South Korean Drinking Culture in the 80s/Early 90s?
April 21, 2018 8:00 AM Subscribe
I'm doing some research for a project and am having trouble finding information on what Seoul or general South Korean nightlife and drinking culture was like in the 1980s and 90s. I think I have a pretty good handle on the social customs/norms/hierarchy involved in drinking after some reading, but I'm still not sure exactly what sort of establishments would actually be available and what would go on inside.
Perhaps it's a silly question, but was it actually any different than drinking culture there today? Was it roughly equivalent to what bar culture looked like in America at the time, or was it primarily an after work/large group activity and people rarely went out alone/on dates? Was it mostly restaurant-based drinking, or were there a variety of clubs, dive bars, music venues, etc.?
Ideally I'd be able to come out of this with somewhere seedy that an American traveler or expat might end up on a late night, but any general information is helpful.
I know this is a pretty niche ask, but if anyone knows of any nonfiction accounts/diaries or even fiction in English written by a native or a traveler, I'd love to dive into that. Thanks!
Perhaps it's a silly question, but was it actually any different than drinking culture there today? Was it roughly equivalent to what bar culture looked like in America at the time, or was it primarily an after work/large group activity and people rarely went out alone/on dates? Was it mostly restaurant-based drinking, or were there a variety of clubs, dive bars, music venues, etc.?
Ideally I'd be able to come out of this with somewhere seedy that an American traveler or expat might end up on a late night, but any general information is helpful.
I know this is a pretty niche ask, but if anyone knows of any nonfiction accounts/diaries or even fiction in English written by a native or a traveler, I'd love to dive into that. Thanks!
Best answer: Credentials: Born and lived in Korea 80s-2001. Dad was retired from the military around the time I was born, but had a DoD job so had base access and all that, but also I didn't live on the military base or go to the school on base (international school), except for a scant 2 years when we first moved to Korea in Wonju, but pretty much lived in Seoul whole time, fluent in Korean so I wasn't just living the expat life, had/knew friends and people who were locals, etc. As for how I would've been familiar with these places or how they looked, being technically a GI kid I grew up knowing this and that about #justmilitarythangs, lived around Itaewon as a kid where a lot of nightlife people were my neighbors, poked around a few weird places and my fellow international school teenaged friends going to bars and dance clubs wasn't a weird thing because being an expat teenager is sometimes some wild ish when nobody wants to deal with trying to card or deal with a kid who's insistent that they don't speak Korean or is obviously a diplomat's kid.
If you're specifically looking for seedy places that an expat would go to, in the 80s-90s it would be pretty limited. Expats in Korea tend to stick together, but especially back then, when there weren't as many foreigners around as nowadays, if you didn't speak Korean (which a lot don't and didn't because it was mostly military folks and/or business people, unlike nowadays now that Korea is the "it" Asian country there are more international people who go there to study abroad and speak the language etc.), and didn't really hang out with other Koreans you were limited to places frequented by foreigners. So basically bars and clubs in areas like Itaewon, or around military bases like in Dongducheon and whatnot. Itaewon's always been a nightlife heavy neighborhood, but it was also always sort of the "foreigner central" being adjacent to Yongsan military base and just where tourists would go in general, so a lot of little bars and clubs that cater to them (also home to the infamous "Hooker Hill"). Still the same now too, though around the late 90s and around when I was living the Hongdae area was also getting more like hip hop clubs and dance clubs where foreigners would also start to gather.
So in that sense you basically either got: bars that are reminiscent of dives or neighborhood bars in the US. Small places with stools and someone to serve drinks. The places not in Itaewon and closer to like the air bases and stuff reminded me more of a mishmash of American dives, but still the aesthetic of Korean indoor pochas. So lot of plastic folding tables and chairs and garish lighting where there might be bar girls who are looking for "dates." And basically the things mph above described.
I'm guessing your expat is gonna be American? Or at least Western? Because if that's the case it's really the stuff stated above.
