Searching For That Space Between Too Much and Too Little

When I was an exchange student in Seoul at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) about six years ago, I remember trying to find some joy by exploring the surrounding neighborhood.

HUFS is located in the east of Seoul, and eastern Seoul is not exactly known for being all that exciting. A fact I unfortunately only learned about after moving there.

Back then, I struggled from depressive episodes on and off, so I often pushed myself to leave the house for a short walk.

After a while I developed some sort of mental map of my possible walking routes:

Behind the subway tracks wasn’t much interesting, mostly apartments. I’d sometimes go there but always picked a route with as many low-rise buildings as possible. Here, small stores and people offered some sense of liveliness and quiet bustling.

The apartment complexes? Not so much. No sense of lifeliness managed to seep through the mute walls of grey. The patches of grass enclosing the high-rise buildings were sprinkled with pine trees in an uncreative attempt to fill this buffer space with just about anything. No individuality or art was to be found; no details or variation your eyes could dwell on. You could walk on for minutes without your surroundings changing, depriving you from any sense of progressing.

If you kept on pushing past the apartments, you would end up at a giant street, behind which even more anonymous high-rise buildings awaited you. I usually avoided going that far, as that area only made me feel lost.

To another direction of my dormitory lay an abandoned neighborhood being prepared for redevelopment. It was forbidden to enter the alleys, so all I could do was follow the main road, the emptied-out neighborhood a silent companion to my left. After the first or second time, I never went there again.

Today, the area is plastered with another bunch of grey high-rise buildings and their small grass patches with pine trees.

My most frequent choice was a walk towards Hoegi-dong, a rather unremarkable commercial neighborhood in front of Kyung Hee University.

On my way from HUFS to Hoegi, I’d often pick a route through smaller back alleys to avoid the noisy main road. However, with motorbikes constantly roaring up from behind, often in alleys without sidewalks and lined with parking cars, you could never fully let your guard down.

In Hoegi itself, it was hard to find some spots to take in with enjoyment. While many students passed by, nobody seemed to linger here for longer. The main stores were lined alongside busy streets, and even the smaller back alleys were usually open for cars and motorbikes, interrupting any talk or lingering thoughts with their constant noise.

Contrary to places like Hyehwa or Insadong, I never felt any affection towards Hoegi. The hippness or youthfulness of other student-dominated neighborhoods was nowhere to be found.

I now think it’s because Hoegi felt disjointed and cramped. Humans had to keep to the small sidewalks squeezed at the side of the roads, where they had to fight with parking motorbikes for the little space left. Cars remained the ruler that everyone had to make space for, without anyone questioning whether this order made any sense.

Back then, I certainly didn’t.

One of the main roads in Hoegi, leading towards Kyung Hee University. https://naver.me/GvWFwAVq

My Desillusion With Seoul

Sometimes I tried to stray further away from home, but it seemed impossible to escape the same grey buildings, the same cramped alleys, the same endlessly broad streets that made me feel out of place without a car. I felt like an alien, or an ant, walking around in oversized neighborhoods. Spaces that locals who knew better than me seemed to only pass through quickly in their cars on the way to more welcoming destinations.

Trying to escape to somewhat more interesting places meant either taking the subway, often sacrificing over an hour of daylight (or two) in favor of rows of tired, overworked office workers, staring motionless at their phones – or, taking a bus crawling forward at snail’s place through the chronically clogged streets of Seoul.

Often times, I simply didn’t bother.

Of course, this was just my individual experience: I think most of my peers enjoyed their time at HUFS and didn’t mind the long commute to Hongdae as much as I did. (Because, yes, even they had to escape eastern Seoul to have proper fun.)

The biggest problem for sure had been me and my mental health struggles. They had preceded my time and Seoul, and continued for a while after, too.

But I also was very much done with Seoul. I was tired of the ridiculously full subways, the painfully slow buses, the endless commutes, the motorcycle noise, the monotonous rows of grey apartments. Tired of constantly being in the way and constantly having other people in the way.

