(Editor’s note: After a weeks trip to South Korea the comparisons between Seoul and Los Angeles was glaring.)
Seoul had parks and interesting street sites between the many high-rises, such as this one in front of Lotte World.
You live in a nice house, but then you are invited to a party at a large-scale and grander house. When you come home, your house looks shabby – and you never really noticed it before.
South Korea has high rises with interesting architecture framed by parks specifically built to ensure green space. The roads in Seoul wide, clean and well-kept. Homeless were not apparent, the streets safe, the subways safer and there was no trash anywhere.
When I arrived back in L.A. It seemed dirty and small, and I once again had to be hyper cognizant of my surroundings. I read that “Federal authorities have charged two men with stealing a million-dollar Patek Philippe from at the patio restaurant of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on August 7.” In March, L.A. residents were warned by police that “wearing expensive jewelry in public could make them a target for thieves.”
But that was not the case in South Korea.
Waiting for the #1 train.
THE SUBWAY:
After leaving the lovely larger regional train at the Seoul Station on Sunday, we spent three hours in the subway 수도권 전철, trying to make our way to the waterfalls in Ansan Park.
There were large underground shopping areas at the subway stations. This exceptionally clean station was typical.
The description to reach our destination sounded easy: to reach the trailhead, take the 7713 or 7738 from Exit 4 of Hongje Station (홍제역) and get off at Dongsin Hospital (동신병원). After crossing the crosswalk, you’ll find the Hongjecheon Artificial Falls, where the trailhead is.
Somewhere we must have missed a transfer, or taken the wrong train, and we rode and rode. But, there was air-conditioning, and clean public bathrooms with toilet paper, no matter what part of the underground we walked in. I read that climate-controlled seats are automatically heated in the winter.
Traveling in large cities, I had learned in my 20s not to wear any flashy jewelry or carry expansive handbags on the train. Here I could have, people took pride and responsibility for keeping the trains safe. No one speaks loudly or plays music – or they’d be reprimanded by the train security officials. Having suffered in New York City subways in the hot summers in my 20s, I never wore sandals or open-toed shoes, because the floors and steps were so dirty. In Seoul, every subway floor looked like it had just been waxed.
Subway floors were all shiny clean.
One person on a platform, who tried to help us with directions, explained that you could “leave your backpack here. No one would take it and the people who work here would be able to trace it to you and give it back.”
Seoul has the world’s longest metro system by length. The first train opened in 1974 and now there are 768 stations, and the system length is about 809 miles. They say annual ridership is 1.91 billion riders on the Seoul subway lines 1-9. That doesn’t include the KORAIL, the regional trains. (By contrast, the modern L.A. Subway system was first proposed in the 1970s and opened its first station in 1990, annual ridership is listed as 61 million passengers and safety concerns are ongoing.)
All directional signs in the system are written in Korean, using Hangul, as well as English and Katakana/Chinese characters in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. There are LCD screens that give service announcements and prerecorded voice announcements that give the upcoming stations.
There were no hawkers, beggers, homeless sleeping – and CCTV was everywhere. One elderly woman came through the train, slapping little posters on the wall by the doors. Not even 10 minutes later, an official came through and took the unauthorized verbiage off.
We finally took an exit–just to get off the train and out of the subway, and wandered through a street market.
By accident, it was unplanned, we found Seodeamun Independence Park 서대문독립공원). Plinths of Yeongeunmun Gate, where Chinese emissaries were received during the Joseon Dynasty, are all that remain. Behind it are the Independence Gate Yeonjunmun 서울 영은문 주초 ( 서울 迎恩門 柱礎 ). A short walk through the park, put us at Seodaemun Prison, which was used to imprison thousands of Korean independence activists until the liberation from the Japanese occupation on August 15, 1945, as well as the political prisoners during the political turmoil in the 1960s.
I know nothing about Korean history, but learned the peninsula has been occupied by Chinese, Japanese and during the 1950 Korean War, much of South Korea had been destroyed. During that war, the Soviet Union provided training for North Korean and Chinese troops and South Korea received support the UN: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Turkey, Philippines, South Africa, France, Australia, Columbia, Greece, Belgium Luxembourg and Ethiopian Empire.
We eventually found the waterfall, which was surrounded by a park with hiking trails.
HOMELESS:
In all our travels around Pyeongtaek and Seoul and the numerous miles walked in the subways, I saw one homeless person sleeping on a bench. One. Seoul, a city of around 10 million, has an estimated 2,600 people on the streets or in shelters.
Dealing with the homeless in Los Angeles, and watching the people die on the streets, I wondered why the difference between the two cities? Homelessness in South Korea is caused by financial bankruptcy and alcoholism, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
According to that group’s study, 24 percent of the homeless lost their homes due to snowballing debts. The study found that the average age of homeless people in South Korea is in their mid-50s.
People are offered shelters, but those sites have a zero tolerance to alcohol. This can make people who are homeless and struggling with alcoholism unable to find shelter (Borgen Project, 2020).
Could Los Angeles take lessons from Seoul?
Of all the train stations, the subways and parks we visited, we saw one homeless person by Seodeamun Independence Park.
LACK OF TRASH:
There seems to be litter everywhere in Los Angeles, unlike parts of South Korea, where cities and countryside were clean. There were no trash cans on the street, and people were urged to take trash home to recycle.
There are so many huge high rises, there are 10 million people in South Korea, I wondered “where’s the trash going?”
I read South Korea is a global leader in sustainable waste management initiatives with a recycle and composting rate of around 60%. “The average Korean citizen now throws out about 1.02 kilograms of household waste daily, about a third of the amount produced in 1991 . . . By 2030, South Korea aims to reduce its plastic waste by 50 percent and recycle 70 percent of it.”
According to the internet source, South Korea has emerged as a global frontrunner in diverting food waste away from landfills and incinerators, thanks to the government’s substantial investments in processing facilities and the dedicated efforts of its citizens to repurpose waste. From a mere 2.6% in 1996, the nation’s food recycling rate skyrocketed to nearly 100% in 2022.
We finished the day by visiting the Lotte World Tower and Mall 롯데월드타워&롯데월드몰. It is the fifth largest building in the world with 123 floors https://www.lwt.co.kr/en/main/main.do
The amount of luxury stores was overwhelming and included Givenchy, Ralph Lauren, Bvlgari, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Cartier – and even more – were located in the base of the building (and a large aquarium) and is considered the largest luxury department store in South Korea.
South Korea – Seoul’s Lotte Tower
The view at the top reminded me of when I had visited New York’s World Trade Center.
On the 118 Sky Deck floor, part of the floor is glass, and if you step on it, you look straight down.
Look at the glass on the floor by the windows. If you stand on the glass and look down, one can see all the way to the ground floor.
The Tower is relatively close to Olympic Park, and we passed the buildings used for the athletes for the 1988 Olympics.
We said goodbye to my son and then spent the remaining time in Incheon before taking a trip to the DMZ.
Tomorrow: Part 3, the DMZ, the third tunnel and looking at North Korea.
Korea annexed by Japan in 1910, and was under Japanese rule until 1945. During that time, the country was known as Choseon (Joseon). My mother, who immigrated from Korea in 1933, was considered Japanese, an issue when she applied for U.S. citizenship. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the winner of the marathon was a Korean, Sohn Kee-Chung, but the credit went to Japan for to “Kitei Son,” the Japanese name he was then known as. In 1988, Sohn Kee-Chung ran under his own name, bringing the Olympic flame into the stadium in Seoul.
I will keep and re-read this article. Thank you.
Fascinating-thanks for sharing!!