Korea has no donkeys, mules or horses. I don’t know if this is characteristically Asian, or if it is more specific to Korea, as a legacy of the total destruction that occurred during the Korean War. But it’s one way in which that makes rural Korea different from other poor or developing countries I’ve visited – mostly these have been in Latin America, where there are strong traditions of using equine beasts of burden, but I also remember seeing a lot of rural animals pulling things in Morocco.
Anyway, rural Koreans use these small, two-wheeled tractors instead. They can pull carts to and from town, they can work in the fields… they are general-purpose, internal combustion beasts of burden – although you can’t eat one if things get rough. Back when I was in Korea with the US Army, the soldiers had a slightly insulting name for these tractors: kimchee rockets. For whatever reason, that term has stuck with my mental vocabulary – it’s difficult for me to think of them as anything else.
We were constantly having to dodge kimchee rockets when we (my support battalion) drove rural highways in northern Gyeonggi province (near the DMZ) back in 1991. There’re a lot of expressways and much more development up there now, so the kimchee rockets are rare on major highways. But there are still a lot around in Korea – especially down in the significantly backward part of Korea that I’m in now.
Here is a picture of a farmer driving his kimchee rocket towing a low-tech, ad hoc trailer, into town on the road in front of my apartment here in Yeonggwang. I took the picture yesterday morning as I watched the fog lift, while waiting for my carpool to arrive.
