Culture shock commute

I will never understand Seoul's subway culture.

People's favorite place to stand on the train is right in front of the doors. This is because the trains tend to be so crowded that people are afraid they'll miss their stop otherwise. But this practice has resulted in the strange habit of people standing in the doorway as early as three stops away from their destination even when the train is practically deserted. This also means when the train is busy, there's nowhere to go once you step on the train because people are blocking your way - and if we all just spread out instead of clogging the doorways, we wouldn't elbow each other so much, and we probably wouldn't miss our stops either.

It's a vicious cycle. People crowd the doorways because they're afraid of missing their stops, but they're afraid of missing their stops because people clog the doorways.

Get it? I don't.