[Terry's Tale] Adapting to Live

On my entry into Korea there were three things that struck me.  The first is the incredibly large number of high rise apartment buildings.  These buildings are required because the population of South Korea cannot spread out due to the limitations of land space, so they reach for the sky.  Often, these buildings serve not as rental apartments, but instead, as condominiums.  They are comfortable, I am sure some are luxurious, but they are designed as cubicles purposefully established for offering efficient living space.  Probably, not unlike anywhere else in the world, but for someone who has never before lived in one, an interesting experience.  And the buildings seem to be everywhere, with multitudes of new ones popping up all around.

During my years in the states, I lived, as do many people, primarily in single family houses or in low rise apartments.  I suppose that I should probably have spent some real time in a large city where living accommodations such as these would have been more common.  Still, to find these structures as such a ubiquitous part of the landscape, not simply restricted to large cities, points out what happens when limitations are reached on available land.

Secondly, and again related to the lack of landspace, is the efficient use of any available land in and around cities for agriculture.  I recently read a piece on the internet about this phenomenon beginning in the US, but here it has been practiced for some time.  Unfortunately for Korea, as in the US, people working in agriculture are an ageing population (though in Korea, many are female) and this may cause serious future problems if the issue is not addressed.

Finally, the third thing by which I was struck is the incredibly large number of small restaurants that offer chicken as either their primary dish, or as perhaps, their only menu item.  They are far more prevalent, at least around here, than burger joints in the US – far more.  This lead me to wonder if this fascination for chicken may also be an unintended consequence of limited land space since sixteen acres are required each year to feed a single cow.  Anyway, you probably would not want to be a chicken in Korea for as the song said “nowhere to run, nowhere to hide . . .”

Don't come to Korea expecting to see houses like these except as part of museums, even if some are in living museums.