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Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S./Korea Relations, by Katharine H.S. Moon
In the middle of rice paddies, a conspicuous road sign announces in English,"American Town." American Town is in Korea, in the city of Kunsan, in the province of North Cholla. My first view of it in the spring of 1992 was from the rice fields. I had to look up to catch a limited view of the"town" upon a hill; with store signs written in English along the perimeter of the walled compound, it looked more like a commercial fortress than a village in the countryside. It is an enclave that people can enter by invitation only. A U.S. soldier's uniform serves as his invitation, and a Korean prostitute's registration card serves as hers. Together, the soldier and prostitute drink, dance, have sex. For the soldier, this is rest and relaxation (R&R). It is a place of work for the woman.
American Town is like many of the other numerous camptowns near or adjoined to major U.S. military camps in South Korea. Like no other places in Korea, Americans and Koreans together make up the residents of the kijich'on. All the businesses in these areas cater to the lifestyle and consumer needs of the U.S. GI and the women who sexually service them. The bars, or clubs, where the soldiers go off duty to drink beer, relax and pick up women, are the centers of kijich'on life. The club owners"gain financially from the sale of liquor and food and, of course, from the women's sexual labor. The grocery, liquor, and Mom-and-Pop stores in the area are also dependent on the bar traffic" as are the hairdressers, cosmetics shops, and clothing stores"that cater to the women, who must dress up for work to attract the guys." 1 Photo shops, souvenir stalls, and so-called marriage counseling centers 2 also abound. Before the early 1970s, private VD clinics were also a mainstay business. Neon lights, booming American music, cigarette smoke, heavy drinking, darkly lit bars, and interracial couples speaking Konglish--these are the daily staples of all kijich'on.
What distinguishes American Town from the other camptowns is its physical isolation--it is completely walled off, with a guard posted at the gate--and its"incorporated" status. American Town is not simply a place; it is a corporation, with a president and board of directors who manage all the businesses and people living and working in it. The corporation headquarters occupies a small building within the walled compound. Originally, the Town was constructed in the early-to-mid 1970s through funds from both the local government and Seoul. 3 The corporation not only oversees business practices, but also owns and manages the numerous apartment buildings and boarding rooms that cover the Town. Prostitutes who work in the bars must live there and pay rent to the corporation. These rooms serve as both residence and brothel. American Town illustrates in high relief the raison d'être of the kijich'on: a town built on and for prostitution. 4
Prostitutes and Their Lifestyles
There are two types of kijich'on prostitutes, the registered and the unregistered, or so-called streetwalkers. This book is about the first group of women, who are the governmentally recognized"special entertainers." Registered women sell drinks, dance with GIs, and pick up their customers in the kijich'on clubs. These women have more job security than streetwalkers because they have official sanction to sell their flesh. Moreover, they have a regular establishment from which they can attract customers, and they will not be hauled off to jail for prostitution, unlike streetwalkers, unless their official identification cards are invalid.
In order to work in the clubs, a woman must go to the local police station to register her name and address and the name of the club where she will be working. She must also go to the local VD clinic, undergo gynecological and blood examinations and receive a VD card. To maintain her status as a"healthy" hostess, she must go once a week for VD examination and get her card stamped"healthy" by the clinic;"healthy" means she is free of VD infection. She pays for each clinic visit, and if she fails the exam, she cannot work in the club-- she must also pay for medical treatment--until the clinic certifies that she is"healthy." The club woman must carry the registration and VD cards with her at all times. The Korean Ministry of Health and Social Affairs (MoHSA, formerly called the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare) has been supervising the formulation and enforcement of these regulations since the early-mid 1960s, but until the early 1970s, enforcement was highly inconsistent throughout the numerous camptowns. Prior to the 1960s, U.S. medics conducted VD examinations of the women; even in the 1970s, U.S. camps in areas where the Korean authorities were lax about such regulations continued to check the prostitutes.
Once in the club, the woman's life revolves around the schedule of the local GIs and the business demands of the club owner or manager, who serves as her pimp. On a typical weekday, she dresses and puts on her make-up in mid-afternoon in preparation for the GIs who"pour out of the [camp] gates at the end of the [work]day." 5 From around 4 or 5 p.m. until midnight to 2 a.m., she sells drinks, flirts and dances with men, and solicits customers for the night. On the weekends, her workday begins earlier and ends later. The club owner/manager requires the woman to sell as many drinks to GIs as possible--alcohol for the men and"ladies' drinks" (usually soft drinks) for herself. Ladies' drinks are particularly high-priced, now about $5 a small glass; the goal is to get the GI to buy many drinks in order to increase the club's revenues. Historically, women have received 10 to 20% of the income from the drinks they sell. 6 Many clubs have drink quotas for the women: if they do not sell at least 150 drinks per month, they do not receive their share of the revenues. In some clubs, if a woman sells more than 600 drinks in a month, she gets a gold ring; if she sells more than 1,000 drinks in a month, she receives a"special bonus." 7 Pushing drinks on the soldiers means the woman also has to keep drinking; on the average, a club woman drinks 20 glasses of soft drinks and/or a mixture of whiskey per night. 8
Moreover, to sell drinks, she must mingle with various GIs in one night, fondling them and being fondled by them in return. On the average, in the mid-1990s, clubs were paying a hostess $250 a month. 9 Selling drinks, however, has never been the mainstay of the women's earnings: Women are expected to sleep with GIs for the bulk of their income because their cut from selling drinks cannot support them, and"[m]any places don't pay any salary." 10 In Uijongbu in the mid-1980s,"long-time" (overnight) was $20, while"short-time" (hourly rate) was $10. 11 Owners and pimps generally take 80% and give the prostitute 20% of her earnings per trick.
Most women do not come into the clubs equipped with"hostessing skills" and the willingness to share flesh with GIs. For women who are new to the club scene, an initiation process often takes place. Some women attest to having been raped by their pimp/manager; others have been ordered by the club owner to sleep with a particular soldier; yet others stumble into bed with GIs on their own; some receive advice on the type of man to avoid (e.g., violent types) from more experienced prostitutes. In Let the Good Times Roll, " Ms. Pak" expresses her confusion, curiosity, and fear at beginning work at a GI club in Osan. Although she had sold her body to Korean men before entering the kijich'on, she had a difficult time adjusting to her new situation--she had never seen an American before and worried how she could handle their large bodies. 12 Black men were even more strange to her. At the prospect of her first black patron, she wondered to herself how dark his penis would be and"If I do it with him, will my skin turn black?" 13 Her first sexual encounter with an American took place at the order of her club owner, who"warned that I had to do it." 14 Most of the women have taken to alcohol or drugs to help them get through their sex work. 15
Sometimes women pick up customers; at other times, the GIs express their interest in a particular woman to the club owner/manager, who then tells the woman to sleep with the soldier. The GI and club woman go to her room, which is usually attached to or located near the club. Her room is part of a complex of rooms lined up in a row and separated by very thin walls; other prostitutes live in those rooms. The complex usually belongs to the club owner, who places a watchman or -woman by the entrance to monitor who goes in and out, to receive payments for the sex, and to insure that no woman runs away. In some of the older complexes,"pimp holes" were made in the rooms so that the pimp or monitor could watch over the woman while she sold sex and make sure that she was not scheming with the GI to run away. Moreover, such peeping Tom activities were intended to prevent GIs from avoiding payment--many GIs would claim that the the prostitute never"put out," even if the woman had provided the agreed-upon sexual service.
Both the prostitutes and U.S. military officials have observed that club women aggressively seek out customers. In Camp Arirang, Kim Yonja recalls how she and other women grabbed onto men in order to make money. One U.S. Army chaplain commented that"in Korea, the guy is inundated with prostitutes." 16 And an Army captain who had served in Korea during the early 1980s noted that young, inexperienced enlistees were most susceptible to getting duped into serious relationships with prostitutes who sought to"exploit the boys for money." 17
How prostitutes fare physically, financially, and emotionally in the kijich'on environment depends to a great extent on the particular club owner/manager and GI customers she encounters. As"Nanhee" says, some GIs are mean and nasty, especially when they are drunk; others are nice and gentle. 18 At worst, a woman encounters a GI who beats her and murders her, as Yun Kumi did in October 1992. Private Kenneth Markle was convicted of killing her; her landlord found her body--"naked, bloody, and covered with bruises and contusions--with laundry detergent sprinkled over the crime site. In addition, a coke bottle was embedded in Yun's uterus and the trunk of an umbrella driven 27 cm into her rectum." 19 At best, a GI provides money and other necessities, is faithful and caring and ultimately marries her."Oon Kyung," who had married"Jack," was one of the lucky ones. He had"scrape[d] and save[d] to pay to get Oon Kyung out of a club." 20 Afterward,"he work[ed] alongside guys who had slept with her when she was working as a prostitute before they were married." 21
No club woman I spoke with ever referred to club owners and managers as nice, kind, and gentle. Some are not as abusive as those who beat and rape the barwomen, but it is apparent that the owner/manager is responsible for the bulk of the everyday exploitation of the women. Ms. Pak states that"owners usually take advantage of [the women]" by not paying them their share of revenues from drinks and sex. 22 Women who move up in the hierarchy of sex work can become club managers, and they do not necessarily treat the prostitutes with compassion. Kim Yonja, who had worked as a madam in Kunsan, recalled how tough she had been on her hostesses; she had scolded them and pushed them to bring in income for the bar. 23 Thomas Kelly, a former GI and VD officer (he had to help the military track down prostitutes who were alleged to have transmitted the infection), noted how the madams would send out"slicky boys" to"rough up the girls who [didn't] pay [their club debts]." 24
The"debt bondage system" is the most prominent manifestation of exploitation. A woman's debt increases each time she borrows money from the owner--to get medical treatment, to send money to her family, to cover an emergency, to bribe police officers and VD clinic workers. Most women also begin their work at a new club with large amounts of debt, which usually results from the"agency fee" and advance pay. Typically, (illegal) job placement agencies which specialize in bar and brothel prostitution place women in a club and charge the club owner a fee. The owner transfers the fee onto the new employee's"account" at usurious rates; Ms. Pak mentions one club owner charging 10%. 25 Often, women ask the owner for an advance in order to pay off her existing debts to another club, and the cycle of debt continues. Owners also set up a new employee with furniture, stereo equipment, clothing, and cosmetics--items deemed necessary for attracting GI customers. These costs get added to the woman's account with interest. In 1988, the left-leaning Mal Magazine (Malchi), reported that on the average, prostitutes' club debts range between one and four million won 26 ($1,462 and $5,847 respectively in 1988 terms). For this reason, women try to pick up as many GIs as possible night after night, and for this reason, women cannot leave prostitution at will. Nanhee sums up the debt-ridden plight:
| In some American [camptown] clubs, if you have no debt, they see to it that you incur some. If you had no debt, you would have the choice of going to another club, a better club. But if the woman has debts, she can't leave before she pays up. Escaping from a club isn't easy to do. The women with a conscience stay and work [to pay off the debt]. 27 |
The great majority of women who enter kijich'on prostitution have already experienced severe deprivation and abuse--poverty, rape, repeated beatings by lovers or husbands. The camp followers of the war era lived off their bodies and fed their family members with their earnings. Korean camptown officials who had lived through the war expressed sympathy for the early generations of prostitutes when I interviewed them in 1992. Their sentiment was such:"All of us Koreans back then--educated or uneducated--were dirt poor; we were all in the same boat and were forced to do things beneath our dignity to survive."
