“Well, when I lived in Asia…” begin so many of my sentences these days. Moving away is hard, and as it turns out, so is moving back. Chronicles of Reverse Culture Shock is a series devoted to these difficulties, and is also an outlet so that I don’t become That Guy Who Won’t Shut Up About Korea to all of his friends.
The Korean subway is essentially the pinnacle of all modern human civilization. It is dirt cheap, it goes everywhere, it is freakishly on time, rarely breaks down, and there are often entire restaurants and shops housed within each and every station. They are enormous catacombs below the cities, to the point that if they were built from ancient bones and black magic, no one would be surprised, or care. You swipe in by smart transit cards, which you can also get in in the form of cell phone charms and, I’m sure in a few years, ocular implants. While riding the subway, monocled, tuxedoed French butlers saunter down each car with the grace of ballet performers to offer riders snifters of brandy and fine European cheeses. Once a month they have foot rub day, where specially trained shiatsu masseuses assemble onto every train and dole out free massages for weary travellers. Once I saw a man transporting a real live unicorn from Seoul station to Sindorim and he allowed people to take pictures with it for free. The trains run on pixie dust and human happiness.
Or at least, this is how the Korean subway system seems to me now that I’m back to riding Toronto public transit.