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Tag Archives: Anna Fifield

Farewell, Anna Fifield

09-Aug-08

Farewell, Anna Fifield

As the world’s attention was focused on Beijing yesterday evening, in a small hanok in Bukcheon another celebration was taking place. Anna Fifield, the FT’s Seoul bureau chief, was having a farewell party to mark the end of her four years in the Land of Morning Calm. I’m told that the FT is the only UK newspaper to have a permanent bureau in Seoul, and I believe is one of only two western newspapers to have a presence there – the other one being the International Herald Tribune. Apart from the standard news stories you expect the FT to cover, Fifield has produced a steady stream of out-of-the-way features highlighting particular aspects of Korea in depth. Maybe some of the subjects ...
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Another FT guide to Seoul

02-Nov-07
Following the Weekend FT's smooth (and expensive) guide to a weekend in Seoul -- after which you would need a whole week to recover -- the FT's Korea Correspondent Anna Fifield has responded with a slightly more realistic schedule, published in their Korea supplement on 23 October. No ginseng facials, and no itineraries which assume that the whole population of Seoul has evacuated for the Chuseok holidays leaving the roads to just you and your taxi driver. Fifield's weekend is for those curious about encountering Korean culture, while the Weekend FT's is more designed for the business traveller with too much money to spend. So here goes: Saturday morning: Do a palace -- the Deoksu-gung, Gyeongbok-gung or preferably the Changdeok-gung with the ...
Filed in Seoul, Travel, Weekends in Korea | Also tagged | Comments (0) »

Seoul’s hanoks

21-Oct-06
There was a feature in FT a couple of weeks ago on the Bukchon district of Seoul. It's a place as far as you can get from Apgujeong in terms of style of living. It's the sort of place where Kim Ki-duk might be caught filming traditional housing as seen in 3-Iron, and is inhabited by folks such as Anna Fifield, the FT's Seoul correspondent, Kim Hong-nam, the director of the National Museum, and Brit David Kilburn (whose hanok was in fact the one used in 3-Iron). The Jongno-gu website (the source of the image to the left) offers a walking tour of the district - though it seems to be a little out of date. Here's Anna Fifield's article: Related posts:Brit ...
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Condoms as a lucky charm

11-Jul-06
The FT's Seoul correspondent, Anna Fifield, had a busy week last week. Head office would have been wanting her to divine what is going on in the brains of the DPRK's leadership - not an easy task, and everyone's got something to say on the subject. Fifield's piece in Saturday's FT was one of the more interesting contributions to the debate last week, made all the more distinctive by devoting the first two paragraphs of her article to my favourite US film of 2004, Team America - World Police. I'm not going to quote from her article because to pick out one article on last week's events out over so many is a bit unrepresentative, and also because I don't want ...
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In love with Seoul

13-Jun-06
I'm pretty sure the FT's coverage of Korean affairs has increased both in quality and quantity over the past year. For example, they were the only western paper I noticed that covered the publication of the annual profits of the foreign banks operating in Seoul -- data only available in Korean on the financial regulator's website. All this is good news for Koreaphile FT readers such as myself. The only downside is that I'm unable to search the FT archives on their site because I'm too stingy to subscribe. The FT has not one but two Seoul correspondents, Anna Fifield and Song Jung-a. Here's what Fifield likes about Seoul, from last weekend's FT. I quote in full in case the article ...
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