Poverty, together with low class status, has remained the primary reason for women's entry into camptown prostitution from the 1950s to the mid-1980s. Stories of growing up with no plot of land or high debts from farming attempts, going hungry amidst eight or nine siblings, barely finishing a few years of schooling, and tending to ill parents resound among kijich'on women. Many of these women were part of the migration flow from the countryside to the cities in the 1960s. 28 They left their villages in search of work, believing that they had a 50/50 chance of"making it" in urban areas. 29 But finding employment, especially one that paid enough to support a woman and her family in the countryside, was difficult. A report by the Eighth U.S. Army, which discusses some causes of women's entry into camptown prostitution, states that among women aged 18 to 40 who were living in Seoul in 1965, 60% were unemployed. 30 Although women have served as the backbone of South Korea's economic miracle, through their work in light-manufacturing industries, not all women have had luck finding and keeping viable work."Hyun Ja," a middle-aged divorcée with children, who had no more than a grade-school education, became a GI prostitute as a last resort--factory jobs catered mostly to young women and were therefore difficult to obtain. 31
Still others were physically forced into prostitution by flesh-traffickers or pimps who waited at train and bus stations, greeted young girls arriving from the countryside with promises of employment or room and board, then"initiated" them--through rape--into sex work or sold them to brothels. Women also fell into prostitution by responding to fraudulent advertisements which offered appealing calls for employment as waitresses, storekeepers, singers, and entertainers. Some ads even promised"education" (kyoyuk) without specifying what the women would be expected to learn. 32
For example, one woman who had answered an advertisement for a job in a restaurant found that she was taken to a GI bar. There"[s]he was made to die [sic] her hair blond and wear braless T-shirts and hot pants" and was"beaten into submission" and"forced to provide sexual services" to GIs. This came at the heels of a history of deprivation and abuse; she had been orphaned as a child,"adopted" by a Korean family who used her as a"slave" to take care of the family's four boys, raped by the father, and kicked out by the sons. Then she went to work at a factory and married the owner's son, who physically abused her and abandoned her and their newborn son. 33
The overwhelming majority of the prostitutes have experienced a combination of poverty, low class status, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse even before entering the kijich'on world. Their identities had already become one of"fallen woman." Having lost their virginity and not having much family connections or education to fall back on, these women often expressed that there was not much else they could do; they were already"meat to be slaughtered on the butcher's block" (toma wi e innun kogi). Kim Yonja, who is unusual for having completed high school in the late 1950s, often speaks about being raped at 11 years of age by her cousin as one reason why she entered the kijich'on world. She believes this rape would not have occurred and that her life would have turned out better if her mother had been at home to protect her; but her mother had to work as a traveling peddler because her father had abandoned them.
The youth and lack of formal education among the women who fell into kijich'on life made them vulnerable to the abuse and exploitation of owners and pimps. As mentioned in the Prologue, the vast majority of prostitutes from the 1950s to the 1970s had barely completed elementary school. During the spring of 1992, I met several old women, who had either worked as prostitutes or were then working as madams, who were illiterate. New initiates have also tended to be very young in age, from the late teens to the early twenties. The ROK Ministry of Health and Social Welfare reported that among 36,924 prostitutes documented in 1977, 21,305 were between 20 and 24 years old and 7,669 were between 15 and 19. 34 Nanhee reveals that she was too old, at 29, to"get to know this kind of world." 35 Many girls and young women have literally grown up in the camptowns, with the pimp or owner functioning at times as a parent/authority figure, disciplining women and bailing them out of financial straits (at high interests). Older, experienced prostitutes have also served as maternal figures and big sisters, teaching the women how to avoid pregnancy and trouble with the police and manage abusive owners.
The women's unfamiliarity with English compounds their sense of abuse and humiliation. They feel that they cannot hold their own--in negotiating a price or terms of sexual service--in relation to GIs because they cannot understand the men or express themselves clearly and fully to them. Nanhee states that she"didn't know a word of English" when she began work in a kijich'on club:"If they [Americans] asked my name, I just said 'yes.' They would laugh and make fun of me. I was so embarrassed." 36 Similarly, Jin Soo, in the film Camp Arirang, expresses her frustration and resentment at the GIs who treat her as if she is"stupid" because she cannot understand them. If a woman begins work with a knowledge of"ABCs," she is ahead of others. One of the missions of My Sister's Place is to offer elementary English lessons to club women who want to improve their English so that they can better communicate--and assert their interests--with their American clients.
Since the early 1960s, most camptowns have had a"Women's Autonomous Association" (chach'ihoe) which, in the best of circumstances, functions as a support group for club prostitutes in their interactions with owners, GIs, and local authorities. It'aewon's was (is) called the Rose Society, Songt'an's the Honey Bee Association, and Tongduch'on's the Dandelion Society. Some camptowns have required chach'ihoe member ship, as well as official registration, in order to work as a club hostess. Each member pays monthly dues to the chach'ihoe (1,000 won/mo. in Kunsan in 1992), which serve as a collective pool of funds for emergencies such as funeral expenses of a deceased member and expensive medical treatment of ill members. The power of the chach'ihoe to act as a positive, supportive force for its members depends to a great extent on the association's leadership. The association head, or haejang, who uses her position to advocate for her members, can have significant effect on reducing some of the exploitive and oppressive treatment of the women. Camptown residents I spoke with in 1992, both prostitutes and Korean authorities alike, have noted the strong leadership of such haejang as Kim Yonja of Kunsan and Songt'an and Yi Chongja of Anjongni in the 1970s. Both women led protests on behalf of prostitutes' interests and mobilized women to protect themselves against the exploitation of private VD clinics (chapter 6).
But in reality, these associations have never been autonomous. The local police and governmental authorities select the leaders of the associations and keep watch over the women's activities; each police station details an officer to serve as liaison with the women's association. Prostitutes who have better command of English, compared to others, and appear to have some influence or leadership among the women are usually selected as haejang. From the perspective of the police and local government, the purpose of the chach'ihoe is to make the women monitor one another in matters pertaining to VD regulations and"business conduct," such as ensuring proper VD validation of its members and disciplining those who do not comply with regulations. They have also been expected, since the early 1970s, to ferret out streetwalkers (unregistered women). Leaders who do not take activist roles on behalf of the members serve as dupes for the police and other authorities. A 1963 EUSA document regarding the women's associations states that haejang have served as informants for the Korean government and the U.S. military:
| It is known that the 108th ROKA [ROK Army] CIC [Central Intelligence Command?] as well as the KNP [Korean National Police] Intelligence Section maintains an information net among the Haejongs [sic] supposedly for counterespionage purposes. This Detachment [that of the EUSA author] maintains a parallel net to prevent or at least to keep informed on information gathering activities by anyone. 37 |
Kijich'on prostitutes have a complex system of social stratification among themselves. As mentioned earlier, a registered woman has official sanction and the backing of her chach'ihoe, in contrast to streetwalkers. Young, attractive women can fetch a higher price and work in the best clubs, compared to older and unattractive women. The elderly, the"veterans" of camptowns, fare the worst; they have neither the youth necessary to work in the clubs, nor financial security or family who can provide for their old age. Bakery Auntie in Uijongbu was streetwalking at the age of 65 for a few dollars a trick. At the other end, women who are married to servicemen occupy the top of the kijich'on social ladder. Most women aspire to this position because GI wives most resemble a"normal" woman's role as wife/mother and no longer have to work in the clubs. U.S. soldiers usually pay the club debt of their girlfriends/fiancées as the first step in the marriage process. A GI wife also has access to the military compound's commissary and PX and will most likely go to the United States, privileges that kijich'on prostitutes work for. The next best thing to marriage is the"contract cohabitation" (kyeyak tonggo), which means that a prostitute and a GI decide to set up house together for an agreed-upon period of time (depending on the soldier's tour of duty and training schedule). She plays"wife" while he pays her club debt and provides financially for her.
