Sunday 2 March 2008

News will be news!



I think the most important thing to remember as a reader is that news will always be news as long as we did not hear or read about it before...

I've just read that the South Gate or Namdaemun Gate was destroyed by fire through an article in Ohmynews posted on February 13, 2008. That gate gave me a lot of inspiration during my short time visit to Seoul. Namdaemun was the nearest ancient object near the hotel which I can adore at night after the events for the International Citizen Reporters' Forum, and the activity in the morning was also very interesting. The article is still a breaking news for me, although it is now passed more than two weeks on the internet!


That gate and its changing guards tradition had inspired me on how the traditional and modern culture can work together! I used its picture with the guards for the article presented in Tabloid Rumah, I also use another picture with the gate as the back ground for my presentation introducing the international media for citizen reporters to wikimuers. Sometimes we can not really imagined what will happened in the future, yet there were also people who deliberately destroyed history or historical sites for their own political gain. I hope Indonesia can value and keep its historical building and preserve it as bridges of culture within a nation's history.





5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Retty,

Lovely photos!

claire

Retty Hakim (a.k.a. Maria Margaretta Vivijanti) said...

Thank you Claire, I'm not really confident in taking pictures...
I would love to collaborate with Rajen Nair, I admire his pictures!

Rajen Nair said...

Hi retty,

Really nice photos. I look forward to collaborating with you one day.

rajen nair

Retty Hakim (a.k.a. Maria Margaretta Vivijanti) said...

Thank you Rajen,

Actually I would like to hear your comment on this particular historical building or a bit about preservation of historical building in your country.

Indonesia lost a lot of historical buildings. It is sad! We can loose a historical building by accident like here in Seoul, but to tear down a historical building because we can't value its historical meaning is sadder!

Rajen Nair said...

During my visit to seoul last june I had twice visited this Namdaemun gate and had taken few images of it. The image can be seen in a article published in ohmynews. I have fond memories of this imposing gate. It is a tragic that it was destroyed in fire. I hope the seoul government undertakes some restoration work of the gate.
rajen nair