Spence in Seoul

안녕하세요!

[spenceinseoul]

Hi Spence, I dont know if you still check this account, but I was hoping to ask you about your semester in Seoul at Dongguk University. I'm planning on spending a semester there as well, and I have a few questions :)

Sure! What do you want to know?

[spenceinseoul]

I’m camped out in the departures area waiting until morning for the next flight. On the upside, I do have Mad Men, Lotteria, and a miniature fort. #StillGrowing #StillLearning #HardLessons - Incheon Airport (Incheon, ROK)

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Balloon Room - Dongdaemun Design Center (Seoul, ROK)

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Slave for the Night

Minutes ago, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed. I saw that my friend had RSVP’d for an event called “Porn Party! Summer Carnival! with all You Drink Shots!”. My initial reaction was “Wow, this seems problematic”. I clicked through anyway to look at the description:

While I realize that, as a Black person, I am likely to have a visceral reaction to any use of the term “slave auction”, there is something more disturbing about seeing this here in Korea. (Since coming to Korea, I’ve found myself on many occasions thinking, Gee, this makes makes me feel uncomfortable, but is it actually racist?) But even if one makes the distinction between chattel slavery and sexual slavery (i.e. BDSM), from a Western perspective, some serious line-blurring appears to be occurring.

Let’s ignore the issue of the pornification of society for a moment, and let’s say this event is based solely on sexually liberties of BDSM, which encourages the utilization of power differentials in role-playing. One still must ask from where this idea of a “slave auction” originates.

To this day many Koreans still criticize Japanese for their unwillingness to apologize for the use of sex slaves (previously referred to as comfort women) during WWII by the Japanese Imperial Army. Moreover, as I have mentioned in a previous post, human trafficking is still a big issue in Korea today. One would think that each of these would make Koreans less accepting of the exploitation and objectification of women.

My first thoughts as to why there is such acceptance of something so un-Korean in nature is the (current) dominance of Western culture worldwide. My initials suspicions of cultural imperialism being at the root of this case were confirmed by the Korean ad for the event, which uses phrases like “European Porn Party” and “Europeans attack Itaewon”.

In terms of larger, global trends, the pornification of media (i.e. music, the Internet, TV, books, etc.) is both widespread and deeply-penetrating. The Korean government has put forth great effort in blocking access to Internet pornography (here’s a USA Today Story), but I think that such efforts (along with Korea having a female president) mask the underlying male hegemony of Korean society. Take for example the sexualization of female K-Pop artists. Check out the music video for Orange Caramel’s Catellena below (Note KBS has deemed the video unsuitable for broadcast AllKPop Story):

Orange Caramel - "Catallena"

In the above video, the female singers are packaged, sold, and eaten inside of sushi bar. The video ends with close-up shots of women slowly inserting pieces of sushi into their mouths. Any deeper allusions to what this video says Korean-Japanese beef aside, my point is that women are being commodified. You can’t get more meta than this video. 

To suggest that male-dominance is only Western in origin would be silly, especially when one considers various aspects of Confucianism. However, I do believe that capitalism fuels a particularly powerful (formerly Western but now global) push for male dominance and female objectification. I also believe that issues surrounding race/sex/gender/able-bodiness are intertwined. Furthermore, examining any issue in isolation, without considering the paradigm in which the phenomenon occurs will lead to myopic analyses and conclusions.

For another interesting read on sex/power in Korean society, specifically regarding Korea’s 3S policy in the 1980s, check out the link below:

Sex, Sports, and Screen

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Finding A Barbershop (for Black Men) in Seoul

The thought of getting my haircut in Korea was something that made me extremely nervous. Black Americans dedicate much thought and a large amount of resources to their hair. When I was in the States, I always found it hard to explain to non-people of color why I can't simply go to any barbershop to have my hair cut. Black hair requires some amount of specialized knowledge and experience. Luckily, Worcester has large enough Latino and Black populations that finding a barbershop for me is never that difficult. This is not the case, however, in Korea.

In order to find a Black barbershop in Seoul I started out with a simple Google search. The search returned only a handful results, of which the trustworthiness was suspect. Here is a Yahoo Answers response that an asker received:

The video provided by the respondent was of Martina, of the YouTube series 'Eat Your Kimchi', endorsing a salon called Juno Hair (Link Here). I've learned so much about Korea from watching her show, that I was extremely trusting of her. While digging further however, I found that some foreign teachers who followed Martina's advice felt that they were ripped off and misled (some guys paying $44 for haircuts). The biggest issue standing in the way of my even venturing out to give it a chance was that it didn't look like they were knowledgeable in how to work with Black hair.

