36page

www.groovekorea.com / July 2014 36 In the ‘80s, Itaewon began to modernize, along with the rest of the city. Tourism was picking up — in 1978, South Korea saw more than 1 million tourists for the first time, ac- cording to the Korean Tourism Organization. Women’s Army Corps and nurses — and later just female soldiers — became some of the first foreign women there. English teachers slowly started showing up. There were more international marriages, and more Koreans arriving who were not there specifically to ser- vice GIs. But, Casey says, Itaewon was “still not the best place for your daughter to hang around,” and it was still rare to see Koreans out on Fri- day or Saturday nights. The media was never kind to Itaewon. Since the early 1970s, local papers ran sensational reports of crimes by GIs — many true, many unproven. In 1984, the Kyunghyang Shinmun published what it described as an exclusive on the neighborhood. The article describes the town as being filled with 10,000 “vagabond” foreigners who had overstayed their visas and “easily and often turn into criminals.” The article quotes one “sour” merchant as saying, “‘It’s not just foreigners’ prostitutes, now it’s female university students or teenag- ers from good families who chase after for- eigners and spend money on them.’” In 1983, the Seoul government declared Itaewon a “special tourism zone.” More shops opened, selling all sorts of souvenirs, especial- ly leather goods. Japanese tourists in particu- lar would walk off with bags of cheap leather goods and stay in the Hamilton Hotel, accord- ing to Seo of the ISTZ. Many residents describe the 1986 Asian Games and especially the 1988 Olympics as watersheds for Itaewon. Tourists came to Seoul to watch the Games, sometimes clash- ing with more assertive locals who were not used to seeing so many foreigners in their city at once. Many tourists were shepherded to Itaewon. Kim Eun-shil interviewed many Itaewon business owners, who viewed themselves as “patriots” who had earned vital foreign currency for the developing nation. But those very mer- chants were disparaged once special events ended, Kim says. “Many interviewees said that during the Olym- pics, Itaewon was packed with tourists, but that afterward, the mass media looked down on Itaewon as a place of crime and squalor,” Kim writes. “They were angry that the govern- ment first behaved as if it were satisfied with earning dollars, but that once Itaewon became famous, the government treated the neighbor- hood as if it were corrupt.” In the early 1990s, Itaewon’s economy be- came saturated and slumped into recession. As textile manufacturing moved to cheaper locations, bonded goods were no longer avail- able for sale. Merchants switched to manufac- turing knock-offs. The police cracked down on this, and many merchants lost their liveli- hoods in fines. The economy picked up again when new faces started showing up in Korea, zeroing in on Itaewon: English teachers, foreign laborers, foreign students and openly gay Koreans. As more Westerners arrived, black market- ing — the practice of buying duty-free goods on the U.S. base and illegally reselling them in Korea — became commonplace. Zwet- sloot remembers having to pay outrageous prices for deodorant, mint-flavored toothpaste, pancake syrup and other items that were not available at legal shops. For women, a hot item was tampons. It happened all the time and not everyone got caught. But sometimes people got greedy. Zwetsloot recalls one institution in 2000 or so that had perfected the practice. “It was a coffee shop by day, but by night, it was like something from ‘The Great Escape,’” he says. “They had a tunnel rigged up from the be- hind the scenes there, under the wall, into a container box inside Hannam Village (a USFK installation). And someone working inside Hannam Village would wheel in crates of li- quor, which would then be trundled on rails underneath the walls into the cafe, and then taken and resold to all the bars in Itaewon at a mark-up. Talk about a license to print money; they must have made a hundred grand before they got caught.” They finally got busted and went to jail. “But it was a great scam while it lasted.” Olympic expectations Edited by Elaine Ramirez (elaine@groovekorea.com) COvER STORY
36page