South Korea: A Colorful Nation of Contrasts

K-pop, kimchi and Samsung likely come to mind when one thinks of this small country of 52 million in East Asia. Similar in size to Iceland and Indiana, the Republic of Korea is perpetually dwarfed by its larger neighbors — China, Japan and Russia — and its hostile and secretive, estranged northern brother.

I recently traveled to the country of my heritage to rediscover the nation my family had left over half a century ago. Then, it was an impoverished, war-torn country whose citizens faced both repression and tremendous economic growth under a series of military dictators. It was a country that, amid its post-1945 recovery from Japanese colonization, was forcefully and arbitrarily divided by outside forces with little understanding of the peninsula or its people. Today, however, as a result of the relentless development pursued after the Korean War armistice, signed in 1953, South Korea is among the most developed nations in the world and produces countless cultural exports, including K-pop, K-dramas and K-beauty.

In traveling to Korea, I hoped to reconnect with my heritage and acquaint myself with the country beyond the borders of its shining megacity capital.

Across Eurasia

The twelve-hour flight from Warsaw to Incheon was uneventful, although the circuitous flight path that avoided Ukrainian, Russian and North Korean airspace was a poignant reminder that not everyone has the privilege of living in a peaceful country.

Although I had visited South Korea before, I was still mesmerized by the endless subdivisions of plain, identical twenty-story concrete apartment buildings that dominate the skyline as I arrived at my grandfather’s apartment on the outskirts of Seoul. For lunch, we had Korean barbecue — something every visitor must experience. Seeing the ajumma (an archetypal middle-aged woman) swiftly and expertly cooking strips of samgyeopsal (pork belly) on the table’s built-in grill made me truly feel like I had arrived in Korea. The refreshing bowl of naengmyeon (icy Pyongyang-style noodle soup) that accompanied the meat provided respite from the heat and humidity.

Seoul

Seoul is built for efficiency, and yet, it is a city of unique contrasts. It manages to blend tradition and modernity almost seamlessly. Centuries-old Buddhist temples and royal palaces abut glass skyscrapers and congested city streets. Citizens demonstrate against their government when they are dissatisfied, while, 30 kilometers to the north, doing the exact same would consign three generations of one’s family to a lifetime of hard labor at a Soviet-style gulag. Advertisements featuring K-pop singers with flawless makeup and surgically perfected facial features overlook Seoulites as they métro-boulot-dodo and while farmers tend to their rice paddies just beyond the city limits.

The Seoul metropolitan area houses 25 million residents — half the country’s population — and is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. It inundates the senses. Even as a repeat visitor, I was overwhelmed by the city’s cleanliness and efficiency, given its size. The low violent crime rates allow neighborhoods to buzz with people at all hours of the day and night. One could spend a lifetime in Seoul and still not have explored every one of its neighborhoods in depth.

Sokcho: Seaside Sleepiness

As a non-resident, I could not buy a ticket to Sokcho online. I showed up at the bus terminal in Seoul, clueless yet unfazed, and managed to purchase a ticket. An hour later, I was on a luxurious coach bound for Sokcho, a city on the northeastern coast of South Korea. Upon arrival, I wandered around the central market — a massive seafood and produce hub with dozens of varieties of live fish, handmade kimchi and dalgona, the saccharine toffee-like snack introduced to the outside world by “Squid Game.” I ended the day by enjoying grilled seafood and sikhye, a refreshing beverage made from rice and pine nuts, as I overlooked the sea. The pace of life was slower than Seoul’s, but it was nearly impossible to escape the urban hustle and bustle.

The next day, I boarded a bus bound for Seoraksan National Park, which houses Sinheungsa, a large seventh-century Buddhist temple complex, and congregations of jagged granite peaks that jut defiantly toward the sky. The lush mountainsides and perilous vertical drops provide the perfect scenery for the 10-meter-tall bronze Buddha statue and the colorful wooden temple buildings with intricately painted eaves. When I entered the temple, it felt as if time had stopped; the only audible sounds were chirping birds, bowing Buddha-followers and streaming spring water from the temple’s granite fountain. A stone lion guards the bridge over the parched riverbed below as the unrelenting sun beats down on visitors.

Busan, Boseong, and Jeonju: A Southern Adventure

After a few days back in my home-base and the country’s transportation hub, Seoul, I boarded a high-speed train to Busan. Nestled in the southeastern corner of the peninsula, Busan is only 50 kilometers from Japan’s Tsushima Island. After a swift two-and-a-half-hour journey, I visited Haeundae Beach. It was a typical sandy beach, replete with families, high-rise resort hotels and palm trees. I did not linger for too long since I had gone to Korea to experience Korean culture, not Miami Beach. In pursuit of this, I headed to Jagalchi Market, the largest seafood market in the country. The utilitarian five-story building with fluorescent lighting is full of live and dried seafood, along with dozens of restaurants that prepare seafood however the customer desires. I was in a less adventurous mood, so I settled for some hearty pork bone broth soup, the regional specialty.

