Treating Changsin-dong's narrow stairs and small plots as nostalgic “old Seoul” scenery hides how they were formed. After the Korean War, displaced families and people arriving in search of work settled on hillsides close to the city center. As scarce land was subdivided, one-room dwellings and narrow passages multiplied.
Home and workplace had to remain close
For people working around Pyeonghwa Market and Dongdaemun, Changsin-dong was near enough to reach on foot or transport goods quickly. Some placed sewing machines inside the home, while other buildings held a workshop downstairs and living quarters above. Production and domestic life overlapped within one structure.
A jjokbang is more than its dimensions
Jjokbang—extremely small, low-cost rooms, often with shared facilities—offered central access at the cost of weak ventilation, sanitation, and fire safety. Neighbors, markets, religious groups, and welfare organizations also supported daily life. Poverty should not be romanticized, but residents should not be defined only by deprivation.
Walking an alley is not permission to observe residents
Laundry, open doors, and delivered parcels are private life, not photographic subjects. Even on a public lane, do not point a camera into a home, and yield on stairs to residents and delivery workers. Reading neighborhood history is different from treating current life as spectacle.