All the women I met in the camptowns either actively dreamed or had dreamed of leaving prostitution and leading so-called normal lives, marrying a GI, having a family and a home. Some had tried to leave kijich'on prostitution and learn vocational skills and work in normal jobs, e.g., factories. But I heard many stories of women returning to kijich'on work because they could not adapt psychologically to the"normal" world or could not live on the low wages. In some cases, that of Nanhee, for example, employers never paid the women their earnings. 38
Most women support family members with their incomes; earning money to pay for a parent's medical treatment or a brother's school fees is a common motivation in their sex work. A 1965 study conducted by the Eighth Army found that of 105 prostitutes surveyed in the Yongsan area, all"were supporting from one to eight members of their family." 39 Stories about young females working in camptown prostitution to pay for their brothers' high school and university education or their parents' medical expenses still abound in Korea. 40 Ms. Pak, who had sold sex to Koreans before entering a kijich'on club, chose to sell sex to Americans because it would be better for her brothers' futures:
| If I do this with Korean men, someday it might get in the way of my brothers' advancement. What if my brothers get married and somehow a member of the bride's family, an uncle or cousin, recognizes me from this kind of work? It's a small world. I don't want to mess up my brothers' lives that way. If I'm going to earn money by having sex with men, I might as well do it with Americans. 41 |
Even when the prostitute marries an American soldier, 42 she does not forget her natal family. In 1988, Malchi reported, based on U.S. Embassy (Seoul) records, that statistically 15 relatives follow one former prostitute to the United States. 43 Elaine Kim calls this"piggy back immigration." 44 Many of those who are unable to invite their families to the United States often send money back to Korea to support them.
The Political Economy of Camptowns
The evolution of camptowns and camptown prostitution as permanent fixtures in American-Korean relations began with the Korean War and the arrival of U.S. troops. They are no less a part of the history of U.S. involvement in the Korean War than General Douglas MacArthur's successful push of North Korean troops back beyond the 38th parallel. But kijich'on prostitution surely is not a matter of heroism in war, and perhaps that is why the numerous thick volumes of history written on the Korean War neglect it. For both the U.S. military and the Korean government and people, it is not a practice or story to be proud of. But to leave out the sex, prostitution, Amerasian offspring, physical beating of women, the VD policies, the dating, the interracial marriages, and the immigration of GI wives and their families to the United States is to construct what Enloe would call an unrealistic"war museum," 45 or history of war and the people and societies whose lives were irrevocably affected by it."A museum curator--or journalist, novelist, or political commentator--who edits out sexuality, who leaves it 'on the cutting-room floor,' gives the audience a skewed and ultimately unhelpful account of just what kinds of myths, anxieties, and inequalities are involved fighting a war or sustaining a militarized form of peace." 46
Prior to the Korean War, the sex work of camp followers was informally organized and unregulated. The women who sold sex to U.S. occupation forces from 1945 to 1949, who like other camp followers in other lands at other times, followed or greeted troops with willingness to wash laundry, run errands, and provide sex for some form of remuneration--money, food, cigarettes. Prostitution took place in U.S. military barracks in the early years of U.S. military occupation (1945-46) and in shabby makeshift dwellings called panjatjip (literally, houses made of boards). By the late occupation period (1947-49), simple inns or motels (kani hot'el) also became the loci of sexual exchange. 47 Then, prostitution was not officially organized into an R&R system that now caters to a myriad of sexual fantasies and forms of entertainment--peep shows, strip tease,"vaginal coin-suck," 48 short time/long time" and so on. Neither was it an entrenched economic interest that brought in coveted foreign exchange, as it began to be in the 1960s. Nor was it a part of the"Americanization" that contemporary kijich'on areas experience--Wendy's, Dunkin' Donuts, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Rap music, and mirrored disco balls.
The Korean War and the U.S.-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty (effective November 1954) provided the raw materials for the kijich'on R&R system. The war, with its accompanying poverty, social and political chaos, separation of families, and millions of young orphans and widows,"mass-produced" prostitutes, creating a large supply of girls and women without homes and livelihoods. 49 Fleeing bombs and gunfire and seeking food, shelter, and work, camp followers flocked to areas where the UN/U.S. forces were bivouacked. The majority of the strategic areas (close to the border with North Korea) developed into R&R boomtowns beginning in the mid-1950s. Most of these areas had been sparsely populated agricultural villages. For example, Tongduch'on sprouted from agricultural fields into one of the most notorious camptowns, having housed four different U.S. infantry divisions since the end of the Korean War (3d, 1st, 7th, 2d). During its"golden age" in the mid-1960s, Tongduch'on boasted approximately 7,000 prostitutes. 50 Similarly, Songt'an, which had been a small unknown farming village until the Korean War, grew to be the"darling" of U.S. Air Force (USAF) camptowns since the early 1950s. On July 9, 1951, the 417th Squadron came to Songt'an with bulldozers to construct an airfield, causing 1,000 families, or 5,000 people, to lose their homes and land. 51 The faces and economy of Uijongbu also became radically transformed by war and U.S. troops. The Tonga Ilbo, a leading national daily, reported on July 22, 1962, that prior to the war, Uijongbu was a small town of 10,000 with only one silk mill representing all of the industry in the area, but that with the war, hundreds of unemployed people, including"gun men" (gangsters), and the UN forces swarmed in and created a netherworld.
The Mutual Defense Treaty, which commits both the United States and the Republic of Korea as alliance partners in the case of a commonly perceived threat (military action would be taken in accordance with each side's constitutional processes), formally granted the stationing of U.S. troops in the ROK. Since the completion of the withdrawal of wartime forces in early 1955, two infantry divisions, the 7th and the 2d, plus support units and several Air Force squadrons composed the backbone of U.S. defense efforts in Korea until the early 1970s. The troops that the Defense Treaty provided for have served as the demand side of the prostitution equation.
On the surface, simple market economics--"where the boys are"-- has dictated the number of prostitutes and high density areas of military prostitution. When troops are withdrawn or redeployed, as in the early 1970s, the women and other kijich'on residents pick up their wares and move to where the soldiers resettle (chapter 3). Since 1990, Songt'an's R&R business life has been growing because the Eighth Army headquarters, which had been in Seoul since the permanent stationing of U.S. troops in Korea, was scheduled to move in. I felt the heartbeat of this kijich'on throbbing with vigor when I visited Songt'an several times throughout the spring of 1992. It is the only kijich'on that is booming with loud music and thriving with business transactions even in the daytime. Its nightclub alleys, marketplace, and souvenir shops are filled with the hustle and bustle of Koreans and Americans, whereas most of the camptowns in the Paju area, that had housed the highest concentration of U.S. troops from 1953 to 1971--it was called the"GI's Kingdom" 52 --now resemble sleepy shantytowns in the day and come to life slowly only at night. Besides Osan and American Town in Kunsan, Tongduch'on and Uijongbu are the two major R&R areas left; the latter two cater mostly to the 2d ID, the only U.S. army division remaining in Korea since 1971. Camptown residents and former prostitutes themselves acknowledge the significance of the U.S. troop count in their lives. They noted in conversations with me that the number of kijich'on prostitutes declined substantially in the late 1970s as a reaction to the Carter administration's crusade to withdraw U.S. troops completely from South Korea. But Koreans have also noted that with the Reagan administration's increase in the number of troops, beginning in 1984, the number of prostitutes also increased. 53
Given that the U.S. bases have served as the major source of legitimate (e.g., clerks, translators, janitors) and illegitimate employment, the majority of Koreans residing in camptowns became almost exclusively dependent on the military for their economic survival. For example, an estimated 60% of the Korean population of Uijongbu in the early 1960s were engaged in some form of business catering to the U.S. military. 54 In Songt'an, by the late 1970s, 80% of its 60,000 residents, including approximately 2,500 prostitutes, lived on income earned from U.S. military personnel. 55
The economic power that U.S. servicemen represented and wielded in the camptowns easily translated into social and sexual clout over Korean kijich'on residents. South Korea in the 1960s became the"GI's heaven"; it was a time when an average GI could live like a king in villages"built, nurtured and perpetuated for the soldiers of the U.S. Army," 56 a time when things American, especially the dollar, were almighty. Men and women danced and drank to their hearts' content with cheap liquor and loud music; over 20,000 registered prostitutes were available to"service" approximately 62,000 U.S. soldiers by the late 1960s. For $2 or less per hour ("short time") or $5 to $10 for an"overnight," 57 a soldier could revel in sexual activities with prostitutes. Servicemen purchased not only sex mates but maids, houseboys, shoeshine boys, errand boys, and other locals with ease. Bruce Cumings characterizes the 1960s as a time when"[o]ne could be born to a down-and-out family in Norfolk . . . and twenty years later live like the country-club set" in Korea, a time when the"highest Korean ultimately meant less than the lowest American in the entourage." 58
Cynthia Enloe notes that"[i]n the microcosm of the base, soldier-clients learn to view their masculinity--and the prowess of the nation they represent--as dependent on their sexual domination of the women who live near the base." 59 I found that in Korea, the prostitutes' perception of GIs' sexual power depended on their views of the political and economic prowess of the United States. Camptown prostitutes who remain in the business today speak with a confidence and arrogance that have accompanied their nation's"economic miracle." All the women I spoke with in 1991/92--young and old alike--asserted that they have no illusion about America (as their predecessors had had) as the greatest country in the world. On the contrary, they criticized the U.S. mismanagement of its economy, high unemployment rates, low educational standards in public schools, racial discrimination, and imperialistic actions toward developing nations. Ms. Pak, one of the two Korean women who speak out about their kijich'on experiences in Let the Good Times Roll, bluntly recounts such sentiments. She once argued with a GI,"You are in Korea to make money, not to help us." 60
The women I spoke with noted that the average GI cannot afford to keep up with the high prices in the Korean economy and the high consumerist tendencies of average Koreans; several women ridiculed the way GIs"suck on one or two bottles of beer all day" because they can't afford hard liquor. They compared the declining economic power of GIs with the now heavy-spending tendencies of Korean men; the common remark was that"when Korean men sit at a bar, they drop hundreds of dollars." Such low esteem for U.S. economic power influenced some women's perception of the sexual desirability of American GIs. Once when I was visiting My Sister's Place in Uijongbu, one middle-aged woman, who was considered too old (by soldiers and other prostitutes) to charge going rates, scoffed at a young soldier's solicitation; she called his offer"measly" and"ridiculous."
