The best attraction of Seoul City

Seoul Station

            In the city of Seoul, there are three major places where the homeless people gather – Seoul Station, City hall, and Young deng po. Out of the three places, Andy and I helped the homeless in Seoul Station. Seoul Station is the center of the means of transportations in South Korea. Due to this reason, it attracts thousands of people every day and those thousands of people see the homeless wandering around the area.

            Only few days ago, I got a Facebook message from Sarah Farkas (the leader of the volunteer group on Sundays) that says Seoul City is planning to kick out all the homeless from Seoul Station. I would like to jot down some of my thoughts on this occurrence.

            “UNESCO nominated city of design,” this is the new title for Seoul City. UNESCO is an organization from UN (United Nations) which protects natural and artificial places on earth. Honestly, out of all the countries I have been to, I don’t think I have ever heard of the name of the organization; however, in Korea, I have noticed that being nominated from the organization means a lot. Now, to maintain its reputation, Seoul City is trying to beautify the area around Seoul Station and their first move is kicking the homeless out.

     

            Kicking out the homeless from Seoul Station is somewhat understandable. Seoul City does not want to give bad impressions to the tourist by having the homeless around the biggest station. This will definitely not make the area look pleasant. I do not want to blame on Seoul City for its decision but I do want to blame on some selfish Koreans.

            As I was reading more articles about this new decision of Seoul City, I was able to read people’s opinions.  Sadly, and as I expected, many people were happy about Seoul City’s new policy. In addition to people’s cruel reactions, I have learned that there are rumors about the homeless that they are violent and aggressive – which is preposterous.

            I do not know about other people but for me, the best part of traveling is meeting new people. Beautiful mountains, flamboyant night views, fancy clubs and bars are nice attractions of Seoul. However, would not Seoul City be much more attractive place if citizens of Seoul City embrace and care for each other? At least I think so.

Issac Won

Aren't they human beings like us?

            I remember meeting the old man in Harrisburg who told me that it is not too bad to live on the streets. If you read my older post “Not too bad.” You would know that he, in fact, was not a homeless but chose to be one. Just like he said, I thought that living in the streets of Harrisburg was not too bad. When Andy and I were sleeping on the street, a part of me was excited to eat at the churches and shelters next day. Only thing I was worried about was the cold wind that we had to bear (I still remember when we were shivering in 13 degrees outside).

            The homeless people here get fed pretty well like those in Harrisburg and the food is amazing like that of Harrisburg (the shelters serve Korean food!). There are many different places where the homeless people get food and supplies. Things look very similar to Harrisburg except for people’s perception about the homeless. Every time Andy and I talk to the homeless people and hang out, other people look at us as if we were wearing funny clothes or something (actually, I am not that fashionable but still!). People are cold toward the homeless; they despise the homeless. Andy and I are thinking to live on the streets sometime soon but these judgmental views against the homeless make me scared to experience the homeless life.

            Due to the hatred, the homeless people begin to look down on themselves. They are immune to the abomination and now they think that is how they should be treated. From what I see and hear, it seems like the homeless here came to a point where they do not believe that they have same rights like any other people. Saddest part is that other “non-homeless people” refuse to give the same rights to the homeless as well. There are unwritten laws which limit the range activities of the homeless; the discrimination is still prevalent in the democratic society of South Korea.

   

            One day, when I was “cooking” at the drop in center, I talked to one of the homeless people. I said ‘hello,’ to him but he was hesitating to respond to me. When I said ‘hello’ again, he bowed to me and said: “I am thankful that you are talking to me.” I did not expect that response, thus I wasn’t sure what to do or say. Since then, he came to me frequently and talked about Korean politics and history. From that, I have realized that he did not have many friends to whom he could talk to; therefore, I tried my best to listen to him.

            Interestingly enough, even some homeless people really think that they do not deserve to be treated well. While I was doing the dishes at the same place I volunteer at, I talked to a worker there who once was a homeless. I asked him many things in an attempt to learn about the homeless life. When I asked him how much he makes from working at the place, however, his face became very serious.

“Why do you ask? It doesn’t pay well. You are young so study rather than looking for a job like this.”