When I came back to Germany, I resented myself for not having to be able to enjoy my time in Korea more.

I didn’t know how to feel: I felt like I should be sad, but I think I wasn’t.

When I later saw pictures of a peer who had stayed in Jeonju, I started regretting my choice of picking HUFS over other universities outside the capital.

Tübingen: The Complete Opposite of Seoul

About two years later, I moved to Tübingen for my master’s.

Tübingen is a picturesque small student city of about 92.000 people in southern Germany. It is most known for its beautiful old town and many hills (and its eccentric mayor).

In my case, all important university buildings were located really close to the city center, so it was easy to walk almost anywhere.

From dormitory to class was a 20 to 25-minute walk. On days with nice weather, given I had a few minutes to spare, I’d often take a short detour over a peaceful hill right across my dormitory neighborhood. Afterwards followed a quiet residential neighborhood and long stairs down to the city.

Thanks to the sidewalks everywhere, I could put on a podcast or some music and zone out, without having to stay alert for rushing cars or motorbikes.

From class at one of the university buildings it was another 10-minute walk to the city center, a walk partly alongside the lush city park.

Tübingen’s city center, a very well conserved old town, is full of pedestrian-only streets lined with traditional, colorful buildings. You can get everything you need here, but also just take an aimless stroll, enjoying all the small alleys and stores and small little details everywhere.

From Tübingen’s old town, you could reach the main station within another 10 minutes walk. Here, you would find a bus hub larger than what many cities twice the size have to offer.

So if you didn’t feel like walking, you could jump on a bus almost anywhere. To smaller villages, the gap was larger, but on the most popular routes – such as the dormitory village I lived at – buses often arrived just minutes apart.

What Kind of City Life I Came to Value

I still consider myself a city person. I don’t want to be dependent on a car, and living in the countryside would make that hard. But I also realized that nothing is a given, and some cities are better to live in than others – at least for me.

I love taking a quiet walk and letting my mind wander, or zone out to focus on an exciting podcast. I don’t want to constantly make space, wait, walk around obstacles, or get stressed out by noise.

Of course it is hard, if not unfair, to compare Seoul and Tübingen.

Seoul, as the center of almost anything in Korea and with a density higher than any German city (but not Paris, interestingly), also has to deal with completely different demands and realities than a small city like Tübingen. Their historical development, too, couldn’t be more different.

There is also no doubt that Seoul has an excellent public transport system. And of course Korea has walkable places too, if you know where to look – though they sometimes feel more coincidental than deliberate.

And for sure: Even in Tübingen it is entirely possible to take a walk being depressed. No urban design by itself can save you from loneliness and disconnection. But I do believe it can worsen or ease it.

After living in Tübingen for over two years, I came to see the value of living in a city that gives you room to breathe – even in your daily life, on your walk to school or work. A city that gives you small breaks, the opportunity to take in the good weather, a daily dose of beauty.

Conclusion

Can I really accuse eastern Seoul for doing urban design wrong? Probably not. After all, there are a lot of people in Seoul and they all need housing; as efficiently and affortable as possible. And, possibly even more important, apartments are simply the prefered choice of living for many people here: they are extremely convenient, safe, and a secure investment.

But I can confidently admit that I didn’t, and couldn’t, enjoy living in an apartment desert.

I want to be able to leave my house and be in a lively neighborhood, minutes away from the next supermarket or park. A place were I can walk comfortably, without squeezing past parked cars and evading roaring motorcycles that fight for the same space that I’m in. But also where I don’t have to cross several six-lane streets during the scorching summer heat, just to be able to leave my apartment district.

Seoul, in many ways, is a city of extremes. It is too, regarding space. There is often too much or too little. I wonder whether that’s why people are so crazy about pretty cafés: to escape the too bland or too messy environment outside; to finally relax and find beauty somewhere.

And I wonder whether such neighborhoods can still be created in Korea: neighborhoods where humans are neither too big, nor too small, but exactly right.