SOUTH KOREA A "MALE PARADISE"? 

Soon the new Narita Airport will open. It's pretty far from my house, so I'd like to take a trip overseas while the old Haneda airport is still open. South Korea is the closest foreign country, so I'm wondering if I should go there. I've heard that you can do absolutely anything you want with South Korean women -- is this true?

If I travel, I'd like to taste women to the full, so I'd like to know a little more about South Korean "service".

     Letter from Nobuo Ikegami, 32, of Tokyo, to the magazine Jitsuwa to Hiroku

Magazine replies:

There are only two types of people who don't sleep with South Korean women: those with no money and those with something wrong with a certain part of their body.

No, it is not an exaggeration to say that South Korea fully deserves its reputation as a "Male Paradise". Those advertisements you see in Sports papers for a "South Korean Cheap Tour" or 'Three Nights and Four Days in South Korea - With Single Room" actually mean "women included". 

These special tours cost a little more, but you can still buy a woman for only 75 dollars a night. If you were to buy a "hostess" in Tokyo she would cost at least 250 dollars a night, so 75 dollars is rather cheap. 

In addition, those Korean girls are young. They're all between 18 and 25 and very ripe. Most South Korean girls also have tight "purses". What man wouldn't want to experience one of those? 

If you don't want a tour with "women included", you can stay three nights and four days for 390 dollars. Then you can go out and get your own girl each night, bringing the total cost to 615 dollars. Divided by three this means 205 dollars a girl. This seems high, but remember that this includes your round trip ticket, hotel room, and food, so it's actually a very good deal. Often your sightseeing costs will also be included in the tour.

Even those who don't go girl-sightseeing have the following type of experience. Their hotel phone rings. "Don't you need a girl?" says a man's voice. If you hesitate, he continues, "You can look her over first".

Soon the man appears at the door with a good-looking girl. Sometimes you'll get a really beautiful one. The man will try to get as much as he can for her, but he'll never demand more than 75 dollars. The bellboys also approach you and say, "You look very lonely" and bring up a girl. In South Korea they just won't let a foreign man sleep alone. 

So use the nearby airport while you still can. If you want our advice, get going to the "Male Paradise", South Korea.

from Jitsuwa to Hiroku, March, 1978

KISAENG TOURISM 

Takahashi Kikue

777/s article appeared in tfie boolclet Tourism: The Asian Dilemma, published by the Christian Conference of Asia, 480 Lorong 2, Toa Pay oh, Singapore 12, in September 1975 and in a slightly longer form in The Japan Interpreter.

July of 1973 was when I first heard the bitter complaints of the women of Korea about the men of Japan. The Korean women used strong language: 'They have money; they feel superior; they think they can use us as they like. Japanese men use Korean women as sexual slaves". This charge, made by the Women's League of the ROK Christian Church, was presented at the first Japan-Korean Church Council meeting in Seoul; their resentment was echoed in the official statement made by the conference. There was an immediate reaction in Japan when Japanese representatives to the council released the statement to the public under the auspices of the women's Committee of the Japan National Christian Council. As Japanese Christian women, we felt a deep responsibility to our Korean counterparts, yet we wondered what we could do.

Japanese Christian women throughout the country but it was a bad time to begin because summer vacation had just started. So I contacted Ijuin Kazuko, the only Japanese woman representative at the meeting of the Japan-Korea Church Council. She had been intensely concerned and outspoken about the problem since she returned to Japan, and together we started information gathering and documentation. 

With the cooperation of various individuals, including Naganuma, we were able to assemble a substantial amount of data and information on the problem of prostitution and, greatly encouraged by Matsui Yayori of the Asahishinbun, we prepared a collection of our material for publication. Copies of the publication, along with the text of the September 21, 1973 declaration of the Women's Committee of the Japanese Christian Council, were sent to women Diet members, women's groups, news agencies, and other potentially interested organizations in an effort to mount a publicity campaign. Especially helpful was The Society for Eliminating Prostitution, an organization established by the WCTU, the women's divisions of the labor unions and numerous other women's groups (responsible for the passage in 1956 of the law banning prostitution in Japan). They decided to cooperate in an investigation of travel agencies and their modes of operation; the purpose was to uncover information about how Japanese tour groups to Korea foster prostitution there.