Are things different now from then? At least the impression I get is mostly not really. I mean if there's any change it's just that there are more foreigners visiting, living, working and studying there than when I was living there. As mentioned about Hongdae, I'm guessing there are more places an expat or foreigner could find themselves at, but at the same time, even according to reports from my friend who went to teach English there mid 2000s, there's a lot of insular expat stuff. Like there were infamously some places that had signs about not welcoming foreigners back in the day, but there was also a lot of self-segregation too. It's just that it's probably less weird nowadays to see a foreigner turn up at a non expat venue if say they speak the language fluently and have Korean friends because they work there or go to school there and have locals as friends. Like hip hop and rap music is big there, so I know there are a few clubs/spots that exclusively cater to that crowd nowadays, which means that those can easily turn into spots where expats show up. And with some gay nightlife, especially in Itaewon (which has another "H" starting hill besides Hooker Hill where the gay nightlife is), you could find some gay foreigners who are will show up at these venues as well. Itaewon is still considered the "foreigner place," for the most part.
Otherwise if you want to know about drinking establishments in Korea in general it's really a wide range of venues and types of drinking. Drinking is a huge part of the culture and unique things to Korean drinking for sure. You can do it in a group, you can do it alone. Depends on the social situation and what you're looking for. There's even manners for how to drink (how to accept or pour based on if someone is senior to you, etc.). These are things that wouldn't really affect how an expat would drink because again they'd probably usually be with other expat anyways or probably drinking in places where these norms didn't really matter. Unless your expat was say, trying to marry a local girl and really cared about learning how to accept a drink with two hands from future father-in-law or know to pour a drink for him first with one hand supporting the other to impress him I guess.
Anyhow I'm just gonna list the type of local places best I can with some description just off the top of my head. The following wall of text can be ignored if you're really just interested in a purely expat experience drinking in the 80s-90s. An expat could be dragged to one of these places by local or poke around one out of curiosity, sure, but it was just super rare to see foreigners in these places, or say not living around foreigner areas or military bases in general, around that time. Like, no joke, even when I lived smack dab right by the clubbing district of Itaewon, and a lot of the embassies were a like a hill or two away, my dad and I were the only foreigners in the entire apartment complex. Even when me and my up-to-know-good friends would crash say a hof (or even the freakin' Hard Rock Cafe after graduation) we were always the only foreigners in there.
1. Restaurants. Almost any restaurant could be a drinking venue really. From Korean bbq places to sushi spots will serve alcohol. Just depends on the joint. Lots of company going out to eat starts with getting drinks while eating then going "2 cha" to karaoke (that also sell alcoholic beverages), then maybe running several, chas drinking in different venues.
2. Night/dance clubs. There are huge dance and night clubs as well as smaller ones. There are definitely ones that foreigners would frequent too, but I'm going to describe things and how they go if you're Korea. The former does have an interesting phenomenon, especially when I used to walk around areas like Edae and Hongdae back in the day as a teenager and you'd see things plastered everywhere or get business cards handed to you, which were waiters advertising themselves. Waiters at these types of places were sort of party host/personalities. If you got a private room or table they were the ones facilitating your enjoyment and a lot of them had funny nicknames or stage names they went by. Another aspect of this was "booking" culture. Basically getting hooked up with other people by your waiter. So your waiter could take drinks or talk to a group of attractive opposite sex people at the nightclub and "set you guys up" in a way by running communication to invite them to your private room to hang out or say if a group of guys show up and are in a room and are like, "hey we'd like to meet some girls," the waiter can go find a group of equal numbers and discuss details and facilitate the two groups meeting. Also depending on the club, a lot of them had entertainment in general, and a lot of famous people who fall on hard times or comedians before they hit it big could make some money working these venues. A lot of comedians famously cut their teeth this way, hosting events at clubs dealing with drunk crowds. The occasional trot singer might do a show there, etc.
