Remembering Emil Goh: A night and a day in Seoul 2007

Susan Charlton
Saturday, September 19, 2009

Emil Goh

Emil Goh & The Lesson of the Lunch, Seoul 9 September 2007

I just checked my passport to see exactly when it was that I spent one very strange evening and an unforgettable day in Seoul, courtesy of the dearly departed Emil Goh. I see that it was Saturday 8 September 2007 that I watched a live Australian Rules football final between the Sydney Swans and Collingwood, screening outside a Seoul street cafe that Emil hunted down specially for me. And it was the following Sunday 9 September that he took me on a five-hour guided tour of one of his favourite Seoul neighbourhoods.

I didn't know Emil very well, and that's precisely the point. He fully inhabited his own passions and welcomed you into his world. He also respected your idiosyncratic preoccupations and created opportunities for them to be realised too. He just loved to engage with people, places and things — all the while capturing the exchanges that unfolded between them with his incredible eye and effusive commentary.

It's still possible to get a taste of walking through the streets of Seoul (and other cities) with Emil through the beautiful monument of his Superlocal flickr project. There are many heartfelt messages under the last image he uploaded from those who knew him in person or only through his photographs. Typically it was a photo of something tasty — a strawberry and green-tea icecream of Eiffel Tower proportions with the comment: 'tis tall soft serve season in Myeongdong! they used to be nearly twice as tall a few years back but with the recession and all, instead of raising prices, they made them shorter, sigh'.

As many people have observed, Emil really loved food and there are more entries about that subject than any other in his photostream (893 pics). So it's only fitting that I include video footage of him teaching me how to eat the meal we shared that Sunday in September.

Emil was our South Korea correspondent. His observations did not trade in exotica but valorised the superlocal. He had a heart full of Seoul.