The troubles for the Kim Kit-jung family started with a heavy rain.
That day, they stayed in a luxury villa until late, and it was late when they came back. The rain was like splashing water with a ladle, and the whole ladle was poured out uncontrollably. It was like a waterfall, so they had to wade through the rain. go home.
At the beginning, no one noticed that something was wrong, and it was not until he turned into that alley that he realized that the home was not much better than the outside.
The Keating family lived in a semi-basement. As the name suggests, it was a house that was half on the ground and half buried in the ground. There was only one small window, and only half of it was exposed. The height was almost the same as the outdoor ground.
The window was not closed before leaving, and the rainwater mixed with the excrement and urine poured from the sewer. In addition, the toilet retorted and the black water splashed. Even the lid could not be closed.
This is the most memorable scene in the movie [Parasite] for me.
The art director, Li Hajun, built the semi-basement where the Kim family of four lived, using real scenes and wooden boards, with mottled and yellowed tiles, crumbling doors and windows, and a moldy bathroom with cockroaches curled up.
It's strange, obviously the film can't make the smell.
But when everyone was running away, except Kitting sitting on a toilet that kept gush of black water and lighting a cigarette, I could smell it solidly.
Then, in less than a second of footage, she sneered, as if to say: Destroy it, it can't be washed away anyway, the smell of rags, the smell of subway cars, the smell of poor people who don't see the sun .
Semi-basement housing originated in South Korea in the 1970s.
It is written in Korean as "반지하", which was originally used to take refuge and seek self-preservation during North Korea's surprise attack. Later, it gradually developed into an architectural feature that is different from Japan and Taiwan, or it can be said to be a profitable rental space.
South Korea is located in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula in Northeast Asia. It is surrounded by sea on three sides. The terrain is high in the north and low in the south, high in the east and low in the west, and two-thirds of it is mountainous.
Dr. Chen Kyung-deok of Seoul National University wrote in the "United Daily News":
I have always been curious, why there are so many basements in Korea? The simplest explanation is that from an economic point of view, real estate developers must of course make the most of all available land in Seoul, where land is expensive.
Indeed, since it is a mountainous area, it is understandable to dig a little deeper when building the house and transform the first floor below into a semi-basement.
South Korean MBC reporter Lee Yong-ma also mentioned in the chapter "Seoul's Banok Village" in "I Believe the World Can Change": " It was 1987, the highest building in Jeonju was the fifth floor, and it was extremely rare. . If you can create a semi-basement, you can earn higher rents. ”
That is why in most Korean film and television works, the rich live on the hillside.
For example [Parasite] , the son of the Jin family is tutoring a wealthy girl who lives in a garden villa, and every time he goes there, he has to walk a long uphill road.
Another example is [Burning] , a rich family who drives a Porsche lives in a high-end apartment on a hillside, " It's not like someone who does things, always sees people, makes phone calls, and doesn't know what to do, anyway, he is a rich, mysterious young man. "
In contrast, the poor all live at the foot of the mountain, that is, in the basement.
According to Chen Qingde's article published in the "United Daily News", "The current form of rental housing for Koreans is divided into tower houses, lower dormitories, examination houses, suites, full leases and apartment villages. In addition to tower houses, Either way, there are quite a few semi-basement rooms. ”
And the conditions of the tower room and the semi-basement are only half a tad.
Most of the Chinese people's understanding of this type of housing comes from the Korean drama "The Prince of the Tower House" starring Park Yoochun , but its real living conditions are thousands of miles away from those in the play.
The so-called tower house is actually a rooftop house. The rent is low, but it is cold in winter and hot in summer, so the landlord has to pay high air-conditioning and heating costs. So most people would rather set up tents and sleep in warm blankets in their rooms in order to save money.
In South Korea, the temperature in winter is as low as minus ten degrees, which shows the bitterness.
Last year's "This Life is the First Time" , the heroine's best friend Hao Lang has been renting in a tower room with her boyfriend because she can't afford a house.
"Why is Secretary Jin like that" , the noble man looks like a man on the surface, but in fact, in order to save money to buy a house, he is not willing to eat even a meal. A suit is new for three years, old for three years, and sewing for another three years, and was finally discovered by colleagues He lives in a tower house and grows a small tomato to save money on meals.
Relatively speaking, the rent of a semi-basement will be cheaper, but at the same time, the disadvantages are more obvious.