3. Karaoke (noraebang). Your neighborhood karaoke place. Korean karaoke places tend to do private rooms unlike the American format of having an actual karaoke bar where people get on stage and sing in front of others. Great for when you're just partying in there with your friends (social and even corporate gatherings can happen here)
4. Hof/chicken places. Hofs are I guess are more akin to pubs if I had to draw a distinction. Usually will be a neighborhood place, but can be a small chain too. Most often will specialize in beer. The reason I added them with chicken places is they tend to be one and the same sometimes. Like there are Korean fried chicken chains and restaurants, but sometimes fried chicken restaurants and hofs also sell alcohol. Specifically beer usually.
4. Danlan Jujeom/Room Salon/neighborhood bar. These are more of the cabaret, karaoke and small local bars type of place. I don't wanna say it's high-end, because there's still a seedy element to these places, especially places that hire hostesses (specifically room salon, but nowadays somenoraebangs hire "doeumis" sooooo...) but anyway it's like a subjective difference. Rather than soju or makgeolli, these places will have whisky and other "foreign liquors" and can be expensive. Basically they'll have like private rooms (technically night clubs in Korea also have private rooms where you can do table service, so it gets muddied a little here) that are styled like...I dunno think upholstered stuffy couches and sofas, etc. These types of places are kind of the Korean equivalent of "seedy business meeting venue of choice" like I guess how strip clubs would be here? Only because of the fact a lot of these salons have hostesses there to serve drinks. So if you think of say any Korean movie where like a crooked politician or a bunch of evil business dudes are in fancy room drinking whiskey and elaborate fruit plates and stuff with pretty ladies pouring drinks and hanging off their arms, this is that type of place. Jujeoms and neighborhood bars might also have regular women working there, but also a madam (not exactly in the sex work sense, but not that that DOESN'T take place at all either, it sometimes does depends on who is running the place and what kind of joint it is) or lady who runs the place and acts as de facto host all on her own or maybe with a very small staff (like 1-2 people even depending on how small the place is). Some of them are rundown some of them aren't it's a wide range depending on who runs it.
5. Fancy bars. Basically the above, but just obviously fancy places like hotel bars, etc. I dunno, I'm having a hard time like trying to differentiate because a lot of the differences between 4 and 5 really is dependent on the personality of the person running the place. It's like how I'm hesitant to mention that hostesses at room salons might do some other "work," since I don't want to paint a broad brush on drinking establishments like that, but using that as an opportunity for sex work isn't unheard of either. But I guess I did want to make a separate point 5 for "fancy" joints that literally are just "classy" places to get a drink. And a lot of characteristics can overlap between 2-5 with things like private rooms for table service and whatnot.
6. Pojang machas. Usually covered outdoor cart/tents that serve a variety of food along with alcohol. The food tends to be typical drinking fare (uh, additional note on "anju" below) and friendly for quick preparation. So not like a Korean BBQ place's food, but simple things from ramen and udon, to things like spicy chicken feet and other delicacies. Pretty much the working person's place to eat/drink. There are also indoor places that serve the type of food you'd find at a pojang macha, so again the main distinction here are the outdoor tents/wagons that.
7. What you got in your neighborhood? Like no joke, does your neighborhood corner store have some plastic tables and chairs outside? then go in buy some beer/soju/makgeolli and some dried squid, a packet of peanuts and you got a place to sit and drink. Or your apartment complex got a gazebo thing? Take your purchases there and drink. It wasn't strange to see a group of neighborhood ajusshis on the roof of one of my apartment complexes grilling bits of meat on a portable butane gas range pouring each other shots of soju on a summer night. My dad, who loves meats and barbecuing in general, would sometimes get drawn to these impromptu gatherings and show up with some a case of Budweiser or a very welcomed bottle of Johnny Walker/Crown Royal and though he didn't speak Korean join in just to eat some meat and drink.
