The fictitious Seoul neighbourhood depicted in the hit South Korean film Parasite has plenty in common with the city’s real Changsin neighbourhood, where, just like in the movie, the narrow streets are lined with dilapidated commercial and residential buildings. Changsin is a world away from the ritz of Gangnam in the city’s south, and is one of the capital’s poorer areas. Parasite , which this week became the first South Korean movie to win a Golden Globe award for best foreign language film, is at its core a tale of South Korea’s hardening social divide. It takes place partly in a down-at-heel neighbourhood and partly in an upscale area, telling a story of two families – one rich, one poor – that coexist in uneasy, mutual dependence. Its Golden Globe victory was the latest in a long string of successes for the film, which also won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and brought in more than US$73 million in the South Korean box office. Bong Joon-ho’s film details two divided but interdependent social classes through the stories of the Kim family, whose only way to earn a decent wage is to finagle their way into jobs working for the Parks, and the Parks, who must employ a squad of servants to maintain their opulent lifestyle. Its popularity comes at a time when inequality is a hot topic in South Korea and the government is attempting to boost the country’s waning middle class. In South Korea, resentment of refugees from the North The movie’s main plot begins to unfurl when Ki-woo, the son of the Kim family, scores a gig tutoring the daughter of the wealthy Park family. Once Ki-woo gains access to the Park’s airy Seoul mansion, which couldn’t be more different from his family’s mouldy semi-underground home, he figures out ways to get his sister, father and mother jobs working for the Parks. It’s a storyline that has struck a chord with the many South Korean families frustrated by the high cost of raising and educating children, and the lack of job prospects many young people have upon graduation, with the exception of the country’s ritzy elite, as represented by the Parks. “ Parasite resonates with many Koreans not just because of the declining rate of social mobility here but also by mixing the everyday with unexpected quirks, something that Bong has specialised in all of his works,” said Nemo Kim, a film critic and professor at Soon Chun Hyang University in Seoul. A key device the director uses to illustrate the Kim family’s plight is their residence in a semi-underground apartment. Such dwellings are among the least desirable homes in South Korea, as they tend to get hardly any sunlight, be poorly ventilated and vulnerable to flooding during the country’s summer monsoon season. Bong used the family’s home to illustrate the Kims’ social position – they’re stuck at the bottom, but can still see the light of prosperity. “When it rains, someone who is poor might have to suffer because their house gets flooded, while people in a rich household might remark on how because of the rain there’s now no air pollution. The same events affect them differently. That’s the image of polarisation,” said Kang Yoo-jung, a film critic and professor at Kangnam University. Mum’s the word: in South Korea, militant mothers are mobilising online With polarisation in mind, the government of President Moon Jae-in has made easing inequality and spurring broad-based economic growth a key policy priority. To that end, his administration has enacted significant increases to the minimum wage with the hope that higher wages will boost consumption. His administration has also pledged financial aid for small and medium enterprises in an effort to spur hiring and help smaller companies compete with the corporate conglomerates that dominate the South Korean economy. South Korea’s conservative opposition has criticised the Moon administration’s approach as ineffective, pointing to the country’s stubborn low growth and lack of improvement in job figures. The most recent unemployment data show three consecutive months of worsening conditions. There is little reason for optimism, with the International Monetary Fund writing in October that “the near-term outlook points to continued slowdown of regional growth.” Choi Pae-kun, a professor of economics at Konkuk University in Seoul, argues that to spur lasting economic growth, and create opportunities for the working class, the government should work to bring jobs back to the manufacturing sector. In South Korea’s monotone music industry, rap duo dares to be different To some observers, Bong’s film sent the message that the poor are stuck where they are and that there is little they can do to move up the ladder. In one of the many jitter-inducing scenes in Parasite , the Kims almost get found out when Da-song, the energetic son of the Park family, remarks that two of them – who are pretending they aren’t family – smell the same. In the subsequent scene, one of the Kims remarks ruefully that the boy had noticed their “semi-underground smell”, implying that they carry the scent of their home with them wherever they go, and that their poverty isn’t something they can cover up. “I don’t think Parasite makes any pretence that social mobility is a possibility,” said Im Seo-hee, an assistant professor of English at Hanyang University, adding that the film “suggests that the poor are poor for a reason; they make bad plans”. “The film’s comedy laughs not with the poor but at the poor, the way the poor get immediately lax and disorganised as soon as the owners leave the house, the way they fight each other when they should be working together,” Im said. Changsin is in the Seoul district with the city’s highest portion of semi-underground dwellings. While maintaining potent symbolic value, such units are not common in South Korea, accounting for two per cent of all unit types nationwide, according to government data. Semi-underground units nevertheless account for 80 to 90 per cent of all residential floodings and in a late scene in Parasite the Kims scramble to save their meagre belongings as their home fills chest-high with rainwater during a storm. The scene comes as the Kims’ elaborate scamming of the Parks is coming undone. On a rainy afternoon in Changsin, during an unseasonably warm January, motorcycles buzzed along the narrow streets, transporting textiles between factories. The area has a couple of smart coffee shops, but otherwise has resisted gentrification. A middle-aged woman surnamed Park, who has worked sewing garments in the area for more than 20 years, said the neighbourhood had seen no noteworthy changes in recent years. “The higher minimum wage is helpful for people who have that kind of job, but a lot of the factories here pay by the month and people there don’t get extra money for overtime,” she said. She had seen the news of Parasite’s Golden Globe victory on the news, but hadn’t seen the movie yet. “I’ll try to watch it when it comes on TV,” she said. “I have no time to go to the movies.”