For South Korea’s senior subway riders, the joy is in the journey
Sign up now: Get insights on Asia's fast-moving developments
Older adults known as Jigong Geosa, a nickname derived from the phrase “free subway,” on the Seoul Subway Line 1.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
SEOUL – The subway rumbled towards its final stop north of Seoul. Along the way, hordes disembarked, with the determined, brisk gait of those with somewhere to be.
Far from the city centre, the thicket of high-rise buildings grew sparser and the afternoon sun crept deeper into the train cars riding on an elevated track at that point.
By the end of the line, many who remained on board were noticeably older – nodding off, gazing out the window, stretching their shoulders.
Mr Lee Jin-ho – dressed smartly in a straw hat, white Adidas shoes and a crisp hanbok – had taken two subway lines for more than an hour from his home to the last stop, Soyosan, on a steamy August day.
He ambled about 91m beyond the station, rested briefly in the shade – and then got right back on the train heading south.
Mr Lee, an 85-year-old retired interior designer, is one of Seoul’s throngs of subway-riding seniors, who take advantage of the country’s longstanding policy of free fares for people older than 65 and spend their days riding the trains to the end of the line, or to nowhere in particular and sometimes back again.
On long summer days – with Seoul’s temperatures averaging highs of more than 31 deg C in August – the air-conditioning is robust, the people-watching is engrossing and the 322km of subway tracks in the city are almost limitless in their possibilities for urban wanderings.
“At home, I’d just be bored, lying around,” Mr Lee said.
Older adults who ride free of charge make up about 15 per cent of Seoul’s annual ridership, according to data from the subway’s two main operators.
The riders have become such an established part of the city’s fabric that they have a nickname – Jigong Geosa, derived from the phrase “free subway” – and the lines and stations frequented by them are well known.
Mr Lee and his wife live in a cramped apartment, subsisting on a pension of a few hundred dollars, and his wife is largely homebound after five knee surgeries.
For him, Mr Lee said, there is no better way to while away the days than to go for a free ride.
The day before, he rode the trains in a loop – south to the end of Line 4, north-west to the last stop on the Suin-Bundang Line, back east on Line 1 – without setting foot outside the subway system.
“One spin around is exactly four hours,” he said.
He sets out on his own several times a week, heading for one of two stops equidistant from his home: Suyu Station is 1,100 steps to the north; Mia Station is 1,250 steps to the south. He has kept count.
For Mr Lee Jin-ho, a retired interior designer, there is no better way to while away the days than to go for a free ride.
Riders like Mr Lee say they know to abide by the careful rhythms and unspoken rules of subway riding: avoid rush hour, when trains are packed and everyone is in a hurry. Do not stand in front of seated young people, lest they feel pressured to give up their spot.
“You read and doze off,” said Dr Jeon Jong-duek, 85, a retired mathematics professor who was riding with a volume on the theory of Chinese poetry tucked in his satchel.
“It’s remarkably cool. There isn’t a corner of Seoul I don’t go to.”
Mr Park Jae-hong, 73, who still works sporadically as a construction inspector and has been dabbling in modelling, said he found the subways meditative and relaxing. “For me, it’s an oasis,” he said.
There are six seats reserved for older passengers on either end of each train car, but Seoul in general seems to have less of a place for older people, even as South Korea is ageing rapidly.
Mr Cha Heung-bong, 80, a former minister of health and welfare who proposed the free-fare policy around 1980, said many older South Koreans live on limited incomes because the national pension system was not instituted until the late 1980s.
About four in 10 South Koreans over 65 live in poverty, double the rate in Japan or the United States, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
With the fare free for those older than 65, some retired people spend their days riding the trains to the end of the line.
Mr Lee stopped working in interior design two decades ago when he could not learn his way around a computer. He then took a job as a night guard at a middle school, where he worked for eight years, until the school told him he was too old for that, he said.
“You can’t keep up with the young folks,” he added.
With the subway system in a years-long deficit, politicians routinely broach scrapping the free fares or raising the age to qualify.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon noted at a panel in February that less than 4 per cent of the city was over 65 when the policy was adopted decades ago; now that age group makes up more than 17 per cent.
“Do old people become old because they want to?” Mr Kim Ho-il, president of the Korea Senior Citizens Association and a retired lawmaker, said at the forum. “We were nudged along into old age by the passing years.”
“Why are you trying to take this happiness away?” he asked, arguing that the country was saving more in healthcare by keeping older adults active.
By about 4pm on the day he was riding, Mr Lee was well on his way home. Glancing around the subway car that looked to be at least half occupied by older people, he agreed the age for free fares should probably be raised.
“Seventy, 75-year-olds are spring chickens and 65-year-olds are basically children,” he said. NYTIMES