The next day, I boarded a bus bound for Boseong, a small village along the rocky southwestern part of the peninsula. The bus exited the freeway and sped down charming country roads lined with rice paddies. The roads grew narrower and the towns smaller. Four hours after departing the seaside metropolis of Busan, I arrived at my accommodation and prepared for the next day’s journey.

Boseong is renowned for its green tea; its mild climate and location along the coast supposedly create distinct aromas in the tea leaves. The green tea fields did not disappoint; dozens of rows of lime-emerald green tea tree terraces line the hillside, teeming with city-dwelling weekenders hunting for the perfect selfie spot.

After having some green tea ice cream and extremely bitter tea leaves, I headed to Jeonju — a city where the authentic Korea is still proudly on display. I slept in a hanok (traditional home) in the Jeonju Hanok village — a massive collection of minimalist yet elegant wooden homes with curved roofs and handmade paper windows. The juxtaposition of the traditional houses and the modern city surrounding it are quintessentially Korean.

U.S. Army Yongsan Garrison and the DMZ: A Country Divided

One of the most impactful parts of my visit to South Korea was my trip to the U.S. Army’s Yongsan Garrison. The two-square kilometer facility in central Seoul served as the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1910 to 1945. Subsequently, it housed the U.S. Army until 2018, when the American base migrated to a site outside of Seoul. Despite the garrison not being active anymore, the barbed wire and threatening signs stating “U.S. government property, no trespassing” have still not disappeared.

A small residential part of the army base was open to the public. It was bizarre to see people so eager to pose for photos inside a former military base that had been off-limits to everyday Koreans for seven decades. Blackhawk Village’s rows of two-story brick townhouses, parks and a Little League baseball field enclosed by a chain-link fence were somewhat reminiscent of an American suburb.

A few days later, I visited the Odusan Unification Observatory, located at the confluence of the Han and Imjin Rivers to the northwest of Seoul. Being only 2.1 kilometers from one of the most secretive countries in the world was a surreal experience. South Koreans used binoculars to catch glimpses of their brethren in the north, separated by a forgotten proxy war. Visitors took selfies on their Samsung phones and sipped on iced Americanos while gazing at the North Korean farm workers who would never be able to experience the capitalist, consumerist lifestyle of the south.

As students in Menton, we cross borders regularly — be it from France to Italy or France to Monaco. But it will be decades, if not an eternity before the people of the Korean Peninsula will be able to cross the Demilitarized Zone that strangles their homeland with the same sort of relative ease and convenience. The duration of the separation — over 70 years — and the extreme disparity in development between the two countries make a German-style reunification ever less likely.

Final Thoughts

This trip was a sort of homecoming that was not truly a homecoming. At times, I felt at home in a country I had only visited twice before; after all, the cuisine and the traditions — and to some extent, the language — were the ones I had grown up with in cosmopolitan California. But, being told by Koreans that I am a foreigner and repeatedly experiencing people in Europe telling me that I am not really American leaves me in an uncomfortable position. Those who are part of a diasporic community are perpetual foreigners in their birth countries and ancestral lands. My mediocre Korean language skills, combined with the general dearth of English proficiency in Korea, frequently impeded communication and often elicited confused looks from locals.

It took some time for me to adjust to the Korean “ppalli-ppalli” (quickly-quickly) lifestyle — a far cry from the azuréen lifestyle that blends the French “joie de vivre” and Italian “dolce far niente” philosophies. The ppalli-ppalli growth mindset caused the country to develop at a breakneck pace under military dictator Park Chung-hee’s series of five-year plans in the 1960s and 1970s. However, this same attitude, combined with a deeply ingrained Confucian hierarchy, creates the conditions for acute inequality — where the upper class lives in posh Gangnam apartments and the less well-off struggle to make ends meet. Intense academic pressure, long working hours, and dominance of the economy and government by too-big-to-fail conglomerates (chaebols) — including Samsung, LG, and Hyundai — contribute to South Korea having the highest suicide rate in the first-world. These societal dynamics were portrayed in “Parasite” (2019) and “Squid Game” (2021), and while people have a tendency to romanticize other cultures, they often fail to recognize that nowhere is perfect.

The tremendous growth South Korea has experienced is incredible, and I genuinely enjoyed spending three weeks there earlier this summer. I appreciated being able to reconnect with my heritage and experiencing what several provinces had to offer. I highly recommend it to those who wish to visit Korea—you will enjoy this gem of a country. Don’t be afraid to go beyond your comfort zone, especially with food, learn some of the history before visiting and have an open mind!