The halfway-basement "banjiha" homes of South Korea inspired Bong Joon Ho — but they've also inspired poets, cartoonists, musicians. “It’s a good place to dream. Your imagination is what gets you through it,” a poet who spent nine years in one told me. latimes.com/world-nation/s…
Bong said he was struck by the in-betweenness of the space: "It’s undeniably underground, and yet you want to believe it’s above ground....There’s also the fear that if you sink any lower, you may go completely underground.”
Poet Shin Hyun-rim published a book of poems titled "Banjiha Alice" in 2017, around the time she and her daughter moved out.
Here's an excerpt:
My remaining days keep dwindling
But we’re all just briefly pitching a tent
I may be fretting like a dayflower trembling in the wind
But if I savor in the sadness
Maybe something amusing will happen
Maybe a white rabbit will run past
My remaining days keep dwindling
But we’re all just briefly pitching a tent
I may be fretting like a dayflower trembling in the wind
But if I savor in the sadness
Maybe something amusing will happen
Maybe a white rabbit will run past
More than 36,000 South Koreans live in these "banjiha" homes, according to the most recent figures available from 2015. Many are vulnerable to flooding, like the Kims' home in "Parasite." 
Cartoonist Choi Hyun-jung has been drawing a charming web comic about the banjiha life for the past three years. If you read Korean, it's available here: webtoon.daum.net/webtoon/view/U…
