The musty smell from the basement is the label of the poor.
The majestic rain poured down from the half-hills entrenched in the villa, along the steps of the stairs, converging, flowing down, and flooding, and eventually flooded the bottom of the city.
The people living in the basement were drenched, half of their bodies immersed in the sewage, searching for high ground with all their strength, and finally bent their legs and curled up on the toilet.
That is the highest place in the house, and the Johkasou is built directly under the toilet. Screenshot of the movie "Parasite"
, sitting on the toilet with feces and lighting a cigarette.
This is a scene from the movie "Parasite" that won Palme d’Or, and it is also a true projection of Korean society-
poverty has infiltrated every gap in the prosperous city, and the bottom people are parasitic in the narrow, dark underground, and strive to call it As "home".
一
mosquitoes, molds, and waiting toilets
"Parasites" director Bong Joon-ho once said-
"You can only see the'semi-underground' in Korea. This is a place with a unique Korean color. People want to believe it. In the'underground' of the'on the ground'. Although the sun shines in, it is wet and moldy. If you are not careful, you will feel like you have fallen into the ground."
The Golden Driver's family in the movie is in this space Here, spent countless gloomy days. After watching the movie, many Korean netizens initiated a discussion about "I have also lived half underground."
"The position of the toilet at home is exactly the same as in the movie."
"The toilet has to go up three or four steps, so I can't stand to take a bath."
"It is very miserable to see tired daily life as a movie."
...
In the middle of the night, a drunk man vomited and peeed outside the semi-underground window.
So, living in a semi-basement in South Korea, how difficult is life? The first thing
has to face is darkness and humidity.
Because the part above the ground is too narrow, sunlight can hardly enter the semi-basement, making it difficult to distinguish between day and night.
Long-term extreme lack of light will cause heavy humidity in the room, moldy walls, and damp clothes after drying for two days.
For this reason, even in summer, the semi-underground residents will still turn on heating and dryers to dehumidify.
In order to remove dampness, the heating in the semi-basement has been kept at 45°C.
is followed by smell. In the semi-basement, the smell of mold and sewers follow.
"No matter how much fragrance is used, the clothes always smell bad."
As in the movie, even if Driver Kim puts on a suit and leather shoes, he talks elegantly and politely, the smell on his body still betrays his identity as a low-level person.
The golden driver in "Parasite" was disgusted by the employer and his family because of the lingering musty smell.
In addition, the soundproofing of the basement is very poor, and the sound of the toilet flushing upstairs, even the sound of "marital relationship", can be heard clearly.
Not to mention the endless flying insects and reptiles, eating and eating, there is a cockroach crawling over the dinner table.
The protagonist bounces a bug off the table while eating bread.
is dark and damp, ants and insects are rampant, these are only pediatrics.
As long as there is a drizzle, people will feel uneasy.
A heavy rain that seems normal to the residents on the ground is likely to instantly engulf the semi-underground houses.
"Parasite" stills, for underground residents, the anti-theft window is also a prison window.
46-year-old Jin Xishun (sound) has a quick heartbeat whenever he hears the sound of rain.
Eight years ago in the summer, a heavy rain fell in Seoul and swallowed her 7-pyeong (23㎡) semi-basement in Serim-dong, Gwanak District, Seoul.
It was eight o'clock in the morning. Jin Xishun was packing a lunch box and was planning to take it to the company. The daughter on vacation was sleeping at home.
Suddenly, with a "wow", the glass of the entrance door shattered, and rain poured in like a flood.
The water from the ankles started to rush to the knees and neck in a short time.
"Parasite" screenshot, the rain is almost flooding my neck.
Xishun, who is 152cm tall, tried desperately to open the entrance door, but failed to open it because of the water pressure. She yelled: "Help me!" The daughter who woke up from her dream struggling to get out, dialed 119, but failed to connect.
"Mom, toilet!" the daughter shouted.
This is the only place in the house where there is no anti-theft net. The mother and daughter stepped on the 1.3-meter-high toilet, and fleeing through the narrow ventilation window. Although
finally survived, looking at the ruined home after the disaster, Kim Hee shed tears and said, "It's like a life in vain." .
And such rainy seasons occur every year.
As long as it rains, the semi-underground residents will not sleep well, "ready to rush out of the house with valuables at any time."
At the end of August last year, there was a flood in Yingam San-dong, Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul due to heavy rain. More than 600 households were flooded, most of which were semi-underground houses. Residents cannot go home for a whole month, and the Mid-Autumn Festival is also outside.
