Briefly, A Delicious Life (musings)

Seoul

I came across this article mentioning my old neighborhood in Seoul and it took me on a walk down memory lane.

It was a refuge for society’s rejects: people with nowhere to go, some of the poorest in Seoul, residents of the city’s tiny-room settlements and people with disabilities. In Tapgol Park, elderly women sold sexual services to older men in plain sight. Outside the park, pensioners played janggi, Korean chess, on the pavement. Around them lived musicians and artists. In Jongno 3-ga, everyone was welcome.

The area is now littered with kitschy tourist shops, claw-machine arcades and unmanned photo-booths, and, in the streets nearby, bakery after bakery, coffee shop after coffee shop. One by one, the small merchants have left, to be replaced with another dessert shop. 

In a way, I feel part of the problem. I highlighted a place I loved for being overlooked, and feel I helped create a monster. Now, as the neighbourhood becomes almost unrecognisable, I wonder what effect these rankings have on the people who live in the listed destinations.

Jongno 3-ga becoming the “world’s coolest neighbourhood” is nothing to celebrate. I feel guilty for calling it cool. I’d take the word back if I could.

For the full article by Raphael Rashid: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/19/i-live-in-the-coolest-neighbourhood-in-the-world-its-not-as-great-as-youd-think

When I first arrived in Jongno 3ga, it had already come a long way from being a neighborhood for those on the margins of society. The old men still hung out at Tapgol park but were less boisterous. I remember the chess players, the old time music playing from portable radios, the knot of alleyways smelling of grilled mackerels and beef tripe stews and boiled pork. I don't remember what made me choose this place above the more fashionable parts of town, except maybe that I was instinctively drawn to it because of how well it suited me before I even knew it.

There was the convenience of being a major transfer point with three of the busiest subway lines converging. It didn't feel like it was the most interesting place to be, but it didn't have to, it was surrounded by interesting places. To the north, there was the Samcheong neighborhood with its hanok villages, and  Insadong, a little center for the arts with local artisan shops and traditional eateries abounding, a cool hang out but mostly for locals, still under the radar. I loved walking there in the evening when the illumination from the shop windows bathed the streets in golden light. To the south, there's the Cheonggyecheon stream, one of my favorite features of the Seoul cityscape. How pleasant is it to walk along its lush banks during the heat of summer, sit under the shade of the bridges, even soak one's feet in the water. 

Jongno 3ga is a big space but it felt small in an everyday way. It was where the people working in the nearby office buildings would go for food and drinks. There were whole blocks of nothing but restaurants that come evening would all be packed with people, often spilling out onto the sidewalk. It is where I got to know the Korean people's seemingly bottomless capacity for food and company, the loud and often brash way in which they celebrate, the tremendous vigor with which they attack their food, and believe me, there is no better term to describe the intensity with which a Korean person approaches the task of eating. 

It was all very local, where the old and the traditional, the artisan workshops, the pensioners, the public bath houses, would sit comfortably next to the young people's pleasures, coffeeshops, bakeries, make up and fashion boutiques, not crowding, just coexisting. I loved that there was something for everyone and that everyone shared the affection and affinity I had for this place. For many years I thought of it as my home address, not the country, the city, or the actual street or apartment building, just this place as a whole. I didn't even think of it as Seoul, Seoul was everything that was happening outside, this was my habitat. You don't have to be a local to feel that way, or be allowed to feel that way. I don't subscribe to conventional notions of nationality, home and belonging. Your habitat is where you thrive and feel nourished.

I had so many favorites. The best Burger King with my preferred seat on level 3, after a slightly nervous climb up a winding narrow staircase with my tray, in a little nook by the window so awash with the leaves of a gingko tree that it almost felt like sitting in a tree house. The gimbap takeout where you could watch the aunties pack an impossible amount of fillings into seaweed rolls, then slice them deftly and transfer the lot into a carton exactly the size of the roll. In winter, my regular lunch place was a restaurant specializing in cold noodles and sets of grilled beef and soup. It's where I learnt that there is nothing better than a cup of well peppered beef broth that you could help yourself to from a huge dispenser to warm yourself after coming in from the arctic winds. I could never get over my amazement at watching Koreans slurp their cold spicy noodles when it was so freezing outside, ice cubes clinking as they lifted their bowls to their mouths, while I huddled over my bubbling tofu stew. 

By the time of my last stays, not long before covid, much had already changed again.
There was a noticeable rise in tourist presence in Insadong, but that was to be expected. Korea was gaining so much traction, K-pop was taking over the world, K beauty was cool, the world was streaming in and it was only a matter of time that people would discover what I had known for years, that Jongno 3ga was a terrific place to live in Seoul.

After covid, I went back one more time but it didn't feel the same. So much of what I knew was gone or rearranged. Everything was blatantly geared toward pleasing the insta crowd. Stores became more generic, quality went down, the spirit was lost. I found new untouched neighborhoods near Gimpo airport, and up in Goyang, which suited me fine, but Jongno 3ga was where it all started for me, for so long it had been my window into how Koreans lived, what they enjoyed, and it was a place where I felt at ease, in peace, even while not belonging or even relating to my surroundings. While I lived there, I couldn't wait to start my days because every outing brought new discoveries, it was my treasure trove, these jolts of energy and delight, I call them the traveler's high, and this article brought back how big of a loss it was.