Exploitative tourism

Various reasons have been offered for the dramatic increase in the number of tour groups to South Korea. Korea is close to Japan so the trip is short and cheap, the cost of living in Korea is low, and the Japanese language is understood by a large number of Korean people. With the Boeing 747 and other large planes in operation, airlines and travel agencies have pushed travel to Korea. Another relevant factor is that after the resumption of diplomatic relations between Japan and China in the fall of 1972, trips to Taiwan became harder to organize and travel to Korea became a popular alternative for vacations. In fact, the Japan Travel Bureau (JTB) has ceased to solicit customers for travel to Taiwan, though the total number of Japanese traveling there has continued to increase. 

Foreign travel, the best barometer of the consumption boom, grows in popularity year after year. If 1971 is taken as the base year, with foreign travel for that year at 100, the total figure for 1972 comes out to be 144.8, but the figure for travel to Korea is an amazing 219.8. This extraordinary rise can hardly be called a natural increase. It could only have come about as the result of artificial manipulation. There are, in fact, two forces behind the tremendous numbers of Japanese tourists to Korea: one is South Korea's tourist promotion policy, and the other is the greedy money-grabbing of travel agencies in both Japan and South Korea. The subconscious feelings of sexual and racial superiority of Japanese males, added to the other factors, amply accounts for the rapid increase of prostitution in Korea. 

The eight big agencies that handle large tours to South Korea are Tobu Travel, JTB, Nihon Travel, Tokyu Tours, Tsuren, Meitetsu Tours, Ninki Nihon Tourist, and Toho Travel. In response to our queries about what kind of groups went on tours to South Korea, the agencies were vague and evasive, muttering something about "company secrets". Nevertheless, we did discover that much of the travel to Korea consisted of complimentary tours sponsored by middle and small scale enterprises, rest and recreation for company employees, neighbourhood shopkeepers' associations, senior citizen's clubs, and the like. The larger corporations, in contrast, are more often sending their customers nowadays on free trips to Europe and the U.S. rather than Taiwan and South Korea.

All the large travel agencies sell tours that have kisaeng parties  as their main attraction. [Although kisaeng may once have compared with the Japanese geisha as an accomplished performer in music and dancing in particular, this is no longer true. The word is now synonymous with prostitute. — ed.] As we went around to the different agencies we made a point of collecting brochures on Korea; the itinerary invariably included a kisaeng party as the evening activity. In some, the tourists were ostensibly free to sign up or not, as they wished, but the party was included in the basic package price of most tour programs.

Bookstores, too, all over Japan prominently display guidebooks and other materials that unabashedly proclaim Korea to be a paradise for men. One branch of Tobu Travel passes out an attractive pamphlet advertising kisaeng houses; it declares boldly: 'The heart of night life in South Korea - Sanseikakul" (the latter is a kisaeng restaurant). The tourist industry both in Korea and Japan seems to be making deliberate efforts to arouse and fan the curiosity of Japanese men. In our published materials on kisaeng tourism we used the phrase "prostitute-buying", to call attention to the responsibility  of the buyer rather than the seller. Later somebody coined the phrase "prostitute-buying satyrs" to describe the married men from all over Japan hurrying to South Korea straight to the kisaeng houses. Most Japanese men are well aware of South Korea's reputation as a man's paradise, but it appears that their wives remain relatively ignorant and far too naive.

