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| Courtesy of Bady Abbas |
By David A. Tizzard
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Korea's compressed modernity and economic revolution has changed much about the country, almost in the blink of an eye. It has moved from stunted growth, lack of nutrition, and newspapers used as toilet roll to an era of extravagance and waste. Previously repressed instincts for food, possessions, sex and self, have been replaced by hedonism, self-indulgence and designer goods in the space of less than half a century. Where once oppression ran riot, obesity know stands as a source of danger. A single monolithic thought system instilled by military rulers and compliant media organizations has given way to a cacophony of noise, everyone shouting, but no-one listening.
Today, Seoul is a sprawling metropolis filled with high-rise buildings, apartments that fill the horizon, and concrete playgrounds growing outwards like a gray forest. The expressways back-up for miles, creating long snake-like beings edging along the side of the river at morning and night. As they slither along the banks, billboards, advertisements and neon signs hang over head creating a constant digital backlight. Inside the alleys, lay pubs, clubs, brothels and massage parlors offering a non-stop selection of entertainment for the weary urban travelers. Coffee shops are ubiquitous, providing the necessary fuel for the journey.
Yet people of the 60s and 70s talk wistfully of buildings that reached perhaps 6 floors high. This was a revelation. There was little in the way of expressways, and what roads existed were not subject to a desperate crawl twice a day. Cars were a rarity rather than a requirement. The few neon-signs one saw were Christian crosses, shining red amidst the otherwise dark streets, often empty because of military curfews. It was a different world. Though, of course, the sky was still blue.
The Korea of the past was one in which people neither had too much to eat nor not enough. There was enough to live though treats were rare. And what treats people did have were generally shared alike and the same. The televisions played the same programs, the radios played the same music, and the newspapers told the same stories. It was a time neither of great poverty nor marvelous affluence but rather of unity.
Not everybody lived the same, of course. That never happens. Even in the Stalinist North. But there was a collective experience which drew people together in a way that is not as possible today. In the modern world, Korea seemingly only comes together in moments of great success or bone-shattering tragedy. When it wins Oscars or triumphs internationally, the people will rejoice and politics will be forgotten for a moment. When its citizens die in their hundreds under the water or on the streets of Itaewon, politicking is exacerbated but the collective grief is tangible.
On normal days, however, the disparity between the rich and the poor, between the rural and the urban is stark and real. It causes discomfort and brings to light the many contradictions the country is home to. On one side of the street we see gaudy pleasure palaces and Luis Vuitton stores caked in gold and offering plastic surgery in the basement; on the other side, old people clutch their meatless kimbap and collect cardboard in the hope of earning a few thousand won. It is like sitting in a multi-screen cinema and seeing a comedy and a tragedy play at the same time.
Surrounded by Korea's new demonstrable affluence and wealth, many have become blind to the poverty that exists on the other side of the road. And that, more than the hunger and the cold, is the real tragedy of the story: not the suffering itself but rather the willful indifference to the suffering that takes place. The rising tide will raise all boats, they say. Yet there are some places in the concrete jungle that the tide does not reach, starved of the water of wealth experienced by others.
Unequal lives give rise to unequal dreams. Ask a child from Daechi what they want, and they will respond with tales of chauffeur-driven Bentleys. Fifteen kilometers away, a child will dream of simply having some fried chicken or a new pair of shoes rather than a constant stream of hand me downs. The dreams grow more different by the day. Each unknown and unimaginable to the other.
Both experiences are true. Both are Korean. There is not unity. There is disparity. And the pendulum continues to swing higher and higher. We wait and see what happens when it reaches its apex and then, pausing a moment in midair at the top of its ascent, begins hurtling back down and up the other side in the completely opposite direction.
Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social/cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the Korea Deconstructed podcast, which can be found online.
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