progress through conventional museums or monumental structures, as favored by previous regimes. Instead, the progress of the city and the nation is increasingly being portrayed through the popular use of urban space.
1 On the same day, the metropolitan government of Seoul hosted the 2005 World Mayors' Forum by inviting about seven hundred mayors, policy makers, urban planners and scholars from around the world to appreciate the stream turned into an oasis in the city, an example of the “sustainability and revitalization.”
2 The foreign press also portrayed it positively. The Discovery Channel, the global documentary broadcaster, televised a program in fifty countries about the restoration project under the title of “Man-made Marvels, Seoul Searching.”
3 The stream project stirred up contentious debates over the question of whom the restoration is actually for. The strongest opposition and resistance came from the immediately affected poor residents, merchants, and especially “illegal” sidewalk vendors in the area, who were to be evicted to clear space for new business and affluent residents. A group of citizens, environmentalists, archeologists, and historians also disagreed with the city government over what and how to restore. They criticized the project for its capitalist driven urban redevelopment and eviction. See Cho Myungrae, “Cheonggyecheon pokwon gwa bojŏn ŭn hamkke halsu issŭlgga” [Can the Cheonggye stream restoration and development come together?], Tangdae pip'yŏng 26. 2004, 88-104; Hong Sŏng-t'ae, “Cheonggyecheon bokwon saŏp kwa Cheonggyecheon p'agoe” [The Cheonggye stream restoration project and the Cheonggye stream destruction], Kyŏngje wa sahoe 63 (2004), 39-64; and Jŏng Sŏng-w⊖n, “Chŏntong, kŭndae, t'al kŭndae ŭi kyŏhap” [A combination of tradition, modernity, and postmodernity], Tongyang sahoe sasang 9 (2004), 81-108. Yet, according the poll conducted in November 2005, over ninety percent of citizens expressed positive responses to the new stream endowed with cultural and entertainment sites. See Kim Un-su, “Simin ŭisik chosa lŭl t'onghae bon Cheonggyechon pokwon sa⊖p s⊖nggwa wa hyanghu kwaje,” [the outcome and the next task of the Cheonggyechon restoration project seen through the citizens' survey], S⊖ul y⊖ngu pok⊖sŭ, 54 (April 2006), 1-11.
4 Lee Myung Bak, “Cheonggyecheon ŭn tongbuga bijinis wa kŭmyung ŭi ch'osŏk” [The Cheonggye stream as a foundation for the business and financial hub in the northeast Asia], Chach'i hengjŏng (Nov. 2006), 16-8.
5 David Harvey, “From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: the Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism,” in Spaces of Capital: Toward a Critical Geography, New York: Routledge, 2001, 345-68.
6 For a discussion of the relationship between neoliberalism, state and nation, see David Harvey, “The Neoliberal State,” in A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, 64-86.
7 The area was inhabited by commoners, merchants, and migrants from rural areas who used the river to support their daily life. For a history of the Cheonggye stream, see Cho Kwang-kwŏn, Cheonggyecheon esŏ yŏksa wa chŏngch'i lŭl ponda [Looking at history and politics at the Cheonggye stream], Seoul: Yŏsŏng sinmunsa, 2005.
8 For a study of the Cheonggye stream dredging work during the Chosŏn dynasty, see Yu Sŭng-hŭi, “Chosŏn hugi Cheonggyecheon ŭi silt'ae wa chunch'ŏn jakŏp ŭi sihaeng” [The condition of Cheonggye stream and the dredging work in the late Chosŏn period], Tosi yŏksa munhwa, 3 (February 2005), 127-57.
9 See Hyungmin Pai, “Modernism, Development, and the Transformation of Seoul: A Study of the Development of Sae'oon Sang'ga and Yoido,” in Kim Won Bae, Mike Douglass, Sang-chuel Choe and Kong Chong Ho (eds), Culture and the City in East Asia, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997, 104-24.
10 For a study of the neoliberal welfare state in Korea, see Jesook Song, South Koreans in the Debt Crisis: The Creation of a Neoliberal Welfare Society, Durham and Lonson: Duke University Press, 2009.
11 Lee Myung Bak, Cheonggyecheon ŭn milae lo hŭlŭnda [Cheonggyecheon flows to the future], Seoul: Random house Korea, 2005, 292.
