COVID19 Impact: Social and Cultural Jeff Kim

1. Environmental

1.1. With reduced human activities, nature also has been recovering itself, healing the parts damaged by pollution and continued industrialization.

1.2. Normally around late March and the entirety of April, Korea goes through a season called the "Yellow Dust" season, as micro-dusts fly over from Chinese factories over to Korea. However, since factories are reducing their operating scale ever since COVID19 started spreading, Korea's sky has been very clear and the air quality has been great.

2. Dichotomy

2.1. While the rest of the world's COVID19 situation has been getting worse, South Korea managed to control the situation surprisingly well, as the daily new cases increment reduced to 5-11 per day.

2.2. However, with this information, an eventual dichotomy between Koreans has been taking shape as some thinks the social distancing should stop now whereas some thinks it should still go on.

2.3. Having the fact that South Korea has a lot of cities with over concentrated population in mind, the majority of citizens are quite not comfortable with the fact that some people are considering stopping social distancing themselves. Night clubs and bars have been opening up again here and there, gradually increasing the risk of creating a second wave of COVID19 spread.

2.3.1. Not to mention that since I live in an area with a lot of bars and night life related businesses, it's scary to see people without masks, drinking, eating, and throwing up in alley ways.

3. Funeral

3.1. Due to the recent spread of COVID19 all over the world, funerals have been at many times delayed and sped up for public health concerns.

3.2. I've been to a funeral recently in Korea and while its been the tradition where the family of the deceased would provide food and drinks to accompany the deceased's way to heaven, there has been restrictions on how many people could visit in total during the funeral as well as a ban on serving food or beverages.

4. Socializing

4.1. Though many businesses are still open amidst the chaotic COVID19 crisis, with the 6 feet social distancing, people are having hard times even meeting indoors, which imposes hard times maintaining relationships between friends and families.

4.2. The most popular way Koreans spend their leisure time is to go to karaokes and gaming cafes, wherein all of these facilities and businesses were forced to halt their services.

4.3. Now that indoor leisure businesses are not functioning, many Koreans started to head outdoors and hiking became a trend. Since Korea has a lot of mountains and hilly areas, it was a bit strange to see how people who used to prefer spending time indoors are now catching on the habit of heading outdoors.

4.3.1. People who've had enough of this social distancing and quarantining situation are now endeavoring into the idea of going on vacations domestically. Apparently, according to the national news, a lot of the popular hotels in Korea are out of rooms as everyone has been making reservations for vacation.