**Anju** basically food you eat while you drink. Sure you can eat ANYTHING while you're drinking, but there are definitely specific foods that make you think "anju." like the aforementioned dried squid (or any other fish jerky. Can be dipped in mayo or gochujang) and peanuts is a common quick and easy snack while you drink that you can get drinking in front of your neighborhood corner store, or even at a bar. Fruit is another, but elaborate "fruit anju" cut and presented attractively are usually more common in places like clubs and bars/jujeom type places and are overpriced as well too. Grilled meats are a meal sure, but they can also be consume as anju and some places specifically aren't full-blown restaurants but sell grilled meats you grill yourself or things like makchang/gopchang (basically intestines) places are usually drinking spots as much as they are good grilled meat/offal spots. Things like spicy chicken feet, spicy chicken gizzards, fried chicken, goelbaengi (whelk) and noodles, pig feet (jokbal) that are legitimate dishes, are also anju-worthy. I think the main difference is can they be consumed not as a full meal (so without rice and banchan)? If so, they can be anju.
posted by kkokkodalk at 1:08 PM on April 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
If you're specifically looking for seedy places that an expat would go to, in the 80s-90s it would be pretty limited. Expats in Korea tend to stick together, but especially back then, when there weren't as many foreigners around as nowadays, if you didn't speak Korean (which a lot don't and didn't because it was mostly military folks and/or business people, unlike nowadays now that Korea is the "it" Asian country there are more international people who go there to study abroad and speak the language etc.), and didn't really hang out with other Koreans you were limited to places frequented by foreigners. So basically bars and clubs in areas like Itaewon, or around military bases like in Dongducheon and whatnot. Itaewon's always been a nightlife heavy neighborhood, but it was also always sort of the "foreigner central" being adjacent to Yongsan military base and just where tourists would go in general, so a lot of little bars and clubs that cater to them (also home to the infamous "Hooker Hill"). Still the same now too, though around the late 90s and around when I was living the Hongdae area was also getting more like hip hop clubs and dance clubs where foreigners would also start to gather.
So in that sense you basically either got: bars that are reminiscent of dives or neighborhood bars in the US. Small places with stools and someone to serve drinks. The places not in Itaewon and closer to like the air bases and stuff reminded me more of a mishmash of American dives, but still the aesthetic of Korean indoor pochas. So lot of plastic folding tables and chairs and garish lighting where there might be bar girls who are looking for "dates." And basically the things mph above described.
I'm guessing your expat is gonna be American? Or at least Western? Because if that's the case it's really the stuff stated above.
Are things different now from then? At least the impression I get is mostly not really. I mean if there's any change it's just that there are more foreigners visiting, living, working and studying there than when I was living there. As mentioned about Hongdae, I'm guessing there are more places an expat or foreigner could find themselves at, but at the same time, even according to reports from my friend who went to teach English there mid 2000s, there's a lot of insular expat stuff. Like there were infamously some places that had signs about not welcoming foreigners back in the day, but there was also a lot of self-segregation too. It's just that it's probably less weird nowadays to see a foreigner turn up at a non expat venue if say they speak the language fluently and have Korean friends because they work there or go to school there and have locals as friends. Like hip hop and rap music is big there, so I know there are a few clubs/spots that exclusively cater to that crowd nowadays, which means that those can easily turn into spots where expats show up. And with some gay nightlife, especially in Itaewon (which has another "H" starting hill besides Hooker Hill where the gay nightlife is), you could find some gay foreigners who are will show up at these venues as well. Itaewon is still considered the "foreigner place," for the most part.
Otherwise if you want to know about drinking establishments in Korea in general it's really a wide range of venues and types of drinking. Drinking is a huge part of the culture and unique things to Korean drinking for sure. You can do it in a group, you can do it alone. Depends on the social situation and what you're looking for. There's even manners for how to drink (how to accept or pour based on if someone is senior to you, etc.). These are things that wouldn't really affect how an expat would drink because again they'd probably usually be with other expat anyways or probably drinking in places where these norms didn't really matter. Unless your expat was say, trying to marry a local girl and really cared about learning how to accept a drink with two hands from future father-in-law or know to pour a drink for him first with one hand supporting the other to impress him I guess.
