Incheon, Korea
I researched a trip to a park by the North Korea border a few moments ago.
The 1 hour 40 minute bus ride from here in Incheon costs $1.50 USD.
That is not a typo.
Kelli and I rode the subway for 90 minutes last week.
We paid a little over $1.50 USD per person.
The subway system is immaculately clean, highly technologically advanced and must be one of the best in the world. Paying $1.50 for 90 minutes on a brilliant system seems like madness to a guy who grew up in New Jersey and paid different rates for a….ummm…..”different” subway experience in NYC and different train experience in New Jersey.
I deeply appreciate my experiences in the USA. The NYC subway did its job. Paying 3 bucks or so to get around the city worked for me. No complaints.
However, being a digital nomad opens all of our minds to the fact that each seemingly separate culture is literally a collective mindset.
What feeds the collective mindset?
Values.
Plus, by learning about the world, you may just travel to Korea to enjoy paying $1.50 for 90 minutes on a world class subway system to see how the other side lives as far as subterranean train travel (Note; like a freaking boss, they live).
Values, Traveling, Culture and Digital Nomadism
As a digital nomad, I love reporting on how people think and live around the world.
I enjoy sharing my experiences for digital nomads and non-travelers alike to expand their minds.
Sharing the price of a subway here in Incheon, Korea compared to NYC and mentioning the condition of both subways reveals what citizens of each city collectively value.
The NYC subway is not an outright shithole and the Incheon subway is not the pathway to heaven.
The world, my friends, is not utopia.
But spotting what citizens in cities and countries value fascinates the heck out of me because it proves how all unfolds in the mind.
Practical Example
People in this part of Korea deeply value:
- immaculate surroundings
- technologically advanced public transport
- highly inexpensive public transport
Collective mindset reflected practically as government funding, planning and execution make for a first class subway experience that costs almost nothing.
People who do not travel may have never known this; but the digital nomad at Blogging From Paradise reveals these truths to open their mind.
Imagine being a NYC citizen reading these words on the NYC subway. Sure your $3.50 Metro card ride gets ya around the city. Practically-speaking, it does what it has to do for you to get from point A to point B. Most subways are on time. But a light bulb probably goes off in your mind the moment you spot less than immaculate surroundings both in the cars and stations, in addition to the…perhaps….more colorful characters who call the subway their home.
In truth and compassion, some individuals who experience mental illness camp out in subway stations. But even that decision by these folks, combined with the collective decision of NYC society, from its citizens, to government officials, makes for the sometimes exciting culture that is riding the NYC subway system.
It’s not anybody’s fault.
It’s just what folks there collectively value.
I can almost eat off of the floor of an Incheon subway, or, subway station. Everything I have seen here, from sidewalks to subways, stations to bathroom stalls, has been spit-shine clean of the immaculate order. People in Incheon deeply value keeping the city clean; and it is so, through government, planning, workers and private citizens almost never tossing trash on the street. I have seen 3 cigarette butts after walking the streets here for 2 weeks. I am not kidding.
NYC collective thinking-culture does not value immaculate surroundings; it is no one’s fault, but everyone’s collective mindset, converging, to create that culture. I would only eat off of a NYC subway car floor or subway platform if I wished to commit suicide.
Note; I am not saying one is good, the other bad. Being a digital nomad peels open your mind to reveal that people think one way, in one spot, and things BE that way there. Ditto for every location I have ever visited on my 12 year around the world tour.
Never buy the horseshit ego excuse that people are victims and some outside force makes culture a certain way. That insane logic smells as fishy as the outdoor market here in Korea or as urine-splashed as a heater in the NYC subway system during the dead of winter.
Why Does It Seem So Hard to Change Culture?
Being exposed to dozens of clearly distinct cultures over the prior 12 years of globe-trotting, my digital nomad noggin’ realizes how changing culture appears to be hard.
The reason?
Thinking seems exhausting in a sleepy-minded world.
Changing collective consciousness among millions of minds seems almost impossible because influencing that many minds to change values – sometimes radically – takes some serious mental mojo, to reflect accurately how the value will change lives for the better.
Factor in the past-focused “it’s always been that way, it’s what I’m used to, it’s what I’m comfortable with” level of thinking common to humanity and you seem to have a Herculean task to change thinking, values and culture at a level of scale.
For a practical example, imagine telling a NYC resident how the way to get $1.50 subway rides on an impossibly clean, technologically-advanced subway, traversing through spit-shine clean stations, running with military efficiency, means devoting more government funding (aka what people pay out of their income yearly) to subways / public transport and less to what each currently values.
Outrage!
That is one reason why sewer rats retch on the 3rd rail and climb into the sewer as the penthouse alternative rather than be exposed to the average NYC subway platform.
NYC subways can be as clean as Incheon’s but the value-shift ain’t happened, yet.
On the flip side, even though the weather here has been quite nice so far, air pollution is an issue in this region of Korea. Valuing aggressive economic growth culturally creates hazy or smoggy days sometimes as a reflection of that value.
Why I Love Being a Digital Nomad
People who do not travel sometimes follow my blog.
I love being a digital nomad to help non-travelers to challenge their thinking and to perhaps change their values to improve the quality of their lives.
How?
I share my experiences to give you guys mind-opening facts about the spots where I travel.
I paid $8 USD for a 40 minute bus ride from NJ to NYC before becoming a full time digital nomad. Here I pay $1.50 USD for a 90 minute bus ride from Incheon to the border with North Korea.
That opens my mind and it also opens the minds of those who live in NJ and will likely never travel to Korea.
Or, you may travel to Korea after you realize that traveling is not expensive if you know how to travel.
Blogging From Paradise can be a:
“Wow; I never knew that?!”
type of resource for non-travelers who become digital nomads or who value their home country, home state and home city in a different light after learning what the world really has to offer.
For example, many US citizens highly value national security and seed government funding which sometimes disappears in the trillions of dollars. Where’d it go? HA!
Potentially, you may value national security a tiny bit less, the loss funding more, and $1.50 subway rides on a world class system more the next time you consider US culture and quality of life.
Refrain from comparisons folks.
Simply awaken your mind and open it up a bit to appreciate that I want to be a traveling guinea pig who reveals that every nation can be far better than what it is when we learn to share, to collaborate and to be transparent.
No Utopia Exists in the World
Switching up cultural values, NYC’ers are expressive, engaging and truthful to a fault. What you see is what you get. Guess work in communicating with someone from NYC or my native, Northern New Jersey is not required. Plus, even amid some rare crotchety folk here and there, NYC folks are helpful, kind and really do have a big heart.
Korea has far and away the highest suicide rate of developed countries in the world. Repression is a cultural norm. Koreans are really nice but digging down beneath the outer shell proves tough because emotional expression or frank discussions are not a thing, here. People are more closed off and private.
Again guys; this is not good or bad, right or wrong or a comparison.
I share to demonstrate how collective thinking creates values and culture.
This mind-opening aspect of being a digital nomad has helped me and I hope to help expand your awareness by sharing my travel experiences with you, fellow digital nomads and home bodies, alike.
