Why old people, newspapers still matter

By Klemens Schwitzer

It was my first visit to South Korea back in June 2004. I came to research the Korean use of TV-media. First impression: hot. Second: heavy traffic. And third: building sized TV-screens everywhere. Easy to tell I wasn't in Europe anymore. Staying in northern district of Seoul, Dongnimmun near the base of Mt. Inwan, I had to walk down a steep incline to reach the subway station. Right there was a single newspaper stand.

My morning turned into a near ritual walk. I started the day by making my way down to the newspaper stand, getting my copy of The Korea Times and buying a decent Kimbap for breakfast. From the very first time I made my scheduled visit, the owner, an old man, friendly welcomed me in English.

Maybe it was my second visit to Korea he realized that I might come back continuously. As a token of friendship he tried to discount the paper to me, and returned 200 won. We were laughing and started talking.

He told me that he learned English in 1951 when he was working for American military. He explained that he had worked as a teacher in Pyongyang during some desperate years, and that he’d fled from North Korea with his wife and child. As my trips accumulated over time, a lot of storytelling about his life as a middle-school teacher in Seoul, his four children and their jobs ensued.

After he retired, he still felt like being active and so in 1991 he started a new business, that newspaper stand at Dongnimmun Station. Ever since he went there daily when newspapers were published, even on coldest Korean winter days, always reading a newspaper, never seen without!

While he seemed to enjoy sharing his tales of culture and politics in Korea, he was always curious about my life in Germany. I remember how proud he was in 2010, when I told him, that I published a book about Korean media.

The years went by and no matter where I stayed in Seoul, be it Nowon or Sadang, I always tried to go to his newsstand. People often turned around, when they saw us talking. Implicit was that we appeared mismatched. They seemed to ask themselves, “Why is this guy talking to that grandpa, for he just wants a newspaper?” People were unaware that bonds grow where they may not be visible. The obvious can even evade the perceptive.

The most recent example of this was last year when I was on the move across Seoul with a professor of economics. We came from Dongguk University and wanted to go have a coffee somewhere. I suggested to her to go via Dongnimmun, in order to say hi to the grandpa and buy a newspaper.

She looked at me in disbelief. “You can get a newspaper anywhere. So why should we go there?”

I got the message: there is just no glamour talking to an old man. That’s sad, because talking to old people is a key to experience of life, the roots of society. It’s just a treasure, that will fade away, if it’s not told. It is so easy to forget what you never knew.

Early this year my “harabochi” (grandpa) quit his business. Since February the newspaper stand is closed and empty. He says he is 92 years now and the trip to Dongnimmun by bus had become too exhausting for him.

I was really sad to hear, but I’m happy that I met him once and we entered each other’s lives.

It all started with a copy of Korea Times back in 2004.

The writer is a researcher and assistant lecturer

for media sciences and East Asian mediasystems

at universities in Germany and Korea. Write to

kgschwitzer@googlemail.com.