My wife has become interested in all things Korean, so we've traveled to South Korea each of the last two years. Perhaps the main thing that has struck me about the country is the cafes. They are great (good food, good design, good atmosphere, good coffee), but also interesting. They suggest something about the culture, and raise questions about how to live. Korean Air even has a playlist called "Pop Songs to Enjoy in Instagram-Worthy Cafes," and the popularity of Instagram in South Korea is surely part of the reason these places exist and look the way they do. The look tends to be minimalist: lots of white, lots of concrete. The menus tend to be either minimalist (one place in Jeonju had no food at all, another in Seoul had about two kinds of cookies and nothing else to eat) or the opposite (scones or bagels in flavors you wouldn't dream of). The music tends to be classic and mellow, e.g. Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, but perhaps a bit less obvious than that. The implication seems to be that life should be simple but beautiful, or that a simple life can be enough if its contents are beautiful enough. A bit like the film Perfect Days (which is set in Tokyo, and, I think, is a bit ambiguous as to whether such a life is really enough), whose hero lives a simple life but listens only to classic rock and pop music, and reads classic literature. He doesn't have much in his life, but what he has is good. There's a thread on reddit about this film (here) in which a couple of posters say (plausibly) that the movie is Buddhist, emphasizing the value of living with less stuff. But how unattached to things are you (or can you be) if you enjoy the classics? (Not to mention really good coffee and baked treats.) Is this tastefully minimalist life compatible with love or family life? Is it really desirable, or is it a bit sad?
Some of these questions (the first, especially) come up in Hōjōki, whose Buddhist author (Kamo no Chōmei, c. 1154-1216) lives in seclusion in a ten foot square hut, but nevertheless brings with him musical instruments and books of poetry, and worries that he is too attached to his hut and too proud of the life he has been living. The thought of living with only a relatively small number of carefully curated possessions is appealing, but how easy would it be to achieve? How satisfying would it really be? And, even if satisfaction is not the right goal, would it be worthwhile?
South Korean cafes offer a vision of a tastefully simple life, sophisticated yet in touch with nature (when possible, they have really nice views). Quite a few explicitly connect this with philosophy. Cafe Onion's baseball caps have a quote from Will Durant about Aristotle sewn on the inside, and the person behind several popular chains of cafes, Ryo, has recently published a book called Philosophy Ryo. Of course, there's philosophy and "philosophy," and when a businessperson publishes their philosophy it's reasonable to wonder whether this is sincere or just marketing. Or perhaps, as seems likely, some mix of the two. But then philosophy, or the idea of philosophy, is part of the brand. Some posters advertising Cafe Layered, part of Ryo's empire, feature a book by Sartre (in Portuguese) along with some British money, an apple, and a book that seems to be for bird watchers. Layered, which has writing, often in English, all over the walls and even windows, presents itself as being for people who enjoy simple things, like coffee and toast, without everything having to be perfect. But then it sells high quality coffee and cakes, especially scones, and I don't think toast is even an option. But perhaps it's important to some people to think of their fancy treats as not fancy at all.
