Leftover hours, and a space the writer had never known

Korean teenagers, the essay says, usually spend leftover time in a PC room or a karaoke room, shopping or eating with friends, or at home on a phone or a game. Adolescence in Korea is a busy stretch of study and of competing with one another, so most teenagers have little room, in time or in spirit. The writer, as a teenager, thought there was nothing else to do, and always spent spare hours in the same activities with the same friends. A wish to try something different was there, but there was no time or ease of mind to go looking for an unusual activity or experience.

Only recently, coming by chance on the phrase “youth culture zone” and looking up what it meant, did the writer realize that play spaces meant only for teenagers already existed, and feel a regret: “I never went, not once, but if I had known earlier I would have gone often.” The essay therefore sets out to look at youth culture zones run by Seoul, or by metropolitan cities and districts across the country, and at what they mean.

A youth culture zone, as the essay cites it, is a playground-style space for experience, run by each local government under the Youth Activity Promotion Act and the National Youth Commission’s plan for creating and operating such zones. It is a project that offers cultural programs so that teenagers may enjoy healthier leisure, and each area is said to offer leisure and activities that use the character of the place. They are held so that, in the hours after school, teenagers can take part easily in cultural enjoyment, cultural feeling, and cultural making, and so that, in a plaza of their own, they can form various cultural performances and a market, make various things to try, and build a cultural complex of their own.

Why Bupyeong Culture Street is held on an ordinary road

The case the writer chooses is the youth culture zone held on Bupyeong Culture Street in Incheon’s Bupyeong-gu. The reason is that, unlike other zones, it is held on an ordinary road, so that anyone can take part. Among teenagers, the essay says, far more simply do not know that such activities exist than have no interest in them. By making the zone on an ordinary street, Incheon’s Bupyeong, in the writer’s view, meets that weakness relatively well.

The writer has never, while walking, seen a banner with the words “For youth! By youth! A culture zone of youth!” If that space had been known in adolescence, leftover time could have been spent more enjoyably and with more point. Bupyeong Culture Street, in a photograph the essay describes, has no separate entrance and no special barrier. By laying the zone out on a street and a plaza that people already walk, under the name Bupyeong Culture Street, it makes a setting in which anyone can drop in and take part.

As it held the zone, Bupyeong-gu, the essay records, put out this aim as well as publicity: “Recently teenagers’ daily pattern has come to depend on mobile phones and computers, and a play culture enjoyed outdoors is disappearing.” “If this youth culture continues, it is a serious social problem, so teenagers themselves should plan programs, and link contents from various fields of school-club activity with the youth-culture-zone project.”

Dance in the plaza, and who is meant to lead

Spending leftover time only on a phone or a computer is, the writer thinks, truly empty and a waste. In that time, taking part in a youth culture zone, trying unusual activities, and growing cultural feeling and capacity is, they say, obviously more enjoyable and more useful.

A photograph in the essay shows teenagers in teams, coming out in turn and dancing to music. Because the event is held in the middle of the plaza on Bupyeong Culture Street, not only teenagers but ordinary people and citizens passing by can enjoy and watch the festival as well, which the writer thinks is a real good. The teams in the photograph may belong to a dance-performance club at school, or may simply be friends who have come out together.

That is, a youth culture zone is a space in which any teenager who wishes to take part may do so, and in which teenagers themselves are the ones who lead, and can go and play with enjoyment. The same Korean essay, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. A student essay on leftover hours in a PC room, a karaoke room, or on a phone, and on first coming by chance on the phrase “youth culture zone.”
2. The Youth Activity Promotion Act and the National Youth Commission’s plan, as the essay cites them, and the open street of Bupyeong Culture Street in Incheon’s Bupyeong-gu.
3. Bupyeong-gu’s stated aim about phones, computers, and a disappearing outdoor play culture; and a photograph of teams dancing in the plaza.

Last updated: 14 November 2026