For example, the examination house is specially prepared for candidates who take the administrative examination, the foreign affairs examination and the judicial examination, and it can be regarded as a "review space".
The semi-basement here is generally about 22 square meters, with a bed, a set of desks and chairs, small windows but low light transmittance, and the monthly rent is about 450,000 won or more, equivalent to about 2,600 yuan.
Many Korean candidates complained, saying, "The exam house is not a place where people live at all. It is so narrow that it is difficult to stretch out the legs, and the sound insulation is also poor ."
The dormitory is also prepared for students, but it is more spacious than the examination hall, and includes all utilities, Wi-Fi, furniture, and bedding. Breakfast and dinner are also provided.
The protagonists of "Reply 1994" live in this kind of house. The real location is called "Xincun Xiaju", but it has been beautified a lot in the play.
A real estate agent in Xincun complained after watching the show, " There is no such place, a two-story garden detached house with a very large courtyard, and only 5 rooms, and the food is quite good. Abundant, after calculating the cost, the landlord is doing charity work at all! ”
The reality is that most people live in the semi-basement of the next dormitory. Each room is close to 30 square meters. There is no private bathroom, and the room type is relatively old. There is a high probability that you will encounter the kind of boy who does not lift the toilet lid when going to the toilet.
As for the food, because the landlord is all-inclusive, the dishes are actually the same every day, and the occasional meat is a miracle.
The monthly rent is cheaper than that of the exam house, more than 350,000 yuan, equivalent to 2,200 yuan, but the premise is that it starts in 3 months, and a deposit of 3 million (about 17,000 yuan) must be paid first, which is similar to betting one and paying three.
The disadvantage is the same as that of the examination hall. The ventilation is poor, and the sunlight cannot come in. If you don't check the time frequently, you often don't know whether it is day or night outside.
As for suites, full leases, and apartment villages, they are all similar, somewhat similar to a certain home and a certain community in my country.
The difference is that there are many semi-basements in this kind of house, and they are all partitioned and divided into several rooms for sale. The space is slightly larger than that of the examination hall and the lower house, and the rent is also less. Of course, there are more shortcomings, which are even unbearable.
In "I Believe the World Can Change", the author writes:
After I went to college, my brother and sister and I found a semi-underground rental house in the Bongcheon-dong, a ten-minute drive from Seoul National University. At that time, there were quite a lot of semi-underground houses. When I was at home, I could hear the footsteps of pedestrians, and even the quilts became wet. Later, the building law stipulated that semi-underground houses could no longer be built in the frequently flooded areas of Seoul, but there are still many of them today.
So in the movie [Parasite], the four Jin family can often hear the rumbling of motorcycles and noisy footsteps, and some people urinate on the telephone poles outside their windows, because they are too close, they can always spray them dining table.
"씨네21" magazine also conducted a survey and found that South Korea's municipal construction is more inclined to the rich, because the hillsides where the rich live have excellent drainage, while the apartment villages where the commoners live have very low drainage.
That is why in [Parasite], a mere rain can bring the four Jin family back to their original shape, who have found decent jobs and received enough salary.
That's right, you think you're carrying a bag that others can't match, wearing a global limited edition running shoes, keeping your back straight when you cut a steak, and drinking red wine without leaving a lipstick mark on the mouth of the glass, you've got rid of the identity of the poor ?
Far from it.
The real rich will not flee in a hurry on a rainy night, but will just lie on the sofa and watch the rain outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, thinking it is a precursor to a sunny party.
Therefore, in the movie, Feng Junhao took only one rainy night to capture the difference between a semi-basement and a garden villa.
What other kind of person can endure such a basement, eat and sleep with cockroaches and mice, and can only see the lower body of passers-by all their lives?
poor.
This is not the first time Bong Joon-ho has expressed a class gap. As early as his debut film [Kidnapping the Door Dog] , there was already a scene of living in the basement.
Similar to "Please Answer 1988" , the heroine Deshan's family lives in the semi-underground, which is equivalent to the garage of Gouhuan's house.
Once, Deshan's younger brother, Yu Hui, was invited by his parents to hold a "one-day cafe" at the school in order to earn extra money. After the father found out, he was not sad, but he understood the reason why his son did it. But when he heard his classmates call Yu Hui "half underground", he suddenly became sad.