His voice was very assertive and intimidating. I laughed out loud and explained what Andy and I are doing in Korea.

“Oh, I see. Well, I would like to tell you one thing. Don’t be nice to the homeless people. They will become lazier if you treat them nicely.”

I was surprised to hear that from someone who was a homeless.

            “But when you were a homeless, were you depressed when people treated you badly?”

I asked him but he did not respond to my question. He was pondering upon something and then went back to his work.

            There was a few minutes of silence between us. I broke the silence with another question. I asked him if he has a family. He stopped doing the dishes and looked at me.

            “I don’t have a family. I never got married.” He looked sad as he was saying the words.

“Did you choose not to get married?” I was not sure if I should ask him the question but I did anyways.

            “Yeah, I chose not to get married because I didn’t think that I could afford a family.”

Right after he responded, I realized that the work was over. Since the man I talked to had to do his own work, we had to be separated. Without finishing our conversation, I had to come back home.

Issac Won

Stories from the streets of Seoul

            One thing that frustrates us the most is the transportation. Since our home is too far away, there is only one train per hour that travels between our home and Seoul. I remember one day when we had to run to catch the train. As soon as we got to the train station, we saw the train leaving. When we realized that we had to wait for another hour, Andy suggested to take a homeless person out for dinner. We walked toward the main gate of Seoul Station and on our way, I found two homeless people seating on the floor. An old man wore grey clothes and another man wore a grey and red shirt. Andy and I approached to them and asked if they had dinner.

            “No. But I am fine.” One guy said as if he was suspicious of us.

I had to persuade him that we wanted to buy them something. After ten times of asking, finally, they came along. Since we did not want to take them to a restaurant where we wanted to go, I asked if they had any preferred place to eat.

            “People like us do not deserve to choose. We eat whatever. Just go wherever you want to.” The man in a grey and red shirt said as he was waiving his hands.

            “We had dinner already so it is your pick. Just tell us whatever you want to eat.” I replied.

            “Uhmmm… what I want to eat is quite expensive though… I want to eat… fried chicken.” The man in grey shirt finally opened his mouth tentatively.

            All of us walked to a nearby fried chicken place. The man in grey, Andy and I walked in and sat down inside the restaurant; however, the man in red and grey shirt stood outside. I went out to take him inside.

            “Why aren’t you coming in?” I asked in wonder.

            “I smell bad and I look really dirty and shabby. If I go in, it will make the people inside uncomfortable.” He said with a smile on his face and again, he waived his hands as a sign of mild refusal to go in. Then, I have noticed that he only had his thumb on his right hand.

I almost tried to drag him in telling him it is ok. He, finally, came in reluctantly and sat with us.

             The owner came to us and had to verify that the homeless people were our companion. When I said ‘yes,’ the owner did not seem pleasant but I tried not to care about him. We ordered fried chicken and French fries. As we were waiting for the food, Andy and I conversed with the homeless people.

            “I used to make $ 10,000 a month.” The man in grey started the conversation. Then he continued: “I owned a small construction office and made tons of money. But, when I became sick, my children put me in a monastery saying that I need some metal care and took all my money and ran away. I don’t know where they are.”

The story stunned me and literally, my month did not close for few seconds. I did not know what to say to him other than sorry to hear that. Really, I was sorry for him. While listening to the man in grey, the food we ordered came out. I put one piece on each of us’ plates. To follow the Korean table manner, I waited until the older people (homeless people in this case) to eat first. However, the guy in grey and red shirt did not start eating. I asked him if he does not like chicken.

                        “No, I like chicken. I am just waiting for you to eat first.” The man in grey and red shirt responded.

When he asked me to eat first, I have noticed that his self-esteem is extremely low. He was recognizing himself as a lower being than I am. This is a big humiliation in Korean culture. I could not believe that an older person like him would humble himself like that.

            Once we finished the chicken, we walked back to the station together and said good bye to each other. Those two homeless men did not stop saying ‘sorry’ to us. I did not understand why they had to be sorry to us but soon, I realized that they think they made us to waste our time.

