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There is a cafe-lined street called Cheongja-dong in Bundang New Town, Gyeonggi Province. It's real name is actually Jeongja-dong, but the new name was given to reference Cheongdam-dong in the upscale Gangnam area of Seoul, a popular destination for trendy young people.
Just a few years ago Cheongja-dong was a bleak urban wilderness, with scarcely a cup of coffee or meal to be found. It was transformed into a lively and crowded destination almost by sheer chance. A couple shop owners in the area began to place tables and chairs on two-meter-wide "terraces" in front of their shops. As word got out that there were street cafes like the ones in the Champs-Elysees in Paris, young people began to flock to the area.
Motivated by the growing crowds, other shops began building terraces of their own. Once it became known as a terrace street, it turned into a popular destination, even drawing people from Gangnam who came to enjoy the atmosphere.
The charm of a destination street like Cheongja-dong, like the brand power of a regional area, is a distinctive character that cannot be found anywhere else. A once insignificant street can become a nationwide attraction through the brand power of its residents' ideas.
In the 1980s, traditional marketplaces in Nagahama, a small city in Japan, saw their customers dwindle after supermarkets opened in the suburbs. The local merchants began to close up shop one after the next. Then some of the remaining business owners fixed their eyes on glass crafts, which were popular with young Japanese women at the time.
They decided to make glass craftsmanship their strategy for survival, and set up a firm called Kurogabe in cooperation with the government in 1988. They also built a glass museum and a workshop for visitors to get hands-on experience. Visitors began to increase, as did the number of shops dealing in glass crafts. From this somewhat extravagant idea, Nagahama has developed a reputation -- a brand -- as Japan's city of glass crafts. Now more than two million tourists visit every year.
It's not necessarily spectacle or size that draws tourists. I visited Kyoto, Japan's ancient former capital, with my family early last year. I want to go back, not for Kinkakuzi Temple with its sumptuous gold decorations, or for historic sites like the magnificent Kiyomizu-dera Temple from where you can overlook downtown Kyoto, but for the city's narrow back alleys, like Ninenzaka and Sannenzaka.
Lined with time-worn wooden houses, pedestrians browse souvenir shops, cafes, and noodle shops in these areas -- a chance to savor the simple grassroots culture of Japan. Ninenzaka and Sannenzaka are famous attractions, visited by Japanese as well as foreigners.
Japan is not alone. Think of the narrow streets of Dublin, Ireland, with their brightly-painted house doors of red, yellow, and green... the sun-baked white buildings of Santorini, Greece... the medieval alleyways of Toledo, Spain. These residential areas and back alleys with their peculiar and distinctive cultures and atmospheres attract many visitors.
For the same reason, Insa-dong in Seoul is one of the most prominent attractions in Korea, and it leaves a deep impression on foreign visitors. That's because Insa-dong maintains its own distinctive character as a traditional Korean back alley.
Several Korean cities are promising to build super-skyscrapers with more than 100 stories or huge theme parks to rival Disneyland in an effort to foster tourism. We can build skyscrapers, but they'll still be dwarfed by the buildings in Dubai or Pudong in Shanghai. And we can build big theme parks, but they'll still never really compare to Disney World in Orlando or Disneyland in Los Angeles. We should pay attention to the small things, like the precious back alleys of Insa-dong, rather than just these outsized projects that take huge amounts of money and time.
This column was contributed by Cha Hak-bong from the Chosun Ilbo's Business News Division.
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