Are you a lifer?

Did you actually go to the site and look?  Didn't think so.  I just taught a lesson on it.  Grass always seems greener on the other side.  Even my Korean students thought the air quality was bad, but were shocked to see that it's comparable to and at times better than Japan and way better than countries to the west like China and Indonesia.  But hey, you just proved you don't research anything and just vomit things you've heard or your own personal experiences.  You probably still stick your finger in your mouth and hold it up in the air to see if it's windy.

Let me guess, Korea's in its usual one week of Fall and the skies are relatively clear, so you decide that one week of decent weather and low air pollution ratings means that Korea's pollution is low all the time. And then when it goes back to "normal" and the AQ ratings are more like 80-200 every day, you'll go completely silent and ignore it. I bet your Korean students LOVED the fact that you went native and ignored science and logic to come to the defense of poor, misunderstood Korea.

Here's some DELICIOUS screenshots I did of AQICN last winter:

Well hell, you've never seen it so it MUST not exist!!  FYI:  Two weeks ago they came and emptied out the septic tank of the business across the street from ours with one of your elusive poo trucks.  Smelled horrible while they were doing it.  I should have taken a picture for you to ease your mind.  Another fact for you in case you were worried, gnomes don't steal your socks.

I'm pretty sure I would have noticed septic trucks driving around. I could be wrong and I'd like more info instead of "this typical Korean article says something without offering any proof so it must be correct." Other people have chimed in but it's along the lines of "once I saw a septic truck in the countryside" or "I saw them in this one neighborhood in Seoul." Surely some people here own property or have enough experience living here that they know about the septic tank situation. Or maybe it's just a weird Seoul thing and as usual the Korean newspaper writer is doing the usual "Seoul is the center of the universe" Korean thing.

Did you actually go to the site and look?  Didn't think so.  I just taught a lesson on it.  Grass always seems greener on the other side.  Even my Korean students thought the air quality was bad, but were shocked to see that it's comparable to and at times better than Japan and way better than countries to the west like China and Indonesia.

South Korea is certainly nowhere near the top of the list for worst air pollution in the world: most foreign teachers notice it so much only because they come from some of the best countries in the world with respect to air quality.

   That said almost every source that I could find agrees that, on average, Japanese air is quite a bit less polluted than Korea's if for no other reason than it's further away from the atmospheric dumpster fire that is industrial China.

Source 1 27 vs 13 micrograms per cubic meter
Source 2  29 vs 13  micrograms per cubic meter
Source 3 53 vs 35 on the "pollution index"
Source 4 mostly orange (bad) vs mostly yellow/green (better) on WHO Global Ambient Air Pollution Map.

"Most/all of the pollution is from China" is nationalist Korean/Japanese bullshit. Some of it is, but most of it in Korea is from Korea. Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of Japanese polllution was from Korea, but they create a fair bit on their own. Korea has tons of coal burning power plants that cause most of the pollution, as well as under-regulated factories and a ton of under-regulated cars.

A lot of people in the media talk complete BS about pollution. Korean newspapers say that it's the worst in the OECD or the worst in the world, which is kind of BS because South Korea is small and extremely dense, and they're comparing South Korea, all of which is polluted, to countries like India and China which have small areas of very bad pollution but also massive stretches of rural/barren land where there aren't enough people to create pollution.

As for the people saying it's not so bad, sure, it's not as bad as places like New Delhi or Beijing where a normal day would be like 300+, and a bad day is like 999. But almost everywhere in South Korea is really polluted, and it's such a small dense country that you can't really escape it. I used to live in a rural area and while the pollution wasn't quite as bad as in Seoul or Daegu, it was still really smoggy 95% of the time.

Well hell, you've never seen it so it MUST not exist!!  FYI:  Two weeks ago they came and emptied out the septic tank of the business across the street from ours with one of your elusive poo trucks.  Smelled horrible while they were doing it.  I should have taken a picture for you to ease your mind.  Another fact for you in case you were worried, gnomes don't steal your socks.

I'm pretty sure I would have noticed septic trucks driving around. I could be wrong and I'd like more info instead of "this typical Korean article says something without offering any proof so it must be correct." Other people have chimed in but it's along the lines of "once I saw a septic truck in the countryside" or "I saw them in this one neighborhood in Seoul." Surely some people here own property or have enough experience living here that they know about the septic tank situation. Or maybe it's just a weird Seoul thing and as usual the Korean newspaper writer is doing the usual "Seoul is the center of the universe" Korean thing.

I didn't read the article.  I'm talking about my personal experience in actually seeing them around town, not that they'd be easily noticeable to begin with because why would you be going around looking for septic tank trucks?  You seem to have an answer for everything, even faced with insurmountable evidence unless you just don't believe me.  I just bought a house with my wife and the septic tanks are clearly marked with white posts.  I don't really know what else to tell and not sure I need to say anything else because sounds like you are just one of those people that knows better than everyone else.

