My friend was in India for 2 weeks in September. He said it was generally filthy and disgusting everywhere on the streets. At the same time my daughter was in Seoul. She said it was immaculate. She had dozens of photos of street scenes in Seoul and in tourist areas. You can not spot so much as a gum wrapper on the ground in any of the photos.
I had driven to the passenger side of a stopped minivan and in my best Spanish (which consists of about 20 words), I told her not to throw “basura” on the “camino”.
(I think the message got through).
:-/
The ROK has come a long way from when I was there from 1989-1991. They still had open sewer ditches and plumbing that couldn't handle toilet paper. The streets were always dingy. There was not a lot of litter, but it just looked dingy. Housing in a lot of places looked cobbled together.