Parasite | Ahyeon-dong Alley Stairs — Jessica Climbs With a Peach

Ki-jung goes up these steps holding a peach wrapped in tissue. She is on her way to trigger an allergy in a woman who works for a living, so that her own family can take the job. The scene is scored like a caper. It is the cruellest thing anyone in the film does to anyone poorer than themselves. The steps run off 손기정로6길, thirty-five metres uphill from the supermarket corner in Ahyeon-dong, Mapo-gu. Public alley, no gate, always open. A naming note worth carrying: tourism pages call this "Bukahyeon-dong," but the jurisdiction is Mapo-gu's Ahyeon-dong — Bukahyeon proper is across the road in Seodaemun-gu. Now the part that matters more than the coordinates. People live here. In 2020, residents complained publicly about litter, noise and smoking from visitors, and Korean critics argued the whole tour circuit had turned a working-class neighbourhood into a viewing gallery for a film about being looked down on. Keep your voice down. Do not photograph doorways, windows or intercoms. Do not sit on the steps or block them; this is somebody's route to the bus. It is the same redevelopment block as the shop below. The stairs have a demolition date even if nobody has written it on them yet. Walk up once, slowly, and notice that you are out of breath before the top. Ki-jung does it carrying a peach and does not break stride, because she has done it every day of her life.