You like Thomasson, I like tomason

Today in Sindang-dong (during the walk “Hipdang-dong” – Exploring the history and gentrification of Sindang-dong organised by the Royal Asiatic Society Korea and led by Matt VanVolkenburg) I encountered two tomasons (or Thomassons): Last year I posted on the Fediverse about my discovery of the words Thomasson and tomason. Today’s encounters make it a good occasion to share here what I wrote earlier: Thanks to Valérie Gelézeau & Benjamin Joinau I discovered the term ‘Thomasson’ though I’ve been familiar with the concept for as long as I can remember, often capturing photographically the ones I encounter. In their article French Social Scientists on “Doing fieldwork in North Korea” , they explain:‘thomassons are urban objects that have lost their meaning in the course of the perpetual evolution of the material city, such as a staircase going nowhere or a permanently closed window’. This neologism was coined by the Japanese artist Akasekawa Genpei who described Thomassons in his book…