April 22nd, 2011 Part1 @Manila
Sweating a lot….It’s how to spend April in Manila.
Visited one of the vendors of Jeepney with a director of the organization, Reah and an intern Simon. Her house was twenty-minute tricycle trip from where I stay.
Began selling this magazine since March 2008, Ate Mely seems really enjoying this job. The 46-year-old lady left her home at the age of 7, with her grandmother to get a job here in Manila. “I came here full of hope, however, life didn’t change that much. I only ate a meal per a day at that time,” she says.
At the age of 12, she began working as a barker, and has been working so hard since then.
“Selling Jeepey helps making my life more stable. I also feel so honored to sell this at shopping mall where is so clean and with air-conditioner.”
As soon as I asked about her dream, it brought her to tears. “I have sons and daughters, however, life on the street make my family apart. My dream is so simple. I hope all my children grow healthy.”

April 20th, 2011 @Seoul---Manila
Leaving Seoul for Manila, which was about 4-hour flight.
Time difference is just one hour, however, the temperature is 20 degrees higher than Seoul.
At the airport, Reah with Jeepney and Simon who’s interning there welcomed me warmly. Enjoyed lunch and Halohalo（meaning "mixing" in Tagalog) together.

April 17th, 2011 @Seoul
A movie “Billy Elliot” was about an English boy with a passion for ballet, then why not for Korean mid-aged men with the same passion!
A famous Korean choreographer, James John gravitated to the vendors of The Big issue Korea and decided to collaborate with them. Surprisingly, they have a plan to perform The Nutcracker on December 30th this year.
At the class, the vendors express their feeling by mime. Their wrinkled fingers, closed eyes and facial expressions tell us “You are beautiful” and “I love you.” After the class, they seemed to be full of warmth in their heart.

April 15th, 2011 @Seoul
The Big Issue Korea has begun with some members of Street Angel, which is NPO organization working for homeless people for 14 years.
Jin Moo Doo is one of the former members of it and the current director of the sales and marketing division of TBIK.
During his working with Street Angel, he couldn’t help realizing that homeless people are not treated as human being. The government seemed just confined them in shelters as prisoners. Right after bumping into The Big Issue, Jin thought this magazine would be a solution for this problem.
After one-year preparatory period, TBIK got launched in April 2010. The government statistics said that there were 5500 people living as homeless, however, Jin thinks the number will four though twenty times more than that, if you count people living vulnerable.
Since the day they started TBIK, Jin has never stopped walking his path.

April 14th, 2011 Part2 @Seoul
The office of The Big Issue Korea (TBIK) is surrounded by fruit market and full of energy even late at night.
A few years ago, however, a shopping mall was built, called Times Square within 10-minuit walk.
Kim Young Hwan, working at the sales and marketing division of TBIK says, the building looks like a monster attacking old ones from behind. He also mentioned that there was one of the biggest slums in Seoul right behind the “Gozilla”.
Crossing a street from Times Square, where everything is perfectly clean, the view was totally different. Years-old vending machines, destroying roofs, mid-aged guys gathering and chatiing on the street…imperfect and unclean, but full of living energy at the same time. You can’t leave there without thinking about sweats, tears, joy and sorrow.
Can’t help realizing how fake the Time Square is when I got back there.
On the way back to the office, I asked Young Hwan, why he decided working at TBIK. Majored in social-welfare, he had been doubting the policy in his country, where government put profit and economic growth before social-welfare. “I have wanted to change their way of thinking,” he said. He met TBIK on the way to his goal.
The dream of his is becoming a social entrepreneur. Witnessing his talking with vendors joyfully, I already saw one.

April 14th, 2011 Part1 @Seoul
Most of the vendors of The Big Issue Korea are in their 50s and 60s but there are some youngsters. Goo Bon Chun is one of those, who is selling this magazine at Jonggak, in Seoul. Just talking with him just one minute or two, you will realize his shyness and warmness. Born as the seventh child, he left home at the age of thirty to be independent economically. Living as a daily-worker, however, heavy work brought him into illness and the life on the street. Thomas House, an NPO organization based at Youndeunpo, Seoul introduced him to The Big Issue Korea.
He showed me his treasure, which was a medal from The Homeless World Cup held in Rio de Janeiro last year (http://www.homelessworldcup.org/). He really enjoyed kids’ coming to him for a signature, because he had been invisible on the street in Seoul for such a long time. “Futsal changed my life and I restored self-respect”, he said, with a big smile.

April 13th, 2011 Part2 @Seoul
Street Angel is an NPO working for homeless people here in Seoul. In 1997, when IMF crisis hit this country, the population of homeless people got skyrocketed. Since then, for 14 years, Street Angel has been doing soup-kitchen every night except Saturday.
At 22:00, dozens of college students and church members got together at the office of Street Angele for preparing for the meals. The room got filled with steam from rice-cooker and the smell of fish dumplings.
Leaving the office around midnight for a metro station near city hall, where about 50 people were already in a line. Most of them seem over 50s, but some look like in their 30s. They all wore in dark and with load of burdens.
How many people living here know about this midnight dinner underground? When the last person in a line got a plate, all of the men scattered in the total darkness.
　We left the station for Euljiro 3(sam)-ga station, where the director of the Street Angel, Cho Jung Hee, were all ears to a homeless man. Their talking brought the homeless guy into tears and Cho hugger him tight. In the dim underground, they looked like a statue titled “Living.”

April 13th, 2011 Part1 @Seoul
One of the purposes of this trip is to visit the offices of street magazines (http://www.street-papers.org/). International Network of Street Paper(INSP) says there are 114 papers in 40 countries. You may ask “What is street magazine, anyway?” Street magazine is paper media sold by homeless people on the street. Selling those magazines could be a great opportunity for homeless people to connect with the society and be independent economically again.
The first country I visited this time is Korea, where a street magazine “The Big Issue Korea” has been sold（http://bigissuekr.tistory.com/）since July 2010.
Their office is 15-minute walk from the youth hostel I stay. On the way, I really enjoyed the smell of fresh fruits. The office is located in the midst of famous fruit market, Yungdeungpo.
As soon as I knocked the door and said “Annyon hase yo---,“ a dozen of staffs of The Big Issue Korea(TBIK) in their 20s through 30s welcomed me with the greeting back.
Editor-in-chief of TBIK, Koo Hyeon Jee used to work as an editor of a kids magazine. The news, however, saying that TBIK had just launched intrigued her and gravitated to work here. “’This world is worth living,’ this is the message I want to share with vendors and readers,” she said.
The sixty percent of twenty-four staffs are paid by Seoul city by the entrepreneur help law of 2007. Nine editorial staffs, including a designer and a photographer have lunch together every day like a family. Trying to publish the magazine twice a month, instead of once, in May, seemed to make them extremely hectic.

April 12th, 2011 @Seoul
　Out of the window at breakfast, I found a land for the first time in about 15 hours or so. Around 10 am, the numbers of ships in my eyesight got drastically increased.
At 10:30 am, arrived at Busan port safely. Passed immigration without anything happened. I even can’t realize the 19-hour trip has just finished.
Got to Seoul by 3-hour KTX trip. A youth hostel in Yungdeungpo will be my “home” during my stay here in Seoul.