Seoul Walking

Four things you can learn about Korea from the fact that I am much more likely to bump into pedestrians while walking in Seoul than in New York:

1. Koreans walk on the left--although they do, like normal people, drive on the right.

2. Koreans, unlike New Yorkers, who all walk at the same brisk pace, have two different paces. One pace, a slow, contemplative, one might say Confucian pace, represents the old Korea: the Chosun Korea of sloped, tiled roofs, Buddhist monks and austere pottery. The other pace, a sort of restrained sprint, with arms fixed at sides, represents the new Korea: the capitalist Korea of poured concrete, evangelical Christianity and K-Pop.

3. There are simply far more Seoulites per square kilometer of land than New Yorkers: 17,200 Seoulites to 9,890 New Yorkers (according to Seoul City Government and nyc.gov, although the Seoul numbers are slightly more up-to-date). And in general there are far more South Koreans per square kilometer of land than Americans: 499.5 Koreans to 32.9 Americans as of July 2007 (according to the World Fact Book).

4. Finally, people in Seoul just stop walking in the middle of the aisle or the sidewalk for no reason. I'm not sure what you can learn from this exactly, but it's true.