The subway was moving towards its last stop north of Seoul. Along the way, hordes disembarked with the brisk pace of those who have somewhere to go.
Far from the center of the City, skyscrapers became fewer and the afternoon sun filtered deeper into the train cars, which at that point were traveling on an elevated track. By the end of the route, many of those who remained on board were noticeably older—nodding their heads, looking out the window, and stretching their shoulders.
Lee Jin-ho—stylishly dressed in white with a straw hat and Adidas—had taken two subway lines for more than an hour from his home to the last stop, Soyosan, on a hot August day. He walked about 90 meters past the station, rested briefly in the shade, and climbed back up.
Lee, an 85-year-old retired interior designer, is one of a host of seniors who ride the Seoul subway and take advantage of the country’s long-standing policy of free fares for people over 65. He spends his days riding the subway to the last stop on the line, or nowhere in particular. The air conditioning is robust, people-watching is fascinating, and the more than 300 kilometers of subway tracks have almost unlimited possibilities for urban strolls.
“At home I would just be bored and stranded,” Lee said.
Seniors who ride free make up about 15 percent of Seoul’s annual subway ridership, according to data from the service’s operators. Riders have become such an established part of the City’s fabric that they have a nickname—“Jigong Geosa,” which means “free subway”—and the lines they frequent are well known.
Lee and his wife live in a small apartment and subsist on a pension of a few hundred dollars, and his wife is largely housebound after five knee surgeries. For him, Lee said, there is no better way to spend time. The day before he traveled by train to go around the City without setting foot outside the subway system.
“One turn takes exactly four hours,” he said.
Park Jae-hong, 73, who still works sporadically as a construction inspector and has been dabbling in modeling, said he found the subway meditative and relaxing. “For me it is an oasis,” he said.
There are six seats reserved for senior passengers at each end of each train car.
Cha Heung-bong, now 80, the former Minister of Health and Welfare who proposed the free-rate policy around 1980, said many older South Koreans live on limited incomes because the national pension system was not instituted until the late 1980s. 1980s. About 4 in 10 South Koreans over the age of 65 live in poverty, twice as many as in Japan or the United States, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
At around 4:00 p.m. on the day he was traveling, Lee was already on his way home. He said he agreed that the age for free passage should probably be raised.
“People who are 70, 75 years old are young,” he said. “65-year-olds are basically children.”
By: VICTORIA KIM
BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/world/asia/south-korea-seoul-subways-aging.html, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-10-05 20:50: 10
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