It is the least impersonal of cities. Understatement has no place here. Rather, this is a brawny, rough-and-tumble, rollicking place, animated by the earthy good humor of its Chaucerian folk. Hurly-burly impromptu is the way of Seoul. Round-faced women set up huge speakers on busy street corners, then sit beside them, crooning along to organ music as they entertain themselves. Hypervendors stack up rows of imitation Reeboks on the hoods of cars, using the backseats as storerooms for their goods. A man wanders out onto the sidewalk in his pajamas.
Surprising, perhaps, for the fast-growing modern center of a booming economy....
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