Abstract

A large crowd of older men has been gathering at Jongmyo park in Seoul for years. These older men engage in a variety of activities at the park. Due to the boisterous nature of their activities, which I term “hang-out culture,” the park has often been dubbed an “extraterritorial zone for the old” by the media, and is now socially stigmatized as a place for older men. Despite the stigma, however, certain lifestyle tastes shared among the park visitors still attract these older men to the park. These traits can be seen as a continuity of the lifestyle taste of the current generation of older men with an “outdoor” occupational background. The hang-out culture of the park nurtures a sense of togetherness and peer group participation among the park visitors, which is beneficial for better adjustment to old age. The park also provides a social space congenial to rehearsing a positive selfhood which is so often discouraged in later life. However, the sense of togetherness among the older people at the park is not strong enough to suppress sudden dashes of desire to assert their individuality. The dominant culture does not consider the hang-out culture of the park as culturally legitimate. The cultural citizenship of the park’s hang-out culture is under contestation.