PHOTO ESSAY: Seoul and The Call of the Urban Wild (Part I)
In the most densely populated city in the developed world, people walk to work through a forest instead of driving in traffic. They take vacations on the metro, family picnics on the edge of a cliff, and routinely walk from their doorstep into a vast urban national park called Bukhansan. This four part photo essay is a reflection on time lived in Seoul, and also an inquiry. It asks what it means to have access to nature, and whether examples from Korea might help other cities become more resilient.
The images in this series were taken over a period of seven years, during which I made frequent visits to Bukhansan. While reading, I suggest the images can serve as points to stop and meditate. Take a deep breath and spend some time with each image, see what you notice, and consider how it makes you feel before continuing. That’s just a suggestion. However you do it, I hope you enjoy the little journey with me.
It's an hour now, since the sun was supposed to come up. Outside the apartment window, a low mist hangs around the east side of this small valley. The granite cliffs of Bukhansan National Park poke out through it in places, rising above the tops of several dozen apartment towers.
Later in the day I have a lunch meeting in the Bulgwang district, about twenty minutes from here on the metro. On this particular morning however, I throw on a jacket and leave home early. There is something important that needs attending to.
Outside, autumn is waning. The light wind coming down the valley will soon be flicking away the last of the leaves. The metro station is due west of here, but I decide to walk east instead, along the stream and up into the mist at the foot of the mountains.
Gettng from here to the Bulgwang district on foot will take a few hours of hiking—through forests, past small farms and mountain Buddhist temples, and across the pass just below Dobongsan—but I will eventually arrive, by my own feet, at the same physical place the subway would take me. I do not always get up early enough for this commute. I much prefer it when I do though.
The extra time it takes to reach my destination via the mountain may seem ridiculous when compared to driving, or taking the subway, or even walking along a sidewalk—indeed, all of these methods are faster than the mountain path. However, this 'hike to work' has never once seemed like wasted time. Instead it feels more like a gift of time, where I can experience the reality of life on this earth in ways that are not possible through the more rapid means of human movement.
In the forest, this word reality means something different from our typical urban usage of the word. Reality here, is in the things that might at first seem mundane. It is in the fallen leaf, supporting the health of spores and microbial life that make a healthy soil possible; it is in the mist I walk through, supporting the life of the moss, lichen, and green algae as they absorb atmospheric carbon from their home on a shaded rock; it is in the water that trickles up from a spring, a tributary for all of the life—fish, waterfowl, plant, human, and otherwise—that takes place downstream.
The very freedom of being able to move through this landscape, to experience it, and to take part in these small bits of wonder offers a much needed dose of ecological reality. However, it is also a privilege that not many urban dwellers are allowed to enjoy.
Partly for that reason, this ecological reality might seem far remote from our own daily realities and struggles. In truth however, it is far closer than we think. The reality of walking through a mountain is of course different than the reality of our bank accounts, our jobs, our social lives, and appointment schedules, but it is profoundly connected to them, for all of these latter realities, in various ways, rely on the former. Without healthy forest ecosystems, and healthy watersheds within and around them, all life on this Earth suffers greatly.
The ultimate reality of the forest, is that its health allows for the very possibility of a healthy city existing. There are plenty of cities that dismiss such ideas as unimportant, and emanating from these cities we find piles of data on the ill-effects of such a dismissal. People who live in cities without healthy forests are more likely to suffer from ill health, they have higher instances of preventable diseases, they tend to die earlier, have higher stress levels, higher blood pressure, and even higher rates of mortality during the pandemic.
On the other hand, numerous studies done during the past few decades suggest that humans who regularly visit or live near healthy forest ecosystems—not just parks, but forests—enjoy longer lifespans, lower instances of depression, lower blood pressure, stronger immune systems, and are even protected by trees against many cancers.
Can forests really do that? Apparently, they can, and they do.
The fact that healthy forests, meadows, and riparian corridors are not weaving their way through every neighborhood is a good sign that we are not paying close attention to how absolutely reliant our health is, on the health of ecosystems inside and around our cities.
Making space for resilient, biodiverse, living forests and watersheds inside our cities, and allowing practical access to these spaces, plays a big role not only in human resilience and health, but more broadly, in helping cultivate more ecological mindsets and habits.
Entering the edge of the forest, I pass Sunlimsa, the first of several Buddhist temples on this walking route. The temple reminds me of something my father-in-law says when he talks of meditation: Everyday, everytime, you should ask, who am I?
He tells me this repeatedly whenever we visit, while holding his hands in a Buddhist meditation pose. Who am I. Who am I.
I like this provocation. It never seems to get old, because who am I is not a question we really ever find a concrete answer to. So far as my father-in-law is concerned, the answer is more a state of acknowledgement, an acceptance of the conditions in each moment, rather than a conclusion.
It can be immensely difficult to wrap our heads around such a concept. Credit much of this difficulty to the human tendency of considering our role in nature only as intellectual beings. We commonly do this through reports, presentations, and meetings, or through data, measurements, and statistics. This is one way of looking at the components of human and earth, and at times it can be very useful. But there are other ways to know our relationship with the earth. A commute through a small forested mountain shows us something beyond our existence as intellectual beings.
Here in the mountain, we can see the reality of who we are as ecological beings. Here in the mountain, it becomes clear that the climate movement cannot succeed, the regenerative city movement cannot succeed, no ecological movement will ever truly succeed unless this frame of reference—one where we are all embedded in nature in various ways—becomes part of the story.
Continuing up along a ridgeline, mist dissipates, a bit of sweat emerges. Blue sky above. Looking to the left from atop the ridge, the peaks of Bukhansan rise from the forest, with a Buddhist temple tucked into the foliage. Looking to the right, the densely packed alleys of the old Bulgwang district ramble through their magnificent maze.
We walk the line between two worlds here. A good place to ask that question, who am I?
Next week, we’ll walk further along the ridge, and ask the mountain and forest what answers it might have for the city. Tell your friends to join us. Hope to see you then.
Thanks for reading The Possible City. I’m Patrick, and every week or so I write and illustrate a short story to help us imagine more equitable, resilient, regenerative cities through art and nature. If you enjoyed this one, please subscribe and share it with others.