28page

www.groovekorea.com / July 2014 28 Edited by Elaine Ramirez (elaine@groovekorea.com) COvER STORY The U.S. Army moved in and took over the Japanese military headquarters in 1945, and left in 1949. When the troops returned two years later to fight the Korean War, they came back to Yongsan. In 1957, they established Yongsan as the primary headquarters for the United States Forces Korea. Itaewon became a U.S. Army “gichijon,” or camptown, a place that represented freedom from the rules on base. There were general- ly only two types of people in Itaewon at that time: the U.S. soldiers and the Korean women who served them. Buildings as they are now didn’t exist — it was mostly ramshackle, tem- porary houses. The roads were paved with on- dol stones, like unburned charcoal. In the 1950s, the United States was at the height of its glory — the undisputed victor in World War II, the richest country in the world and the occupier or patron of Western Europe, Japan, South Korea and much of the rest of the world. Korea, on the other hand, had nev- er seen worse days. Decimated by war and famine and divided in half by the Cold War, it was by many accounts the poorest country in the world. South Korea may have been an equal to the United States on paper, but in actuality, it was little more than a vassal. No- where was this revealed more vividly than in Itaewon, and in the neighborhood’s primary industry: prostitution. “The war, with its accompanying poverty, so- cial 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,” Katharine Moon writes in her study “Sex Among Allies” (1997). Many of the prostitutes were war orphans, supporting en- tire families in the countryside. Very few had any education at all; a girl who had completed middle school was considered highly educat- ed. Hal Voelkel was the young son of American missionaries during the ‘50s. He remembers many of the girls standing by the side of the road, bow-legged and very sick looking, hus- tling for tricks. “A most vivid memory was the lines of pros- titutes along the street waiting for GIs to come by, pick them up, go back to the base where they’d eat, go to the movies, et cetera.” Voelkel says. “I clearly remember after the movie ended and the lights came on one time, a woman was readjusting her bra and blouse — I was about 14 years old then, very curious!” Though there are no figures for the time, it’s assumed prostitution was done all over Itae- won — in the back alleys, in small huts and on the floors of shacks. Some families also lived in Itaewon. Ken Seo was born in Itaewon in 1963, and has lived there his whole life with his family. “A long time ago, my neighbors were all U.S. Army. U.S. Army children, we grew up togeth- er,” says Seo, now a Ph.D. student at Korea University and vice president of the ISTZ. He spoke enough English as a child to communi- cate with the American kids: “I went on base many times. With the children on base, it was my playground. We played together with U.S. Army kids.” He says there was no animosity between the American and Korean kids, though they attended different schools and there was a clear wealth gap. Seo remembers there were no pubs or restaurants in Itaewon back then. The Ameri- cans got their food and drink on the base. But there was plenty of sex. “I was very young,” Seo says, but he knew it was there. Itaewon became a place where “respectable” Koreans didn’t go — a taboo that stayed with the neighborhood for the rest of the century. According to Ewha University professor Kim Eun-shil, Itaewon was described in the media as a place of “excretory culture, where Amer- ican soldiers engaged in hedonism, prostitu- tion, illegal drugs and criminal activities.” The poorest of the poor made their homes there. The 1961 local film “Obaltan (Aimless Bullet)” was banned in South Korea for de- cades because it made life in the country out to be too difficult. It featured a North Korean refugee family forced to make a life in a neigh- borhood no one wanted to live in — Haebang- chon. “Haebangchon was founded by North Kore- an refugees who were looking for a place to settle after or during the war. They basically created a slum on the slopes of the mountain adjoining the base,” Jacco Zwetsloot says of the area just northwest of Itaewon’s main strip. “These were properties that were basically squatted on, and later on became houses of North Korean refugees.” Sex among allies