This must be fake news.


http://koreabizwire.com/seoul-mulls-removal-of-foul-smelling-street-septic-tanks/107347

Did you actually go to the site and look?  Didn't think so.  I just taught a lesson on it.  Grass always seems greener on the other side.  Even my Korean students thought the air quality was bad, but were shocked to see that it's comparable to and at times better than Japan and way better than countries to the west like China and Indonesia.  But hey, you just proved you don't research anything and just vomit things you've heard or your own personal experiences.  You probably still stick your finger in your mouth and hold it up in the air to see if it's windy.

Let me guess, Korea's in its usual one week of Fall and the skies are relatively clear, so you decide that one week of decent weather and low air pollution ratings means that Korea's pollution is low all the time. And then when it goes back to "normal" and the AQ ratings are more like 80-200 every day, you'll go completely silent and ignore it. I bet your Korean students LOVED the fact that you went native and ignored science and logic to come to the defense of poor, misunderstood Korea.

Here's some DELICIOUS screenshots I did of AQICN last winter:

Fair enough.  So you can cherry pick days and I can cherry pick days.  I looked at it for a few weeks as I was preparing the lesson so i'm totally fine with accepting that I had a limited view of it.  Doesn't seem like you are doing anything different though.

You do realize that Korea is the size of Illinois, yet 70% of it is mountainous and not easily inhabitable.  Of course there is bound to be air pollution.  I can say that it's noticeable and I don't follow the rhetoric that it's all China's fault.  Recent studies show Korea has their own fair share of blame for it.  However, just like New Delhi when you have places packed with people it happens.

At least your list has been whittled down to 1.  I agree air pollution is worse in Korea than Western countries and slightly worse than Japan.  It's certainly something that needs to improve.  It doesn't affect me that adversely, but I'd imagine I'd be more annoyed with it if I lived in Seoul.

Japan's air is cleaner than Korea's. Many reasons for that. But the fact remains. Tokyo doesn't have emergency days where the air is so bad they make public transport free, because it doesn't get that bad.

OECD says S. Korea has worst air quality among its member states
http://m.yna.co.kr/mob2/en/contents_en.jsp?cid=AEN20180107002100320&site=0300000000&mobile

This must be fake news.


http://koreabizwire.com/seoul-mulls-removal-of-foul-smelling-street-septic-tanks/107347

They usually empty them out late at night under cover of darkness if I'm not mistaken.

South Korea is certainly nowhere near the top of the list for worst air pollution in the world: most foreign teachers notice it so much only because they come from some of the best countries in the world with respect to air quality.
   That said almost every source that I could find agrees that, on average, Japanese air is quite a bit less polluted than Korea's if for no other reason than it's further away from the atmospheric dumpster fire that is industrial China.
Source 1 27 vs 13 micrograms per cubic meter
Source 2  29 vs 13  micrograms per cubic meter
Source 3 53 vs 35 on the "pollution index"
Source 4 mostly orange (bad) vs mostly yellow/green (better) on WHO Global Ambient Air Pollution Map.

"Most/all of the pollution is from China" is nationalist Korean/Japanese bullshit. Some of it is, but most of it in Korea is from Korea. Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of Japanese polllution was from Korea, but they create a fair bit on their own. Korea has tons of coal burning power plants that cause most of the pollution, as well as under-regulated factories and a ton of under-regulated cars.
Woah. Baby, cool your jets! I didn't mean to insinuate that China is responsible for all the air plague that hovers over the Land of the Morning Calm!
   But as NASA's research has shown, it does contribute. If we just sorta deleted China, I feel that Korea's AQI would be a lot closer to Japan's.


A lot of people in the media talk complete BS about pollution. Korean newspapers say that it's the worst in the OECD or the worst in the world, which is kind of BS because South Korea is small and extremely dense, and they're comparing South Korea, all of which is polluted, to countries like India and China which have small areas of very bad pollution but also massive stretches of rural/barren land where there aren't enough people to create pollution.
Several of the sources I linked have taken that into account and use national averages: that is, data from multiple sources within each country and then averaged out.  Any densely populated country (including South Korea) is gonna get the short end of the stick, but it doesn't mean that the data is completely inaccurate: pick a few random spots on a map in india, average out their AQI, and the number will most likely still be higher than that of an average taken in South Korea.

As for the people saying it's not so bad, sure, it's not as bad as places like New Delhi or Beijing where a normal day would be like 300+, and a bad day is like 999. But almost everywhere in South Korea is really polluted, and it's such a small dense country that you can't really escape it. I used to live in a rural area and while the pollution wasn't quite as bad as in Seoul or Daegu, it was still really smoggy 95% of the time.

I'm sure that there are a few nice places, but unfortunately, in my personal experiences, springtime in Korea is pretty bad for air quality all over. 

I visited Jeju for the first time recently and I was shocked at how much I loved it.  I went for my summer vacation and everyone told me it would be crowded and everything is too expensive but it wasn't either of those things.

I was amazed at how you can leisurely drive around and stop at any nice beach you see.  Then maybe drive to a beautiful coffee shop/restaurant/gallery/museum that has its own huge garden and acres of space.  Waking up in the morning to the sound of....nothing.  Except the birds and bugs.  It was heaven! 

