The destructive side of Gangnam style

SEOUL, South Korea — Perched above the shimmering cityscape, in an old stone house with a makeshift aluminum roof, is an elderly shaman who goes by the spiritual name “Lotus Prophet.”

An anachronism among Seoul’s high-tech industrial sprawl, the shaman cries and wails to drumbeats in daily séances. She says she is seeking forgiveness from a nearby mountain spirit who watches over the elderly residents of this hillside warren of old, low-slung traditional Asian homes.

Left out of the economic miracle, Lotus Prophet and her neighbors are the final dwellers of the Baeksa “moon village” — the last of countless hamlets poetically nicknamed for their view of the moon.

Baeksa is now slated for partial demolition, although opponents are keeping the bulldozers back in some areas.

“At least the mountain spirit is understanding,” the medium laments. “As long as I pray, he will not be upset.”

With gentrification imminent, the Lotus Prophet and her neighbors understand that the old communal ways are finished. Under former dictatorships, it was this nationalistic, unified spirit that drove South Korea, once poorer than its bellicose neighbor North Korea, to emerge as an industrial dynamo within one generation.

Oddly enough, these welfare recipients are generally in favor of demolition. They feel a sense of shame for losing out in the nation’s unforgiving wealth race — for failing to join the consumer culture parodied in pop star Psy’s “Gangnam Style” hit two years ago.

It’s this quest for glitz and comfort that has catalyzed the complete destruction of old neighborhoods, with little regard for heritage. Shunning slums, shamanism and “moon villages,” the bulk of the current generation aspire to elite college degrees, physical height, plastic surgery (even for men), designer handbags (for men too). Men also seek a luxury apartment and car that will attract a spouse of similar affluence.

In Korea, the price of failure is intense. Those too slow or poor for Gangnam style risk virtual exile in a nation ruled by a corporate aristocracy of Samsung and Hyundai elites. With intense pressure to succeed, suicide rates here are the highest in the OECD club of developed countries. Parents send their children to “height therapy” clinics and late-night cram academies, investing so much in education and housing that the nation grapples with a soaring household debt burden.

Hyper-competitive materialism is learned at a young age.

Outside a typical Gangnam apartment complex, a group of children tells GlobalPost that they prefer befriending kids from their own elite block 1, avoiding the “poor” plebeians next door in blocks 2, 3 and 4, which they claim are slightly less expensive.

To renew or not to renew

These days, traditional homes known as “hanok” are believed to number just a few thousand nationwide — despite their energy eco-friendliness in a country that maxes out its power grid, flirting with shortages about once a year. Once the bulldozers have rampaged through Seoul’s moon villages and slums, these neighborhoods give way to bland white apartment blocks, office buildings and coffee shops.

Gangnam authorities have taken this thinking to a coercive extreme, coming under fire for hiring plain-clothed men to knock over and damage street food stalls — remnants of a poorer past. Its local mayor is demanding a facelift to bring in tourists.

Now, some are having second thoughts about the relentless renewal. On the south side of town, opposite Baeksa, plans to redevelop the last slum of Gangnam have dragged on for years. Critics accuse developers of cashing in on the nameplate neighborhood at the expense of age-old residents.

Moon villages are merely the last of a surfeit of historical outposts to face rapid disposal. Experts warn that the elimination of these old settlements portends regret. In Incheon, a port city where they were wiped out long ago, “there wasn’t this idea that moon villages were culturally valuable,” said Lee Sang-min, a team leader at the Sudogukson Museum of Housing and Living.

“People were more focused on the fact that we needed to modernize, that nothing was changing in these neighborhoods,” he said. “I would say that most people were in favor of it.”

The Seoul city government, which has jurisdiction over Gangnam, has put forward a number of plans to beautify the city, although activists criticize the progressive mayor for not doing enough to stop the steamroller and the explosive commercialization. Under “new town” projects, developers have torn down slums and moved residents to high-rises outside of the city. But the mayor partially halted the initiative in 2012 following complaints over the long commutes from the suburbs and the low pay-outs to slum dwellers.

The Baeksa village struck an unusual deal with the developer, agreeing that two-thirds of the community would become apartments but leaving the other third in place.

Despite some opposition to this plan, elders here say that they’re keen on moving with the times. “We must move forward with the nation,” said shop owner Kim Hyeong-il, 86. “This is a new Korea, and we cannot be left behind.”