I recently moved It is a scenic spot with a river flowing right in front of it and a small mountain across it. It is very close to Zurich city center. The problem is that it is a bit cramped for a family of 4 to live. After giving the children one room, I had to put my husband, who works from home, and my desk and bed all in one small room. I pushed the two desks to the window and tried to put the bed in the rest of the space, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find an answer. The arrangement that my husband suggested was not at all terrifying. “It’s okay to leave it like this, but why not?” I said to him who asked in frustration. “You end up with your head facing north when you sleep.” “How about that?” “If you sleep with your head facing north, you will die sooner.” My husband was dazed for about three seconds with his eyes out of focus and then sighed. “Whether we die because we keep our heads in the north, or we die because we can’t sleep, we will die sooner or later.”
When there was a conflict over feng shui in my house, feng shui (the Chinese pronunciation of feng shui, which is also used in English-speaking countries) became a hot topic in foreign media. It tells the story of the relocation of President-elect Yoon Seok-yeol’s office. The German weekly magazine Der Spiegel wrote in an article on March 20 that “Criticists say that Yun wants to relocate the Oval Office because of Fengshui.” On the same day, an article in the British daily The Independent was titled, “Korea’s president-elect wants to abandon the ‘ominous’ Blue House and spend 40 million dollars to move[the office]to another place.” Thanks to the Chinese, fengshui is now a well-known term in the US and Europe, and even ‘fengshui interior’ was once popular. However, contemplating whether the interior of the house should be designed in a Nordic style or according to Feng Shui, and the fact that the next president of Korea is moving his office because of Feng Shui, has a completely different weight. Some foreign media used the expression ‘shamanism’ instead of Feng Shui. Whether it’s fungshu or shamanism, these terms that don’t fit into an IT powerhouse are clearly meant to be ridiculed.
It is not known why President-elect Yoon is actually trying to move the office in such a hurry. I hope that it is not a decision based on feng shui or shamanism, but a choice for communication with the people as the elected president insists. It is ironic that the work for communication is causing conflicts that have never been seen before. However, despite many criticisms, the president-elect’s statement that ‘space dominates consciousness’ seems to need to be carefully considered. What exactly does he mean by ‘space’ and ‘consciousness’? If this means, in the broadest sense, that geographic location dominates human political and economic behavior, then it makes sense. Aren’t there academic departments such as geopolitics (geopolitics) and economic geography? Geography is like a person’s innate body or personality. It is a prerequisite that determines the fate of many things, with or without effort.
Recently, studying the history of the Swiss watch industry, I realized once again the influence of geography. As is well known, watch manufacturing is one of the main industries driving Switzerland’s economy. There are several industries that have had a decisive influence on Switzerland, a poor country in Europe that has long been called a ‘neutral country’ because it lacks a single resource to be reborn as a wealthy powerhouse today, one of which is watch manufacturing. But looking at the early days of this industry, there is something interesting. The point is that watch manufacturing took root in two small towns near the Jura Mountains in western Switzerland, adjacent to France, rather than in large cities like Zurich or Geneva, which are advantageous in terms of transportation and manpower. The villages are La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle. How did small villages in mountain valleys lead the world watch industry?
Disadvantages turn into unexpected advantages
Professor Patrick Chiltenor (sociologist) at the University of Zurich explains that the main reason is the geographical characteristics of the area. Geography here includes not only topography, but also climate, biology, and transportation. The two villages are located at an elevation of more than 1000 m above sea level. Water is scarce because there is no river, and the soil is not suitable for farming. Half of the year is winter and it snows during the winter. However, this disadvantage acts as an unexpected advantage in the watch manufacturing industry. There are many mountains and valleys in Switzerland, so it is prone to foggy weather, but when it rises above a certain altitude, it is sunny without fog. Snow that falls in winter acts as natural lighting by reflecting sunlight. When making small watch parts, the most important thing is precision. It should be remembered that the Swiss watchmaking industry began to develop in the 18th century, before electricity was still produced. A fog-free environment with snow everywhere was a necessary condition for the precision industry at the time. Thanks to the glowing eyes both during the day and at night, La Chaux-de-Fonds and the people of Le Locle made watch parts by hand in a house with large windows.
