Father, Son Continue to Suffer From Fallout of 1997 Financial Turmoil


By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter


Jun-ho, right, sits with his father in a small, stuffy room near Seoul Station, central Seoul, Friday. They spend most of their time on the street near the station as they cannot afford room charges.
/ Korea Times


Jun-ho is 13 years old. He looks just like any ordinary schoolboy in the sixth grade, but he has not gone to school for about two months.

He is among some 300 homeless who live around Seoul Station, having spent seven years on the streets with his father.

Most homeless are middle-aged or older and sleep lying on the cold, bare floor of subway stations or underground passes.

However, when people look at the clean face and clothes of Jun-ho (not his real name), they might think that he is a boy living in the neighborhood just wandering around.

But instead of a toy, he holds a bottle of ``soju,’’ or traditional Korean liquor, showing that he has another story to tell.

The bottle is not his own. ``I just wanted to take the bottle away from my dad,’’ he said.

Jun-ho has spent seven years moving from one place to another, including different shelters, subway stations and tiny, tattered rooms called ``chokpang’’ in Korean, which can barely hold two people and an old-fashioned television set.

His father’s small restaurant in Chonan, South Chungchong Province, went out of business after being hit hard by the 1997 Asian financial turmoil.

They were unable to stay in a shelter for long because his 56-year-old father, an alcoholic, could not adjust to the shelter’s regulations.

It is a good day if Jun-ho and his father make 8,000 won (around $7), the money needed to rent a chokpang for a night.

``We pay an extra 1,000 won for more water so I can help my boy keep neat and clean although he often has to sleep on the streets,’’ the father said.

He said it had been over three years since he made any money through physical labor. After attempts to make a living shining shoes near Kuro and Seoul station ended in failure, he has managed to get by each day begging with his son.

Although the boy has been a vagabond for the last seven years, he is a sixth grader at an elementary school in Pongchon-dong, southwestern Seoul.

However, the boy has not attended classes for around two months, his teacher said.

Children are generally able to adapt to new environments very quickly and Jun-ho is no exception.

The streetwise boy seems to have already adjusted himself to the hardships, taking it as a matter of course.

Jun-ho said he does not want to complain about his life, although spending a night at a warm chokpang is much better than sleeping in the subway station.

``We tried sending Jun-ho to a welfare facility, but it didn’t work since he prefers to live with his father and he’s already accustomed to that way of living,’’ his teacher said. However, he admitted he has not seen how and where the boy lives.

According to his teacher, the only subject Jun-ho does well in is social science, not because the boy likes to read textbooks, but because reading magazines is one of the few things he can do to kill time until the subway station gets quiet enough to sleep at midnight.

The boy’s father is one of the 3.65 million credit defaulters in the nation, having around 30 million won in debts. His father said the boy’s mother, who left the family four years ago after three years on the street, has an additional 60 million won in debts.

``Jun-ho will graduate from primary school in February, but I don’t have any way of buying him a uniform for junior high school,’’ the father explained.

According to statistics compiled by the Korea Support Center for the Homeless, the number of homeless in Seoul rose to 672 this month from 596 in June. It stood at 532 in 2003, 444 in 2002 and 263 in 2001.

When those living in shelters run by the government, civic groups and religious organizations are included, the figure could be as high as 2,801 this month, up from 1,962 in June.

things@koreatimes.co.kr