Mangwon Market

This guide to Mangwon Market in Seoul opens in August 1984, when a burst embankment sent Han River floodwater through Mangwon-dong and forced tens of thousands of residents from their homes. It follows what the neighborhood did afterward, taking on the city government over the broken embankment, and how the modest produce stalls that had opened here only a few years earlier fit into the rebuilding. A tip: come hungry and expect to hear locals greet vendors by name.