100,000s of people in South Korea live in tiny underground apartments [video] | Hacker News Reader

100,000s of people in South Korea live in tiny underground apartments [video]

bbc.co.uk

It is remarkable how the most memorable scenes in parasite (for me) were not any of the crazy plot but the flooding scenes which were nothing but aesthetic symbolism of the movie's message. It didn't matter from a plot perspective at all really, and there was no dramatic sense of danger in it either, but damn did it stand out.

> It didn't matter from a plot perspective at all really

To me this is exactly what made the flood scene so powerful.

When watching the film the flood seems to almost interrupt the narrative flow, "what is this? this isn't what I'm interested in right now. Why do we need this, there's already enough going on for these people?" is your first reaction as a viewer

But that's how real tragedy unfolds, it completely interrupts the story you are telling yourself with something you would really prefer not to deal with but are not allowed to ignore.

Floods, or likewise layoffs, the death of an important family member, etc. never fit the narrative flow we have in our heads. They interrupt our story in a way we really don't want.

I recall years ago getting ready for an important business trip for early stage startup that I had just joined. I was packing when I got a call that a close family member on the other side of the country had died. It didn't fit with my plans, I was going to start a new company, I didn't have time for a funeral, for grieving. Can't we do this next week when I'm less busy?

Of course the next morning the flight I got on was not for a startup but for the funereal.

Tragedy and loss never fit out schedule, not only do they bring their own pain but they destroy everything else we were trying to balance in our lives. Really a brilliant way to convey this idea in film.

Absolutely. Grandparent commentor has some odd notions about what constitutes a legitimate versus illegitimate narrative device, and what constitutes “dramatic sense of danger.”

They mentioned it as an “aesthetic” choice on the part of the writer/director, but the linked video mentioned 4 people who had drowned in a flooded banjiha, and included an interview with a family who claimed to have narrowly escaped with their own lives.

Tragedy striking suddenly and seemingly irreversibly is a common feature of life in poverty; there is no art or artifice about it and (purely personally), it strikes me as naive interpreting it as a visual spectacle and not a visual representation of an underlying reality.

> Grandparent commentor has some odd notions about what constitutes a legitimate versus illegitimate narrative device, and what constitutes “dramatic sense of danger.”

Feels... weirdly aggressive for no reason. It's a great moment, but it's not a plot focused one. It has no consequences nor any particular proposition of consequences. In real life, yes, floods are dangerous. In real life a flood would be a significant life event. But that's not the character of this scene. The best shot of the film, and personally I think he best shot I've ever seen period, is of the daughter just smoking on the toilet while it overflows with sewage during the flood. She's not afraid, in fact, she's pretty apathetic to it all.

Water is a recurring motif in the film. The rich people stay dry. The water flows down to the poor who get soaked. The fact that people have actually died from this kind of flooding is tragic, but it shouldn't redefine how one interprets the scene. The family narrowly avoids a complete disaster and this is just a brutal reminder that their lives still suck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtxrau3arh4

I don't know anything about renting/buying/homeownership in South Korea but to me it seems like you could still have people living in these basements if you could ensure they don't flood above head-level with sump pumps or building a dike around the building or something? Not sure. Seems like it would be a good stopgap solution while still making sure tenants don't get their lives upended by flooding or laws that force them out of their homes.

It's funny because we've been starting to see homeowners of larger houses where I live renovating their basement into a condo/shared living space of sorts then renting it out to younger generations of people who can't afford regular apartments or housing.

I'm fairly certain we're going to see an economic collapse on a larger global scale in the next decade and some governments' complacency on housing availability/affordability/etc. are going to be part of the blame.

Seoul is hilly enough to put san franciso to shame, and a lot of these poor basement residences are at the bottom. It'd likely be really hard to do this reliably.

Even if the basements were flood-proof, these basements have minimal natural light, and little to no view from the windows. Horrible places to live. The mother at the end of the video says it all:

"I want to move above ground where my children can see the skies, to a place that doesn't have the musty smell of a semi-basement, so we can live together in fresh air."

Its impossible - imagine the basement is the hold of a ship with holes below the water line the size of doors. You'd need a jet to pump the required water.

The only technical "solution" would be to build a barrier higher than the flood waters around the apartments, but thats not going to happen.

