an old writer and his words

  • INDEPENDENCE DAY

    It is Independence Day in Seoul and I am sitting in my room in the Ritz Carlton looking out over closed shops, traffic moving along the streets watching CNN and AFKN. The shops of Namdaemun are closed, you can walk the small alleys as vendors hawk jeans with mis-sewn Guess labels and T-shirts from the…

    Lou Faber

  • AN AFTERNOON SPENT

    We sit around a small table in the YAK Coffee and Beer on the edge of Namdaemun listening to loud pop songs on tinny speakers. The Hite Beer bottles sweat dripping on the Formica table down our backs the dankness of the subway clinging to us, bathed in the smoke from the couples hunched over…

    Lou Faber

  • SEOUL: A TALE OF TWO CITIES

    Namdaeman is a ghetto of shops and stalls, where men squat cupping cigarettes and gesture, their hands grasping stacks of bills, rocking on their heels until they leap up to a patron, asking this price or that, assessing the will of the buyer by the thickness of his or her wallet. An old woman sits…

    Lou Faber