Big Mango Bar
drink and blog

The Land of the Morning Calm Part 2 by DebtStar

Posted by Debt Star | Blog, Korea, Reader Submissions, Trip Report | Posted on April 29th, 2009

Part 1

The Upper Gauntlet is home to some large theme bars like Grand Ol’ Opry (Country and Western music) and Liberty Club (Rap and Hip-Hop).  East and West Club is a dance/techno bar that has been claimed by the Homosexual Community as one of their bars.  There are also some regular bars here to just hang out and people watch while sipping a cold one, like Bar 52 and a couple of other bars that my alcohol-soaked brain has trouble remembering the names of.  These bars tend to be at the top of the alley and/or upstairs.  Stompers, a club owned by a civilian expat, used to be one of the most popular party spots for the GIs and teachers for its lack of P4P girls.  Just good music and high quality drinks.  They have pulled up stakes and, from what I hear, set up shop across town in a university district.  One More Try is another bar at the top of the Upper Gauntlet, and is known for staying open later than the other bars.  It is also locally famous for RAISING prices on P4P the later it gets.

Continuing up the hill, the Gauntlet splits at the Hilltop Hotel, a fairly decent short- and long-time hotel.  I would not recommend it to anyone out of shape, as you will have to walk back up the hill while at your drunkest to get back to your room.  It is a handy landmark though.  Turning left takes you to the top of a flight of concrete stairs that descend all the way to the main boulevard.  Turning right takes you to some more P4P bars and a convenience store.

In the smaller bars, P4P consists of ‘buying juiceys.’  ‒Hey GI, you buy me juicey,” is the common phrase.  A juicey is a lady drink that consists of ice tea or something similarly harmless, and costs about 10,000 Won.  The lady then sits next to the guy buying the drinks and talks dirty to him for 3 to 5 minutes before getting up and going somewhere else in the club.  When she comes back, she asks, ‒You buy me more juicey?”  And some GIs are just hard up enough to do it.  I have seen guys drop a month’s pay in one night on some fully clothed, moderately pretty juicey girl for the privilege of telling her how hot he thinks she is before copping one or two feels on her.  And that’s it!  No sex, no shows, no dancing (nude dancing is against the law in Korea and is enforced), just 2 or 3 hours of what amounts to phone sex without the phone.  And the girl you’re talking to looks like what the operators look like on the other end of the line!

Actual sex is referred to as a ‘short time’.  There are a few bars that have bedrooms in the back, usually for the girl to have a place to stay while she works off her contract with the bar, the Boston Club being one of them.  There are no separate bar fines, although the Ajima (Korean for Aunt, their version of a Mamasan) will get her cut eventually.  Prices range from 70,000 Won to 200,000 Won.  I have had a stunner (by Itaewon standards) look me in the eye and, without batting an eyelash, tell me a short time will cost ‒300 Dollar, American.”  The girls themselves are average when it comes to technique and personal enjoyment.  Older bar ladies and younger Ajimas are generally more comfortable with themselves and have a better time while doing the deed.

And speaking of prices, beer starts at 2,000 Won.  Domestic brands include OB, Hite, Cass and Nex.  Hite has a dark beer called Hite Stout, sort of like Amstel Dark on steroids.  Foreign brands are Budweiser and Heineken.  The bigger and fancier the bar, the more brands it will carry, mostly European.  Mixed drinks are 6,000 to 10,000 Won.  The smaller bars sometimes recycle their drinks.  That is, they poor local, low grade liquor in name brand liquor bottles, and top off and recap used beer bottles if they are left behind by customers that don’t drink out of them.  Or drink little out of them.  Itaewon bars rarely have beer on tap, but many Korean bars that do serve beer flat, or with a formaldehyde aftertaste.  So if you get a beer and it tastes flat or stale, ask the Ajima for another.

So now you’ve checked out some of the bars and the P4P action and thought to yourself, ‒ewwwww!”  The relative prosperity of Korea means girls no longer have to sell themselves to make a decent living.  The ladies still working here are getting long in the tooth, and some clubs have had to resort to importing girls from Vladivostok and The Philippines.  You’re probably thinking by now that you have been led astray and into a den of the oldest, most decrepit whores in all of Asia.  Well gentle reader, you would be WRONG!  Your guide can top that!

Go back down towards the western end of the main boulevard starting around 10 to 11 PM, and if you’re lucky you will get to see another institution of Itaewon: the Umbrella Ladies.

The Umbrella Ladies are, in the words of the American car commercial, ‒Your Father’s Oldsmobile.”  These are streetwalkers that have been working this particular beat since the 1960s.  They are between the ages of 50 to 80, but they look much older.  Both of my grandmothers are better looking than these ladies, and both my grandmothers are dead!  They continue to thrive because Korea, for all its reputation for having reverence for the elders of society, really doesn’t have a comprehensive care system for the elderly in place.  Your family is your retirement plan.  And if a woman engages in a trade that causes her to loose face, such as P4P, it becomes nearly impossible for her to snag a husband (unless hubby is a GI).  So these women, who thought they could pick up some easy coin from GI Joe back in the day, found themselves stuck in a life that they couldn’t get away from yet was just comfortable enough to not shorten their lives (unlike American prostitution).  Most likely none of them saw it coming until they’d been at it for a couple of decades.

Oh, and some of them GIs can drink to the point that they not only have beer goggles, but whiskey goggles, 151 goggles, Everclear goggles, and a full fledged MOPP 4 Chemwar suit on.  Sadly, for all their visual, olfactory, and mental protection they possess thanks to the liquor, many of them fail to use the one type of protection that counts in this situation.  Yongsan Garrison has its own thriving branch of Alcoholics Anonymous, since the traditional military way to ‒cure” GI Joe of STDs is to inject him with medication and declare it a drug/alcohol problem in order to throw him in rehab.  When he comes out, he will be clean, sober and free of the desire for sex.

After 2001, the Seoul City Government started installing CCTV cameras up and down many of the main streets, including Itaewon Boulevard.  The USFK also has plans to close Yongsan Garrison in the near future and move operations down to the area around Osan AB and Cp. Humphreys, thus removing the ladies’ customer base.  The Umbrella Ladies, as a result, may be relegated to the past, with nothing left but memories, and the occasional trip to the clinic for STD treatment.

Most bloggers, expats, and people in the know look down at Itaewon with contempt.  They all agree that, as a garrison town, Itaewon had its moment and lost it long ago.  They say it is now an overpriced, under-performing, dysfunctional neighborhood full of female con artists that are turning more and more to Russian and Japanese customers.  Sort of a Pattaya without the ocean or nudity, and triple the prices.  While I respect that everyone has different tastes and priorities, I have to go on record as disagreeing with popular opinion.

Itaewon, and Songtan near Osan AB, were the first night entertainment venues I ever got to party in as a young adult.  As a result, I have fond memories of them.  Itaewon in particular will always hold a special place in my heart for the good times I had and the promise of even better times to come.  It is a town that has its own character and its own type of experiences to encounter.  If you want the most efficient, customer friendly P4P possible, skip Korea and head straight for Bangkok.  But if you should find yourself in Seoul with a few days to kill, check out Itaewon.