Lee Heung Soo, a peach farmer, has lived through South Korea’s extraordinary economic rise, but the transformation is hard to see from his vantage point in the country’s southwest.
The 74-year-old grew up with the constant roar of fighter jets overhead as they flew in and out of a nearby military airport and air base in the city of Gwangju, which he suspects damaged his hearing. The military presence had kept developers away even as the rest of South Korea industrialized at breakneck speed.
“I thought it would remain an air base forever,” he said as fighter jets took off and landed. “I never imagined anything like this would come here.”
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