Dispatch from Korea
Ryan and Steve send late night emails back and forth, and the result might just shock you.
This week, there was almost no newsletter. Content Farm was poised to take an L. There were no good newsletter ideas and it was 9:00 PM PST on a Tuesday — it was time to go to bed. Luckily for me, my dear friend and business partner is still galavanting around South Korea, existing on a completely different plane of time and space. So, I took advantage of his vacation and sent him a Gmail with questions for him to answer so Content Farm could live another week.
And there you have it. That’s how we keep bringing you top-tier, free content.
Also, ROTW is my mother Ellen Kersh. Congrats, Mom.
SK: You hear about folks going to Japan. You hear about folks going to China. You don’t hear about to many folks going to South Korea. Why do you think that is? Why did you guys decide to check it out?
RS: What's up Steve? Thanks for emailing me while I'm on vacation.
Why South Korea? That's a fantastic question. As soon as we landed last week, Becca and I were asking each other the same question. Why are we here? It's not like South Korea is some hot spring break destination with nice beaches and all-inclusive resorts. Nor is it Tokyo, with its cherry blossoms and bullet trains (although Seoul does have this in spades). Nor is it China, which you listed, but I'm not sure I personally know too many people that have gone on vacation to China. Either way, we concluded that it is a pretty funny place to go on vacation. Ultimately, it was just an interesting place to explore for a few weeks with a direct flight from Los Angeles.
I also think living in Los Angeles, Korean culture is pretty front and center. Having an opportunity to fact check what we know about Korean food, spas, and whatever American ideas we've formulated about the country is fun.
SK: I just read an article about birth rates in South Korea absolutely plummeting and threatening their population. Seoul, in particular, was described as a city that is not very child-friendly. Can you comment on any of this? Have you seen children?
RS: What's funny is that you texted me about this a few days ago and as I was responding I saw a school bus full of small children drive by. Based on this, I can confidently say that children do exist in Korea. But I did look it up, and the birthrate is less than one child per woman. I don't know what that says about the overall health of a country — is it important for the birthrate to be high outside of economic output? Are there a ton of incels here or are the Koreans just really good at using birth control?
I dunno man, what did that New Yorker article say about it?
South Korea has a fertility rate of 0.7. This is the lowest rate of any nation in the world. It may be the lowest in recorded history. If that trajectory holds, each successive generation will be a third the size of its predecessor.
SK: Quite the interesting time to be South Korea — politically speaking. Give us a vibe check.
RS: On the second day we were here, we got off the subway and were greeted by what I can confidently say was the most amount of police officers I've ever seen assembled in my life. Probably 10-15 city blocks of police cars, buses, vans, and uniformed officers standing in the street. This was when I learned that the South Korean Supreme Court was going to vote on whether or not they were going to follow through with impeaching the president in a few days. By Friday he was impeached in a unanimous vote and I didn't see anything funny out in the streets after that.
From reading a few sentences of the former president's Wikipedia page, he seems like a pretty bad dude. Aside from possessing a very bad right-wing ideology, he tried his hand at his own January 6th late last year — he tried to run the other party out of the country using the military. Seems insane! Imagine if instead of dudes wearing fur coats and MAGA hats trying to kidnap Nancy Pelosi it was Big Don himself.
All of that to say: I don't know anything.
SK: Name your top 3 South Korean foods, dead or alive.
RS: Man. We've eaten a ton of food here. I know what maybe 10% of it is called. I'll try my best.
Barbecue. It's on every street corner, each with their own specialty, and they're all still using charcoal (indoors!) which I can't imagine is legal in the states. They're grilling it in front of you, it comes with 100 different sides and very nice dipping sauces. What's not to like?
Fermented vegetables. Kimchi, mostly. And then there's a bunch of stuff I've eaten that I don't know what it is outside of a fermented vegetable. Definitely some radishes. I think the other day I ate a fermented spring onion. Today I definitely ate a fermented leaf. Like from a tree. It was just sitting on a tiny plate and I didn't know what else I was supposed to do with it so I ate it. It was sour. And mostly pleasant.
Soup. I've had a million soups. Again, I don't know what's in them. Most restaurants we've been to we've walked by and said "that seems interesting" and then we've sat down. 70% of the time they're just serving soup. Today I had something that seemed like beef and vegetable that was served with a bowl of rice. I've burned my mouth 100 times and I'll burn it 100 more times before this trip is over.
SK: What has surprised you the most during your time abroad?
RS: The sheer volume of coffee shops in this town has been surprising. More than any other place I've ever visited. I have yet to have a bad cup of coffee here.
On the other hand, a surprising thing is that things don't seem to open in this country until, like, 11am. So you'll get a nice cup of coffee but it won't be until slightly before lunch.
SK: A lot of great art, music, film comes out of South Korea. Is there something naturally aesthetic about the place? Or perhaps the wind blows at a frequency so pleasing, it produces the world’s biggest pop stars? Enlighten us.
This is interesting to me because I haven't found South Korea to be a beautiful place. And I mean that in the nicest way possible and strictly from an on the street sense. The buildings? I'm no architect, but not very aesthetic! Every decision they've made here seems to be function over form. Which is probably not a bad thing. The streets? Bustling! But also not a ton of sidewalks or trees or even shrubs.
If I had to guess why this place makes a ton of extremely relevant art, it's probably because of their proximity to other people. You see more humanity in a day than a lot of people experience in a year and I think that's important in evolving our understanding of each other, which really is what art is trying to do. I think. Again: I don't know anything.
SK: And lastly, what can we all learn from South Korea?
RS: I'm sure there are plenty of statistics out there that refute what I'm about to say BUT it seems like Korea as a whole is a far more social society than America. Today is Wednesday. Every restaurant I went by was fairly busy. Groups of people just eating and drinking seem to be happening every day of the week. So lesson one: hang out with your friends more!
Lesson two: America needs to build functional public transportation systems in their cities. I can't even begin to explain how substantial the Seoul train network is — it is literally BUILT DIFFERENT.
Is this good? Did we all learn anything?
SK: I sure did. I cannot speak for anyone reading this, but let’s hope they did.
I spent the summer of 1984 in South Korea. It's lovely to be carried back in time to a fascinating place like Seoul. The food, the social nature of society, the unfriendly architecture (except for the historical buildings, which I found lovely) ... some things haven't changed, it seems!