Thingsgettingbettersays localmaninSouthKorea
GREYSTONES man Neil Smith has lived in Seoul in South Korea for the past decade, and said that Covid-19 restrictions are now somewhat more relaxed in the city.
Neil is from Hillside and a past pupil of St David’s. He was straight out of college in DIT when he made the move to Korea. ‘Before I settled into my career, chosen on a whim, of electrical engineering, I decided that I wanted to move to a completely different country and also be able to work on music,’ he said.
‘Korea had a of opportunities in the English teaching area and the music scene in Seoul was very accessible,’ he said.
He did research online and found that there was no shortage of underground clubs in the city, with great equipment.
Now a member of a half-Irish, half-Korean band called The Scarlet Pillows, he also teaches guitar, mainly to foreigners living in Seoul. Live performances have been called off of late, due to the outbreak of Covid-19. ‘ Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn I’m starting work on a new TV show without my band,’ said Neil.
In the show, foreigners come on the programme and choose a Korean song from the 90s to sing and play. Neil has chosen a song by folk-rock singer Kim Kwang-seok, whom Neil said was ‘ the Korean Christy Moore’.
He will be doing the first verse in Korean, the second in English, and the chorus in Irish. The song ‘Rise Up’ (Airigh Suas), talks about rising up yourself from your own troubles.
‘I’ve been here since February 2010,’ said Neil. ‘It’s hard to get settled in a place like this. It’s a constantly developing city, the culture is always developing. 10 years ago you wouldn’t have seen a foreigner on TV, now it’s a trend for people who can speak the language to go on TV. But that could all change again. I’ve had 15 minutes of fame with my band. It lasts two months then people forget.’
The present situation, said Neil, is that South Korea has managed to flatten the curve of cases. ‘People have a lot more mobility here than people back in Europe right now.’
He said that the reason for Korea being able to flatten the curve is partly their experience in epidemics, going back to SARS in 2003, swine flu in 2009 and MERS in 2015. ‘We’re next to China so have been the second country to deal with those outbreaks.’
He said that the system was in place to respond to an outbreak, including infectious disease experts.
Neil said that with the history of the threat of attack from the north, there has always been a high level of surveillance. ‘Big brother is always watching,’ he said. ‘Everyone has a personal ID card connected to their cellphone contract,’ he said. ‘You can’t own a phone without an ID card. Having that control over people enables them to be able to track the virus, trace the footsteps and so on.’
He said that people were receiving regular emergency updates five times a day, informing them of the locations of cases and clusters and warning them to stay away. Most people wear masks, he said. Neil said that the state acted extremely quickly. ‘Korea was the second country after China to have a huge jump in infections. At the end of February things were looking really bad. Cases were shooting up in Korea and it hadn’t arrived in Ireland. I was feeling really unlucky at not being able to work and get around.’
Neil said that in the last week of Feburary there was an outbreak within a cult. Mass gatherings had been banned but the church continued to have ceremonies involving thousands of people. ‘ The pastor said that once they were members of the church they couldn’t catch it.’ He said that over half of South Korea’s cases stemmed from that church. ‘If not for that we would be looking at a situation more similar to Taiwan who have kept the virus under control.’ He said that as and from last Friday, there were around 10,000 cases, around 50 per cent of which have recovered, and around 100 new cases per day.
Schools are not open, but a lot of people have returned to work. ‘Subways are up to 80 or 90 per cent full,’ said Neil. ‘ There are plenty of people in restaurants. It’s very strange. One half of the culture isn’t going outside, or if they do, keeping to themselves. But the bus at rush hour is full of
AT THE END OF FEBRUARY THINGS WERE LOOKING BAD. CASES WERE SHOOTING UP. I WAS FEELING UNLUCKY
people.’ Neil is going to a few visitation lessons not far from his own neighbourhood and has been working on the TV show.
‘It will be nice to get up and perform for the first time in ages,’ said Neil, who misses playing live. His parents Anthony and Rozanne in Greystones were in Spain and managed to make it home two weeks ago, so have just come to the end of a period of 14 days of self-isolation.
His sister Maria was on her honeymoon in Argentina and Brazil, and also managed to get home, coincidentally the same day as her parents. She got married in Spain last September so that was the last time Neil saw his family.
He hopes he will see them before the year is out. ‘ The plan was to visit in August. I hadn’t bought the ticket yet, but I hope it will happen this year,’ said Neil.