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27 Itaewon has been home to foreigners since the Joseon era. The name Itaewon means “pear orchard,” and indeed there were pear trees. But it can also mean “stranger” — appropriate since during the first Japanese invasion of Korea in 1591, Japanese soldiers lived in Itaewon. Ac- cording to the Itaewon Special Tourism Zone office, their Korean wives and mixed-blood children continued to live there even after the Japanese soldiers themselves had left. Buddhist temples, including at least one nunnery, pro- vided accommodations to the few tourists and strangers who came to Korea at that time. Itaewon was outside Seoul’s fortress walls, and so would probably have also had a small farming village, given its proximity to the Han River, according to the ISTZ. There was also a Japanese customs house, or official house of sorts, to welcome em- issaries into Korea. In 1905, Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War and took protectorate control of Korea. Though the Chinese once had a small, informal camp at what is to- day Camp Coiner, it was the Japanese who established the first full-fledged military base at Yongsan Garrison, in 1907. Japan’s 20th Army was barracked there, and it became the headquarters for the country’s 35-year occu- pation. According to graduate student and longtime Seoul resident Jacco Zwetsloot, more than half the buildings still standing there were built by the Japanese. “If you go towards Haebangchon, towards the tunnel, on the right side there are some apartments,” says Zwet- sloot. “That used to be the shooting range.” “Down in Hannam Village,” he says, “was where the cav- alry was located.” Zwetsloot also describes a railroad that ran into the center of Yongsan, which served as a hub. “You could basically move anything by rail from Busan to Yongsan, Yongsan to Manchuria, very easily. So they moved tanks, they moved all sorts of things.” The development of Itaewon began with that Japanese base. Soldiers frequented the neighborhood, and there were shooting ranges and other facilities for them, includ- ing “comfort stations” — places to find prostitutes. Overall, though, little is known about what Itaewon looked like exactly during this period. What’s certain is that in 1945, with Japan’s defeat in World War II and sub- sequent departure from the peninsula, Itaewon — and the rest of Korea — changed radically. itaewon became a u.s. army ‘gicHijon,’ or camptown, a place tHat represented freedom from tHe rules on base. tHere were generally only two types of people in itaewon in tHe 1950s: tHe u.s. soldiers and tHe Korean women wHo served tHem. Land of the stranger