Hypocrisy is fake, everything else is real

The great thing about being a foreigner in a city is how little you know about it and how this ignorance magnifies your curiosity. When you are curious, everything is simply new -- nothing good or bad.

Trying to find the character of a city is a little like trying to judge a personality of someone. You can never really know. Some say the first impression always lasts, but if you were born in a city... i wonder how we might ever recall our first impression!

The difficulties for Seoulites to pin point the true self of Seoul is a universal dilemma -- ask me to do the same back home and i will have the same headache! I think the more we see, the more we forget... Perhaps man were born normads -- live in one city for too long and we get blinded by the beauty of the place, the "local colours" as Emerson would say.

Where I come from, the personality of my city is very clear (at least to me). There are two faces to it, one for show --- by the government to attract foreign investments; the other, the real face, is hidden, expressed only through sighs of resignations and mutters of complaints, in the taxis, homes, beneathes people's greying breaths.

I believe truly great cities are like truly great people. Winston Churchill for example, display just one single resolute character no matter who he deals with. Same with cities and their governments -- if they could treat foreigners or local people the same -- it might be equally bad, or equally good, doesn't matter -- at least it's equal, at least there is no hypocrisy, and it is real.

I think herein lies the beauty of Seoul in the short 2 weeks I've been here -- there is something about the mannerism and style of the people: they don't treat you better or worse than they treat themselves. This authenticity and fairness is so valuable to me.