We are in constant denial of how fast our population grew and continue to grow. Narrative is like 'uh-oh, population grow is not like it used to be'. Well right, a lot of countries doubled their population in last 50 years or less and continue to grow, being that natural birth rate or immigration is not that important.

"But not in our generation, the next one."

The familiar song of the NIMBY knows no borders. What an amazing statement. Younger people must be immiserated because older person has bills to pay. At least demographically speaking the young man in the video won't really need to wait 40 years to get an apartment above ground. Population of SK is believed to have peaked in 2020 and is now rapidly plunging, with total fertility now way below 1.0. They used to project peak population in 2035 but now they are projecting to lose 1 million by that year.

Edit: Sorry, the 1 million is according to the "medium" fertility projection but since reality is already far below the "low" scenario, the projection is for losing 3 million people by 2035.

That lady is dirt poor clinging onto the meagre rent of a very insignificant asset. I guarantee her entire life, including as a "landlord", has been certainly tougher than mine, but probably yours and 99% of the people on this forum. The landlord is "in her 80s", so born between '33 and '42. Consider:

- She was born into Japanese occupation and lived through WW2. Probably was malnourished growing up.

- Shes old enough to remember the Korean War and, almost assuredly had the front line go through her location (at one point only the city Busan held out). War is not good for young teenaged girls.

- After the war, she might have been one of the thousands of low income women that were prostituted off to the American army by the Korean state desperate for foreign capital to rebuild.

- She lived most her life under a pretty brutal dictatorship.

Korean women of her generation have lived through some of the most insane hardships. The toil of her generation built one of the richest export economies in the world while inheriting literally one of the most backwards and poor country ruled by dictators.

I think shes owed a small rental income to buy meds.

There's more than enough economic activity in SK to pay for both health care and housing, but their wealth is highly concentrated among the richest. Instead of insisting that there must be an underclass of subterranean peasants supporting her in late life due to the happenstance of her petty real estate holdings, people who are just barely above peasants should be looking up, demanding accountability from people richer than themselves.

I think this is fair but not at all what you were saying in your initial comment.

I don't think the old lady was being a NIMBY Andy.

Im not insisting there should be an underclass of peasants. I am defending an old woman against the charge of NIMBYism, or that she should not take space for the young generation. In fact, Id make these living arrangement illegal.

However, as is often the case, emotion driven decisions have horrible secondary effects. Is Seoul setting aside money for compensating landlords for loss of legal income? Is Seoul building affordable housing? Is Korea delivering high quality government services evenly throughout the country?

Seoul, one of the world's richest cities, isn't offering her a NPV of her future rent. Seoul isn't building affordable housing.

This landlady has had a much tougher life than her tenants who have had much tougher lives than most on this forum

I was not aware the social programs in Seoul were income trapped, like they are in the US.

Isn't this a case against extreme urbanisation? The human density in a lot of cities are way too high.

Another are the ridiculous housing prices. Is it a bubble? Will it pop? Will it decrease in my lifetime?

Where else do they go, though? The classic alternative to city life is subsistence farming. Massive US style suburbanization requires a ton of resources for cars and roads and armies to keep the oil flowing.

I guess 70% of SK land (shape) is not that flat, that's why it's also harder to fix (wonder why having underground apartments like this in the first place). Getting 0.2% of population out of this underground living should be doable quickly..

So they've already embraced "you will own nothing, and you will be happy."

Although the "happy" part is looking more and more unlikely.

Happiness is a choice. Some of the most miserable people in the world are obscenely wealthy.

Happiness = Reality - Expectations.

You control your own expectations.

Generally, the American Dream of a massive house + massive car + isolated lifestyle away from friends and family is a/ not scalable to worldwide scale, b/ not the universal mode to happiness

Ok, so how does your point tie back to the discussion? I don't think having a living quarters that doesn't flood during a storm is a very high expectation. Do you?

That expectation reflects privileges that many if not most people in the world do not have.

What, why? Floods can be prevented and it is fine to expect that we work towards that ideal. Nothing wrong about that.

More like ignoring reality is a choice. You can live in miserable conditions and trick your mind to be happy and refuse to be affected by circumstances and be happy. Thay works out fine if happiness is your goal. But that also means you ignore reality and operate based on lies and self-deception. Why work to improve your situation or fix problems if you are happy as you are? I actually think too many people are happy when they shouldn't. I prefer to be angry, sad frustrated, anything so long it matches reality.

