tales from Korea

Korea has been described as a hypercapitalist nation. The ‘Miracle on the Han River’, the second fastest economy to have ever grown, coming from rags to riches in a very short time period. This notion of capitalism at its best comes to my mind when I think of the Christian Protestant religion in Korea. For a country where just under half the population claim to be completely agnostic – the religious sector represents itself more than I’ve ever seen in a country before, with exception to religious-centric societies, such as India.

If you were to think of a predominantly religious country in Europe, a few may come to mind – Italy, Spain and probably Ireland. In Ireland, 86.8% of the population is stated as being Roman Catholic, 4.4% no religion and the rest a mix of orthodox, Protestants and Muslim. Living in Ireland though, religion is a primarily private affair – a grey stone church occupies each town, sometimes two, ringing their bells every hour to remind you of the time and their presence. At night they become silent, lonely buildings where you can imagine a straggler or two praying silently on the front benches. When thinking about coming to Korea, I was ecstatic to hear that 46.6% of the country is agnostic. I’ve never had the chance to live somewhere where a huge percent of a population lives outside the confines and influence of religion. Being descendants of a Confucianist society, Korean socialital laws took preference in Korea over religion, primarily. Although Buddhism took off well in Korea coming from early China and Japan – but steadily the Christian protestant population have been continually increasing their numbers and influence. To me, I’ve never felt so much like the Christian religion is just another business here, churches are huge, high-tech and modern superstructures – the funds coming from church members who are required to contribute 10% of their income to it, a far shot from the pennies in the basket I remember going round the church in my town in Ireland.

Advertisements’ for churches are everywhere, posters, signs, even on the metro – on the doors besides the exclusive space it shares with the plastic surgery clinics. The cross itself on these ads is graphically polished and feels more like a clever brand then an ancient religious icon. Walking down a typical street in Seoul and looking at the buildings around me, above the PC Bangs, Japanese noodles bars, Dunkin Donuts, German waffle houses, bright neon crosses adorn the tops of buildings. Just like one of the businesses underneath, the church seems like a prevalent brand, ready for you and your wallet, like your local Starbucks.

The other day on the Metro an astutely obnoxious woman was pestering people to take religious leaflets, putting them in people’s pockets, sliding them into open bags – when people took them back out she took them and tried to put them back in again. This is common practise around Seoul.

She came to me:

“Hi Hi! Jesus loves you! Take this!”

“아니오”.

“Take! Take Take!!”.

“I said 아니오! 아니오!”.

Another one:

A man in Bokjeong station.

“Hi friend! Where are you from?”.

“Hi, I’m from Ireland”.

“What?”.
“Ire-lan-duh”.

“Ahhhh yes! Very good… your name?”.

“Paul”.

“Ahh an apostle from the Bible, that’s great”.

Oh great, here we go again.

“God bless you, he will smile on you today”.

“Glad he has time – his Korean schedule seems pretty busy these days”.

“Huh?”.

“Never mind”.

It’s depressing, I never realised how free I was from religion back in Ireland.