Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

What’s it like living in Daejeon? Even though I have been here since February 2007 I’ve never gotten around to writing about this second tour of Korea. After you’ve been in Korea for as long as I have you just accept everything at face value; one day is not really any different than the next. It’s that I’ve seen it all; it’s just that I’ve seen and experienced enough to have a pretty good handle on things.

In some ways living in Daejeon, more specifically Jayang-dong, which is where Woosong University is located, is like stepping back in time to the early 80s in Seoul. When I first got here some instructors informed me that this part of Daejeon is the oldest part of the city; as such it’s pretty rundown. There are a lot of new apartment buildings going up everywhere, but it still looks old.

What’s been really depressing is seeing these elderly Korean women pushing empty baby carriages stopping to go through garbage looking for anything that is recyclable. Here you have all these students rushing off to Woosong University passing these women picking through the garbage. It’s really sad; these women can be someone’s grandmother and here they are loading up an empty baby carriage with folded up cardboard boxes and cans.