Anyhow I'm just gonna list the type of local places best I can with some description just off the top of my head. The following wall of text can be ignored if you're really just interested in a purely expat experience drinking in the 80s-90s. An expat could be dragged to one of these places by local or poke around one out of curiosity, sure, but it was just super rare to see foreigners in these places, or say not living around foreigner areas or military bases in general, around that time. Like, no joke, even when I lived smack dab right by the clubbing district of Itaewon, and a lot of the embassies were a like a hill or two away, my dad and I were the only foreigners in the entire apartment complex. Even when me and my up-to-know-good friends would crash say a hof (or even the freakin' Hard Rock Cafe after graduation) we were always the only foreigners in there.
1. Restaurants. Almost any restaurant could be a drinking venue really. From Korean bbq places to sushi spots will serve alcohol. Just depends on the joint. Lots of company going out to eat starts with getting drinks while eating then going "2 cha" to karaoke (that also sell alcoholic beverages), then maybe running several, chas drinking in different venues.
2. Night/dance clubs. There are huge dance and night clubs as well as smaller ones. There are definitely ones that foreigners would frequent too, but I'm going to describe things and how they go if you're Korea. The former does have an interesting phenomenon, especially when I used to walk around areas like Edae and Hongdae back in the day as a teenager and you'd see things plastered everywhere or get business cards handed to you, which were waiters advertising themselves. Waiters at these types of places were sort of party host/personalities. If you got a private room or table they were the ones facilitating your enjoyment and a lot of them had funny nicknames or stage names they went by. Another aspect of this was "booking" culture. Basically getting hooked up with other people by your waiter. So your waiter could take drinks or talk to a group of attractive opposite sex people at the nightclub and "set you guys up" in a way by running communication to invite them to your private room to hang out or say if a group of guys show up and are in a room and are like, "hey we'd like to meet some girls," the waiter can go find a group of equal numbers and discuss details and facilitate the two groups meeting. Also depending on the club, a lot of them had entertainment in general, and a lot of famous people who fall on hard times or comedians before they hit it big could make some money working these venues. A lot of comedians famously cut their teeth this way, hosting events at clubs dealing with drunk crowds. The occasional trot singer might do a show there, etc.
3. Karaoke (noraebang). Your neighborhood karaoke place. Korean karaoke places tend to do private rooms unlike the American format of having an actual karaoke bar where people get on stage and sing in front of others. Great for when you're just partying in there with your friends (social and even corporate gatherings can happen here)
4. Hof/chicken places. Hofs are I guess are more akin to pubs if I had to draw a distinction. Usually will be a neighborhood place, but can be a small chain too. Most often will specialize in beer. The reason I added them with chicken places is they tend to be one and the same sometimes. Like there are Korean fried chicken chains and restaurants, but sometimes fried chicken restaurants and hofs also sell alcohol. Specifically beer usually.
4. Danlan Jujeom/Room Salon/neighborhood bar. These are more of the cabaret, karaoke and small local bars type of place. I don't wanna say it's high-end, because there's still a seedy element to these places, especially places that hire hostesses (specifically room salon, but nowadays somenoraebangs hire "doeumis" sooooo...) but anyway it's like a subjective difference. Rather than soju or makgeolli, these places will have whisky and other "foreign liquors" and can be expensive. Basically they'll have like private rooms (technically night clubs in Korea also have private rooms where you can do table service, so it gets muddied a little here) that are styled like...I dunno think upholstered stuffy couches and sofas, etc. These types of places are kind of the Korean equivalent of "seedy business meeting venue of choice" like I guess how strip clubs would be here? Only because of the fact a lot of these salons have hostesses there to serve drinks. So if you think of say any Korean movie where like a crooked politician or a bunch of evil business dudes are in fancy room drinking whiskey and elaborate fruit plates and stuff with pretty ladies pouring drinks and hanging off their arms, this is that type of place. Jujeoms and neighborhood bars might also have regular women working there, but also a madam (not exactly in the sex work sense, but not that that DOESN'T take place at all either, it sometimes does depends on who is running the place and what kind of joint it is) or lady who runs the place and acts as de facto host all on her own or maybe with a very small staff (like 1-2 people even depending on how small the place is). Some of them are rundown some of them aren't it's a wide range depending on who runs it.
