[Inside Chodong] The Age of Bicycle Thieves and Presidential Hardships

[Image source=AFP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] I work indoors in the international department and commute by bicycle. According to KakaoMap, it takes 16 minutes to ride a bike from my home in Haebangchon to the office in Chungmuro. Taking the bus, which requires a transfer in Myeongdong, takes 13 minutes longer.

I have owned a bicycle for about 10 years. At that time, I wanted to write weekend articles, so I used to commute back and forth every weekend to Namsan Library, which is 15 minutes away from my home, but I wanted to travel more comfortably and save time. Is it necessary for a bike that takes 30 minutes round trip to be expensive? There were many expensive bikes made with lightweight materials like carbon and aluminum frames, but I bought a heavy bike with a low price. Lightweight bikes cost roughly two to three times more. My bike, which weighs 18 kg, seemed to be called ‘CheolTB’ by people on the internet. It’s a play on MTB, removing the M and adding ‘Cheol’ (iron, Fe) to indicate its heaviness.

At meals or drinking gatherings with acquaintances, I said my bike was a CheolTB and wouldn’t get stolen. And that was true. Once, when I went to watch a 2 hour 30 minute Marvel movie, I didn’t lock my bike, but it was still there when I returned. Sometimes, I realized after work that I hadn’t locked it in the morning.

One day, when I thought there were no bike thieves, I heard a bike theft story from a senior at a drinking party. The senior told a story about a corporate executive. The executive bought a bike worth several million won for exercise. On the first day he went cycling by the Han River, while taking a break, a young woman showed interest, saying he had a nice bike. She asked if she could try riding it once, and although the executive was hesitant, he couldn’t refuse. The woman got on the bike and slowly disappeared from the executive’s sight. Just as he thought, “Hey, you shouldn’t go further,” she completely vanished from his view.

After some time, doubts about the woman’s identity as a bike thief(?) began to arise. Thinking of the 1948 Italian film Bicycle Thieves only increased the suspicion.

Bicycle Thieves depicts the era of bike thieves. Right after World War II, when everything had collapsed. Casting an ordinary ironworker, the film shows the still-ruined streets of Rome and ends by showing the face of the world’s most pitiful breadwinner. The protagonist ultimately has his livelihood bike stolen and struggles, tearfully wondering how to feed his family.

The bicycle has lost its value as a means of livelihood but is gaining value as a leisure and exercise tool. However, riding my CheolTB among expensive bikes, sometimes cycling along the Han River or climbing Namsan uphill, I always had doubts about the justification of bike prices. It’s a sophism, but perhaps the woman in the movie wasn’t stealing the bike itself as an object but was targeting the price attached to the bike, making it ambiguous to call her a bike thief.

It is an era of hardship for presidents worldwide. Articles about U.S. President Joe Biden’s approval rating hitting rock bottom have been followed by recent sharp drops in approval ratings for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Scholz’s rating fell due to allegations of helping banks evade taxes in the past, and Kishida’s rating dropped amid controversies over the relationship between the Liberal Democratic Party and the Unification Church.

With abundant goods, it has become difficult to generate large-scale demand and boost economic growth rates as in the past. It seems more people, like this reporter, are questioning whether prices are justified. It is equally difficult to raise presidential approval ratings. Moreover, in an already difficult economic situation, unrelated controversies keep arising...