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Second international statistics South Korea is a rich and comfortable country, where poverty should be a very small phenomenon. Even walking through the streets of central Seoul, the capital, one gets the impression that the population enjoys widespread prosperity. Yet, as director Bong Joon-ho recalled a few years ago with his film Parasite, the social inequalities that divide the country run deep. In the most remote suburbs of the main South Korean cities, some “favelas” can still be found today, i.e. neighborhoods where the population lives in conditions of poverty and relative degradation (the term “favelas”, which is Latin American, is probably not the most suitable to describe the situation, but allows you to understand what we are talking about).
South Korean “favelas” are usually small suburban neighborhoods dating back to the last century, when South Korea was a country struggling out of poverty. Having survived their era, these areas are called in Korean from the dongnae, a sweetened term that translates as “moon villages”. Some have now become very popular tourist attractions, but in many cases the conditions of hardship and poverty are still significant today.
The “moon villages”
After the end of the Korean War, starting from the mid-1950s, rapid economic development and technological innovation greatly reduced the widespread poverty that characterized the country in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, the urban profile of South Korean cities it was radically distorted by the exceptional urbanization of the population.
For example, the area of Seoul that runs along the Cheonggyecheon stream, today one of the most central and productive in all of Korea, was occupied by an expanse of slums in the last century. The same goes for Gangnam, the glittering and affluent neighborhood that was parodied by singer PSY in the famous song Gangnam Style. Even in the 80s this area today at the center of the South Korean business world was the extreme southern suburb of Seoul and, before the construction boom, also one of the most economically underdeveloped in the entire capital.
Although they have largely disappeared, these favelas have been a fundamental element in the urban development of South Korea. The “moon villages” are neighborhoods that have arisen spontaneously from the consistent and disorganized influx of migrants into the metropolis. Today the slums that used to be on the outskirts of large South Korean cities have in many cases been torn down and replaced by more traditional and affluent neighborhoods. Some, however, survived and are still densely populated, such as Ami and Gamcheon, in the southern city of Busan, or Gaemi, Guryong, Baeksa, and Bukjeong, all located within the boundaries of the capital. Even a part of Itaewon, the night district of Seoul, maintains the typical characteristics of the “moon village”.
Compared to the slums found in many developing countries, i daldongnae still existing today are much less precarious and more organised: most of the original structures in reused materials have been replaced by masonry buildings, the connection to public utilities has been conducted more or less everywhere, and the municipal authorities have taken steps to integrate citizenship in the urban fabric. However, the highly labyrinthine and impervious urban layout remains a characteristic of these districts, often located on the steep slopes of the hills surrounding the main South Korean cities and therefore excellent places from which to observe the moon. Their Korean name would derive from here.
These features make the daldongnae hybrid realities with very marked contrasts. Streets and alleys are almost all cemented and on the main roads of these districts you can rely on public transport, but on the sidewalks it is not uncommon to find piles of coal bricks consumed for internal heating of homes. Some houses still have separate toilets from the rest of the structure.
Today in South Korea less than 2 percent of the population lives in absolute poverty, but the country has a serious poverty problem among the older part of the population. About 40 percent of people over the age of 65 lives in relative poverty, that is, it enjoys an income that is less than half of the average income of the country’s population. And it is no coincidence that most of the people who live in the daldongnae are elderly people.
A story of urban improvisation
The reason why in the big South Korean cities traces of gods can be found everywhere daldongnae derives from the fact that since its foundation in 1948 South Korea has been a country where the population has continued to pour into the cities without these having sufficient housing capacity to integrate them all. The first large wave of migration occurred after the armistice that ended the hostilities of the Korean War in 1953. Thousands of refugees who fled from the North poured into the South to escape the communist dictatorship established by Kim Il Sung.
At that time, South Korea was a devastated, starving and very poor country, in which the government in Seoul did not have the material means to welcome the displaced from the North. In the absence of state measures, the refugees who arrived in the south began to aggregate spontaneously around the cities, where the conformation of the land allowed it. This is how the daldongnae of Gamcheon by exploiting the terraced fields that descended from the heights towards the port.
This wave was followed by another in the following decades, as the country’s economic development began to pick up speed. Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans migrated from the countryside to seek work in the factories of the country’s major cities, where industrialization promised workers better wages. The military junta ruling South Korea in those years, also in this case, had neither the resources nor the intention to adequately manage the migratory phenomenon. As a result rural migrants went to join the exiles from the North, in the slums.
Between improvised structures, mud roads and general disregard for building regulations, in the precarious climate of the daldongnae illegal activities have often thrived. In some cases, entire areas (particularly those adjacent to US military barracks) have been converted into red-light districts, such as in Itaewon. Here, by tacit agreement with the US military authorities, the South Korean authorities tolerated the practice of prostitution as a means of recreation to maintain the morale of the troops, committed to guaranteeing the protection of South Korea from the communist threat.
In the late 80s, i daldongnae they entered the irreversible decline to which these neighborhoods are destined when the economic and social development of a country goes beyond a certain threshold. On the occasion of the 1988 Olympics, the South Korean government undertook an intense campaign to “clean up” the Gangnam area (near where the opening ceremony of the games should have taken place) of poverty and illegality. Many neighborhoods were restructured or simply razed and rebuilt, replacing essentially improvised construction with buildings according to law. Today, of all daldongnae origins, only Guryong village could be described as still relatively intact in its slum condition.
Tourism and redevelopment
In recent decades, aware of the fundamental role played by daldongnae in the development of Korea’s urban fabric, local administrators of large cities have made some efforts to preserve its characteristic atmosphere and at the same time revitalize its economy. In the 2000s, Gaemi, in the western suburbs of Seoul, filled with colorful murals that attracted the attention of tourists and residents, while the authorities of the capital gave it the status of “future heritage”.
Today it is above all the “moon village” of Gamcheon, on the outskirts of the city of Busan, that attracts large numbers of tourists. The houses in the neighborhood have in fact been painted in all colors over the years, thus creating a remarkable visual impact. At viewpoints you even have to queue up to take a picture. This image investment has obviously paid off and today the narrow streets of Gamcheon contain a number of shops, bars, and other businesses that simply aren’t found in Gaemi or Guryong. Among other things, if Busan were to win the 2030 Expo (in competition against Rome among others), it is probable that further resources will arrive in Gamcheon to promote itself as a district of sustainable regeneration.
There are however numerous problems. While relevant to Korea’s urban history, i daldongnae they are the legacy of an era of poverty and marginalization. Despite the nostalgia of some, the scarcity of services and the criticality of an improvised urban fabric make these neighborhoods often not easy to live in. Most of the inhabitants you meet in the alleys are over 60 years old and live in difficult conditions.
Also from the point of view of the benefits brought by tourism, it is not difficult to notice that the well-being brought by visitors to these communities remains superficially linked only to the activities located near the bus station, while in the more distant and less touristy areas, tourism hardly manages to arrive. Moreover, just on the other side of the hill on which Gamcheon stands is an Ami, a similar neighborhood perhaps less colorful but just as scenic. The comparison between the two could not be more unbalanced: the main road of Gamcheon is as full as the one of Ami is empty, whose elderly people sitting all together on the benches watch with a certain resignation the buses full of tourists cross their neighborhood in the direction of Gamcheon.