After that day, we encountered the guy with red and grey shirt several times. Every time we met him, he said: “Sorry about the other day.” It seems like the homeless people here are completely dehumanized.

          

Issac Won

Volunteering and beyond

            The director of Chun-ae homeless shelter introduced us to another place where needs more help. The place was called ‘Da si suh gi’ which means ‘standing up again.’ In Korea there are only three organizations like Da si suh gi in which homeless people can get housing, food, clothes and many other things they need to be resettled.

            Like Chun-ae homeless shelter, Da si suh gi was located in a hard place to find. When I heard about this place from the director of Chun-ae homeless shelter, I pictured a big building; however, I soon realized that I was wrong. The building of the drop in center was small and shabby. Sumin, Andy and I went in and met a person who was told about us through the director of Chun-ae homeless shelter. He led us to his desk in the office and introduced himself. His name was Jung Jae Lee and he was a full time worker. Jung Jae informed us about the place and his expectations from us.

“I will assign you to work at the soup kitchen. We do have an out-reach team but we do not want you to work there. If we put you in the team, you will most likely build friendships; however, you will end up be leaving the country, and that friendships might leave scars to the homeless.” Jung Jae had a “sorry look” on his face as he was explaining us the reason we got the soup kitchen jobs.

When Jung Jae told us about the reason, I was astonished. I never thought about people being hurt from not continuing the friendship. This realization made me to ponder upon the power and importance of friendships.

Since then, we volunteered numerous weeks. Luckily, we were able to join foreign volunteers on the Fridays and Sundays. For Andy at least, this meant a lot because he was able to connect with people who have similar back grounds. Frankly, Andy has been going through hard times as he was encountering new things in Korea. I ask you to pray for him.

Issac Won

Korea

            It was only June but the weather was already hot. Just walking around made me sweat like crazy. Despite of the hot weather, Andy, Sumin and I were excited to see the homeless shelter where we were going to volunteer at. It took us about an hour to get there from where we stayed. Interestingly enough, I have never realized that Seoul was such a big city even when I lived in Korea. It was not the same place I used to know.

            When we got to the closest subway station to the homeless shelter, I called the shelter. However, the man who answered the phone was not aware of our arrival. The man said that we had to wait since the shelter is a restricted area; therefore, we waited as we were having lunch together. After the lunch, we decided to just walk toward the direction where we thought the shelter would be.

            We walked about 30 minutes but we could not find the place. Finally, I found a police officer and asked him where the shelter was located. My question, however, made the officer confused.

“I never heard that there is a homeless shelter around this area. Let me ask the police station.” The officer pulled his waki talky out and asked about the homeless shelter. Unfortunately, no one could tell us the location.

We had to walk aimlessly for another 5 minutes. All of sudden, a car came by and stopped right in front of me.

            “Are you Issac?” The driver asked.

            “Yes.” I answered without knowing what was going on.

“Come this way.” The driver parked his car right next to a building we were standing by and started walking inside a narrow alley.

The driver was the director of the homeless shelter. He led us to his office and made us seat down around a round table. We briefly introduced ourselves and started talking about homelessness in Korea.

            According to the director, the homeless people got their attention around 1997 when Korea went through IMF financial crisis. The government forced people to make shelters to take care of the homeless. As the economy got better, people began to forget about the homeless people and now there are not many shelters available for the homeless. Even Chun-ae homeless shelter was going through hard times.

            The director told us people’s perspectives on the homeless people. Out of many things he told us, I learned something interesting: the reason there were no signs and no one knew about the place is land price. Due to NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) effect, people do not want such facilities like the homeless shelter.  

            From the conversation with the director, overall, I got an impression that the biggest problem with Korean homelessness is people’s misunderstood and judgmental perspectives on the homeless people. Most of people usually look down on the homeless; however, it seems like Koreans almost despise the homeless people. We are only at our beginning process of learning. Hopefully, thing will be much more clarified for us.  

Issac Won

Homelessness: A Universal Problem

This post is about my observations on homelessness and a comparison between what I have witnessed in the United States and in South Korea in the cities of Harrisburg and Seoul.