We approached female members of the Diet who were concerned with this problem and at the same time demanded that the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) start doing something. JATA officials claimed that the companies were exercising self-restraint, but that the guides who accompanied the tours were sometimes over-eager and perhaps went too far. That produced a strong and indignant reaction from the Council of Travel Industry Workers' Unions, who protested that the management was trying to shift responsibility for the consequences of their frantic race for profits onto the guides. Thus our campaign gradually widened in scope, embracing labor unions and other groups not originally involved. The amount of press space devoted to issues involving South Korea increased at the time of the Kim Dae Jung incident, as did the number of reports on kisaeng houses and prostitution. At the numerous anti-Park meetings that followed the incident, the increase in prostitution in South Korea was taken up as one aspect of the general worsening of conditions there. This was fortunate for the anti-prostitution movement for, in spite of the importance of prostitution in the whole problem of women's' rights and human dignity, people frequently go out of their way to avoid confronting it, preferring to regard it as someone else's problem. It is for this reason that the movement to eliminate prostitution has always encountered great difficulties. The only reason prostitution in South Korea has received so much attention in Japan recently is that political events have aroused popular interest and focused attention on Japanese relations with South Korea. 

Field survey in South Korea , 

Among the many documents we compiled in the course of our investigations was a copy of South Korea's "Law Prohibiting Decadent Acts", enacted in 1962, which we obtained from the Ministry of Justice. Although this law is far stricter than Japan's anti-prostitution law, and provides for penalties on both parties involved, prostitutes (kisaeng) are in fact still issued special ID cards that permit them to engage in the oldest profession. This amounts to an officially endorsed system of licensed prostitution. How do the authorities resolve the contradiction between the system and the law? 

Yamaguchi Akiko of the Japan Christian Council and I decided to go to South Korea to observe the situation first hand. We were there only a week, but it confirmed the truth of the saying that one picture is worth a thousand words — seeing is believing. One of the most valuable results of the visit was the solidarity that sprang up between the Christian women of Korea and Japan.

We visited a number of hotels both late at night and early in the morning, in order to see how openly prostitution was practiced. One incident we watched was a clerk at the front desk of the Suhlin Hotel turning away two young Korean girls in the company of Japanese men, saying. "At this hotel women are not allowed to accompany guests to their rooms — unless they have the proper ID card..." Shortly afterward a bellboy began to admonish a young woman who had entered the hotel alone, but when she showed him her ID card he quickly drew himself up and respectfully escorted her to the elevator. At the President Hotel we witnessed men propositioning girls in Japanese, and the "go-between" slipping money into their purses. We saw successions of pretty and stylish young women parading out of the rear entrances of the Hotel Koreana and the Sejong Hotel, at about six in the morning. 

The authority that issues these dubious ID cards is the restaurant subcommittee of the Seoul Tourist Association. The ID card was originally meant for tour girls, so that they could freely enter government-approved tourist restaurants, but it also became a pass to gain entrance to the hotels. The nightly curfew in South Korea prohibits the average citizen from walking the streets between midnight and four in the morning. Although the curfew also covers foreigners, in their case it is only rarely enforced. Unless a girl has one of these special ID cards, she is not allowed outside during the curfew.

Compassionate and Free

South Korea was once able to compensate for an unfavorable trade balance by sending young men off to fight in Vietnam in exchange for certain sums of foreign aid, now it is paying for a favorable balance of trade with the flesh of young women. The Korean government received 150 million dollars for fighting in Vietnam; the present income from tourism is said to be 270 million, far more than the profits from the war. There are a great many who dismiss the problem saying, "Without kisaeng, the number of Japanese tourists would drop drastically", or, "That's something for women to worry about", or "It depends on what your morals are". Those are male voices. The Korean women we met had a much different attitude, a vociferous condemnation of rampant prostitution and the way tourism policy ignored everything but money.

Although they agreed the country needs more foreign currency reserves, they find it intolerable that young girls are sacrificed in the process: "Even if we remain poor, we cannot sacrifice our daughters. We must try to do what is right, even if it is economically a loss". Some were more aggressive: "I think we should mount a campaign and apply real pressure on our men, and try love and tears on the women". All agreed that if the problem is pressed as they intend, it will lead to stronger anti-Japanese sentiment. With these thoughts lying heavily on our hearts we returned home. 

Subsequently, several groups in Korea, with the Christian women as the nucleus, began to take public action. The government responded with a strict disciplinary stance toward all women and students who held public meetings,campaigned, or pressed the government. In December students from Ewha Women's University in Seoul demonstrated at Kimpo Airport, carrying placards reading "Down with Kisaeng Tourism!" A short time later, a group of sympathizers in Japan called the Women's Group Against Kisaeng Tourism distributed pamphlets and circulars at Haneda Airport as part of a publicity campaign.