The criticisms of the United States, particularly of the troops in Korea, that some of the kijich'on prostitutes voice echo those of the larger society. Often hailed as one of the few places where"Yangkee go home" was not heard, South Korean society has increasingly become critical of the United States, and student activists have increasingly become anti-American since 1980. 61 Ms. Pak' s complaint that the U.S. military"can use as much electricity or water as they need" while"the [Korean] government tells [Koreans] to save electricity and water" 62 is a variation on the common theme-- U.S. wastefulness and privilege at Koreans' expense. In regular conversations, even among those who support the retention of U.S. bases, Koreans often complained that the USFK headquarters in Yongsan, Seoul, had occupied one of the choicest pieces of real estate in the city. They complained that while Koreans compete for high-priced housing and feel the crunch of overcrowdedness in urban areas, Americans live and work on sprawling compounds, and at Yongsan, complete with their own 18-hole golf course. Several student activists I spoke with in 1992 charged that because of the U.S. compound and its engineering complexities, the Yongsan area has been cut off from the rest of Seoul's subway system--the web of underground pipes and other infrastructure that support the U.S. base have made subway construction impossible and hence made life inconvenient for many Koreans living in Seoul.
Koreans' increasing sensitivity and resistance to U.S. dominance in camptown life reached a critical mass with the murder of a kijich'on prostitute, Yun Kumi, in the fall of 1992. Thousands of Koreans from outside the kijich'on areas joined prostitutes and other camptown residents to protest publicly U.S. crimes against Koreans. A coalition of 46 different Korean organizations stated in a letter to the commander of the 2d division (November 7, 1992):"This [crime] has been presented as an accidental homicide, committed by one individual soldier--a 'Private crime' between the victim and the perpetrator. However, we the people believe that this is an example of how American soldiers treat Korean women." The coalition also stated,"American troops have been stationed in Korea for over forty years, and the recent reality is that crimes of rape, robbery, theft, and violence committed by American soldiers has [sic] become a daily occurrence and chronic problem." 63 Prior to this time, prostitutes held small demonstrations against GI violence against women, especially murders, that did not receive larger public attention or support. The blatant inequalities in economic and political power that kijich'on residents, especially the prostitutes, have experienced from the 1950s into the 1980s have increasingly become an emotional manifestation of the growing anti-Americanism among Koreans, especially the younger generations.
Such sentiments and protests against the dominance of the U.S. military in the camptowns echo those in the Philippines and Okinawa. For example, the most recent explosion of"pent-up fury that many people in Okinawa . . . feel about the American bases" 64 occurred after three U.S. marines had kidnapped and raped a 12-year-old Japanese girl in September 1995. The men were tried and sentenced by a Japanese court in March 1996. 65 Feelings of admiration and respect for the U.S. have been replaced by [a] gradual erosion over the years of public support for the [US-Japan] alliance and a growing antipathy towards the U.S." 66 The Japanese, like the Koreans, are increasingly viewing Americans as bullies.
U. S. Military Prostitution in Asia
The U.S.-Korean history of military prostitution shares many of the characteristics and tensions present in other sites of overseas U.S. bases, especially in Asia. The economic dependence of local camptown residentson the presence of U.S. troops is not unique to South Korea. For example, Takazato Suzuyo, a political activist on Okinawa, reported that Okinawa, which served as a R&R area to U.S. troops in Vietnam, lived off U.S. dollars:
| In its heyday, there were more than 1,200"approved" bars, night clubs, and restaurants on Okinawa, and soldiers spent money freely. B-52 bombers were taking off from Kadena [US Air Force] base almost every day to bomb North Vietnam, while returning soldiers from Vietnam, with their chest pockets filled with dollar bills, sometimes spent all their money in one night. 67 |
In Olongapo and Angeles in the Philippines, where the U.S. Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base were respectively located (until the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1992),"[t]here was virtually no industry except the 'entertainment' business, with approximately 55,000 registered and unregistered prostitutes and a total of registered 2,182 R&R establishments. 68 By 1985 the U.S. military had become the second largest employer in the Philippines, hiring over 40,000 Filipinos. . . . The sum of their salaries amounted to almost $83 million a year." 69
Ideologies around race and nationality have also contributed to the social inequalities and conflicts, especially affecting prostitutes, in the U.S. camptown communities in Asia. Enloe writes that"[c]lass and race distinctions inform all social relations between the U.S. military and the host community." 70 The racism demonstrated by American soldiers toward Asians in Vietnam and Korea are well-documented. Lloyd Lewis notes that"soldiers in all branches of the armed services [in Vietnam] recount receiving the same indoctrination" that the"enemy is Oriental and inferior." 71 The racist terms for Vietnamese--"gook, slant, slope, dink . . . or a half a dozen local variations"-- 72 had all been employed previously by Americans [toward Japanese in World War II and Koreans and Chinese in the Korean War] to designate yellow-skinned peoples." 73 Max Hastings has noted in his history of the Korean War that the"Eighth Army was forced to issue a forceful order" in the summer of 1951 that soldiers cease"to take a perverse delight in frightening civilians" and attempting to"drive the Koreans off roads and into ditches." The order concluded with"We are not in this country as conquerors. We are here as friends." 74 Hastings also includes a comment by a Marine, Selwyn Handler:"Koreans were just a bunch of gooks. Who cared about the feelings of people like that? We were very smug Americans at that time." 75 Bruce Cumings recounts the racism among Americans, soldiers and diplomats alike, in the late 1960s:"Their racism led them to ask me, because I was living with Koreans and they rarely ventured out to 'the economy,' things like whether it was true that the Korean national dish, kimch'i, was fermented in urine." 76
Racist stereotypes of Asians within the American society have mixed with sexist stereotypes of Asian women to foster American participation in camptown prostitution in Asia. The main military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, encouraged soldiers to explore Korea's"nighttime action," especially the kisaeng party, the"ultimate experience":
| Picture having three or four of the loveliest creatures God ever created hovering around you, singing, dancing, feeding you, washing what they feed you down with rice wine or beer, all saying at once,"You are the greatest." This is the Orient you heard about and came to find. 77 |
A U.S. Army chaplain I interviewed in April 1991 noted the following:
| What the soldiers have read and heard before ever arriving in a foreign country influence prostitution a lot. For example, stories about Korean or Thai women being beautiful, subservient--they're tall tales, glamorized. . . . U.S. men would fall in lust with Korean women. They were property, things, slaves. . . . Racism, sexism--it's all there. The men don't see the women as human beings--they're disgusting, things to be thrown away. . . . They speak of the women in the diminutive. 78 |
On Okinawa, U.S. servicemen from the Kadena Air Base"can be seen in town (Naha) wearing offensive T-shirts" depicting"a woman with the letters LBSM," which means"little brown sex machine." 79 The"brown" refers to the Filipino and Thai women who constitute the majority of military prostitutes on Okinawa. 80 Aida Santos reveals that Olongapo sells a variation on the theme--a popular T-shirt"bearing the message 'Little Brown Fucking Machines Powered with Rice.'" 81 She emphasizes that in the Philippines,"[r]acism and sexism are now seen as a fulcrum in the issue of national sovereignty." 82
The presence of U.S. military servicemen in Asia generates significant social transformations that affect both the host Asian society and the American society across the Pacific. Thanh-dam Truong has asserted that the U.S. military's use of Thailand as the major R&R base for U.S. soldiers fighting in Vietnam has spawned the now booming sex tourism industry all across the country, 83 winning Thailand the ignoble title,"Asia's brothel." Filipinos have charged that U.S. servicemen have brought AIDS and HIV into their country. Prostitutes in Olongapo, along with the umbrella feminist organization, GABRIELA, and health organizations, pushed the Philippine government to"obtain a guarantee that all U.S. service personnel coming into the Philippines be tested for HIV." 84 In 1988, the Philippines Immigration Commissioner required all U.S. servicemen entering the Philippines to present certificates verifying that they are AIDS-free. 85
In addition, sexual relations between American men and Asian prostitutes have created a living legacy of mixed-raced children who are rejected by both their mother's and father's societies. Maria Socorro"Cookie" Diokno, an active leader in the Philippines' anti-base movement, has referred to the children born of American servicemen and Asian women as"Amerasian 'souvenir' bab[ies]." 86 ABC's Prime Time (May 13, 1993) depicted Amerasian children in the Philippines who had been abandoned by their soldier-fathers and were living with their impoverished mothers, scavenging for food among heaps of rubble and waste. Enloe reports that"[o]f the approximately 30,000 children born each year of Filipino mothers and American fathers, some 10,000 [were] thought to become street children, many of them working as prostitutes servicing American pedophiles." 87 Enloe adds that a Filipino"insider" has noted that many others have been sold, with"Caucasian-looking children . . . allegedly sold for $50-200 (around P1,000-4,000), whereas the Negro-fathered ones fetch only $25-30 (around P500-600)." 88 Johnston's Mom in Songt'an, Korea, also tried to give up her sons to adoption, after earlier having given up a daughter. But in the end, she could not bear to do it and went back to prostitution in order to keep her boys. 89 In the film, Camp Arirang, one barwoman in Songt'an laments the need to give up her half African-American son one day; black Amerasian children are most shunned in Korean society, so most mothers try to send them to the United States for a chance at education and a future. She has already torn up all photographs of herself with her son because she knows she must let him go. In a voice cracking with emotion, she calmly says,"All I want him to know is that he was born in Korea, that his mother is Korean, and that she is dead. It will be easier for him that way."
