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Haebangchon · ⚖️

What the Word "Exotic" Erases

While consuming diverse food and languages, are we erasing the history of refuge, migration, and settlement? Checking the tourist gaze.

A gaze that consumes Haebangchon and Huam only as an "exotic neighborhood" erases the deeper history this neighborhood holds.

Where refuge and migration overlap

This hill is a place where the refuge of liberation and war (Ep. 2), the diverse-background migration that followed (Ep. 6), and the history of settlement continuing to today (Ep. 3–4) all overlap.

Seeing the whole, not half

Enjoying diverse food and languages is not a problem in itself, but not remembering the history behind it means seeing only half of this neighborhood. Walking while recalling the layers covered earlier in this series is how to see this hill fully.