An elderly woman receives her Yakult delivery from fresh manager Son Young-soon in Gwangjin District, eastern Seoul, on May 26. [FERGUS GOODALL SMITH]
On a summer morning in Seoul two years ago, Yoon Gap-yeon, an 81-year-old woman who lives by herself, collapsed just at the threshold her front door.
After that, she remembers little.
She lay alone on the floor of her basement home for roughly half an hour — long enough, in the heat, that the outcome could easily have been different.
Fortunately, her Yakult delivery woman arrived — one of Korea's roughly 11,000 "fresh managers," women who deliver chilled probiotic drinks door to door on electric carts.