I kept looking for information, and I came across an FourSquare entry for a place called Gabby's Barbershop in Itaewon (Link Here). Itaweon, if you are unfamiliar, is a part of Seoul with people and businesses from all over the world. The reviews seemed decent and most importantly, it appeared to specialize in Black hair. Perfect! Details on the location were a bit sketchy, but I figured that I could simply head to the Itaewon area with my fingers crossed.

I took the subway to there later that day. From my research on Itaewon I knew that parts of it were further divided by nationality (and by other things, as I later found out). I set out looking for any Nigerian or African enclave. I scoured the side streets off the main shopping road. I almost immediately ran into what is known as "Hooker Hill". It should probably be re-named "Hooker Slight-incline" in order to prevent people from stumbling into it. (Read more about my run-in with a prostitution house in the previous post.) I found a Greek area, an Indian area, and then a transvestite area. Finally, I found the Nigerian zone. On one side of the street was an African nightclub. Further down was a hair store/salon. The owner, a bald middle-aged Nigerian man, pointed me the direction of Gabbys, much farther down, back on the main street, near McDonalds.

On the main shopping street, I looked again for any sign of a barbershop or a McDonalds - no luck. As I kept walking, however, a Black guy in his twenties with a very clean haircut popped out of an alleyway. I was so caught off guard. It was as if he had popped out of Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter. I looked on the sidewalk and saw a modest sign reading "Gabby's Barbershop" with an arrow pointing into the alleyway. Success!

Here's a Google Street view of the alley. Approximately located at 57-7 Itaewon-dong

What I found at the end of the alley was not just a barbershop. I suppose that you could call it a mall, but for whatever reason "multi-story business complex" sounds more accurate. This mini-mall was made up of several different African-owned business squeezed into a single building. As I approached the barbershop, a licorice-skinned man with clippers in-hand greeted me in the doorway. More accurately, he gave me a quizzical hello and a what-are-you-looking-for face. I told him that I wanted a haircut. He motioned for me to come inside and grab a seat in an open chair to wait for a free barber. I sat down and started looking around the shop. There was another barber beside the first gentleman, whom I assumed was Gabby. This second barber wore a suspect-looking Paul Pierce Inglewood throw-back jersey. Off to the side were a group of men watching CNN. A story on the kidnapped Nigerian girls was on the screen. To my right, towards the back wall, leather goods were being sold within the barbershop.

Eventually, it was my turn to hop in the barber's chair. As portly a Paul Pierce who vaguely resembled Beanie Siegel spun me around in his chair I told him that I wanted a number-one on the top and low fade on the side. After a 20-30 minutes he was done. I asked how much; he said 10,000 won. I asked he took tips. (Tipping isn't a normal practice in Korea, but the lines blur at non-Korean businesses. This is even at Western-style establishments owned by Koreans, like my favorite this bar called Monkey Beach.) He said, yes. I paid him the money and left.

As you can surmise, you can find almost anything you need in Korea. You just need to know where to look or know whom to ask. Also, thank God for the Internet.

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Human Trafficking in Korea

A couple weeks ago, I traveled via subway into Itaewon to get a haircut. This area is considered to be a hub for international visitors and residents, with offerings like burrito places, western-style bars, and foreign retail stores. I knew about a barbershop specializing in Black hair in the general area so I decided to do some exploring and (if lucky) eventually find the place. (More on the haircut in a separate post). To make a long story short, I ended up on a narrow street (running parallel to the main shopping avenue); there a Korean madam (pimp) in her 40s attempted to pander her women to me. She called after me and started following me, but I just said no and kept walking toward the main street until she was out of sight. Oddly enough (or perhaps not), prostitution house was within a block or two of the police station and within two blocks of a McDonalds.

One of the most striking things that I have noticed since coming to Korea is how large the sex trade industry is within the country. I’ve read that it makes up some 5% of South Korea’s GDP and that 1 in 25 Korean women are sex workers. The issue of prostitution is a troubling collision of Korea’s politics/economics (President Chung Hee, the father of Korean industrialization, encouraged the growth of the sex industry in the South Korea to generate revenue from US military), women’s rights issues (i.e. the right of women to control their own bodies), and Korea’s history with sex slaves under Japanese colonial rule.