When the environment is formed, other resources flock to it. According to records, Le Locle had 77 watchmakers in 1750. By 1800 he had grown to over 800. In 1793, a big fire broke out in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and after that, in the process of rebuilding the village, the entire site was changed to a structure optimized for watch production. The special structure is that the width of the road between the buildings is very wide. Also because of the light. This is to prevent darkening of the indoor workshop due to shadows from other buildings. Naturally, the manufacturing environment gets better, followed by more technicians. In fact, Switzerland was not at the forefront of the watch industry from the beginning. British and French watches were of better quality. However, the network effect caused by geographic characteristics and concentration of human resources changed the flow. In 1800, England and Switzerland produced the same watch, 200,000 each. However, by 1850, Swiss production had risen to 2.2 million pieces, and British production remained the same. The success story that began in two Swiss mountain villages was so great that Karl Marx, in his book Capital, cited La Chaux de Fond as an excellent production model and said, “The watch made in the La Chaux de Fon, a huge manufacturing plant, is twice that of Geneva.” are doing
Of course, the development of the Swiss watch industry cannot be fully explained by the geographical characteristics of La Chaux de Fonds and Le Locle alone. As Switzerland is a neutral country, it should be mentioned that many engineers and intellectuals fleeing from neighboring countries for political reasons have been accepted, and Switzerland’s unique apprenticeship education system. However, in Switzerland, the geographical characteristics of these two small towns had a decisive influence on how they became the centers of the watch industry.
Geography exerts great power not only within a country but also on political and economic relations between countries. International journalist Tim Marshall’s book The Power of Geography was written in 2015, but it accurately describes the geographical background of the current war in Ukraine. Marshall writes that Russian President Vladimir Putin will ask God every night, “Why didn’t you spread out mountains in Ukraine?” “If God had spread the mountainous regions of Ukraine, the forces on the other side would not have felt the temptation to invade Russia so steadily over the vast plains of the Nordic Plains. In this situation, even Putin has no other choice. Outside of that he manages the plains to the west. And no country is an exception to this situation, great or small. ‘Geographical character’ gives leaders far fewer options and leaves much less room for coordination and management than you might think.”
If it sounds like it justifies Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or that it means that national leaders must obey the ‘laws of geography’, you are mistaken. It is the leader’s job to understand precisely the geographic context of political and economic issues and then decide whether to succumb to or overcome it. That choice could decide the fate of a country. Let’s take the example of Switzerland again. While the Swiss watch industry developed as a result of recognizing and adapting to its geographical strengths, Swiss transport and trade developed as a result of overcoming its geographical disadvantages.
Open a world map and find Switzerland. It is located in the middle of Europe and shares borders with as many as five countries (Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and Liechtenstein). At first glance, it seems like a key point of European transportation. But there are pitfalls. it is the alps Even in midsummer, the Alps with a height of 3000~4000m, where the snow does not all melt, stand up.
A hauler carrying luggage as if in a relay race
Medieval Swiss challenged this geographical environment. Farmers from all over the valley have built a hauling (transportation) system in solidarity. It was divided into sections as if in a relay race, loaded on horses, and carried along a narrow mountain road. It is a part reminiscent of the old beacon (bongsu) or pabal system in Korea. Like a post station where they rode horses, there was a place in Switzerland called Sust where farmers could rest at night.
The hauling system, which had been built densely over hundreds of years, eventually came to cover the entire Alps. And based on this experience, Switzerland built a world-class mountain railway and tunnel at the end of the 19th century. In 1871, the Swiss Locomotive and Machinery Company (SLM) was established, and the Gotthard Tunnel passing through the Alps was built over 10 years from 1871. It is said that more than 200 workers died during construction due to the rough terrain. Finally, in 1882, when the world’s longest (15 km) Gotthard Tunnel was completed, Switzerland began to import grains, vegetables, and fruits from Italy through this tunnel. In the process of coping with the harsh conditions of the terrain, the poor mountainous country, which lacked even food for its own people, created a means of transportation that other countries could not even dream of and built wealth. It is no coincidence that the headquarters of global raw material companies are still concentrated in Switzerland, a landlocked country that does not face the sea.
Geography is destiny. There are definitely good grounds and bad grounds. Looking back on the history of Switzerland mortgaged to geography, I thought about the essential difference between the theory of feng shui, geopolitics, and economic geography. Whether it is ‘New Year’ or ‘Science’ will be one criterion. Another criterion is whether or not the ‘will’ to overcome the adverse conditions can intervene. What Yoon-elect must show is not the helplessness of being unable to do anything if the office site is bad. Would it be too much of an expectation if the next president of South Korea wanted to turn his attention to a much bigger and more important geographical reality, such as the climate crisis or outer space? Oh, before that, I’ll try to calm myself down. The bed was eventually placed on the north side. Somehow, I feel like I’m sleeping better than before.
© EPN