How to Use an Urban River #4 — The Art of a Riverside Nap

1:00pm — Cars and buses honk and jockey for position on the bridge above the river. Underneath them, old men gamble in the shade of the bridge. Next to them, pigeons look for scraps on the riverbank and one of them momentarily peers a beady eye into the water, then jumps back in alarm — a fish thrusts out of the water on her way upstream to spawn.

Below all of this action, hundreds of people walk through Daejeon’s Jungangro Underground Shopping Mall — two kilometers of passageways crossing under the river, connecting the main train station and central business and entertainment districts.

Under this is yet another layer, the metro line. Daejeon has just one, but it is well used — moving one-tenth of the city’s population from one side to the other each day. If there were just a few more well-placed underground trains here, perhaps the intense traffic jams and honking above ground would be a relic of the past.

But our heroine is not engaging in any of that right now.

After an early morning workout, a few hours collecting and washing mugwort, and a quick lunch in the market, she has taken up residence under a riverside tree.

With pigeons at her feet and the bustle of the city around her, she naps for twenty minutes or so — nestled into a beanbag provided by the local government.

Finding another tree and beanbag a few dozen meters away, I join in the collective nap time. It all feels remarkably good, and makes me wonder, whatever happened to taking long afternoon naps under trees?

Far from being a tool of the lazy, afternoon naps — especially the kind shared with a tree — are proven to reduce stress hormones, lower blood pressure, boost memory, sharpen alertness, and enhance whatever you do afterward.

Here’s to cities designed to promote this long-lost art.

The illustrations in this series were originally commissioned by the Daejeon Sejong Research Institute.

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Questions: Napping under trees is actually not so common in Korean cities — which never stops me from doing it. Is it common where you live? Have you practiced this long-lost art?

Next Week: Waking up from our nap, we get a different kind of waterside exercise, this time with the younger folks.

Another Story: The beanbags in this story are actually a thing in Seoul. Or, at least they were when we visited one of our favotire little urban parks there…

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