People cheered for "the man they called Superman." They applauded his courage and justice as he threw himself into flames to rescue citizens in danger. But that applause didn't last long. As the flames died down, so did the cheers. People had no interest in Superman once he took off his cape. They celebrated the hero in the fire but paid no attention to the soot left on his chest after the embers cooled. People took Superman's sacrifice for granted. They easily forgot that beneath the costume, Superman wore the ordinary face of a common citizen like themselves. Because of this, Superman found it difficult to even submit a legitimate bill. What he demanded was not "a hero's reward" but "the minimum rights" that any ordinary citizen should enjoy.
This is not fiction. This year, I witnessed the shocking reality of this clichéd scenario multiple times at sites where firefighters work. When I visited these locations, I found that Seoul's firefighter trainees were allocated just 5,000 won for meal expenses—barely enough to buy a single convenience store lunch box. The Seoul Metropolitan Council reviewed the city's overall meal budget last year and succeeded in raising meal allowances to the minimum standard that regular civil servants receive (7,200 won). But the problem didn't end there. Even greater structural issues were threatening the safety of those who protect our safety.
Seoul's 94 119 Safety Centers operate around the clock, 365 days a year, yet the cafeterias inside these centers go dark after 6 p.m. on weekdays. Firefighters whose average meal time is just 8 minutes and 29 seconds were cooking their own food in kitchenless stations on weekends or making do with delivery meals. Some stations pooled their own money to hire separate cooking staff. It wasn't just the inadequate meals—the time and environment for eating also fell short of "normal" standards.
Conditions at disaster sites were even more desperate. Last year, during the medical crisis when "emergency room runaround" cases surged, field crews transporting emergency patients experienced "endless hell." Beds couldn't be secured while patients' vital signs dropped in ambulances, and paramedics performing continuous CPR collapsed from exhaustion as a daily occurrence. Even as this hellish routine unfolded every day, society's attention remained fixed only on expanding medical personnel. Discussions about increasing paramedic numbers—those who encounter patients first and closest—spun in circles with no progress.
They face the same risks but receive different compensation. Firefighting officials in charge of rescue and emergency medical services receive 200,000 won monthly in activity allowances, but officials operating specialized vehicles—command vehicles, water tankers, aerial ladder trucks—mobilized together to save every precious second of golden time cannot receive this payment. That 200,000 won was shaking field team unity.
I brought all these issues to the Seoul Metropolitan Council's discussion table and examined the entire budget from scratch. Many people then asked: Does the Seoul Metropolitan Council Chairman really need to personally attend to firefighters' working conditions? But that question was wrong from its premise. What I examined wasn't simply "working conditions" but "the system that saves lives."
People feel relieved when they hear the urgent siren of fire trucks and ambulances. That's because the siren is a signal that the social system designed to save people is functioning properly. If you found comfort in that sound, now it's time to listen to the voices of the hidden heroes inside those sirens. As we approach the blessed Christmas season, I pray that Superman's hard daily life will be repaid through proper institutions, and that the era's command—"bring them back alive, and come back alive yourself"—will be fulfilled.
