Throughout the year I spent living in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula there was a massive contrast which I noticed in the local community that completely fascinated me. It was namely the division between young and old, modern and antiquated. The disparity between the technologically advanced present and the rural under-developed past, which can be seen over the shoulder of every computer-game obsessed teenager, was curiously hypnotic to me.In Seoul or Busan, Daejon, Suwon, and the like, the generation gap is somewhat blurred and does not appear to be anything like the giant crevasse that it is in the countryside. Out in the wilds of Chungcheognam-Do (province in the northwest) there was a line as clear and as imposing as the DMZ between young people and their older relations. The kids I taught were in the main bedecked in modern brand-named clothing, and were always to be seen with cellphones, MP3s, or computer dictionaries. Whenever I asked them what they had been doing on the weekend or the previous evening, I would get the standard response of watching either a DVD or playing internet games—the most popular titles being StarCraft and Maple Story, whatever the hell they were. They did, though, have a refreshing attitude to the foreigner in their midst. The majority of them were keen to learn and almost all of them wanted to play or chat.The difference between the kids with whom I spent most of my afternoons, and the older generation within Taean where I lived, was shockingly stark. I am aware that age brings many differences in personality and outlook. My own grandfather and I, who are separated by nearly 60 years are not always on the same page it has to be said. However, in Korea the difference is particularly marked. I always wondered as to why it was so and perhaps the best explanation is the stratification of society along age lines and the deference with anyone blessed with, shall we say experience, is treated.Once Koreans marry, begin to have children, and lose the first flushes of youth, they become known as ajima and ajoshi. The men, or the ajoshi, tend to carry on their lives as before, drinking copious amounts of soju—traditional rice based spirit—and spitting on the floor. For the women though, the change is far greater. After maybe their second child they chop their hair short and begin to wear hideous, dated clothing that previously they would not have been seen dead in. It is as though any youthful glamour is sucked right out of them. Once a woman reaches ajimahood she loses much of her vitality and independence and it becomes a slow decline towards becoming a grandmother or almoni.In Taean, the ajima and almoni represented everything that has changed in Korea over the past 50 years. Since the end of the Korean War, and the division of the peninsula, the South have come from being a ravaged one-time colony of Japan into one of Asia's most developed and technological astute nations. The young people represent the latter identity, whilst anyone beyond 45 is perhaps still anchored in the former and has been overtaken by the rapid progress.I remember my first glimpse quite vividly. It was September—my first week in Taean—and viciously humid. To combat the heat and my growing thirst I stepped outside for an ice-cream and Gatorade. At the entrance to my school were a huddle of middle-aged ladies. They were all dressed in the type of clothing that is synonymous with their status; it was polyester, ill-fitting and was decorated in hideous, garish patterns. They all also had short-hair that looked as though it had had one too many goes under the blow-dryer and too many set of bad highlights. Almost as one they turned towards me and stared indignantly. I was genuinely taken aback. Up until that point I had been greeted with nothing but enthusiasm. I was soon to learn, though, that despite being heavily respected by younger people, many older Koreans were just downright rude. I had countless encounters with ajimas where I found doors close in my face or walking sticks placed forcibly on my toes. It was particularly bad when trying to catch a bus as invariably I would always be forced out of the way, and see a flurry of heads covered in short frizzled hair surge in front of me.I have to admit that even as I left Korea I could not really understand how the country had come so far in so little time, to go from the ajima to the kids I taught, in just 50 years. For my entire year, every time I was bundled out of the way by some badly dressed ageing peasant woman, I consoled myself with the fact that I was heading to my air-conditioned classroom to teach kids with a bright future.