The Seoul 'comfort shops' preventing loneliness

[ad_1] Jake Kwon BBC Information in Seoul

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/2a72/live/5e2940e0-7446-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/2a72/live/5e2940e0-7446-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/2a72/live/5e2940e0-7446-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/2a72/live/5e2940e0-7446-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/2a72/live/5e2940e0-7446-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/2a72/live/5e2940e0-7446-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/2a72/live/5e2940e0-7446-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/2a72/live/5e2940e0-7446-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp" loading="eager" alt="Getty Images A lively and colorful pedestrian street in Seoul, filled with vibrant crosswalk designs, unique shops, and bustling activity. A woman stands in the middle of a zebra crossing in a winter jacket carrying the sign 'escape room, half price' " class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> Getty Photographs The signal reads, 'escape room, half value' on common pedestrian avenue in Seoul- town is on a mission to stave off rising loneliness amongst its folks

Hee-kyung giggles as she steps into Seoul's new "warm-hearted comfort retailer".

At 29, she is maybe not the particular person most would have imagined eager to reap the benefits of the South Korean capital's newest efforts to fight loneliness.

However Hee-Kyung visits daily to seize the free immediate ramen noodles and spend hours chatting with different guests and social staff.

"I inform myself, 'one other day, one other escape from feeling lonely'," Hee-kyung says.

A teenage runaway, she not talks to anybody from her household. The buddies she has she met on-line, by the shared love of Okay-pop group SuperJunior, and so they stay distant. At the moment unemployed, she has no work mates to speak to.

She lives alone, and whiles away the time watching cute animal movies on her cellphone as she lies on the ground.

"I've no different place to go if it weren't for [the store]."

Hee-Kyung is considered one of 20,000 folks to go to the 4 shops since they had been opened in March. Town had been anticipating simply 5,000 within the first 12 months.

This specific location, within the metropolis's north-eastern district of Dongdaemun, sees round 70 to 80 guests every day.

Most are of their 40s and 50s, however Hee-Kyung is way from being the one younger particular person to entry the shop's providers.

A 2022 examine revealed an estimated 130,000 younger folks within the metropolis - these aged between 19 and 39 - are both socially remoted or shut in. That very same examine additionally discovered the share of single-person households within the capital had reached almost 40% - that alarmed a authorities that has been making an attempt to reverse plummeting beginning and marriage charges.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/dfd6/live/16070690-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/dfd6/live/16070690-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/dfd6/live/16070690-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/dfd6/live/16070690-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/dfd6/live/16070690-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/dfd6/live/16070690-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/dfd6/live/16070690-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/dfd6/live/16070690-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Jake Kwon/ BBC People sitting on chairs and beanbags and watching a movie together." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> Jake Kwon/ BBC The shops, which resemble a front room at dwelling, provide consolation and firm

The day the BBC visited, round a dozen guests - women and men, younger and outdated - had been sitting on benches or burrowed into beanbags, watching a movie collectively.

"Now we have film days to encourage low-level bonding," whispers Kim Se-heon, the supervisor of town's Loneliness Countermeasure Division.

The shops are designed to supply a heat, cafe-like ambiance. In a single nook, an older girl closed her eyes as she sank into the automated therapeutic massage chair that hummed. In one other, there are stacks of noodles.

"Ramen is an emblem of consolation and heat in South Korea," Kim explains.

Whereas ready for the noodles to prepare dinner, guests are requested to fill out a quick survey on their temper and residing circumstances.

These are only a handful of the rising variety of socially remoted those that town is making an attempt to achieve.

The change South Korea has undergone is seismic: in a era, it has gone from a war-torn agrarian society to a developed economic system.

A couple of many years in the past, it was frequent to see giant households with six to eight kids, residing below the identical roof. However years of migration to cities have shrunk households and turned locations like Seoul into sprawling metropolises.

Unaffordable housing, rising prices and gruelling working hours have led an increasing number of younger folks to reject marriage or parenthood, or each. On the opposite finish is an ageing inhabitants that feels uncared for by kids who're racing to maintain up.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/da6e/live/fda4eb40-7443-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/da6e/live/fda4eb40-7443-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/da6e/live/fda4eb40-7443-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/da6e/live/fda4eb40-7443-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/da6e/live/fda4eb40-7443-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/da6e/live/fda4eb40-7443-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/da6e/live/fda4eb40-7443-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/da6e/live/fda4eb40-7443-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Jake Kwon/ BBC A smiling Lee In-sook at her desk in the store, in a blue t-shirt. " class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> Jake Kwon/ BBC Lee In-sook works as a counsellor on the comfort retailer

" the saying that the least tasty meal is the one you're having alone? I ask older individuals who are available in in the event that they had been consuming okay. They'd tear up, simply being requested that query," says Lee In-sook, the counsellor on the retailer.

After a divorce and her grown-up kids leaving dwelling, she understands the way it feels to be alone.

The primary time Hee-kyung - who's across the age of In-sook's daughter - arrived on the retailer, she instantly caught her eye.

Like many guests, Hee-kyung was quiet on the primary day, barely talking to others. The second time she got here, she started to talk to In-sook.

