Reflections on the subway

By Kim Ji-soo

Despite its high efficiency, I never really enjoy the subway. Your body is physically moving as it is being transported by the train, but there is no visual confirmation of that movement.

All you see are the dark walls of the subway’s tunnel and the similar-looking stops. Sometimes the trains emerge from underground to terrestrial stops, providing a breath of spatial movement like that of a swimmer coming up for breath.

But the beauty of the subway — especially Korean ones, I might say — is that depending on the time and the lines, it tells you a lot about this society. Of course, this is on the condition that you’re not immersed in the wonderful world of smart phones and iPod music.

In a stark contrast to the commute hours, the off-hours subway riders are the dejected elderly, the religious messengers and the aggressive peddlers who sell cheap items.

It’s easy to spot the elderly on Korean subways. The trains are large and the Korean elderly aged over 65 can use it for free. They are sometimes seen collecting waste paper, which they can resell.

The peddlers come in all age groups, selling a broad range of goods from music CDs to gloves to small necessity goods that one may need around the house. Some peddlers have a story; the goods they are selling are inventories of failed businesses.

The scene from the off-commute hours struck in particular as Korean society is at a loss what it should do to stop the further widening gap between the rich and the poor, to address its aging society and sluggish growth.

The gap between the haves and have-nots has widened, according to a finance ministry report released earlier this month. South Korea’s terms of income inequality, based on the Gini coefficient, ranked 20th in 2008, down from 17th in 2007, among 34 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

An OECD data released last December said that income inequality among elderly citizens in Korea was the third highest in major economies.

Korean economic growth, after growing an average of 8 percent per year through 1995, has been averaging at 4 percent since then. Then, last December, a survey by Statistics Korea, a government agency, found that 52.8 percent of respondents considered themselves to be part of the middle class, a 1.1 percentage point drop from two years ago.

In a sum, the Korean economy and demographics have grown rapidly and is not maturing but our social support network is not coming into step with these developments.

The success formula that upheld Korea — a traditional family structure to protect the elderly, life-time employment by large corporation and fast-paced growth that allowed for jobs for the youth — has fast demised.

The demise is underway without a replacement, which is possible to glimpse just even from the everyday scenes on the subway.

Right now, it is like Korea is traveling underground in a subway. People don’t want to plod along, without a certain sense of where they are headed. What can we do to not just plod along but instead move with sense of vision? The vision aspect is where the leaders come in.

On a macro-level, there can be a better social safety network for the elderly, more employment of this silver population and perhaps an easier process to declare personal bankruptcy.

On a micro level, local communities can offer libraries and sports clubs at reasonable prices that the elderlies and the underprivileged can easily avail of.

On a personal level, the lunar New Year’s is a good time to ponder on how we want to address these societal elements that we all face.