The withdrawal of U.S. naval bases from the Philippines in 1992 also left behind a legacy of approximately 50,000 Amerasian children in the Philippines, with an estimated 10,000 of them living in Olongapo, which had housed the U.S. Subic Naval Base. The law firm of Cotchett, Illston, and Pitre of Burlingame, California, filed a class action suit against the U.S. government on behalf of Amerasian children left behind in the Philippines in March 1993. 90 The plaintiffs would"ask the federal court to order the Navy to provide funds for the education and medical care of these children until they reach 18 years of age." 91 The prostitute-mothers of these children and several leading Philippine civic organizations, such as GABRIELA, as well as the Council of Churches, mobilized such legal action.
Asian societies have borne the burden of the painful repercussions of militarized prostitution, but the American society has not gone untouched. Many of the prostitutes who end up divorced from their GI husbands (an estimated 80% of Korean-GI marriages end up in divorce) 92 go back into prostitution around military camp areas in the United States. 93 In the film The Women Outside, officials from the Mayor's Office of Midtown Enforcement in Manhattan state that some U.S. ser vicemen have been paid by flesh traffickers to marry women in Korea and bring them to the United States for work in massage parlors and brothels.
Policy Versus Practice in the U. S. Military
Individual moments of sexual contact have engendered large-scale socioeconomic transformations for Americans and Koreans, as well as personal traumas and challenges. But to root these consequences of prostitution in individuals' behavior without assessing the policies and practices of the U.S. military is like seeing the trees but not the forest. Policies on the prevention and control of sexually transmitted diseases, fraternization with locals, language and cultural awareness programs for soldiers stationed outside of the United States, and the length of the tour of duty are just some of the factors that influence the participation of soldiers in prostitution and the system of prostitution that evolves in a locality.
For example, Korea is one of the two countries, among those where the United States has bases, categorized as a"noncommand- sponsored" tour, 94 meaning that the Department of Defense will not pay for the travel and living costs of family members who accompany soldiers to Korea. In 1991, only 10% of the 40,000 troops were accompanied by their family members. Korea is also a"hardship tour," partly because of its status as a war zone and also because the living arrangements, language, and cultural differences pose difficulties for Americans. Korea is also a"short tour," usually about one and a half years long. Moreover, enlisted men who are sent to Korea tend to be very young, in their late teens and early twenties--they are without family and get hands-on experience in (technically) a combat zone. This contrasts with U.S. military policy for troops in former West Germany, which tends to send married men with their families since the 1980s. 95 One U.S. military official, who is familiar with troop life in Korea and Germany, found that prostitution rose concomitantly with a predominance of single men based around Nuremberg in the 1960s and 1970s; the swing toward the stationing of married soldiers in the 1980s coincided with a decline in prostitution. 96 Moreover, Germany in the 1970s and 1980s was considered a"plum" post, as opposed to a"hardship tour," because family members could experience European living. All Americans and Koreans who are familiar with U.S. military life have told me that the noncommand-sponsored status and the short duration of tours prevent a soldier from getting to know Korean culture and people and from putting down roots and establishing a stable life. The fact that the enlistees are unattached, lonely,"ghettoized" in Korea and distanced from America, and that they are moving on in a year's time makes them ready candidates for"GI johns."
Command policies say no to prostitution. All commands hold briefings introducing soldiers to their new posts and inform them of special health hazards and precautions. Servicemen also receive sex education on STDs and AIDs. In the Asian posts, superiors discuss the local camptown environment and prostitution. But the attitudes and the conduct of local commanders and immediate superiors, rather than official policies and briefings, determine how servicemen perceive prostitution in overseas settings. Two Army chaplains I spoke with emphasized that"[t]he command spells out what's o.k. and not o.k. in terms of interactions with the locals, including women. In Saudi Arabia [Persian Gulf War], it was definitely 'Thou shalt not.'" 97 Another Army chaplain agreed,"[In] Saudi Arabia, even before the soldier could go near a local woman and get caught by Arabs, we'd get him before the Arabs could; that's how strict we were." 98 In contrast, he pointed out that in Korea, the military says," 'Aw, it's the culture' and winks at what goes on." 99 One sailor I spoke with in the spring of 1991 stated that just before his ship docked in the Philippines or Korea, the medical officer gathered the men for a briefing about health precautions and"threw the men condoms as if they were Hallmark cards." He added that some officers would tell their men that prostitution is a way of life for Asians and that Asians like prostitution. 100 Former servicemen who had served in the Philippines stated on ABC's Prime Time (May 13, 1993) that military officers had"enthusiastically promoted" prostitution in the Philippines and that some had their own clubs and owned women.
Indeed, prostitution is an everyday experience, part of the routine, for the thousands of American servicemen in Korea. The authors of"Human Factors Research" (by EUSA) found that of 1% of the population surveyed in 1965,"approximately 84% of the men stated[d] that they have 'been with' or 'been out with' a prostitute at least once for one purpose or another." 101 Peer pressure was a major culprit:"[M]ost of the men state that one of the forces exerting pressure on them to 'try a prostitute' immediately after arrival is the encouragement of other Americans." 102 One U.S. Army captain who had served in Korea in the early 1980s also pointed out that there is"overwhelming cultural pressure among enlisted men" to seek out prostitutes. 103 He added that even moral crusaders who come in talking big about the sinfulness of prostitution ended up participating themselves.
The U.S. military does have a sporadic history of tackling prostitution and venereal disease as a moral crusade. Social and moral reform efforts during World War I years is the most prominent and well-documented. Controlling prostitution and venereal disease was part of a"garrison state" mentality, characterized by the"subordination of all other purposes and activities to war and the preparation for war." 104 For women, this meant"the first time a"national, concerted policy sanctioned the total abrogation of civil rights for women on the streets." 105 The"prostitute was cast as the enemy on the home front. . . . War propaganda presented the prostitute as someone predatory and diseased, who 'could do more harm than any German fleet of airplanes' to the men fighting the war." 106 The military judged the women to be responsible for generating the high rates of venereal disease among soldiers. Brandt points out that"[a]t home and abroad during the war, almost seven million days of active duty were lost to venereal disease, the most common illnesses in the service next to influenza." 107 In addition,"venereal diseases during the war cost the government almost fifty million dollars." 108 In the entire army, 76.6% of the infections involved soldiers serving in the United States. 109
To remedy this crisis, the military enlisted the help of progressive-era social reformers and together pushed for legal and social measures to prevent prostitution and sexual freedom in general. Despite the repressive treatment of women, such as forced gynecological examinations and detention at the mere suspicion of having a VD infection, 110 a serious concern with the welfare and protection of girls and women involved in vice-related activities drove the actions of social reformers, especially the Progressive era"social feminists." 111 Moreover, reformers attempted to apply through law and education the"language of Progressivism":"self- discipline, self- denial, self- sacrifice, and self- control."( (112 ( emphasis in original)
Indeed,"war policy makers sought to offset prevailing negative attitudes toward male virginity through training camp discipline that presented continence as manly and Spartan." 113 When Georges Clemenceau, the French premier, expressed his doubts about the practicality of upholding the policy of (what Inspector Simonin of the French surgeon general's office called)"official continence" to General Pershing, he offered to establish"special houses" of prostitution for the American Expeditionary Forces in France. When Raymond Fosdick, then in charge of making"camps morally safe and free of venereal disease" for the War Department, informed the then Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, the latter responded,"For God's sake, Raymond, don't show this to the President or he'll stop the war." 114 Such efforts demonstrate that the military does respond to larger social movements and dominant values regarding sexuality and that"military masculinity" as heterosexual prowess is neither fixed nor universal.
Some military officials in the 1950s and 1960s in Korea also decried their soldiers' participation in"illegal sexual activities." 115 The EUSA"Human Factors Research" (1965) noted that the U.S. command was"very concerned" about the problem of prostitution and was"interested in a full-scale morals study recently" (This never materialized.). 116 Those who held strong Christian perspectives on sexuality especially seem to have opposed the troops' participation in prostitution. One of the key U.S. initiators of the Camptown Clean-Up Campaign in the early 1970s was such a man; he had come from a missionary background and believed prostitution was immoral for both the woman and man involved. Additionally, commanders also worried that their men's participation in prostitution would hurt the image of their organization in Korea. But later in Korea, during the first campaign to "clean up" prostitutes and generally reduce camptown vices, individual morality and self-control were not official concerns. The moral character of soldiers or prostitutes never became an issue; in the 1970s, for both the U.S. military and the Korean government, the fundamental concern was the health and comfort of U.S. servicemen.
Prostitution and Korean Society
In the eyes of so-called normal Koreans, the prostitutes have served two important social functions: containing undesirable foreign influences on the greater Korean society 117 and preventing the prostitution and rape of"respectable" girls and women by U.S. soldiers. A 1965 EUSA report acknowledged that
| Excessive restrictive measures [regarding prostitution] . . . may be objected to by certain segments of the Korean population . . . since it would mean that the mobility of the Korean female national in close, continuous contact with the American would be heightened to the extent that she would infiltrate in hitherto"purely Korean" residential areas. 118 |
Like their political leaders, Koreans generally have viewed camptown prostitution as a"necessary evil" but ultimately have blamed the women rather than the foreigner or the pimps and club owners for such prostitution.