During my trip to Jeju Island, I had another run in with the country’s sex trade industry. Three of my travel buddies and I went in search of a pub one night. We wound up down the street from our hostel and just off a main shopping path, a block from the McDonalds (sound familiar?). We heard this weird Korean country music emanating from one establishment; we investigated by descending the staircase and entering the lounge in the basement. The place was empty save for an ajumma (middle-aged woman) beckoning us to come inside and a handful of young women (some Korean and some not) who were all sitting down. The women stood up at once. I whispered to my Dutch friend’s ear that we needed to leave immediately. My friends were confused but we ended up leaving right as the women attempted to make conversation. This was a Korean juicy bar. These are places in which women encourage men to keep buying expensive drinks and later take the men off site to have sex. The women use the money to pay down a debt that often never decreases in size.

As a feminist, I am wholeheartedly against prostitution. But the moment in Jeju gave me pause. I thought about why I was so appalled at the fact that we had walked into a prostitution house, and why the others I was with seemed less phased by the incident. I then realized the significance of my being in the company of two Dutch guys and an Indian gentlemen. At the risk of making over-generalizations, the Dutch have generally more relaxed as attitudes toward prostitution (prostitution is allowed in the Red Light District, as one confirmed with me later). India, on the other hand, has had a history notoriously characterized by male hegemony (e.g. acid throwing and the rape of Indian women). Then I asked myself why the particular issue mattered so much to me. Prostitution (really sex slavery) brought to mind images of the dehumanizing acts that occurred during the holocaust of Black enslavement. Thus, I believe that our respective upbringings within separate cultures played a big role in determining our views on prostitution (cultural relativism).

So far my time in Korea has made me much more self-aware of who I am as a person. Having the chance to experience Korean life while also interacting with other international students has allowed to see how my outlook on the world compares with that of others. Although, I ultimately plan on sticking to my own moral/ethic code, I realize the importance of using moments like those described above to analyze larger, more deeply-seeded phenomena and to determine what my reactions to them say about myself as a person.

[spenceinseoul]

Hyeopjae Beach (Jeju Island, ROK)

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I had boendegi for the first time yesterday. They're boiled silkworm pupae.They weren't particularly yummy (to me or any of the other foreigners). They tasted a bit like nuts and earth. Also, as my Indian friend noted, they were a bit shrimpy in flavor and texture.

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Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrise Peak) - Jeju Island, ROK #StudyAbroad #Korea #Excursion

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Mini Jeju island statue #Excursion #Korea

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The French girls and I went to Jalgachi fish market in Busan yesterday. On the way there we found this enormous bowl of strawberries for only 3,000 won ($3). Deals like this for fruit are a rarity in Seoul. #Korea #busan #Excursion

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I'm now leaving Busan and heading to Jeju Island with some of the other international students. #제주도 #StudyAbroad #Excursion

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Haeundae Beach - Busan, ROK #Korea #StudyAbroad #Excursion

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Rush hour on the 4 Line, near Myeongdong - Seoul, ROK #StudyAbroad #Korea

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Cheonggyecheon - Seoul, ROK #StudyAbroad #Korea

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On Thursday night, my friends and I went to the top of Namsan to celebrate a birthday. We met a nice Korean family who wanted to set off some fireworks. Welp, the security guard had other plans. (*See shaky cell phone footage.*) At the 2:00 mark, the guard makes a grab for the firework gun. Being from Massachusetts, I'm generally not that comfortable around amateur fireworks shows as it is, but that dodgy move almost sent me running.

Namsan is essentially in the backyard of DGU. This was my first time up to the top. It takes about 30 minutes but the journey was worth it. I hope to go back up soon during the daytime.

Side note: Somehow the little girl ended up with our group after we were all kindly asked told to leave the premises. The dad was so busy being a BA that he literally forgot about his daughter. We returned her to her dad after her repeated worried exclamations of "APPA!".

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Dongguk University has strung and lit hundreds of lanterns across campus to celebrate Buddha’s upcoming birthday (May 6th). Sorry for the photo quality. It was raining last night. #korea #GPOY