The rain disaster in "Parasite" turned the whole street into a river. It has been a year since the rain disaster, and the residents are still troubled:
is still damp, afraid to re-decorate, afraid that the wallpaper will be blurred; afraid to buy new appliances and furniture, because they are afraid of not knowing when. It will rain heavily.
"I can only pray for less rain this year."
The compensation promised by the government at the time has never been seen.
The torrential rain in Seoul caused the affected residents to scoop out the stagnant water in their houses.
Two
are half underground,
is my only place
Even if I risk my life and all kinds of unbearable shortcomings, I have to rent a basement. The only difficulty in this is money.
According to relevant regulations, if the height from the ground to the surface of the room is less than half of the floor height, it is semi-underground, and more than half is underground.
Korean semi-basement. Whether
is semi-underground or underground, whether the room has windows, and how many steps need to be descended directly determine the level of rent.
Take Ahyeon-dong, Mapo District, Seoul as an example.
If you pay a deposit of 5 million won (about 30,000 yuan), you can rent a semi-basement of 13 square meters to 33 square meters for only 200,000 to 300,000 won (about 12 to 18 yuan) per month. .
Ahyeon-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, where "Parasite" was filmed. It is also one of the areas with more semi-basements
without windows. The breathtaking basement of only over ten square meters costs only 1 million won ( With a deposit of about RMB 6,000 and a monthly rent of around KRW 220,000 (RMB 13), you can move in with a bag.
also has a spacious and clean "high-priced semi-underground" with only two or three steps down. The full rent requires 100 million won (about 600,000 RMB) or more.
* In South Korea, full rent means that the tenant does not need to pay another monthly rent during the two-year lease after paying a high security deposit. After the lease expires, the deposit will be returned intact.
Han Zong’s "Let's Find a House for Me", a semi-basement located in Cheongdam-dong, a prime location in Seoul, costs 200 million won (1.2 million yuan) for full rent. The hosts also lamented how cheap it is.
Li Shunzi moved to a 33 square meter semi-basement when she was 62 years old.
Because of her husband’s affair and career failure, she suffered from depression and decided to divorce.
She took her child from a high-rise apartment of 193 square meters, first moved to a plastic greenhouse, and then half underground. The trajectory of her life also plummeted from the Jiangnan housewife and fell to the bottom.
Water seeped into the cracks in the "new home", and Li Shunzi had to cover the walls with newspapers. "Is this a place where people live? It's just a place where people can't die. Plastic greenhouses are much better than this." After
moved half-underground, Shunzi didn't have a good meal for a day, and her depression became increasingly serious. .
"The doctor asked me to at leastTwo hours in the sun. Shunzi stared at the damp ceiling and said.
is semi-underground, and the day is as dark as night if the lights are not turned on.
is in South Korea, and there are not a few semi-underground residents like Li Shunzi.
According to the survey, 2015 South Korea has more than 360,000 semi-underground (including underground) households, and approximately 860,000 people live in the semi-underground.
Among them, more than 90% of the semi-basement are located in the metropolitan area (including Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province).
This is to blame Seoul’s population exploded in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, South Korea’s economy took off, and a large number of immigrants poured into Seoul to find jobs and a better life.
By 1990, Seoul’s population reached its peak, which was a quarter of South Korea’s total. One of the population lives here.
The population blowout in the capital area has led to housing shortages and traffic congestion. The average commuting time of office workers is close to two hours. The tight housing supply and the soaring housing prices after the 1988 Olympics are all squeezing Living space for the low-level residents.
was transformed from an air-raid shelter. The low-rent semi-basement has become the first choice for the poor.
, the grandmother Jin Meizi, who has lived in the semi-basement of Axian-dong for more than 30 years, is already 84 this year.
In the 1980s, it was still a quiet community with few people and the apartment had not been built yet. Jin Meizi stood on the steps and could see the Han River at a glance.
Nowadays, high-rise apartment buildings obscured the river view. There are also more tenants. There are often drunks swearing in the middle of the night, and there have been homicides a few years ago. The
police had to install closed-circuit televisions at every alley.
Gimiko grandma (right) likes to sit On the stairs, chat with friends in the light of the breeze.
is in the complex and twisty semi-underground, and crime is unavoidable.
"As long as you open the window for ventilation, you will worry that curious passers-by will enter through the open window. hope. "
" I couldn't sleep when I heard footsteps outside in the middle of the night. "
" Every time I go out, I am worried about theft. There is no other way but to pay attention to the door. "
invasion of privacy, sexual harassment, theft, robbery... In the semi-underground where there is no security, these are commonplace.
three
"hell torture",
the last refuge of the poor
in addition to underground and semi-underground. In South Korea, there are some more crowded and unbearable living spaces. In
, there is an acronym in Korean called "Hell Copy (지옥고)", which is taken from the basement (반지하), the tower house (옥탑방), the examination center (고시원) ) In each.