Christ told his disciples that, "You will always have the poor among you." (Matthew 26:11).  In the most powerful and wealthy countries on earth there are still poor people and there are still homeless people. In the United States there are millions of people who experience homelessness year after year. I spent time with people who experienced homelessness in the states and was able to get a good idea of the circumstances that lead to homelessness and the problems assoiciated with homelessness. Now I am half way around the world in the very modern country of South Korea and the prevelance to homelessness is very visible to anyone who keeps their eyes open.
South Korea has the third largest economy in Asia behind China and Japan. They have very high standards for education and have a high standard of living. And they too like the United States face the ever percistant problem of poverty and homelessness amongst members of their society. And in both countries the appearence of the homeless people are about the same. Cardboard beds, dirty clothes, and alcohol seem to be a commonality between homeless people in the U.S. and homeless people here in South Korea. Even after volunteering in a soup kitchen here there seemed to be only similarities between the homeless people of South Korea and the homeless people of the United States. But the more Issac and I looked into the situation here there started to become more and more disconnects between the causes of homelessness and even the way we we approach the situation has to be different. I want to talk about the differences between the two countries but first I want to mention some of the similarities.

Similarities

         The things that I have come to find out that are similar are that the homeless people are mostly male (I haven's seen any homeless women in South Korea), they are mostly over the age of fourty, they tend to find a place to stay and congregate there, and they tend to have a very hard time finding jobs. Because of their age, their appearence, and their background, most homeless people have a very hard time finding jobs. There are a lot of people who become homeless because of a disability that leads to them not being able to find a job that leads to homelessness. I would say that these people are in the toughest situation because they are affected by circumstances that outside their controll. There are also a lot of people who failed at buisness and now there are simply not enough jobs to go around. And if there are jobs they are taken by younger, cleaner looking, and more 'educated' people. Education plays a big role in poverty and wealth. People with less of an education are less likely to have higher paying jobs or find any type of work. Another similarity is that homeless people deal with the pain of being homeless through drinking. It is a very rough situation to be in and one that many of them would like to forget. Alcohol is a way for them to deal with the pain and to forget their situation. These are things that I have found to be similar between the two countries.  But I have found many important differences as well in the circumstances surrounding homelessness and they way Issac and I are able to help.

Differences in Situations


When I talk about some of these differences between the two different countries I am trying to be as unbiased as possible. I am trying to make an accurate assessment of the two different homeless situations so please bear with me. The first issue I want to talk about is that of drugs. The United States consumes 70% of the world's drugs. I have encountered many people in the U.S. who have been directly impacted by drugs and they have said that drugs mostly led them to a life of homelessness. It is a very big problem in cities and a large reason there are many people that live in the streets, work in the streets, and will unfortunately die in the streets. South Korea does not have a very large drug problem at all. Drugs are only affordable to the very rich and it is normally a celeberty getting caught and not people living in the streets. They also do not have guns that add to the problem. Because the country is so small it is able to protect it's boarders very well against illegal gun and drug trading. Both of these things lead to gang violence and can lead to life on the streets as a homeless person.
In South Korea most of the homeless people here become homeless purely because of economic situations. Some of them tried to start a buisness that failed or lost work for some reason. Some of the men are older and used to work construction but are now restricted due to their age or physical condition. I know that there are people like this in the United States but I think it is a larger issue here. The country is very densly populated and there is a more competative atmosphere for jobs. Also a lot of employers here want to hire good looking young workers to make their buisness a better environment. Think of it like an airline, they will want to hire the more attractive flight attendance because it is shown to get more buisness.  I don't think that this is right but I would have to agree that this is the way it is and this tends to not favor homeless people. Jobs are hard to find anyway let along trying to find one after living on the street and not having a place to stay.

