Why does Korea have so many Weekender Couples?
Korea was an overwhelmingly agricultural society until relatively recently (always something very useful to remember when trying to understand Koreans), so of course during slow seasons poor Korean farmers especially have been finding work outside of their home villages for millennia. More recently, Koreans worked as construction workers in the Middle East and as miners and nurses in Germany in the 1970s, and this is probably the source of the Korean word “a-ruh-bite” (아르바이트) for part-time work, as “arbeit” means “work” in German. But etymology aside, their numbers were negligible compared to those today. Since then, vast improvements in transport infrastructure have certainly made living apart certainly more possible and bearable, but then neither group studied here really does so for financial gain anymore. What then, what compels so many presumably loving Koreans to live apart in the first place? (source: aarontong) Song-chul mentions that Korea is a very centralized society, and th
