in Hamel’s Journals and a Description of the Kingdom of Korea, 1653–1666 — they may have never escaped the peninsula.
Lillias Stirling Horton, an American missionary doctor who arrived in Incheon in 1888, and became the personal physician to Empress Myeongseong (known as Queen Min), wrote in her 1904 book, Fifteen Years Among the Topknots, or Life in Korea, that “people back home [have] never even heard of Corea.”
It has really only been in the past twenty years or so that the words Korea and vacation could be reasonably uttered in the same breath. The country was a colony of Japan from 1910 to 1945. Then came the Korean War. This was followed, until 1988, by a period of rule by a series of authoritarian military-backed presidents. In May 1980, for instance, President Chun Doo-hwan sent the army in to Gwangju to brutally put down a civilian uprising, killing more than six hundred — hardly an environment conducive to a family vacation.
Even today, it is not an easy place for an individual backpacker or a family to travel through. Language is but one issue. Korea has also been slow to introduce amenities and accommodation that would fit North American and European tastes, unlike Korea’s southerly neighbours — the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. It seems Koreans and Westerners even view vacationing differently. We tend to go for quiet, and where nature and aesthetics loom large, maybe at a nice country cottage or place by the sea with activities provided. These are rare finds in Korea. Koreans love crowds and action and noise. The simple pleasure of being alone has not yet seemed to have made much of a dent in the Korean national psyche.
During my first summer in Seoul, my academy owner, Mr. So, invited me to join his family and friends on a camping trip for four days. He told me they would be pitching their tents by a stream in Seorak Mountain National Park in Gangwon Province along the east coast. I accepted. But once we arrived at the shallow pebbly river that wound its way through picturesque farmland, hills, and woods, we sat for excruciatingly long breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, served atop large mats laid out on the grass. The meals were prepared and served by the patient ladies in the group. Between meals we sat around some more.
On the third day, we were hustled into the van and driven to a nearby mountain, where there was a hiking trail. Wonderful, I thought, finally some activity. I was looking forward to jettisoning the bloated feeling you get after eating seemingly non-stop for three days. I hoped my blood — which had congealed into petroleum jelly — would begin to flow again on the challenging hike. We parked, walked along a clear narrow stream that flowed over granite rock, and two minutes later, entered a wooden chalet, a restaurant, it turned out, where we all sat down for a two-hour lunch. After our meal, we were driven back to the campsite to sit some more. I don’t think I’ve eaten as much and used fewer calories over four days in my entire life.
* * *
I arrived in South Korea on June 1, 1995. I had departed Los Angeles International Airport in the early afternoon, and what always seems surreal to me, the almost ten-thousand-kilometre, twelve-hour flight touched down at Gimpo International Airport in northwestern Seoul that same afternoon. We flew in low over Seoul. The day was clear and sunny. I peered out the window at the beauty below: a smattering of craggy, rugged granite ridges covered in the full bloom of trees, in stark contrast to the innumerable clusters of white, high-rise apartment buildings. The juxtaposition: nature versus concrete, of two dominant vivid colours: dark green and white — was visually stunning. I immediately liked Seoul.
For the first few months, I lived in Cheonho-dong, in the eastern reaches Seoul, along the shore of the Han River, which divides the city into approximate north and south halves. When I looked across the kilometre-wide Han from Cheonho-dong, my view was of the long, low ridge of Acha Mountain that followed the river. The academy where I taught was in nearby Myeongil-dong.
I soon discovered that within a ten-minute walk of my front door, I could find almost anything I could possibly desire. There were drycleaners; supermarkets; hardware, grocery, convenience, drug, and clothing stores; chicken, pizza, and Chinese food delivery restaurants; barbers and hairdressers; academies; saunas and fitness clubs; and outdoor markets supplying fresh fish, vegetables, and fruit at good prices. Nearby, there were also wooded trails, red earth tennis courts, and a multiplex movie house. Olympic Park, site of the 1988 Olympics, was within a twenty-minute walk. Running alongside the Han River was a forty-kilometre walking and cycling path. In my free time, I’d rollerblade along the path or play tennis on the courts.
But the day I arrived, this was all unknown to me. The sun was setting, darkness enveloping the city as I was dropped off on the main street by the Cheonho subway station, and headed toward my little room in a yeogwan (old traditional inn) located along a back lane near a bustling outdoor market.
Cheonho-dong at night is abuzz with lights and colours, of rapid movement and palpable energy. I had never seen such packed sidewalks. Many in the crowd were young women decked out in the latest fashions — often miniskirts and high heels. There were schoolchildren in smart uniforms coming and going from the various academies, and women out shopping or socializing in ubiquitous coffee shops. The streets were crammed with old city buses, cars, and taxis, horns honking. A constant stream of buses screeched to a loud, squeaky halt at the bus stops. The sound of traffic, of bus and car engines, was a constant, and at night the haze from the diesel hung in the yellow illumination from street lamps like a cloak of London fog.
I was not used to all this energy and mass of humanity. Not at all. I loved the urgency and visual delights. The multi-storied commercial buildings that lined the streets were plastered with neon signs in greens, oranges, reds, and yellows, advertising coffee shops or restaurants or other businesses. Red neon crosses rose high above small churches across the city.
In residential suburbs across the West you don’t see people out on neighbourhood streets. After arriving home by car from work, a North American won’t be seen again until the following morning. They camp out for the night in their carpeted basement rec rooms on their recliners and surf 150 channels on their big-screen televisions while eating TV dinners. Maybe the room has a bar and a billiards table. During winters — November to March — such citizens hibernate and perhaps do all sorts of unnatural acts. You rarely see them outside, though occasionally they’ll poke their heads out the door to see if spring has arrived.
To me, it is the opposite in Korea. People view their apartment/homes as a place to simply lay their heads for the night. When I visit apartments there, often the only furniture in the living room is a sofa, chair, and a big flat-screen TV on the wall, not much else. I think Koreans prefer to be with friends, to talk and have fun out and about at coffee shops, cafés, restaurants, saunas, bars, and shops. That’s perhaps why the streets, cafés, and restaurants are busy well into the night.
About 10.5 million people live in Seoul, and about 26 million — half the country’s population — in the Seoul Capital Area, which includes satellite cities built with armies of high-rise apartment buildings. Consider that Australia, seventy-seven times larger in area than South Korea, has just 24 million people.
Korean cities employ a concept that I find appealing: residential and commercial areas intertwine, so that from my flat in Myeongil-dong, I could walk to the hardware, convenience, or grocery store, tailor, barber, bike shop, restaurant, or outdoor market along adjacent lanes in a jiffy. Having people out and about is how a residential place is supposed to be. I enjoy the interaction, hearing kids squealing in delight, school students gabbing loudly, housewives chatting, grandfathers debating. If North America decided to upgrade their moribund and tomb-like suburbs from their current catatonic status, to one in which people out for a walk don’t feel like the last human on Earth, they ought to check out the Korean system.
There are lots of positives about living in Korea. It’s generally a safe place. There are stringent laws here to ensure that owning a gun is a near impossibility. A good thing, too, I say, because with Koreans’ quick temperament and penchant for drinking,