12 Cheonggyecheon, the Seoul metropolitan government official homepage.
13 When the Korean economy was based on the labor-intensive and export-oriented organization of production strictly regulated by the state, the domestic market was not the focus of national economic policy. In the early 1980s, however, the state came under increasing international pressure to open its markets to foreign competitors. In addition, Korean companies found that the domestic market for their products had increased greatly. Despite a genuine excitement about the new domestic affluence, the move from production and frugality to consumption and entertainment was marked by a wave of national domestic violence. As Laura Nelson has elaborated, the explosion of consumer culture was also complicated by the public critique of kwasobi, excessive consumption, of the late 1980s and early 1990s, in relation to issues of national identity and gender. See Laura Nelson, Measured Excess: Status, Gender, and Consumer Nationalism in South Korea, New York: Columbia University Press, 2000 and “South Korean Consumer Nationalism: Women, Children, Credit and Other Perils,” in Sheldon Garon and Patricia L. Maclachlan [eds], The Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West, by Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2006, 188-207.
14 S⊖ng Chi-ŭn and Kim Chu-hwan, “Cheonggyecheon pokwon saŏp e nat'anan sangjing chŏngch'aek punsŏk” [An analysis of the symbolic policy in the Cheonggye stream restoration project], Han'guk heangjŏng hakbo, 39, 1 (2005), 262.
15 Hong Su-hy⊖n, “The Choenggyecheon: Lost years and buried memories of the Chosŏn dynasty,” Joongang Daily (22 October 2003).
16 S⊖ng Chi-ŭn, “Cheonggyecheon pokwon saŏp ŭi kaldŭng kwalli chŏlyak punsŏk” [An analysis of the conflict management and strategy in the Cheonggye stream restoration project], Han'guk sahoe haengjŏng yŏngu 15, 4, (Feb. 2005), 155-77.
17 Na S⊖n-hwa, “Kwanggyo wa Sup'yogyo” [Kwanggyo and Sup'yogyo], Hangyeore (23 July, 2003).
18 Ibid.
19 “In profile: Oldenburg,” Art Review (June 1996), 10-4.
20 Yeh Chin-su, “Spirit of Korea flows down Cheonggyecheon,” Munhwa Ilbo (23 April 2005).
21 Seoul metropolitan government, Tourist Map of Cheonggye Cheon, Seoul, Korea: Seoul metropolitan government, 2006.
22 Seoul metropolitan government, Tourist Map of Cheonggye Cheon, Seoul, Korea: Seoul metropolitan government, 2006.
23 The exhibition was held between July 25 and September 10 in 2006 at the Cheonggye Museum.
24 Most visitors are informed of what to see and how to experience the river site through information and knowledge circulated in tourist maps, the internet, popular magazines, TV, newspapers and other media. For example, a series of official guidelines and maps of the stream provides a visual summary of the stream with the highlights of attractions. Also, a popular tourist book offers detailed instruction on locations, camera angles, and poses with which to achieve the best pictures. See Pak Sŏng-ch'an, Cheonggyecheon esŏ mŏlhaji? [What to do at the Cheonggye stream], Seoul: Kilbŏt, 2006.
25 The statue was built by an artist, Lim Oksang, after a citizens' fundraising campaign which was supported by ten thousand volunteers. The pedestrian sidewalks around the statue were paved with copper plates inscribed with commemorative words from donors.
26 Kim Ky⊖ng-rak, “Chun T'ae-il, Cheonggyecheon e puhwal hada” [Chun Tae-il, reborn in the Cheonggye stream], Pressian (30 September 2005).
27 Pak Sŏng-ch'an, Cheonggyecheon esŏ mŏlhaji?, 131.
28 In the museum, the movement from the past to the present and into the future is reflected not only in the exhibition space and the narrative of the contents but also in the medium of representation. The Chosŏn era is depicted in drawings and old inscriptions whereas the present and the future are projected with high-tech moving virtual imageries.
29 Link.
30 David Harvey, “The Neoliberal State,” in A Brief History of Neoliberalism, 85.
31 See Retort, Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of Art, London and New York: Verso, 2005, 20.
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