SOUTH KOREANS are packing their bags. Perhaps 1.3m of them will leave the country this week. The last remaining international flights are selling out fast. Tickets on trains out of the capital, Seoul, are a hot commodity too. A few Seoulites have been sleeping at train stations, in the hope of nabbing one. The frantic exodus has nothing to do with the latest exchange of barbs between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s ruler (see Banyan). Instead, it marks the start of Chuseok, the harvest festival, which usually lasts for three days but this year will stretch for ten. That is thanks to Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s president, who decreed an extra day off to join up a series of tantalisingly close public holidays and weekends.
Mr Moon reckons Koreans need a break. There is plenty of...Continue reading
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