Demands were made to JATA to do something fast, and there were also demands that Japanese government take action, beginning with the cancellation of cabinet-level conferences between Japan and the Republic of Korea. An assembly against kiseng tourism was held on February 21, 1974,  which time representatives of the Ministry of Transportation and the " big " eight travel agencies were called upon to explain their position.

Responsibility of the Japanese

It seems inevitable that deep antagonism in Korea should explode at this point. Consider the factors at work. The old anti-Japanese feeling harbored by Koreans since the colonial period remains to this day; conclusion of the Japan- ROK treaty and recent Japanese incursions into the Korean market have done nothing to assuage that feeling. On top of all that, the Japanese rush on the flesh for sale in Korea is just adding fuel to the fire of anti-Japanese sentiment. Japanese seem unconcerned about the conduct of their government during the period of colonization; and in effect, they are launched on another invasion of South Korea — this time economic instead of military.

No travel agency would dare to mention prostitution in promoting travel to Europe or the United States, yet this sales pitch in pushing travel to South Korea is taken for granted. It is a result of racial discrimination and a mistaken sense of superiority, based on collusion between the governments of both countries; economic assistance in return for economic invasion by Japan, with all the ugly ramifications. Throughout Southeast Asia, also, in order to prevent Japan from being isolated and rejected by the rest of Asia, and becoming a disgusting nuisance in the eyes of the rest of the world, we must, at the very least, put a stop to the business of prostitution for tourists. True international friendship is utterly impossible with the knowledge of such attitudes and activities hanging over each one of us.

Earning foreign capital

For the Asian developing countries, the foreign capital earnings from tourism are not small. In Korea income from tourism was $ 269,000,000 in 1974 and was one of the strategic earnings receiving special protection of the government. 

The Korean government's ten year plan forecasts that US$ 8,000,000,000 will be earned by tourism between 1975 and 1985. This plan includes the Cheju Island Plan which has caused controversy in Japan.

Cheju Island, located near the border of Japan, is famous for its rough, beautiful scenery and its preservation of many rare plants and birds. At the same time , the island is known for its poverty forcing women to hard work and also forcing many islanders to emigrate to Japan. The perspective of ' The Cheju Island Development Plan" is to make this island a tourist spot. According to a special planning group in the Blue House, the total investment will amount to about 142,000,000,000 won (US$ 340,000,000) between 1973 t o 1982. It will bring 600,000 foreign tourists and US$ 100,000,000 earnings in 1982. Three thousand fifty six hotel rooms and new roads will be constructed by that year. Ferry boats and air lines would connect the island to Japan.

From a report by Yamoguchi Akiko, Women's Committee of the National Christian Council of Japan.

As Japanese women, we are deeply moved by the statement by the Church Women United in Korea which was presented to the first Japan-Korea Church Conference in Seoul, July 1973. In this statement, Korean Christian women condemn the behavior of Japanese male tourists who are sexually exploiting Korean women for their pleasure. We admit that this condemnation is based on fact related to information gained here in Tokyo.

Tourism in and of itself is not the cause when the intention is mutual understanding and fellowship between people. But we cannot approve tourism whose objective is prostitution , as such is the basis of an exploitative relationship between the sexes which subordinates the female to the male.

Predominantly male tourists from Japan are behaving in Korea on the most culturally debasing animal levels. Such behavior must come from a total lack of conscience and respect for human rights as well as a complete lack of repentance about our past aggression against neighboring countries. The tourism industry which is prompted by the pursuit of profits is also strengthening these debasing tendencies.

The increasing number of tourists going t o Korea reflects the closer relationships between Japan and Korea based only on economic relationships which are exploitative. Therefore, we must reexamine this very economic situation in regard to exchange between the two countries in order to make tourism an authentic means of establishing culturally meaningful relationships between the people of both countries 

Women's Committee
National Christian Council of Churches, Japan
September 1973, Tokyo