The Well-Fed Bong

Last week I found myself in the land of the metal chopstick . I used to think of South Korea as Singapore-style city-state sandwiched between dimsum land and sushi heaven; it was somewhat of a surprise to discover a fairly big country stashed beneath the kimchi. The CIA (who tend to know these things) tells me that 48 million people live on the peninsula - global rank #25 in population, ahead of worthies such as Argentina or South Africa. Geographic size is somewhat less - flying one end of the country to the other isn't enough even for an episode of Friends. In one sense, though, the country is not unlike a city-state. Some 49% of the population is squashed into the Seoul Metropolitan Area – making it the second largest metropolitan area in the world (only Tokyo is bigger). Its metro system is only marginally smaller than Mumbai's suburban rail – daily carrying Singapore's entire adult population a couple of times over. By all accounts, it a gargantuan urban mass. Se...