Yesterday I took a ride to see a tree. It was a hard tree to get to. Eleven years ago, it would have been no problem, and I wish I’d found it then. The ride would have taken me down beautiful country roads through rice paddies and small villages. Yesterday? I had to skirt a construction gate, ride a mix of gravel and pavement, and even then I couldn’t get very close because the tree was now at the bottom of a pit where, as I stood on its precipice, I could look straight into its upper branches.
Google Earth has a pretty cool function that I’ve used a few times. There’s a slide bar on the upper left when you’re looking at the shot, and using it you can toggle between historical shots. So, overlaying my route from yesterday’s ride, I took a screenshot of the most recent image – taken on 4/3/2019 – and then moved the bar left to 10/2/2008 and took another screenshot. The difference is tremendous. What was once a green and lovely quiet country setting has turned into a bleak landscape somewhat like that of Tatooine.
Such large tracts of land now covered by dirt and traversed daily by heavy machinery have most certainly contributed to the poor quality of Korea’s air. The building boom itself is also more than likely creating a bubble that will someday burst and cause economic difficulty for the country.
And the tree itself stands as a silent witness to it all at the bottom of its pit. Maybe someday they’ll turn the area into a park, but for now it’s all surrounded by the typical brokenness and ugliness of Korea’s thirst for development. We can only hope it turns out well in the end.