It was the rising variety of "lonely deaths" that apprehensive Seoul officers sufficient to behave. Older folks had been dying alone at dwelling, and their our bodies weren't found till days or even weeks later.

That mission quickly expanded to tackling loneliness itself. However Seoul just isn't the primary to do that.

In 2018, the UK appointed a Minister for Loneliness. Japan adopted the instance, establishing an company to handle the issue which it mentioned had turn into extra pronounced within the Covid-19 pandemic.

The phenomenon of withdrawing from society altogether is frequent sufficient in Japan that it has a reputation: hikikomori. In South Korea too, a rising variety of younger folks have been voluntarily chopping themselves off from a extremely aggressive and exacting society.

"Maybe it was the pandemic that led to this," muses Lee Yu-jeong, who manages considered one of Seoul's anti-loneliness programmes.

She factors out how her kids stay buried of their smartphones when their associates go to. "Individuals immediately specific how tough it's to have a community of associates. Loneliness has turn into one thing that must be tackled as a society."

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/ea85/live/9cdbf610-7442-11f0-bf4f-19fef6902ccb.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/ea85/live/9cdbf610-7442-11f0-bf4f-19fef6902ccb.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/ea85/live/9cdbf610-7442-11f0-bf4f-19fef6902ccb.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/ea85/live/9cdbf610-7442-11f0-bf4f-19fef6902ccb.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/ea85/live/9cdbf610-7442-11f0-bf4f-19fef6902ccb.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/ea85/live/9cdbf610-7442-11f0-bf4f-19fef6902ccb.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/ea85/live/9cdbf610-7442-11f0-bf4f-19fef6902ccb.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/ea85/live/9cdbf610-7442-11f0-bf4f-19fef6902ccb.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Getty Images Four men sitting in a row in a public sitting area in a metro train station and scrolling on their mobile phones in Seoul on April 8, 2025. " class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> Getty Photographs Increasingly more South Koreans really feel socially remoted, analysis exhibits

Step one was opening a hotline for individuals who want somebody to talk to. A nationwide survey in 2023 discovered {that a} third of Korean adults have both nobody to ask for assist with house responsibilities or communicate to when feeling unhappy.

Its counselors provide a 40-minute name to debate any matter. Park Seung-ah has been making three calls a day from her cubicle.

"I used to be stunned to see that many younger folks wished these classes. They need to share the burden on their chest however there's usually an influence dynamic with dad and mom or their associates. So they arrive to us."

The "warm-hearted comfort shops" adopted swiftly, a bodily location the place the lonely had been welcome.

The Dongdaemun location was picked attributable to its proximity to low-income housing, the place residents stay in tiny, subdivided residences alone.

Sohn, 68, visits the shop as soon as every week to look at movies, and to flee his cramped dwelling.

"[The stores] ought to have opened earlier than I used to be born. It is good to spend even simply two to 3 hours," he says.

Sohn has spent greater than 5 many years of his life caring for his mom, who suffered a mind aneurism when he was a toddler. Consequently, he by no means married or had kids.

The price of the dedication grew to become clear when she died.

Penniless and strolling with a cane since struggling a mind haemorrhage himself a number of years in the past, he says there aren't many locations for him.

"Locations price cash, going to the cinema prices cash," he says.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/be41/live/92aecca0-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/be41/live/92aecca0-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/be41/live/92aecca0-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/be41/live/92aecca0-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/be41/live/92aecca0-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/be41/live/92aecca0-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/be41/live/92aecca0-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/be41/live/92aecca0-7445-11f0-96b1-9b22c6b2158f.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Getty Images Two men play Janggi, sometimes called Korean chess, on a street in Seoul on July 1, 2025. " class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> Getty Photographs South Korea's ageing inhabitants more and more stories feeling lonely

The shops had been created specifically to welcome those that aren't welcome in different places, explains retailer supervisor Lee Bo-hyun.

They transcend a little bit of room and a movie - providing air-conditioning through the hottest summer season months to these on low incomes who can't afford it at dwelling.

It is usually alleged to be an area the place the lonely can sidestep the stigma of asking for assist. The selection of identify - "comfort shops" - was a deliberate try to distance them from psychiatric clinics, essential in a rustic the place there's nonetheless a stigma in opposition to asking for assist for psychological well being - particularly amongst older residents.

And but, a few of their reservations can nonetheless be seen after they stroll by the door for the primary time, compounded by their expertise of isolation.

Guests are sometimes uncomfortable talking to a different particular person or consuming collectively initially, retailer supervisor Lee says.

"The everyday loneliness, if that repeats for days, months, and half 12 months, that's now greater than a sense," Lee explains.

"These people begin to keep away from locations with folks. So many individuals ask us if they will take the ramen to go as a result of they will not eat with others."

Lee would inform them that they need not speak. They'll merely sit on the identical desk and have noodles.

It has been months since Hee-kyung was one of many quiet new arrivals.

So, has it made a distinction? In-sook remembers a dialog she was having with a neighborhood paper. When she introduced up her daughter, she felt a sudden pang and her voice broke.