Running on Neutral

The latest craze in South Korea involves getting your brain to do as little as possible

- Mark Ellwood

For the past few months, South Koreans have been catching an unusual movie in theaters: Flight, a 40-minute video of nothing more than clouds, viewed from the window of a plane. It’s the sequel to a 31-minute film of a campfire.

These screenings revolve around a single goal: hitting mung. Mung is a catchall term for a centuries-old idea, says Sung-Ae Lee, a lecturer at Sydney’s Macquarie University and an ex-pat who tracks South Korean pop culture. Koreans are reclaiming the somewhat derogatory term, once translated as “empty-headed,” to suggest a proactive blankness that’s an antidote for a mind stuck in perpetual overdrive. It’s akin to meditation but with the added influence of nature.

At Mung Hit, a cafe on Ganghwa Island of south Korea’s northwest coast, chairs face a mirror so the guests can sit in self-contemplation. At Goyose cafe on Jeju, an island in the south, patrons reserve slots to spend time alone doing nothing in an upstairs area, after which they’re given stationery to write themselves a letter over coffee. There’s also the Space out Competition, founded by visual artist Woopsyang and held in several cities, in which entrants compete to see who can achieve the lowest heart rate.