Korea has a long-standing tradition of governmental utilization of women and their sexuality for political ends. Since the early part of the Koryo period (918-1392), professional female entertainers, kisaeng, served the royal court and the (male) members of the scholar-official class with the art of music, dance, poetry, and conversation. The government formally trained these women, who came from the lowest social class (ch'onmin), in institutes called kyobang; these women belonged to government offices. Although kisaeng received formal education (Chinese classics), which was forbidden to all other women and male members of the low-class during the Choson dynasty (1392-1910), and had access to public outings (while upper-class women were sequestered in the home), these entertainers were the most socially stigmatized and morally marginalized among all women. The Choson rulers' adoption of neo-Confucianism translated into strict social and legal emphasis on women's chastity."Chastity for a woman is more precious than life" was a common proverb. It is common knowledge that Confucian ideology extols chastity as women's greatest virtue, but Korea is the only Confucianist country that has been obsessed with this ideal. According to Jae On Kim, folk tales common to China, Japan, and Mongolia, unlike those from Choson Korea, do not contain the chastity motif. 119 In such a society, kisaeng women, who had become synonymous with courtesan and prostitute by the second half of the Choson period, represented the polar opposite of the chaste wife/moral mother paradigm that was idealized among the upper class."In general, people perceived kisaengs as 'flowers on the roadside for any man to pick.'" 120
Not only kisaeng, but other women also have served as a collective sacrifice for governmental priorities. The Korean monarch was required to hand over thousands of women, along with artisans and eunuchs, as human tribute to the Mongols who established the Yuan dynasty in China (e.g., example 1,000 women in 1231).
| At first Koryo tried to fill the quota by selecting the widows of criminals, mistresses of Buddhist monks, and unattached women, thereby protecting upper-class women. Facing the Mongol demand for a special collection of beautiful girls, however, the government set up a special office to spot candidates. Since every family tried to hide or marry their daughters off at an early age, the government also promulgated a law forbidding the marriage of girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen without the prior registration with the government, which in turn low ered the marriage age even further. Historical records of this period are filled with cases of men, including high officials as well as commoners, who received severe punishments for not obeying the law. 121 |
Furthermore, women who sacrificed their chastity and lives for the good of the country have been extolled in Korean popular memory. For example, the story of Non'gae has been taught in Korean schools and celebrated as an example of Korean women's personal contributions to Korea's historical fight against Japanese domination. According to the legend, Non'gae, the concubine of General Choe Kyonghoe, governor of Chinju in the late 1500s, seduced a Japanese commander, Rokusuke Kedanimura, during the Japanese invasion of Korea and siege of Chinju in 1592, in order to kill him. While dancing with him, she led him toward the edge of a cliff and threw herself and Kedanimura into the river beneath. It is said in Korea that every June 29 of the lunar calendar, kisaeng and others go pay respects to Nongae at the shrine established by government authorities in Chinju.
The kisaeng tradition and the role of women as entertainers/servants to men live on in South Korea today. The yojong, which functions as a high-class kisaeng house/restaurant, continues to cater to wealthy and powerful men, including politicians, businessmen, and scholars. The very individuals who have the power to pass laws on prostitution and women's welfare have been the users of women's sexual services. One former member of the Internal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly during the 1950s stated that"In fact, madams in high-class yojongs are doing business with the support of high executive members in the Liberal Party (the then government party), so the [Seoul] Metropolitan Police Director cannot dare peek into their front doors." 122
Although cultural explanations can serve as a starting point, they do not constitute the crux of understanding the sophisticated structures and types of sexual services available in South Korea today. First, nearly all cultures contain some form of prostitution, but not all cultures have government-sanctioned and -sponsored sex industries. Second, a"culture of prostitution," assumes an essentialist view of a people and their sexual activities; there is no biological or psychological reason why Koreans must prostitute women. Relatedly, as Cumings points out, prostitution is not the" 'culture' of North Korea, and that makes it hard to attribute the behavior to some unchanging Korean 'way of life.' The regime outlawed prostitution and concubinage in 1946, at the same time that it established formal legal equality for women." 123
Rather than culture, the South Korean government's priorities for state-building, national security, and economic development, over any concern for the social welfare of women and/or the moral order of society, have determined policies regarding prostitution. Upon seizing the presidency through a coup d'état, Pak Chonghui promulgated the Prostitution Prevention Law in November 1961, one of his first administrative actions in the new office. The 1961 law was originally intended to punish women and men (customers and pimps) engaging in prostitution. But in reality, while men were released with mild warnings, female prostitutes were penalized: They were tried at summary courts, sentenced to detention, imprisoned, and/or sent to vocational training institutes by force. 124 The law also included provisions for the institutionalization of"potential prostitutes" (or"women in need of protection"), namely, poverty-stricken women, single mothers, runaway girls, and other vagrants, in"accommodation centers" (suyongso) and vocational schools. 125 In essence, the law was a two-edged sword--to punish and prevent prostitution. 126 The punitive function was carried out by the police, while the protective function was the job of the Women's Bureau in the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs." 127
It took eight years for the law to become effective (1969), and no detailed regulations to enforce the law have ever ensued. 128 The law was mainly a political act, part of a larger emphasis by the Pak regime to clean up the political corruption and social chaos inherited from Pak's predecessor, Yi Sungman. By cracking down on prostitution, Pak aimed to distinguish himself from his opponents as a law-and-order, morally upright national leader. 129 But in less than a year, the government's stance changed from prevention of prostitution to regulation. In June 1962, by joint action, the Ministries of Justice, Interior, and Social Welfare and related agencies established 104"special districts" of prostitution. By 1964, the number had increased to 145, and 60% of them (89 areas)--with approximately 13,000 prostitutes catering to U.S. troops--were located in Kyonggi Province, where American soldiers were most heavily concentrated. 130 Since 1972, approximately 70 such districts have remained in operation.
Although there was no legal basis for such special zones, the ROK government provided the following rationales: 1) to minimize prostitution's negative influence on the culture and education of general citizens; 2) to promote the spirit of collective defense of prostitutes against the exploitation of pimps; 3) to prevent the threat to public health by establishing venereal disease checks. 131 Despite the government's avowed reasons, leading Korean feminist scholars Cho Hyong and Chang P'ilhwa believe that the reality of prostitution flourishing in the U.S. kijich'on areas made the execution of the 1961 law impossible and the 1962 decision a necessary compromise. 132 Further, the fact that the Pak regime also established the Tourism Promotion Law in August 1961, three months before the promulgation of the Prostitution Prevention Law, raises the possibility that the elimination of prostitution was never a genuine concern of the government, given that the availability of women for various aspects of tourism, including sexual service, would have undermined the foreign-exchange orientation of the industry. Indeed, for the last 25 years or so, the Korean tourism industry has experienced a boom, hand in hand with the sex industry.
At an extreme, government officials have enthusiastically supported prostitution as a way to increase foreign exchange earnings for the Korean government. In 1973, Min Kwangsik, the then Minister of Education, created a stir in the press and antagonized women's groups in Korea and Japan by stating during a visit to Tokyo,"The sincerity of girls who have contributed (with their c--ts) to their fatherland's economic development is indeed praiseworthy." 133 Korean Church Women United (KCWU), a leading women's organization, has reported that the Korean government, through the Korea International Tourism Association (KITA), 134 licenses and"trains" women who will work as prostitutes for foreign men. The KITA-sponsored"orientation program" includes lectures by"renowned persons and professors" on"how valuable the foreign exchange earned by them [prostitutes] is to our economic development; how to behave with their foreign customers; how post-war Japanese girls contributed to their nation's reconstruction period by earning dollars through prostitution and about anti-communism." 135 The KITA issues the Certificate of Employment in Entertainment Service, which acts as a license for prostitution and pass into hotels. 136 Hei Soo Shin has argued that Korea's economic development and the growth of women's sexual services have symbiotically nurtured each other.
Cho and Chang's 1990 study of forty years of discussion on prostitution in the ROK National Assembly (the legislature) highlights a"pragmatic permissiveness" toward kijich'on prostitution on the part of its members. The authors state that from 1948 to the late 1980s, members of the National Assembly focused on GI prostitution among the different types of prostitution they mentioned. 137 Assemblymen made a sharp distinction between domestic and foreign-oriented prostitution, advocating strict control and/or abolition of domestic-oriented prostitution but sup porting, tongue in cheek, U.S.-oriented camptown prostitution. 138 One Assemblyman in October 1959 stated bluntly:
| It's inevitable that there are prostitutes who cater to foreign soldiers. . . . We should distinguish between those prostitutes who cater to domestic customers and those who cater to U.S. soldiers and train those catering to the foreigners on American customs, [entertainment] facilities, or language and etiquette. 139 |
The Korean legislators held the view that man's nature necessitated prostitution as a"necessary evil" among troops:
| As long as the U.S. continues to stay in the ROK, we must acknowledge that the majority of the troops are single and by human nature want entertainment (sex). It's better to provide special facilities for them than discuss the problem of prostitutes alone. For example, we could provide luxurious accommodations/facilities around Seoul for these men so that they don't have to go to Japan [for R&R]. 140 |
Cho and Chang conclude that the legislators viewed U.S. camptown prostitution"as rather functional for national defense and/or for GNP growth" and therefore supported"policies that promote[d] prostitution, in compensation [for the U.S. soldiers' presence in Korea]." 141
Kijich'on prostitution has served the Korean government's economic, as well as security, goals. In 1965, the Office of the Inspector General of the Eighth Army reported,
| It cannot be expected from the Korean Government that this Government, which receives a considerable amount of its gross national product from activities associated with prostitution, etc., will be enthusiastic and sincere in enforcing measures cutting down this considerable source of income for this Government. As one Korean official of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs put it,"You Americans are asking us to cut a source of revenue which demands no Government funds but provides livelihood for uncounted thousands." 142 |
One EUSA intelligence officer estimated that the troops contributed 25% of South Korea's GNP in the 1960s. 143 In 1987, the U.S. forces contributed an estimated $1 billion to the South Korean economy, or about 1% of the total GNP. 144 The EUSA Inspector General in 1964 highlighted the importance of prostitution on the local camptown economy:"At the local community level the business of prostitution is recognized as a source of income large enough to have an impact on the economy." 145 Similarly, in the spring of 1992, a Korean Protestant minister who serves the prostitute community in Songt'an commented that prostitution and related businesses support 60% of Songt'an's economy. 146
Although not unique in Asia, the South Korean government is responsible for abetting and sanctioning the growth of commercialized sex into a booming industry. Since the fall of 1973, the government has pursued an aggressive tourism development policy based on women's sexual service. Korean Church Women United pinpoints the diversion of Japanese male tourists from Taiwan to Korea, as a result of Japan's diplomatic normalization with the People's Republic of China (Japan cut off ties with Taiwan) in 1972 as the main cause; no longer able to go easily to Taiwan, Japanese men went to Korea for their sex-vacations. 147 The number of Japanese tourists, 85% of whom traveled without wives or girlfriends, skyrocketed from 96,531 in 1971 to 217,287 in 1972 and 436,405 in 1973. By 1979, the number was 649,707. 148 Japanese sources estimated a 700 billion won gain in revenues for the Korean economy from prostitution in 1978. 149 KCWU adds that the Korean tourist industry, led by the Ministry of Transportation,"underwent a drastic change making a quantum leap forward quantitatively as well as qualitatively, all in response to the onrush of Japanese tourists." 150 The number of foreign tourists increased from 11,108 in 1961 to more than 1 million in 1978 and 2.34 million during 1988, the year of the Seoul Olympics. 151 The number of hotels also rose from 42 in 1967 to 130 in 1978 and 276 in 1988. 152
By 1989, the entertainment industry--the world of nightclubs, bars, and prostitution--was estimated to reach a total sales of more than 4 trillion won, or 5% of the total GNP. 153 The Seoul YMCA, which has been actively campaigning against the sex industry in particular, and the entertainment industry in general, has estimated in its 1989 study that more than 400,000 establishments offered sexual services and that between 1.2 and 1.5 million Korean women ("one-fifth of the total number of South Korean women in the 15 to 29 age cohort") were selling sexual services. 154 The diversity of sexual services is also phenomenal."Room salons," where men go to rent rooms and women in order to conduct business or relax over liquor and lewd jokes--the women are sometimes available for sex--are common currency among South Koreans today; they range from the cheap and seedy to the very posh and outrageously expensive. In addition, barber shops, massage parlors, bars, tea rooms, and hotels--from local inns to Seoul's luxury accommodations--have women available for sexual services.
