SEOUL — Web optimization Hyuk-jun, 36, knelt earlier than the white chrysanthemums as he positioned a lit cigarette, incense and a paper cup full of Jack Daniels on the bottom. He stood, knelt and bowed twice, performing a conventional Korean ritual for the lifeless.
Day after day, such tributes arrived on the makeshift memorial in Itaewon, one among Seoul’s hottest districts. Younger South Koreans used to go there for its range and vibrant nightlife. They referred to as it “Itaewon freedom.”
Now, the neighborhood has develop into a sobering monument of grief and soul-searching after greater than 150 younger folks have been killed throughout a crowd crush whereas celebrating Halloween final Saturday. Bars that have been throbbing with Ok-pop music only a week in the past are actually silent, their doorways lined with condolence messages and a discover from the native authorities asking folks to chorus from loud music and dancing.
Like many South Koreans, Mr. Web optimization stated he felt responsible being alive when so many younger folks have been killed that evening, their complete lives nonetheless forward of them. “For them, it was no unusual Halloween. They have been speculated to really feel freedom after three years of pandemic hell,” Mr. Web optimization stated, choking again tears. “I hope my cigarette and liquor will ease their journey to the following world.”
Nowhere is that sense of mourning felt extra acutely than close to Exit No. 1 of the Itaewon subway station, as soon as referred to as a bustling gateway to nightlife and enjoyable. The alleyway the place the group crush occurred, close to that exit, has remained closed all week, crisscrossed with orange police tape. Law enforcement officials stood guard on a current night, inexperienced mild batons in hand. Pedestrians sometimes knelt and bowed in mourning.
“Individuals are nonetheless strolling down the streets, automobiles are nonetheless driving, however I hear no noise,” stated Kim Hee-soo, 24, a store supervisor in Itaewon. “It’s as if this place has stopped lifeless. It’s not the Itaewon that I’ve recognized.”
For the reason that catastrophe, an eerie unhappiness has prevailed within the neighborhood. Its streets and alleys, which often by no means sleep, went darkish early within the night. Many outlets have been closed, and eating places empty.
In entrance of a pork-belly restaurant, a mourner had positioned a lunch field of rice and kimchi, together with a bouquet of chrysanthemums — a conventional mourning flower in Korea — and a handwritten notice: “My pal, I hope you can be in Heaven, be pleased and luxuriate in your youth, which ended so quickly on this world.”
Constructed lengthy earlier than Seoul had metropolis planning, Itaewon has at all times been one thing of an outlier amongst South Koreans. A long time in the past, American G.I.s stationed at a close-by army base would go to the neighborhood to drink and unwind. Locals often stayed away. After a time, the realm gained a repute as a spot for foreigners. It additionally served as a conduit of Western tradition — rock ‘n’ roll and reggae music, unique meals and international style — at a time when South Korea was nonetheless a postwar, growing nation.
Itaewon needed to reinvent itself when the American army started relocating to Camp Humphreys, a gigantic base south of Seoul, a decade in the past. However even earlier than then, by the late Nineties, younger folks have been beginning to flock to its fashionable bars and eating places squeezed into previous buildings and slim alleyways. The neighborhood earned a brand new repute as a spot to flee the pressures of South Korean society, certain by Confucian hierarchies and conformist views.
“After I consider Itaewon, the phrases that come to my thoughts are freedom, openness and variety. You see foreigners right here, you’ll be able to expertise meals from different cultures right here,” stated Byun Ji-sun, 25, a photographer having dinner with buddies in one of many few kebab eating places nonetheless open on a current night in Itaewon. “When younger folks say, ‘Let’s go to Itaewon,’ we imply, Let’s go clubbing and have enjoyable.”
A preferred tune from 2011 honored the neighborhood’s iconoclasm: “It’s a brand new world there, I let you know. There’s music there, there’s love there, there’s the world there,” say the lyrics of “Itaewon Freedom.” “Kids go to amusement parks. Outdated people go to nursing houses. Children go to kindergartens. However we go to Itaewon!”
Conservative Koreans have lengthy frowned upon Itaewon as an emblem of dangerous international affect, together with the annual Halloween festivities that grew to become one of many busiest nights of the yr. A Christian church as soon as triggered a scandal by sending missionary trainees to proselytize inside transgender bars within the space.
When a coronavirus outbreak emerged in Itaewon in 2020, disease-control officers raided bars and eating places, plastering doorways with indicators declaring them off-limits. Companies have been compelled to close down due to a scarcity of vacationers. After coronavirus restrictions eased this yr, Itaewon was simply starting to resemble its come-one, come-all self.
Final Saturday, the primary Halloween celebration since South Korea ended its pandemic guidelines, was to be one thing of a coming-out celebration. Throngs of younger folks poured out of Exit No. 1. Golf equipment and eating places have been able to welcome as many shoppers as they may deal with. The slim alleyway the place the group crush occurred was a preferred shortcut to many bars and golf equipment.
“I feel each special-effects make-up artist within the nation had arrange little stalls alongside that road and have been making use of faux, bloody wounds that seemed so actual,” stated Tami Overby, a senior adviser at a worldwide enterprise technique agency who regularly visits Seoul from america and walked the primary Itaewon road final Saturday. “My final Halloween in Itaewon was 2019, and the group was nowhere close to that giant,” she stated. “Never have I seen that many individuals in that small of an area.”
Partygoers surged into the alleyway from each instructions, making a lethal stress. Few cops have been there to handle the group, though town had anticipated a very massive variety of folks in Itaewon for the Halloween weekend. Determined calls to the police went unheeded as victims have been trampled and smothered.
Whereas the federal government continues investigating the tragedy — one of many worst peacetime disasters in South Korean historical past — a gentle stream of individuals have visited the makeshift altar constructed round Exit No. 1. Buddhist monks have prayed. Residents have lit candles and shared quite a few handwritten notes, many written by buddies of victims whose youthful goals ended too quickly.
Considered one of them was written by Baek Hyo-bin and addressed to her pal Yoon Je-yi: “I want this have been a protracted nightmare that I may get up from,” Ms. Baek wrote. “I used to be embarrassed once you used to scream on the road and make these bizarre expressions of yours, however I now miss all of that so achingly.”
Itaewon has been declared a “particular diaster zone” since final Sunday. As Saturday evening approached, there have been indicators that Itaewon was slowly coming again to life. Employees had swept flooring and cleaned tables after a weeklong nationwide mourning interval.
Close to Seoul Metropolis Corridor on Saturday, 1000’s of individuals holding candles stuffed six lanes, calling President Yoon Suk Yeol “the true offender of the Itaewon catastrophe” for failing to stop it.
“Out with Yoon Suk Yeol!” they chanted.
“Round this time of the yr, my store is meant to be bustling with prospects,” stated Moon Myong-woo, sitting in a leather-goods store his household has run for 30 years in Itaewon. “We thought enterprise was lastly coming again after the pandemic, however now we’ve got this,” he stated. “However I know I shouldn’t complain once I consider the victims and their households.”
Longtime residents of Itaewon nonetheless struggled to fathom the implications of the tragedy, questioning how it could have an effect on the neighborhood’s picture. Throughout the road from Mr. Moon’s store, Oh Soo-hee, a real-estate agent, sat in her small workplace, her white pet canine at her ft. “How can we get well from this trauma?” she stated. “So many younger folks died.”