5. Fancy bars. Basically the above, but just obviously fancy places like hotel bars, etc. I dunno, I'm having a hard time like trying to differentiate because a lot of the differences between 4 and 5 really is dependent on the personality of the person running the place. It's like how I'm hesitant to mention that hostesses at room salons might do some other "work," since I don't want to paint a broad brush on drinking establishments like that, but using that as an opportunity for sex work isn't unheard of either. But I guess I did want to make a separate point 5 for "fancy" joints that literally are just "classy" places to get a drink. And a lot of characteristics can overlap between 2-5 with things like private rooms for table service and whatnot.
6. Pojang machas. Usually covered outdoor cart/tents that serve a variety of food along with alcohol. The food tends to be typical drinking fare (uh, additional note on "anju" below) and friendly for quick preparation. So not like a Korean BBQ place's food, but simple things from ramen and udon, to things like spicy chicken feet and other delicacies. Pretty much the working person's place to eat/drink. There are also indoor places that serve the type of food you'd find at a pojang macha, so again the main distinction here are the outdoor tents/wagons that.
7. What you got in your neighborhood? Like no joke, does your neighborhood corner store have some plastic tables and chairs outside? then go in buy some beer/soju/makgeolli and some dried squid, a packet of peanuts and you got a place to sit and drink. Or your apartment complex got a gazebo thing? Take your purchases there and drink. It wasn't strange to see a group of neighborhood ajusshis on the roof of one of my apartment complexes grilling bits of meat on a portable butane gas range pouring each other shots of soju on a summer night. My dad, who loves meats and barbecuing in general, would sometimes get drawn to these impromptu gatherings and show up with some a case of Budweiser or a very welcomed bottle of Johnny Walker/Crown Royal and though he didn't speak Korean join in just to eat some meat and drink.
**Anju** basically food you eat while you drink. Sure you can eat ANYTHING while you're drinking, but there are definitely specific foods that make you think "anju." like the aforementioned dried squid (or any other fish jerky. Can be dipped in mayo or gochujang) and peanuts is a common quick and easy snack while you drink that you can get drinking in front of your neighborhood corner store, or even at a bar. Fruit is another, but elaborate "fruit anju" cut and presented attractively are usually more common in places like clubs and bars/jujeom type places and are overpriced as well too. Grilled meats are a meal sure, but they can also be consume as anju and some places specifically aren't full-blown restaurants but sell grilled meats you grill yourself or things like makchang/gopchang (basically intestines) places are usually drinking spots as much as they are good grilled meat/offal spots. Things like spicy chicken feet, spicy chicken gizzards, fried chicken, goelbaengi (whelk) and noodles, pig feet (jokbal) that are legitimate dishes, are also anju-worthy. I think the main difference is can they be consumed not as a full meal (so without rice and banchan)? If so, they can be anju.
posted by kkokkodalk at 1:08 PM on April 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I hung out in Itaewan a fair bit during the summer of 89 but my memories are a bit patchy now. There were foreigners' clubs with hostesses nearer the bottom. A bit further up, a few country Western bars for US officers and the like. The cheaper places for younger soldiers were higher up, on and above Hooker Hill. The main street bisected the area - a number of black clubs off laneways to the right and mostly white bars to the left. In the middle of everything was the King Club. It was open to dawn pretty much every night and was one of the few places that anyone could feel comfortable in. It was a big, dark dance club modelled after a suburban/rural North American roadhouse. It was packed with locals, black and white soldiers and American high school kids (I'm guessing kkokkodalk). I remember the big song that summer was It Takes Two. They played it several times every night.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:28 PM on April 21, 2018
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:28 PM on April 21, 2018
Response by poster: This is fantastic, thanks all! Exactly what I was hoping for and more.
posted by gregoryg at 7:00 AM on April 22, 2018
posted by gregoryg at 7:00 AM on April 22, 2018
Response by poster: Commenting again just to expand on the previous one because it feels woefully inadequate based on how perfect this all is. So much amazing detail and such a wide swath of information that will really allow me to deepen my project. I was expecting to have tons of follow-up questions but your answers didn't necessitate them and just gave me so many more elements to play with! Thanks again, just shows me exactly why MeFi is such an amazing place :)
posted by gregoryg at 7:14 AM on April 22, 2018
posted by gregoryg at 7:14 AM on April 22, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
A lot depends on your traveler/expat.
