Seoul’s Millennials Say Their Lives Aren’t Too Different From the Dire Realities

When Kim Keunha first moved to Seoul eight years ago, his favorite place in the city was a spot near the Mapo Bridge. Then 19, he was drawn to the iridescent lights of South Korea’s capital, a far cry from his hometown of Andong, a city in the southern province of Gyeongsang. Kim, who came to Seoul to try to make it as a tattoo artist, would often take strolls across the bridge — at times homesick, most times cold and hungry. 

Eight years on, Mapo Bridge has taken on a very different meaning for Kim. Over the last decade, the bridge has turned into a hotspot for suicides, drawing the desperate and debt-ridden to plunge to their deaths in the waters of the Han River. 

For Kim, it has become a reminder of doomed, unfulfilled dreams. His biggest problem now, though, is an eye-watering debt of some $40,000 that he chocked up during his time in Seoul.

“I consider myself lucky that I managed to keep my debt under $50,000,” Kim said, showing Insider his latest bank statements. “I’m very aware of how much financial trouble I’m in right now, but there’s very little I can do to change my situation.” 

In 2021, the total amount of debt that South Koreans ran up — more than $1.5 trillion — rivaled the country’s GDP of $1.63 trillion.

A 2018 survey from the Korean think tank Seoul Institute found that Koreans owe around $44,000 of debt per household.

That’s quite a lot, considering the Korean gross national income (GNI) per capita was just US$33,790 in 2019, according to the World Bank.

Kim’s experiences reflect the unforgiving realities of life for some young South Koreans. Stuck in dead-end jobs, with piling debt and no real means of buying a home, it’s no wonder that these South Korean millennials think of

Netflix
‘s hit drama series “Squid Game” as a grim reflection of their own experiences.

“If someone told me that right now, you could gamble your life to have your debt cleared and become a billionaire, I’d do it without hesitation,” Kim said. “Though if I’m being brutally honest, the game masters might think my life probably isn’t even worth that much.”

Young South Koreans are facing an unprecedented debt crisis that is quickly coming to define their generation

The…