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PaperclipPerfector  28d ago (text post)   27158 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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So a bit of a time ago there was a discussion here about the gender war, demographic implosion and political male-female divide in South Korea. @rokmonster stated that "Seoul is the only city worth living in [there]" as self-evident fact, apparently.

As someone who knows little about Korea, I find this puzzling. Aren't there other large cities there? I'm sure there are. Are they really that bad? And if yes, what is "that"?

It depends on what you want out of life, really.

I lived in Iksan, Jeollabuk-do for a while, and played on an amateur soccer team. The other players were all middle-aged guys who worked in various trades or for small manufacturing companies.

They seemed happy with their lives. Iksan has plenty of places to like... have a grillout and drink soju, or whatever you want to do. It's not a high-status place, and I'm sure strivers would find it miserable. But the world is not made up entirely of strivers. Some people just want to raise their kids, and play soccer with the boys on the weekend. I guess the user you mentioned would not be satisfied with that life.

I also spent time in other large cities there: Daejeon, Jeonju, Busan, Incheon and some others. But not enough to grasp the differences. They were all, you know... large. If you need to be surrounded by a million people, those are places you can do that.

But the world is not made up entirely of strivers. Some people just want to raise their kids, and play soccer with the boys on the weekend.

So what do strivers do on the weekends?

This is Korea, so the answer is probably "work overtime".

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