I spent a month soaking in the cool Korean culture, eating soooooooo well, and exploring a variety of cities across this mountainous nation.
Destinations
Seoul: The second-largest urban area in the world with over 26 million people, Seoul has several vibrant neighborhoods, huge historic palaces to explore, and lots of parks and forests within city limits
Gyeongju: Korea’s Golden City is basically an open-air museum with ruins dating back to the 7th century (including enormous tomb mounds) scattered all over town interspersed with impressive modern architecture
Busan: The nation’s 2nd-largest city is a conglomeration of skyscrapers built among a series of hills and there are several fun modes of transport along the ocean–from funiculars to cable cars to skywalks
Yeosu: A small city with a cute harbor and hills and easy access to nearby little islands
Jeju Island: The busiest air route in the world is from Seoul to Jeju, a sign of how popular this volcanic island is with Korean tourists. As you might expect, it has great beaches but also lovely waterfalls and rock formations
Gwangu: The site of Korea’s tragic Tiananenmen Square-type massacre of pro-democracy protesters in 1980, it remains the country’s most progressive city and has impressive cafe and art scenes
Jeonju: Home to the nation’s most beautiful traditional (hanok) village, it’s a place where you see people dressed up in traditional clothing and can pop into cute old-school teahouses and temples.
Top photo: Gyeongbokgung Palace, Seoul
Fun Facts
- South Korea is the 19th-richest country in the world by GDP (richer than most European nations), an astronomical rise from the mid-20th century–when Korea was poorer than Ghana and other African nations. Aside from microcountries like Singapore and Hong Kong, it’s basically the only nation in the world that has so dramatically gone from developing to developed recently.
- South Korea was poorer than North Korea before the Korean War split the region in half while today fortunes have of course sharply reveresed.
- Korea has the 4th-highest life expectancy in the world, after Japan, Italy, and Singapore–attributable partly to an excellent healthcare system, a healthy diet (kimchi is actually a superfood!), and strong family and community ties
- More than half of Koreans are atheist, 20% are Protestant, 16% Buddhist, and 11% are Catholic–very diverse
The Birth of Korean Cool
I read Euny Hong’s fabulous nonfiction book The Birth of Korean Cool that explains how Korean culture–TV dramas, films, K Pop, video games, electronics, etc.–became so popular around the world and offers an overview of Korean society and changes over the past few decades. An easy and fascinating read! Full notes here but here were what I thought were the most intriguing points:
- The Korean government has made the popularization of Korean culture around the world its number one priority and pumps a significant amount of money into it. The goal is to diversify the economy and to get consumers in developing countries hooked on Korean culture and later Korean products.
- K Pop stars sign 13-year contracts and spend the first 6-7 years training before they release any music–no wonder their choreography is so perfect!
- Korea has been invaded 400 times in its history but has never invaded another nation–Hong poses this as the reason why some older Koreans are so full of rage
- Many of the Korean-American and Korean-European adoptees of the late 20th-century came from “illegitimate” families–i.e. their mother was their already married father’s mistress or an unmarried couple that didn’t want to get married. Basically situations that would hardly ever lead someone in the U.S. or Europe to give up their kid for adoption.
- Kimchi is a superfood and maybe part of the reason Korea has such a life long expectancy
- It’s normal for middle school-aged children to get plastic surgery during breaks. Gross!
- Korea long ago overtook Japan in terms of TV and film popularity globally
Hiking Sunday
Taking the Seoul Metro on a Sunday is super cute because you’ll encounter tons and tons of people with hiking backpacks on their way to or from nature adventures near the city. “Forest bathing” is extremely popular in Korea (which I read about years ago in the excellent book The Nature Fix) and there are some tranquil nature spots easily accessible by transit.
National Geographic!
Koreans LOVE National Geographic lol! I saw so many folks wearing National Geographic clothing, backpacks, hats, etc. It’s like a trendy brand here 🙂
Let’s Match Today!
Korean couples love to match outfits–often just wearing the same color but even wearing the exact same sweatshirt sometimes too. This is what I want with my future partner–probably a major reason why I’m single 😉
My BFF recently explained to me that this is partly because PDA is not accepted in Korea and this is a subtle way for couples to show their affection for each other in public 🙂
Shoe Cleaning Parks
Korean cities are filled with parks and most of them have shoe cleaning stations at their entrances to get rid of the dust and mud that may accumulate on your shoes in the park. So handy!
While there are (sometimes) trash cans in parks, you will never see a rubbish bin on the street in Korea. My theory is that people can be trusted to hang out to their trash and not litter–probably not the case in the US and DEFINITELY not in most developing countries, where a culture of littering at will sadly persists.
The Secret Drawer
At most Korean restaurants, you won’t be given any sort of silverware or napkins. You have to find these yourself in a hidden drawer built under your table! It’s super cute.
A Nice Place to Expat
The expats (I normally hate this word but “immigrant” certainly wouldn’t apply to someone teaching English here for a couple years–which is most of them) in Korea are super diverse compared to other countries, where expats tend to be super white. The community is very active, including sub-communities like queer expats. It seems like a great place to experience living abroad.