They are ridiculed for living semi-underground. Such people are classified as the " housing poor " in South Korea. There are nearly 500,000 people, accounting for 20% of the youth population.
And these residents are not only limited to ordinary office workers, but also the lead singer of the Jannabi group Choi Jung-hoon, who has received a good response recently, Choi Min-hwan of the FTLsland band, and Kim Yul-hee, a member of the girl group LABOUM.
On stage, Cui Zhengxun is a passionate musician, but offstage, he is a wandering singer who has lived in the semi-basement for five years, uses a flip phone, and has been borrowing the gym next door to go to the toilet.
It wasn't until Choi Min-hwan took his wife Kim Lu-hee to the reality show "Man Doing Housework" that the audience knew that they also lived in the semi-basement, the room was full of furniture, and there was a 6-month-old baby lying there.
Because of this, Chen Qingde wrote ironically in "Korean Rental Housing Culture", " Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon once claimed to be the first welfare mayor and advocated the policy of 'Seoul should be affordable for all'. So far, social housing has If it is expanded to about 230,000 households, shouldn’t it be all semi-underground? ”
And according to local reports, the housing prices of condominiums in South Korea are on the rise year by year, especially in the prosperous Gangnam and Gangdong districts of Seoul, with the highest increases of 0.08% and 0.1% respectively.
If things go on like this, will no one even be able to afford to live in the semi-underground?
What's even more desperate is that, looking around, it's not just Koreans who can't afford housing.
There is a kind of cage house in Hong Kong, China , which is a bed surrounded by barbed wire, also called a pigeon cage, so separated, 58 square meters of space can fit 19 people.
The smell of smoke, sweat and instant noodles is mixed. To avoid lice, you can't sleep on a mattress, you can only use bamboo mats and canvas. There is no cooking equipment, and there is only a bucket for laundry. The space is dark and oppressive, and everyone bows and knees.
There is also a kind of " subdivided house ", "劏" is Cantonese, which means to cut open, and is often used for slaughtering animals. "Subdivided house" is to divide ordinary houses into several independent small spaces for rent. The per capita living area is only 5.7 square meters, which is similar to Hong Kong. Correctional Services Department prisons are similar in size, and some are even smaller.
In [Ignorance of One Mind] , after A Dong, played by Shawn Yue, was discharged from the hospital, he lived in a separate room rented by his father, Zeng Zhiwei. Basically, as soon as he entered the door, he was the bed, and he could only take about two steps from the bed to the wall.
The environment was cramped, depressing, and breathless. Over time, Adong, who suffered from bipolar disorder, began to slump on the bed and refused to go down. Neighbors said that his heart became the same as this one, and there was no room.
In Beijing, it is said that there are people living under the manhole covers.
Europa wrote in a film review for [Parasite] that on the day of the severe rainstorm in Beijing in 2012, homeless people living under the overpass were drowned by the ponding water, and many residents " found that many people who usually watched the community were popping up. For those who are not seen, there are also some strange sheets to hang out ."
It turned out that there were literally millions of people living in the basement.
It was very much like [Parasite] that rainy night, when the poor poured out of the basement that had been flooded, the cart on the cart, the splash on the water, and after finding that it was in vain, they didn't care about anything, and hurriedly took some necessities and fled in a hurry.
But that kind of looking like a poor man is clearly a cockroach.
Well, it's all about the same thing.
-
Author/Aunt Liu
This article was first published on the WeChat public account [Broken Word]
References: [1] "I Believe the World Can Change - A Mirror Provided by a Korean MBC Reporter", Lee Yong-ma, 2018.06.29 [2] Living on the ground is very different. Korean drama teaches you to distinguish rich people in one second, Weng Shenghui, 2016.02.14[3] Unveiling the behind-the-scenes space aesthetics of "Parasite High"! The poetic time of the rich and the modern mansion versus the poor half-basement, Yonhap News Agency, 2019.07.08[4] Half-basement, NING, 2010.04.03[5] Korean Rental Housing Culture - People Living in Basements, Chen Qingde, 2015.08.13[ 6] 반지하, 나무위키, 2019.08.01[7] [There are dwellings everywhere] Korea Hell Examination Institute, Guan Minglin, 2016.04.24[8] «Parasite», le triomphe mérité d'un cinéaste iconoclaste, Stéphane du Mesnildot, "CAHIERS" CINEMA, 2019.05
View more about Parasite reviews