With the boom in such commerce and the accompanying news stories of women being kidnapped in daylight by flesh traffickers, 155 public pressure for governmental intervention began to mount beginning in the mid-1980s. In response,
| the government came up with series [sic] of administrative measures--raids, cancellation of business permits if found"decadent," forced closure of unlicensed premises, tax investigations of suspected establishments, and in Jan. 1990, as a final blow, prohibition of business for entertainment after midnight. 156 |
Shin highlights the fact that such establishments catering to foreigners or located at tourist hotels"were excluded from this measure and allowed to stay open until 4 a.m. as usual, again reflecting the government policy of treating tourists differently [for foreign exchange]." 157
If there is a"culture of prostitution" in South Korea, it is one that has actively and rapidly been forged as a strategy for economic growth and international recognition--tourism. Selling sexual services has become so commonplace that Koreans often speak about seemingly respectable female college students earning their pocket money by turning tricks. Lucia Chong, a Catholic missionary who serves the prostitute community in Itaewon, told me in the spring of 1992 that several GI prostitutes complained that wealthy college students are frequenting It'aewon clubs to pick up GIs. Some pay the GI--with leather jackets, jewelry, and other gifts--for the sexual encounters. This angered the prostitutes because the"rich girls" were taking potential customers away; they would say,"What man wants to pay for sex when they can get gifts for it?" South Korea in the post-Olympic years appears to embody what Kathleen Barry calls the"prostitution of sexuality." It is a society that is"sexually saturated" and"equated with the female body--where it is gotten, had, taken." 158
External intervention in Korean society has prominently helped shape the history of modern prostitution. In 1916, the Japanese colonial government legalized prostitution for the first time in Korean history by first importing Japanese prostitutes for the Japanese ruling elite in Korea. 159 Japanese prostitutes numbered 2,947 in 1906, 4,253 in 1980, and 4,417 in 1910. 160 Eventually, Korean women, particularly poor women, also participated in this legalized prostitution. Several Korean researchers have asserted that"most of the present red-light districts [in South Korea] were formed at this time." 161 Japanese organization and control of Korean women's sexuality reached their climax with the recruitment and deployment of approximately 200,000 girls and young women as members of the chongsindae (Women's Volunteer Corp), today known as comfort women. 162 These sex slaves of the Japanese military serve as the historical prototype of U.S.-oriented prostitution in Korea. Indeed, some of the staffworkers at My Sister's Place believe, based on their piecing together of older prostitutes' personal histories, that some former comfort women also worked as GI prostitutes among the first generation of kijich'on sex workers. 163
The Allied defeat of Japan and the consequent liberation of Korea from Japanese rule in 1945 set the stage for governmental sanction of prostitution by later South Korean administrations. The U.S. Military (occupation) Government (1945-48) established the first official women's welfare policy in Korean history, as well as the first Women's Department in the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in 1946. 164 Although the occupation authorities prohibited the sale of women and the contracting of women for sale in May 1946, they did not outlaw prostitution. General Archer Lerche, the Chief of Civil Administration of the U.S. Military Government, stated that the government has no intention to prohibit prostitution. 165 The United States did later prohibit licensed prostitution in November 1947 (effective 1948), imposing punishment of less than two years and/or less than 50,000 won on all persons, including the customers, involved in prostitution. 166 But the transfer of government into Korean hands, after the election of 1948, and the GI prostitution already in full swing around U.S. camps prevented the enforcement of this law.
Increasingly, Koreans view the history of prostitution and the contemporary forms of sex tourism in Korea as manifestations of foreign domination over their country. Shin effectively has argued that the use of women's sexual labor for economic growth reflects South Korea's dependent development status. More graphically, Korean women have deemed the kisaeng tourism activities of Japanese men in the early-to-mid 1970s a revival of Japanese imperialism of 1910 to 1945. Students of Ewha Womans [Women's] University, the leading institution of women's higher education in South Korea, publicized the following in their protests against kisaeng tourism:
| Our country should not become Japan's colony again. Under the title of"the promotion of tourism" as a national policy, many women are being sold as prey to economic animals to help pay off a foreign debt of $5,500,000,000. The sound of Japanese wooden sandals is now taking the place of the sound of their military boots. The Japanese are coming to this land as our bosses again. 167 |
Similarly, anti-base activists and Korean feminists are increasingly casting the kijich'on prostitute as a victim of U.S. imperialism and militarism.
Note 1: Saundra Sturdevant and Brenda Stolzfus, Let the Good Times Roll, p. 313. Back.
Note 2: These are private businesses that assist Korean women and GIs in preparing the paperwork for their marriage application process. Marriages must be approved by the military command and processed through the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. Back.
Note 3: Interview with the former Blue House Political Secretary in charge of overseeing the Clean-Up Campaign, Seoul, June 11, 1992. Back.
Note 4: In Camp Arirang, a documentary film on U.S. military prostitution in Korea (produced and directed by Diana S. Lee and Grace Yoonkyung Lee, 1995). Jonathan Simmons, a former GI, says of American Town: "It blew my mind; it was a town built on prostitution." Back.
Note 5: See Camp Arirang. Back.
Note 6: See Camp Arirang. Back.
Note 7: Mal, Magazine, vol. 26 (August 1988), p. 108 (in Korean). Back.
Note 9: The Women Outside: Korean Women and the U.S. Military, a documentary film, directed by J. T. Takagi and Hye Jung Park, 1996, aired on PBS, July 16, 1996. Back.
Note 10: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, p. 212. Back.
Note 12: Ibid., pp. 230-33. Back.
Note 15: See Camp Arirang,. Korean prostitutes are not unique in this sense; sex workers catering to U.S. soldiers stationed in Hawaii during World War II used morphine and opium in order to endure their work. See Beth Bailey and David Farber, The First Strange Place, p. 107. Back.
Note 16: Interview, Washington, D.C., April 24, 1991. Back.
Note 17: Interview, Princeton, N.J., May 31, 1990. Back.
Note 18: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, p. 206. Back.
Note 19: Rainbow Center, "Rainbow News Letter," #3, January 1994, p. 8. Back.
Note 20: My Sister's Place, Newsletter, Fall 1989, p. 2. Back.
Note 22: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, pp. 212-13. Back.
Note 23: See Camp Arirang. Back.
Note 25: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, p. 230. Back.
Note 26: Mal, Magazine, vol. 26 (August 1988), p. 108. Back.
Note 27: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, p. 203. Back.
Note 28: In 1963, 68% of women worked in agriculture and 7% in manufacturing. In 1980, the figures were 39% and 22.3% respectively. By 1990, the figures were 20.4% and 28% respectively. In 1990, 51.6% worked in the service sector. From Kyung Ae Park, "Women and Development," p. 132. These figures are from the Economic Planning Board, Republic of Korea, Annual Report on the Economically Active Population Survey. Back.
Note 29: Eighth U.S. Army, "Human Factors Research, Part I," p. 9. Back.
Note 31: My Sister's Place, Newsletter, Summer 1988, p. 2. Back.
Note 32: Conversations with staff, My Sister's Place, 1992. Back.
Note 33: My Sister's Place, Newsletter, Spring 1989, p. 3. Back.
Note 34: MoHSA, Yullak yôsông silt'ae chosa kyôlgwa pogosô, (Report on the investigation of the state of prostitutes), 1977, p. 37. Back.
Note 35: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, p. 192. Back.
Note 37: EUSA, "Memorandum for Record, Subj: VD Control in Uijongbu Vicinity, 1963." The contents of the memo suggest that the author was stationed in Uijongbu. Back.
Note 38: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, p. 184. Back.
Note 39: "Human Factors Research, Part I," p. 7. Back.
Note 40: For example, see My Sister's Place, Newsletter, #5 (in English), Fall 1989 and #5 (in Korean), February 1990. Back.
Note 41: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, p. 231. Back.
Note 42: From the early 1950s to the early 1990s, over 100,000 Korean women have immigrated to the United States as wives of servicemen. Not all of the women were prostitutes. See Daniel Booduck Lee, "Marital Adjustment Between Korean Women and American Servicemen," p. 102. Back.
Note 43: Mal, Magazine, vol. 26 (August 1988), p. 109. Back.