Korean Never Have I Ever
As my tour group discovered when we played Never Have I Ever with a couple guys from Hong Kong in Bolivia, East Asians are often not used to discussing personal things (think sex, drugs, etc.) with strangers and sometimes even friends. So I was surprised when a group of mostly Koreans suggested playing Never Have I Ever at a Couchsurfing event but turns out they play what seemed to me like a child’s version of the game–instead of saying something you’ve never done, you say something like “everyone who has brown hair put a finger down” and you don’t get to learn any juicy secrets about your companions lol!
A Dinner at Home with 2 Feminists
Oh Kyungjin from the Korea Woman’s Association United (KWAU), an umbrella org supporting 33 grassroots feminist groups across the country which work on issues like migrant women’s rights, sexual vioolence, and women’s labor rights, invited me to her friend Trimita Chakra (a labor organizer)’s home for a home-cooked meal (delicious cheonggukjang stew!) to discuss feminism in Korea and I learned a lot throughout our stimulating conversation
- Male recent university grads have a much easier time finding jobs than women who graduate with the same major–possibly due to gender stereotypes or because women are assumed to be less reliable since they may quit or devote less time to work when they have a baby
- Korea has one of the largest gender wage gaps in the world–women make 63% of what men make. The same number in the US is 84%.
- Since a major #MeToo movement in Korea, feminism has become popular among women but men still have quite limited awareness of feminist issues
- 15,000 people attended Korea’s Women’s March–and this is in a country where mass protests are rare
- Part of KWAU’s mission statement is actually (and shockingly) reunification with North Korea! This is mostly a legacy from their early days in the 80s when peaceful reunification actually seemed possible (and many families were still separated by the border) but also a sign of how they are anti-military. For example, they don’t want Korea’s mandatory military service for men to be extended to women; they want it to end for everyone.
- This is a popular argument used by Korean men against women–“you’re the privileged ones!”
- Women are also literally considered second-class citizens because the vast majority of them don’t serve in the military and what’s considered a first-class Korean citizen is a veteran
- There have sadly been some recent prominent suicides by women who did serve and were raped by fellow soldiers
- Digital sexual violence has become a big issue in Korea in the past decade. There was even an incident where a guy posted online saying “I’m going to go to __ club and rape a woman, who wants to join me?” and actually organized a group of men to do so.
- Korea’s newly-elected right-wing president ran on a platform of abolishing the country’s Women’s Ministry in order to gain male support, but so far the courts and NGOs have blocked him from doing so
- “Leftover” Korean farmer men in the countryside who can’t find wives because more women move to cities / want to marry richer men often go to countries like Vietnam and bring home wives they find through “mail bridge agencies.” Unfortunately, these women are often severely mistreated by their in-laws and are given very little freedom and them and their half-Korean children face a lot of barriers to becoming Korean citizens.
- Some actually do escape from abusive families and get support from NGOs that KWAU funds
The 39-Day Hunger Striker
I had the immense honor of meeting Lee Jong Geol, the leader of Chingusai, a Korean gay men’s group in Seoul. He is famous in Korea because last year when the government refused to pass an LGBTQ-inclusive anti-discrimination law (for the umpteenth time!), he did a 39-day hunger strike and planned to continue until they passed the law but he unfortunately had to stop for health reasons and the law has still not passed.
I learned a lot about queer life in Korea from him:
- Chingusai started in 2007, the year the anti-discrimination law was first proposed. After 16 years of waiting, I’m not surprised Jong Geol was so fed up!
- Chingusai organizes small groups that meet monthly to discuss important topics in the community and share personal stories with each other–their current topic is HIV (90% of HIV+ Koreans are queer, a higher rate than other countries) and they will next tackle body image.
- There are also interest groups within Chingusai–like a men’s choral group, a swimming group called “Marine Boys” ;), and a book club–a lovely idea to help queer folks make friends
- Recently, a permit to hold 2023 Seoul Pride in a major plaza in the city was rejected because a Christian org (later) applied to hold an event in the same place, presumably to stop Pride from happening. This is being fought in courts.
- There are some politicians who are queer-friendly but they stay quiet about it and don’t openly advocate for queer issues (likely because they would be attacked by the powerful Christian community here)
- In 2000, two famous Korean actors came out as gay and lesbian and there was a huge backlash and no major Korean celebrities have come out since then.
- Sounds every similar to when Ellen came out in the US in the 90s, basically lost her career at the time, and it took 15+ years for a significant amount of major celebrities to follow in her footsteps
- Queer people in Korea generally don’t come out until they have financial independence and LGBTQ folks from Christian families have an especially hard time coming out
- Jong Geol doesn’t see Gen Z Koreans as especially queer-friendly–they are neutral and just worry about their own problems according to him 😉
- There are a few queer characters on Korean series, but Christian orgs often protest such shows. There was recently a gay dating show called The Other People’s Love (lol) on a Korean network, an unprecedented step that hasn’t even happened on a major network in the US yet.
- Recently, Jong Geol has started to see same-sex couples holding hands in public in Seoul’s queerest neighborhoods–a sign of progress
PeaceJoyAustin 