The Seoul ‘convenience stores’ fighting loneliness

Hee-Kyung laughs as she takes to the “New Seoul Store” Warm Store.

At the age of twenty -nine, she might not have been the most imagined person who wanted to take advantage of the efforts of the last South Korean capital to combat unity.

But Hee-Kyung visits every day to seize free immediate pasta and spend hours in chatting with other visitors and social workers.

“I say to myself,” another day, another escape from feeling lonely. “

In adolescence, she no longer talks to anyone from her family. Friends I have interviewed, through the common love of the K-Pop Superjunior group, and live away. Currently unemployed, she has no co -workers to chat with them.

She lives on her own, while watching the cute videos on her phone is located on the ground.

“I have no other place to go if it is not the case [the store]”

Hee-Kyung is one of 20,000 people to visit the four stores since they opened in March. The city was only 5,000 in the first year.

This particular site, in the northeast of the city in the city, is witnessing about 70 to 80 visitors every day.

Most of them are in the 1940s and 1950s, but Hee-Kyung is far from being the only young man who reaches the services of the store.

A 2022 study revealed an estimated 130,000 young men in the city – between the ages of 19 and 39 – either socially isolated or closed. And that same study also found that the share of the single families in the capital has reached nearly 40 % – which raised the concern of a government trying to reversed the rates of birth and marriage.

On the day the BBC visited about ten visitors – men and women, young and old – they were sitting on seats or burrows in cloth bags, and watching a movie together.

“We have a movie to encourage low-level bonding”, “Whispers Kim Se-Heon, director of the city’s anti-unitage procedures.

The stores are designed to provide a warm -like atmosphere. In one corner, a older woman closed her eyes as she drowned in the automatic massage chair. In another, there are chimneys of pasta.

“Ramin is a symbol of comfort and warmth in South Korea,” explains Kim.

While waiting for pasta cooking, visitors are required to fill a brief scan around their mood and living conditions.

This is just a handful of the increasing number of socially isolated people to which the city is trying to reach.

The change that South Korea was exposed to is seismic: in one generation, it moved from a war -torn agricultural society to an advanced economy.

A few decades ago, it was common to see large families with six to eight children, living under the same ceiling. But the years of migration to cities have shrunk families and turned into places like Seoul into sprawling cities.

Housing, which cannot be affected, high costs and hard work hours, pushing more and more young people to refuse to marry, paternity, or both. On the other end, there are a large number of residents who feel neglected by children who are racing to keep up with.

He tells me that the elderly: “You know that saying that the lowest delicious meal is the one you enjoy alone? Ask the elderly who come if they eat well. They have been torn, just ask this question.”

After divorce and adult children who leave the house, she understands how she feels alone.

The first time that Hee -Kyung – who is located at the age of the witch’s daughter – arrived at the store, she immediately caught her attention.

Like many visitors, Hee-Kyung was calm on the first day, barely speaking to others. The second time she came, she started talking to the witch.

It was the increasing number of “only deaths” that raises the concern of Seoul’s officials enough to act. The elderly were dying alone at home, and their bodies were discovered only after days or weeks.

Soon this task expanded to address the unit itself. But Seoul is not the first to do this.

In 2018, the United Kingdom was appointed Minister of Unity. Japan followed the example, and established an agency to address the problem, which he said became more clear in the Covid-19s.

The phenomenon of withdrawing from society completely Sufficient enough in Japan that she has a name: hikikomori. Also in South Korea, there were an increasing number of youth Outstanding to cut themselves from a very competitive and durable society.

“Perhaps the epidemic was the one that led to this,” Li Yu Jeong, who runs one of the Seoul to combat bending programs.

She points to how her children are buried in their smartphones when their friends visit. “People today express how difficult there is a network of friends. Unity has become something that must be treated as a society.”

The first step was to open a hotline for people who need someone to talk to him. A survey at the country level in 2023 found that a third of Korean adults had no person asking for assistance in homework or speaking when they feel sad.

Her consultants offer a 40 -minute call to discuss any topic. Park Song Ah made three calls per day from its cabin.

“I was surprised to see many young people who want these sessions. They want to share the burden on their chest, but there is often a dynamic power with parents or friends. So they come to us.”

The “warm comfort stores” quickly followed a material site where the unit was welcomed.

DongDaENun was chosen because of its proximity to low -income housing, where residents live in small apartments divided alone.

Sohn, 68, visits the store once a week to watch movies, and escape from his narrow home.

“[The stores] I should have opened before my birth. He says: “It is good to spend up to two to three hours only.”

Sohn spent more than five decades of his life in the care of his mother, who suffered from the stretch of blood vessels in the brain while he was a child. As a result, he never married or had children.

The cost of dedication became clear when she died.

He says that there are not many places for him for several years, he says that there are not many places for him for several years, he says that there are not many places for him since there was a bankrupt and walking with cane since you suffer from bleeding in the brain itself several years ago, he says that there are not many places for him since you suffer from bleeding in the brain himself several years ago, he says that there are no many places for him since he was suffering from a cane since he suffers from The brain before there is no place for it

He says: “Places cost money, and go to the cinema costs money.”

The store manager Lee Bou Hyun explains that the stores were specially created to welcome those who do not welcome elsewhere.

They go beyond some room and a movie – they offer air conditioning during the hottest summer months for those who have a low income who cannot afford it at home.

It is also supposed to have an area where the unit can avoid a shame to seek help. The choice of the name – “comfortable stores” – was a deliberate attempt to keep them away from psychological clinics, which is important in a country that still stigmatizes against the request for mental health – especially among the oldest population.

However, it is still possible to see some of their reservations when they walk across the door for the first time, compressed by their experience in isolation.

The store manager tells me that visitors are often uncomfortable to talk to someone else or eat together at first.

“Feeling of typical loneliness, if this is repeated for days, months and a half, is now more than a feeling,” explains to me.

“These people begin to avoid places with people. Many people ask us whether they can take Roamen to go because they will not eat with others.”

It will tell them that they do not need to speak. They can simply sit on the same table and have pasta.

Months have passed since Hee-Kyung has been one of the new calm expatriates.

So, did you make a difference? In-SOK remembers a conversation you were taking with a local paper. When she raised her daughter, she felt a sudden Bang and her voice erupted.

“I will hug you,” I announce Kyung.

I walked from the other side of the room and embraced in the witch.