As an international student studying in the states, there is nothing more pleasant than packing my room in June, excited for a long summer vacation heading home, Seoul, South Korea. When the day comes, I am unable to go to sleep excited to get on the plane and head out, I toss and turn on my bed all night. After enduring a tiring 13 hour-long flight from Boston to Incheon International Airport, my friends and I are welcomed by our families and it is at this very moment that I realize I’m back at home. I see thousands of people in the airport heading out or arriving from somewhere that I have never been to. In the airport, I hear myself speaking in my native tongue. I can touch the familiar worn-down seat of my mother’s car. As I open the car window I inhale deeply into the bottom of my lung and I realize something is not right. It is just not right. I can smell the unnatural scents of fumes filled Seoul atmosphere and I can taste that heaviness of brown stuffy air filled with fine dust particles. It makes me frown as I roll up the window. Although Seoul is my home I sense that its air quality is getting worse and worse every time I come home every six months or so.
Every year, the beautified image of Seoul that has been created by my longing for home is disillusioned by the polluted air. Seoul has always been a perfect city for me. It is where I grew up. It is where all my childhood memories rest, but at the same time, since the 2000s, Seoul has been one of the most air polluted cities in the world. It is statistically more polluted than New York City. Every year, I see more and more people including myself wearing masks in Seoul even before COVID-19 Pandemic. It directly juxtaposes with the Greater Boston Area where air quality is far more manageable and breathable. I read one day that the air pollution that we see today is the result of carbon activities accumulated from years ago, as planet earth increases its use of carbon based fossil fuels, it is inevitable that we are heading in the wrong direction at a very rapid pace. Although I am not an environmentalist who concerns all the environmental related issues around me, I wish to at least breathe freely without any concerns. I believe it is time for us to stop what we are doing for a moment and look squarely at the current status. Only collective actions can turn the tide.