Seoul slums in the Kowloon Village are all temporary plastic greenhouses. Due to random wiring and outdated fire fighting equipment, fires often occur. Source: Soohyun Kim
The Korean government stipulates that the minimum residential area standard for a single person is 14 square meters, but also need a dedicated kitchen and bathroom. If this standard is not met, it is considered "difficulty in living." According to statistics, among the 16-34 year olds in South Korea, 1.39 million people have "difficulty in living"
is near Seoul’s "University Street". The average rent for a single room in the examination center without a deposit is as high as 540,000 won (about 32 yuan), but the average study area is only 13.5 square meters.
74% of young people have been in I spend my youth in a windowless examination room.
The examination room in the Korean drama "Others is Hell" is dark and narrow.
Examination halls with too dense population also have many security risks.
November 2018, Jongno, Seoul A fire broke out in the National No. 1 Examination Center in the district, resulting in 7 deaths and 11 injuries. The
fire occurred on the third floor of this examination center. The 140 square meters of space was divided into 29 rooms, except for the public bathroom and kitchen. The room is about 2.64 square meters. How narrow is
? The
corridor is so narrow that the door cannot be opened completely. The clothes hanger is on the bed. People cannot turn over once they lie down. Remove the necessary desk.Only one person can stand in the open space between.
The extremely narrow examination house in the EBS documentary "My Home is an Examination House". The test of
on young people also occurred on the roof.
The tower house in the Korean drama is full of love fairy tales, but in reality it challenges the physical limits of the human body.
Direct sunlight in summer makes it hot like a steamer; in winter, the cold wind passes through the hall, making it cold like an ice cellar. In order to save electricity, some residents have set up tents in the tower houses, which can be insulated and warm.
Tower houses with dense roofs in residential areas in Seoul.
27-year-old Cho Eun-hye is a graduate of Seoul National University. She thought that she would have a bright future if she entered the number one school in Korea.
But after graduating, she lived in a 5 ping (16.5 square meters) tower house. Her dream was to move into a 15 ping house after paying the tuition loan.
"I was really stupid when I enrolled in college thinking that the future would be guaranteed."
Zhao Enhui still has 20 million won (about 120,000 yuan) in tuition loan to be repaid.
is a hopeless struggle now, but the future is an insecure confusion.
As for buying a house, it is more like a fantasy. According to statistics, the average age of Koreans buying a house for the first time is 43 years old, and this number is 56.7 years old for low-income families. In other words, the poor can have their own home almost until they are in their sixties.
28-year-old Zhenhao only wanted to rent a full-rental house with a single room at first, but many friends around suggested buying an apartment directly.
However, in the capital area where Zhenhao lives, the price of a new apartment is 33,000 yuan per square meter. Based on the area of 80 square meters, the total price is 2.64 million yuan.
and housing prices are still rising. Statistics show that apartment prices in Seoul have risen by nearly 50% in the past two years.
Ahn Jae-hyun's apartment in Kimho-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, appeared in "New Journey to the West". It is said that he bought it for 4.3 million yuan in 2016, and now it has risen to 8.9 million yuan, which has more than doubled.
It is almost impossible to buy a house on your own.
In the end, Zhenhao rented a single room and could only comfort himself: "I am 43 years old, and there are still 15 years."
A newly married Korean netizen @rollcake sent out a soul question on the forum. :
"Will you live half underground first, save for a few years and then move, or borrow a large amount from the bank and pay it back hard?" No matter which option it is, the way forward is boundless.
A newly married couple rented a semi-basement as a wedding room and underwent a major renovation.
In order to alleviate widespread housing difficulties, the South Korean government revised the "Construction Law" in 2012 to curb the supply of semi-underground housing.
also successively introduced welfare policies such as "happy residence" and "youth residence", and built 2,136 youth residences near the subway station.
The government also provides 100% assistance with guarantee funds for young people with no homes aged 19-39.
However, there are too many monks and few porridge, "hell torture" is still the last refuge of most poor people.
The corners of the city hide despair and poverty, and the brilliant lights also illuminate its prosperity.
is located in the UN village of Hannam-dong in Gangnam District. It was advertised as the ideal top-level residence for Koreans at a sky-high price of 4 billion won. But five years ago, the famous slum Kowloon Village was embedded in the "shadow" across the road.
clings to the host like a host, and like a symbiosis of light and shadow.
Kowloon Village, a slum in Seoul, a highway is the skyscraper in Gangnam District.