It has seriously made me consider swapping city life for the countryside.

I lived in Seogwipo on the southern coast of Jeju for 7 years and it was indeed quiet, clean and beautiful. The locals are not angry, grumpy, stressed out zombies like you see in big cities on the mainland. The 8+ million tourists per year gives a nice vibe in coffee shops, on streets and all around.

I moved to a 'gun' on the mainland last year, an hour from the nearest city, and while it's pretty clean, the vibe is at times... plodding.. a sense of rythmn but without a beat.

... a sense of rythmn but without a beat.

I like that.

One of my students back in ‘93 still had an outhouse with an open pit beneath it in their yard. This was in Nowon Gu. They tore down their house in ‘96 and built a more modern house with interior bathrooms.

I live in an area that had a lot of single unit houses until about ten years ago. Still a lot of private homes but I’d say about 80% have been torn down and replaced wth 4-5 story multiple unit villas over the last 10 years. So I’ve seen a lot of construction of these types of buildings. In this particular area 100% of them have a septic tank. There is a building going up soon close to here. I’ll try to get some pics and post em. Some with the mysterious honey truck.

Lifer, here by the way.

And while I don’t appreciate some of the more odiferous days in Seoul, there are definitely worse places to be, many of them in the US. Anywhere near a chicken or pig farm can be challenging on days when wind direction is disadvantaged. But the absolute worst was a paper mill in Georgia that was torture to even drive by, that is a terrible stench.

Here’s a pic of a tank prepared to go in at a construction site.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ewypzyvjgty3kza/IMG_6542.JPG?dl=0

One of my students back in ‘93 still had an outhouse with an open pit beneath it in their yard. This was in Nowon Gu. They tore down their house in ‘96 and built a more modern house with interior bathrooms.

I live in an area that had a lot of single unit houses until about ten years ago. Still a lot of private homes but I’d say about 80% have been torn down and replaced wth 4-5 story multiple unit villas over the last 10 years. So I’ve seen a lot of construction of these types of buildings. In this particular area 100% of them have a septic tank. There is a building going up soon close to here. I’ll try to get some pics and post em. Some with the mysterious honey truck.

Lifer, here by the way.

And while I don’t appreciate some of the more odiferous days in Seoul, there are definitely worse places to be, many of them in the US. Anywhere near a chicken or pig farm can be challenging on days when wind direction is disadvantaged. But the absolute worst was a paper mill in Georgia that was torture to even drive by, that is a terrible stench.

Here’s a pic of a tank prepared to go in at a construction site.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ewypzyvjgty3kza/IMG_6542.JPG?dl=0

One of my friend's grandfather lived in an apartment, in Busan way up in the hills near Busan Station, built in the 80's that still had a communal toilet area. The showers were in the living unit, but the toilets were assigned with each tenant given two keys, one to enter the toilet area, and another for the stall. The apartment overall, from what I can gather was mostly lower income. But it was nice enough. However, because of the bathroom situation I wouldn't want to live there.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4gdlhdlr4jq1n3q/IMG_6800.JPG?dl=0

Photo of trucks used to empty septic tanks

Does the [ i m g ] insert not work with dropbox links?

Japan's air is cleaner than Korea's. Many reasons for that. But the fact remains. Tokyo doesn't have emergency days where the air is so bad they make public transport free, because it doesn't get that bad.

OECD says S. Korea has worst air quality among its member states
http://m.yna.co.kr/mob2/en/contents_en.jsp?cid=AEN20180107002100320&site=0300000000&mobile

How many other OECD states are this close to China?  Tokyo is quite the distance away from China. 

Japan's air is cleaner than Korea's. Many reasons for that. But the fact remains. Tokyo doesn't have emergency days where the air is so bad they make public transport free, because it doesn't get that bad.

OECD says S. Korea has worst air quality among its member states
http://m.yna.co.kr/mob2/en/contents_en.jsp?cid=AEN20180107002100320&site=0300000000&mobile

How many other OECD states are this close to China?  Tokyo is quite the distance away from China.

Hint: It's not China's fault.

Yeah the air does blow over at this time of year.  When the winds shift direction in summer and at other times of the year, the pollution levels do drop quite a bit. 

How many other OECD states are this close to China?  Tokyo is quite the distance away from China.

Well, *technically*, Japan is pretty close to the same distance. The shortest distance between South Korea and China is about 200 km while the shortest distance between Japan and China is only about 300 km.

Yeah the air does blow over at this time of year.  When the winds shift direction in summer and at other times of the year, the pollution levels do drop quite a bit.

have you ever been outside?

How many other OECD states are this close to China?  Tokyo is quite the distance away from China.

Well, *technically*, Japan is pretty close to the same distance. The shortest distance between South Korea and China is about 200 km while the shortest distance between Japan and China is only about 300 km.

It's not the distance that matters but the typical wind patterns.
The same wind that carries the shit from China to here, doesn't go all the way to Japan, especially not to the Tokyo area.
Korea has very bad air quality only when the wind blows from the West. That's a fact.