What is the big deal about happiness anyways? I have been happy, I have been miserable. The taste of truth and justice is sweeter. Not seeing your loved ones suffer and your precious time on earth wasted away are better goals than being happy for the sake of feeling good.

>I actually think too many people are happy when they shouldn't. I prefer to be angry, sad frustrated, anything so long it matches reality.

Doesn't sound healthly

Dude should read some Marcus aurelius

I can't imagine anything more healthy. Those are all valid emotions a healthy person should exhibit. Being happy when life is good and being sad when life is bad is healthy because you enjoy good things and times and allow yourself to be negatively affected bad by things and times so you can avoid or change them.

If emotions were a spouse being happy during bad times would be similar to being happy when your spouse is abusing you and enduring it. Isn't it more healthy to be negatively affected by it so you can change or exit the situation?

> ...so long it matches reality.

This is probably the important bit here!

One can probably talk about having a positive outlook being overall a good idea in life in many cases, but I'm also inclined to agree with you that experiencing the whole emotional spectrum when appropriate is also an enriching experience.

Just as long as you don't let certain emotions or feelings overwhelm you too much, e.g. getting used to being angry about something and focusing on it too much. Learning to let things go is probably also a useful skill, as is self reflection.

I agree with this. The important thing is to rule your emotions instead of be ruled by them. Taking an active and dominant role in dictating your emotions so thay they align with reality.

No, this is not correct despite it being a modern day matra.

At least 50% of one's mood comes genetics. There's nothing one can do about that. There's just not.

Almost everyone knows this. You can have one child that is happy and cooing and very social at 3 or 6 months old, and another child that cries, doesn't like people, and unhappy. We all know this. It's not like the infant is choosing to be happy or sad at 3 months old. It's genetics. For sure.

One could say that since 50% is genetic, that 50% of a mood is under one's control. Well, having 100% happy genes plus a good happy outlook on life and choices is a LOT easier than only 50% unhappy. Because no matter what, even if a 50% "not good mood person" tries to be happy, there is always that 50% "not happy" part that is always there. Waiting. Looking for it's chance to move in. Happy people don't have that.

Also, on another note, there are all kinds of mood disorders. Major depressive disorder (MDD), Bipolar I, Bipolar II, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), Cyclothymic disorder, Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, Persistent depressive disorder, Premenstrual dysphoric disorder. These types of mood disorders follow one through life, too. Can be ok for a while, then boom, depressed and you can't help it.

There is no way that people with mood disorders can choose to be happy. Just no way.

>the most miserable people in the world are obscenely wealthy.

I am personally convinced that all the studies that show that obscenely wealthy people are miserable is that all the studies were paid for by billionaires and published by their astroturf groups. These "studies" are published in the media that the billionaires own, saying how miserable they are. Because that will help prevent the actual miserable poor people from rising up and doing a French Revolution gullontine number on the very rich.

Mr. Billionarie says: "You think you have it bad, Mr. Working-two-jobs-at-federal-minimum-wage-of-$7.50?? You got it great! I have BILLIONS of dollars and boy am I miserable. I mean, I KNOW that I have cool cars, my own private jet, a different supermodel every night, but man-oh-man that is so much worse than you not being able to afford basic healthcare for your 3 children and one of them dies from an easily preventable disease. You are so much better off than me!!!"

Anectdotal stories on how the rich are so miserable don't really do it for me.

This is more like actual reality: https://www.businessinsider.com/study-shows-money-can-buy-ha...

82% of the wealthy were happy, while 98% of the poor were unhappy

87% of the wealthy were happy in their marriage, while 53% of the poor were unhappy

93% of the wealthy were happy because they liked or loved what they did for a living, while 85% of the poor were unhappy

0% of the wealthy were unhappy due to finances, while 98% of the poor were unhappy

Wait...are you a billionaire???

The record low birth rate indicates young people are paying attention. https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/26/asia/south-korea-worlds-lowes...

Another example of "south korea isn't good, its just that north korea is just worse".

Many commie nations in asia had nearly equally as bad, and sometime worse, "democratic" counterparts.

Until the korean war, north korea was actually richer.

South korea is absolutely a terrible place to live and has tons of corruption, it just looks good because its compared to its northern neighbor.

If north korea didn't exist I doubt south korea would receive more bad press like this.

I think it looks good more because of media and politics?

"Hell Korea" is what koreans call their country, and also we're going kinda extinct.

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