My annual spring visit to South Korea ended just as the rainy season in Seoul began. As in previous years, the visit was full of long walks and reunions with friends. On this visit, my seventh book in Korean, titled “The Spread of Writing Systems,” came out and received a warm welcome from the domestic media.
Amid the whirlwind of activity on my trips, I always take note of changes since my past visit, and one usually stands out. This time, I noticed an interesting change in the routine announcements on the Seoul subway. An announcement asking people to speak quietly has been added to the announcement cycle of preferred behavior, such as waiting in line to board and not boarding until people getting off have done so.
I didn’t think about the announcement much until after a trip to Busan early in this visit. On the KTX back to Seoul, I was surprised to see the conductor ask three adults to lower their voices. They weren’t speaking loudly and didn’t seem to be bothering anyone. The car was quiet because most people were traveling alone, but there were murmurs of other conversations.
When I described the situation to a Korean friend later, he said that someone must have reported the conversation and that the conductor was responding to that report. That’s a logical explanation, but I kept wondering how an ordinary conversation could be interpreted as bothersome. After all, people traveling together have the right to talk just as other passengers have the right not to be disturbed by noise.
On a subway ride the next day, I took more serious note of the please-be-quiet announcement. From then on, I started paying closer attention to the noise in the subway and found it to be consistently low. Occasionally, someone would speak loudly, but that was most common during cell phone conversations. A few times, young people who were completing a night out spoke loudly, but it was rarely sustained throughout the conversation. The overwhelming majority of subway riders spent their time looking at their cell phones quietly.
The COVID-19 pandemic has left many marks on South Korea and elsewhere. For Seoul subway culture, it drew a clear line between a time when cell phone conversations were frequent and sometimes loud and the present. For about three years, masks were required and conversations prohibited on the subway; beverages were also banned. By the time the pandemic had ended, people were used to spending their time looking at cell phones quietly and turning to messaging in place of conversation. This behavior during the pandemic also helps explain why conversations on the KTX are quieter than before.
All of this raises the interesting question of why noise levels on public transportation in South Korea have become, in the eyes of transportation providers, a behavior that needs commenting on. Two possible reasons come to mind.
The first is that there are complaints from other passengers about noise levels. As my friend noted, this is the most likely reason why the conductor asked people to be quiet during my trip back from Busan. Similarly, the Seoul Metro could have received complaints over the years and decided to address them by adding an announcement. That frees Seoul Metro to say that it addressed the issue.
The second, less likely reason is that someone in the transportation bureaucracy decided that quiet public transportation is exemplary “advanced-country” behavior worthy of promotion through public announcements.
The problem with the new campaign for quiet is that the announcements focus on the subjective gray area of personal behavior. Who defines what is an acceptable level of noise? A tired commuter who is sensitive to noise on one afternoon might easily become the person who needs to take an urgent call the next. To some people, the sound of children is heartwarming, while others rank it as a major nuisance.
The larger question, of course, is what role public authorities should play in regulating personal behavior. South Korea has a long tradition of government regulation of behavior in the name of the public good. It was heaviest during the years of military dictatorship but held on long after democratization in 1987.
Viewed in this context, the new announcements imploring quiet on public transportation are anachronistic and out of step with the vibrant democracy that defines South Korea today. I hope not to hear them on my visit next year.