I drank with a lot of guys who'd retired to Korea and married a local, and they tended to stick close to the ville even as they sort of drifted away from the US cultural baseline. I'd see a lot of middle aged white guys wearing pumpkin or purple Karl Kani stuff, for instance. That was what was for sale in the "US fashions" stores in the ville, so that was what they bought. You'd see them at the bars that catered to soldiers ("Queen Bee Rock and Roll MTV Club" was a basement bar in Waegwan that attracted a lot of soldiers and a small handful of local folks.) Those places sold a lot of overpriced beer and soju drinks (soldiers loved getting "jungle juice" served up in a big communal schooner with a bunch of straws). People would just sorta party there. They were usually safe, but you'd get the occasional shoving match. I remember accidentally moshing into an officer, who took a swing at me. His buddies pulled him off and said "enlisted scum aren't worth it" then they all cleared out.
There were a few small bars that supported prostitution but weren't solely for prostitution. If you went with friends, you'd just drink with friends. If you went alone, a bar girl would find you pretty quickly and ask you to buy her a drink. You'd end up buying some number of overpriced drinks ($8 or $10 each) that you'd come to realize were an installment plan playing out over an hour before being invited upstairs. (No, I never did that. I did once buy someone a drink, was told "get me four more and maybe we go somewhere," and figured it out. I declined to buy the second drink, got a dirty look and a shrug, and she moved on to the next joe.) I sat in the corner one night and watched a couple of young lieutenants move through the process like an assembly line. Another night I watched another lieutenant just not get it ... he'd come in loaded, expected to buy the girl a drink and head upstairs, and she wasn't budging until he'd bought whatever the house requirement was. He got sort of nasty about it, and someone went and got the CQ ("charge of quarters" -- soldiers who were on duty out in the ville, looking for people who were too drunk or looking for trouble) and he was gently escorted out.
There were a few bars that were sorta blue collar dive places: Tables, booths, a few pool tables, and a mix of soldiers willing to stray away from the dance clubs, locals, and retired Americans. The mix sort of varied from weekend to weekend, so one place I found felt like home one weekend, and I felt distinctly unwelcome the next.
I spent the New Year in Seoul the year I was there, and ended up in Itaewon with a bunch of soldiers. The club we went to played a lot of western music, had its share of white people whose hair suggested they were not military, and there were a lot of young Koreans there. The Americans were intent on partying their asses off (one guy put his fist through the boards of the wall, tore off a hunk of wood, then gnawed on it, howling and shirtless while everyone danced a wide berth around him). I got the impression that the partying Americans were a super unwelcome anomaly that evening. One of the people in my group barfed in our jungle juice scooner and that sorta killed the buzz.
(The shirtless wood-gnawer hosed four rows of passengers with vomit on the train ride home the next morning. The conductor handed out plastic bags to everybody, and they made make-shift ponchos out of them for the rest of the ride.)
Finally, I guess I saw a karaoke bar:
I was out alone on a Saturday night, and I'd decided to walk past the ville and all the way to downtown Waegwan. I was past all the clubs when this silver van that was covered in white vinyl Disney character appliqués pulled up. The side door slid open to reveal a group of Korean women. One of them yelled "Karaoke! Get in!" so I hopped in and they drove me downtown to a karaoke bar. They bought me a ton of drinks, made me do all the Johnny Cash songs in the catalog, then took me to one of their homes. The woman who lived there was married to one of those Karl Kani expats. We sat around on the living room floor around a low table, drank soju and carried on. He paced out and glared at me with this sour look and then went elsewhere. Eventually I was walked out to the van and driven to the gates of the post. One of them gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and her phone number, and they drove off.
Happy to expand on details on any of that I guess.
posted by mph at 11:12 AM on April 21, 2018 [2 favorites]