Differences in Helping


These are some of the differences between the situations that lead to homelessness and the causes. So in response to different situations that lead to homelessness there is a difference in the way that homelessness is handled. In the United States there are many programs set up to feed homeless people, help them find jobs, and give them temporary housing. Most of these services are run by private organizations that are supported by local churches, government aid, or other sources but they are mostly private non-profite organizations. The United States government is involved by providing services like welfare and public housing projects. They also aim at helping schools in impoverished areas but don't seem to get personally involved in helping homeless people. In South Korea though, the majority of aid comes from government shelters. The shelters are funded mostly by the government but are run like non-profit organizations in the United States. There are about 40 shelters/soup kithcens that provide food, housing, job searches, and health care. So the major difference is private help verses governmental aid. But South Korea has an added obstacle when trying to help homeless people. Every person in South Korea has a 'social security' number, more like a government issued I.D, that is needed for pretty much everything; getting a job, getting housing, buying a cell phone, accessing wifi, etc. And this social security number is based apon residency. So obviously the issue is that homeless people do not have any residency and therefore do not have a social security number anymore to help them find jobs and break the cycle of homelessness. There is also a problem with the homeless people that still have a social security number getting their number stolen and used by a con artists, putting them in a bad situation. So because of this social security number it is hard for private organizations to help homeless people because they need the government to help them get a number. This affects the way that homeless people recieve help in breaking the cycle of homelessness from what I have been hearing it seems hard to get a social security number for a homeless person. I don't want to go too much farther on this because I am not a social worker or specialist and can only give a description on what I am observing and hearing. But another thing that Issac and I have observed is the reaction of the homeless people to general acts of kindness.

Differences in Responses

I would describe our generous acts of kindness as taking a homeless person out for a meal. We have taken three different homeless men out for a nice dinner near Seoul Station. We have also taken numerous amounts of homeless people out for dinner in Harrisburg and there has been a very clear difference in the way people respond. In the United States the reaction was mostly of gratitude and thanks. People would always say thank you and show a great deal of appraciation or say something like, 'you didn't have to do that.' In South Korea though the people respond with more guilt and appologize for taking up our time. Even though we would invite them along they were hesitant to go into restaurantes saying that they smell too bad. Issac has seen one of the homeless men two or three times after we took him out for a good meal and he apologized to Issac everytime saying that he was sorry he took up our time and money. Issac always told him it was okay and that we wanted to do it for him. It just seems like the self-esteem is completely different. In South Korea homeless people look down on themselves and see themselves as a burden and apologize. They seem sorry other people have to help them. I am not sure why this is but I think it is mostly the culture and a lot of people do look down upon homeless people. You can see evidence of this being a cultural thing after the 2007 incident where South Korean missionaries were taken hostage in Afganistan. After they were rescued they apologized greatly for the trouble they caused the nation and there was more apology than relief. I encourage you to read about that situation if you are unaware of it. But on the other hand in the United States homeless people seem to still have their self-esteem and some think of themselves very highly. In the United States we have met some people fighting for rights and demanding people help them more. I can't say which reaction is the right one but I can see a clear difference. When we were in Toronto, Canada we noticed that homeless people would sleep in the middle of the sidewalk as if they didn't care they were intefereing with foot traffic. I don't know what exactly they were thinking but it also didn't seem like any pedestrains walking by seemed to mind. It may not even be self-esteem but the way homeless people look at themselves and society are much different between the far east and far west. One issue that Issac and I have delt with here is bridging the gap between older people and younger people. In the United States it is very common to have a conversation with someone twenty or thirty years older than you are. So when we go into Harrisburg on Friday nights there is no problem stricking up a conversation with a homeless man in his fifties or sixties and having a good conversation while enjoying a pizza. The culture in South Korea is different. It is very rare and even odd for a younger person and an older person to have a long conversation or even speak at all. It is normally an older person talks to a younger person first. But when we try and take someone out for a nice meal or start a conversation it is very hard. The windows of communication are not fully open but only cracked a little bit to let a slight breeze of conversation pass through. It seems like only small talk and us asking questions and only getting a short reply. This is something that we are trying to figure out how to cross the boundaries and reach out to those who are older than us, we may just have to show them our love through our actions much more than through our conversations.


I hope this gives a good idea about the similarities and differences that we have observed. And I want to remind you that I am not an expert by any means. What I talked about here is from talking with homeless people, talking with people who work with homeless people, and from observations we have made while we are serving.

God Bless,

Andy Breighner