Note 44: See Camp Arirang. Back.
Note 45: Cynthia Enloe, "It Takes Two," p. 23. Back.
Note 47: Migun kiji pandae chon'guk kongdong taech'aek, Yangk'i ko hom, (Yankee Go Home), p. 72. Back.
Note 48: The contemporary sex industry in Asia offers a myriad of sexual "entertainment" possibilities. Some establishments feature stage shows where women pick up coins and smoke cigarettes with their vaginas. Back.
Note 49: Elim Kim, "Research for the Reform of the Law on the Prevention of Prostitution," p. 89 (in Korean). Back.
Note 51: Yangk'i ko hom, pp. 76-77. Back.
Note 52: Yangk'i ko hom, pp. 74-75. Back.
Note 53: Editorial Board, Tosô, Publishers, Sarang ûi P'umasi,(Love for Sale), p. 94. Back.
Note 54: Tonga Ilbo, July 22, 1962 (EUSA translation). Back.
Note 55: Yangk'i ko hom, pp. 76-77. Back.
Note 56: Pacific Stars and Stripes, July 15, 1971. Back.
Note 57: "Human Factors Research, Part I: Korean Sample and Implications," 1965, p. 7. This rate pertained to the Yongsan area in Seoul in the mid-1960s. Rural areas generally had lower rates for sex. Back.
Note 58: Bruce Cumings, "Silent But Deadly," pp. 170 and 175, respectively. Back.
Note 59: Cynthia Enloe, "A Feminist Perspective," p. 101. Back.
Note 60: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, p. 209. Back.
Note 61: One of the major causes of this anti-Americanism stems from the belief among many Koreans that the U.S. government supported the Korean military's crackdown on demonstrators in Kwangju, commonly known as the "Kwangju Massacre," in May 1980. Dissident groups and human rights observers have estimated the civilian death toll at approximately 2,000. Korean activists have charged that the Commander of the US forces, which has operational control over the ROK military, permitted the deployment of Korean troops for the violent crackdown. See Donald N. Clark, ed., The Kwangju Uprising: Shadows over the Regime in South Korea; and Tim Shorrock, "The Struggle for Democracy in South Korea in the 1980s and the Rise of Anti-Americanism." Back.
Note 62: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, p. 209. Back.
Note 63: Rainbow News Letter, #3, p. 8. Back.
Note 64: New York Times, March 7, 1996. Back.
Note 66: Far Eastern Economic Review, November 2, 1995. Back.
Note 67: Christine Wing, "The United States in the Pacific," p. 141. Back.
Note 68: Aida Santos, "Gathering the Dust: The Bases Issue in the Philippines," p. 37. Back.
Note 69: Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, p. 86. Back.
Note 70: Enloe, "A Feminist Perspective," p. 98. Back.
Note 71: Lloyd B. Lewis, The Tainted War: Culture and Identity in Vietnam Narratives, p. 55. Back.
Note 74: Max Hastings, The Korean War, p. 241. Back.
Note 75: Ibid. Also see Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, vol. 2, The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947-1950, pp. 690-97. Back.
Note 76: Cumings, "Silent But Deadly," p. 175. Back.
Note 77: Pacific Stars and Stripes, July 3, 1977. Back.
Note 78: Interview, Washington, D.C., April 19, 1991. Back.
Note 79: Aurora Camacho de Schmidt, "Voices of Hope and Anger: Women Resisting Militarization," p. 110. Back.
Note 80: It is interesting to note that "LBSM" is a spoof on "SLBM," submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which forms one leg of the U.S. nuclear "tripod." Back.
Note 81: Santos, "Gathering the Dust," p. 40. Back.
Note 83: Thanh-dam Truong, Sex, Money and Morality, pp. 161-67. Back.
Note 84: Sturdevant and Stolzfus, "Disparate Threads of the Whole: An Interpretive Essay," in Let the Good Times Roll, p. 311. Back.
Note 85: Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, p. 89. Enloe refers to the Christian Science Monitor, February 18, 1988. Back.
Note 86: Camacho de Schmidt, p. 112. Back.
Note 87: Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, p. 87. Back.
Note 89: My Sister's Place, Newsletter, Fall 1989, p. 2. Back.
Note 90: Christopher Acebedo, Ruby Acebedo, Tyson David, and Brenda David v. United States of America, Complaint for Damages Under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. S1491. Back.
Note 91: Law Firm of Cotchett, Illston & Pitre, "Press Release," March 3, 1993. Back.
Note 92: See The Women Outside. Back.
Note 93: Interview, Princeton, N.J., May 31, 1990. Back.
Note 94: Young Mi Pak, "U.S. Military Presence in Korea and Its Effect on Women," p. 23. Back.
Note 95: Interview, Princeton, N.J., May 31, 1990. Back.
Note 97: Interviews, Washington, D.C., April 19, 1991. Back.
Note 98: Interview, Washington, D.C., April 24, 1991. Back.
Note 100: Conversation, Washington, D.C., April 1991. Back.
Note 101: "Human Factors Research, Part I," p. 6. Back.
Note 103: Interview, Princeton, N.J., May 31, 1990. Back.
Note 104: Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State, p. 348. Back.
Note 105: Barbara Meil Hobson, Uneasy Virtue, p. 165. Back.
Note 107: Allan M. Brandt, No Magic Bullet, p. 115. Back.
Note 110: Hobson, p. 167. Back.
Note 111: Ibid., p. 171. Back.
Note 112: Brandt, p. 120. Back.
Note 113: Hobson, p. 180. Back.
Note 114: Brandt, pp. 105-6. Back.
Note 115: Capt. J. B. Wayne, ACofs, J-5, "Comments on Draft Talking Paper Entitled Immorality and VD," November 19, 1964; also, Letter from Lt. Gen. T. W. Dunn, Headquarters I Corps Group, to Gen. Hamilton Howze, EUSA Commanding General, July 19, 1964. Back.
Note 116: "Human Factors Research, Part I," p. 3. Back.
Note 117: Felix Moos described camptowns in Korea as "buffer communit[ies] in which compromises between the two cultures are reached and in which fusion of two patterns takes place." Moos, "Some Aspects of Korean Acculturation and Value Orientation Since 1940." But Americans and Koreans familiar with camptowns whom I spoke with while in Korea (1991/92) claimed that camptowns, rather than serving as "buffers," serve as "walls," blocking Americans from entering Korean society and blocking "normal" Koreans from interacting with Americans. Back.
Note 118: "Human Factors Research, Part I," p. 13. Back.
Note 119: Jae On Kim, "The Idea of Chastity in Korean Folk Tales," p. 9. Back.
Note 120: Hei Soo Shin, p. 42. Back.
Note 123: Cumings, "Silent But Deadly," p. 174. Back.
Note 124: Hei Soo Shin, p. 62. Back.
Note 126: Yongsu Kang, "A Study on Prostitution in Korea," pp. 97-98 (in Korean). Back.
Note 127: Hei Soo Shin, p. 61. Back.
Note 128: Sonsuk Pak, "Yo,song ui song'u,l chungsim u,ro bon maemaech'un chongch'aek e kwanhan yon'gu" (Research on prostitution policy from the perspective of women's sexuality), p. 38. Back.
Note 129: Hyoung Cho and P'ilhwa Chang, "Perspectives on Prostitution in the Korean Legislature: 1948-1989," p. 95 (in Korean). Back.
Note 130: Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Punyô haengjông 40 nyôn, (40 Years of Women's Administration), p. 111. Back.
Note 131: Paraphrased from Elim Kim, p. 90. Back.
Note 132: Cho and Chang, p. 95. Back.
Note 133: Yayori Matsui, "Why I Oppose Kisaeng Tours," p. 68. Back.
Note 134: Established in 1962, KITA changed its name to Korea National Tourism Corporation in 1984. Back.
Note 135: Korea Church Women United, "Kisaeng Tourism," p. 26. Back.
Note 137: Paraphrased from Cho and Chang, p. 87. Back.
Note 138: Ibid., p. 92. Cho and Chang note that legislators exempted high-class prostitution (yojông,) from control/abolition. Yojông, considered the most elite of the numerous forms of sexual entertainment/prostitution available in Korea, are usually frequented by Korean politicians and wealthy businessmen. Back.
Note 142: "Human Factors Research: Part I," p. 13. Back.
Note 143: Interview, Seoul, May 12, 1992. Back.
Note 144: My Sister's Place, Newsletter, July 1991, p. 8. Back.
Note 145: EUSA Office of the Inspector General, Memorandum from Col. Frederick B. Outlaw to EUSA Chief of Staff, Re: "Memorandum for Information of the Chief of Staff; Subject: Observations Regarding Prostitution," March 18, 1964. Back.
Note 146: Conversations with Rev. Han, Songtan City, May 1992. Back.
Note 147: Korean Church Women United, "Kisaeng Tourism," p. 11. Back.
Note 151: Hei Soo Shin, p. 58. Back.
Note 153: Ibid. p. 5. Shin cites the research of the Seoul YMCA (1989), which produced a comprehensive study on "entertainment culture" and measures to fight it. Back.
Note 155: From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, stories of women and girls being kidnapped, drugged, and sold into prostitution buzzed all around the major Korean cities. The media often reported on this phenomenon, and family and friends warned one another of the dangers of women walking on streets and taking taxis alone. When I was doing my research, several relatives urged me to take precautions and gave me tips on how to resist such attacks and seek help. Back.
Note 156: Hei Soo Shin, p. 69. Back.
Note 158: Kathleen Barry, The Prostitution of Sexuality, p. 20. Back.
Note 160: Hei Soo Shin, p. 46, n. 8. Back.
Note 162: See George Hicks, The Comfort Women. Back.
Note 163: Conversations, Spring 1992. Back.
Note 166: Hei Soo Shin, p. 48, n. 13. Back.
Note 167: Asian Women's Association, "Prostitution Tourism," p. 15. Back.
Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations
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