You don’t have to look hard to find these foreign
“hostess” girls in Korea. They are in Seoul, Pusan,
and Ulsan, and perhaps other places in Korea.
I am a well-traveled American, and I have seen
prostitution in all forms, just about everywhere on
the planet.
I neither condemn nor applaud “sex-work”.
As a lusty
old guy, I don’t deny having partaken of it. A
victimless crime? Yes, I used to believe that. Now,
I am not so sure.
I am on a new engineering assignment. I’ve
been here
in Korea for 8 weeks now. I won’t say in exactly
which city.
I had noticed quite a few “Russian” girls around
the
first place where I had stayed. They were from many
of the former Soviet Republics. A few were “very
Caucasian” looking, and were from the Ukraine and
Russia. Most of the girls that I met were very
“exotic” looking to my American eyes, having the most
beautiful blend of Middle Eastern and Asian features.
These girls are from places like Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Unlikely bar girls, these innocent angels from the
East. Most were raised as good little Muslim girls.
Now, they smoke, they drink, and they must endure the
unwanted advances of many men, young and old, clean
and dirty, gentle and unkind.
Tricked into signing contracts in their homeland,
they
live in a nether-world of sexual bondage.
They agreed to, and signed, “contracts”, that range
from 6 months to 9 months, on average. They work in
hostess bars, selling “juice drinks”, and talking to
patrons. Every club is different, but some rules are
universal: If you are a man with enough money, you
can pay the “bar-fine” to mama-san or to papa-san, and
pay the girl her fee, and she is yours for an hour, a
night, a weekend, whatever you can afford.
I met a girl from Uzbekistan. Her name means
“flower”
in her language. I met another girl that I got to
know very well, her name means “honey” in Kyrgyzstan.
Both worked for one thing - - to send money home
to
their parents and to their siblings, so their family
can eat every day. Noble young lasses, or very sad?
Yes. Both.
And, for whom do they work? Ah, that gets
interesting. Mama san and papa san are usually
Korean. Their “manager” may be a shady ex-Russian
type that I think of as being ex-KGB or “Russian
Mafia”.
The girls earn a “salary” that their managers
thoughtfully “keep safely” for the girls. The girls
are promised a paid return ticket home when their
contract is finished.
The girls usually set their own fees for intimate
time
with a man. Some have the good sense to bank that
money, or to mail their earnings directly home.
Others are tricked into giving it to their managers
for “safe keeping” and “investment”. Many girls never
see any of their money.
Every girl has a different story, a different set
of
circumstances.
I have met some of these “Russian” girls that have
a
good basic education, even complete with a year or two
of University. Others can barely read in their own
language, and are not too quick with the most basic of
arithmetic. The girls run the gamut of intelligence
and language skills.
There is more, which is unique from one girl to
the
next. This “hostess girl” life style seems to change
these girls, each in a different way. Many of them
were naive and innocent, and then they were thrust
into something that they don't enjoy nor fully
understand. Others are more "experienced".
Even the more "sexually experienced" girls (typically
from the Ukraine, or Russia, or from the Philippines),
seem to develop an odd attitude about men, and they
all seem to suffer from low self-esteem. But, they
put on their false-smiles for their clients, and they
learn the “game”. They learn quickly that men can be
“used”. They learn that men, especially foreign men
with high-paying jobs, are good sources of money,
gifts, and the basic needs of life.
I can’t imagine that any of these girls will easily
re-assimilate into their society when their period of
servitude ends. Certainly not these Muslim girls.
Back home, they will be forbade to drink, or to smoke,
or to “date” without a bother or their father tagging
along.
I feel sorry for all of these girls, of every race,
color, and culture. I feel sorry for any girl that is
tricked into this kind of servitude. But, in all
honesty, I especially feel sorry for these Muslim
girls, raised in often-repressive societies.
In their world, if they marry, it is their custom
that
they are expected to be “good girls” and to be virgins
on their wedding night. It is a custom in some of
these cultures, that the new husband will call upon
his mother-in-law the day after the wedding (and,
presumptively, after the bride is deflowered…) He is
to then thank his mother-in-law for doing such a good
job of raising a chaste girl. To the more liberal of
us, this is scarcely believable, yet it is a fact of
their culture. Many of these girls feel, in their
hearts, that they have accepted a short tour of
prostitution as a sacrifice for their families. Many
girls falsely believe that they will get rich from
their work. What the Muslim girls also know for
certain is that when they go back home, that they will
be outcasts, and that they will probably not be able
to ever marry within their own culture.
You have to wonder, do the “companies”, the
“managers”, and the “clubs” care at all about what
they are doing to these girls?
Each club seems to have different living standards
and
working conditions for its girls. And, every girl is
treated differently by her mama-san. Some girls are
well taken care of, well-fed, and receive monthly
medical checks. Some girls are relatively neglected,
or worse. One very young girl that I met was
naturally small and thin. She was quite “model-like”
when she first came to Korea. The combination of
regular meals and the extra hormones from the birth
control injections had a stunning, and predictable
affect on her young frame. She filled out, and became
more womanly and curvaceous looking. Mama-san decided
that the girl should stay petite, and the girl was
restricted to just one meal each day.
Most girls are perpetually sad, living a life that
begins at about 4:00pm each afternoon, and may end at
about 3:00am each morning. They endure the risk of
ruining their bodies with tobacco, alcohol, and
restricted diets. They are sad inside, yet they learn
the tricks of the trade, and they try to smile
genuinely at every new customer. They learn the
“greeting-routine”, asking in broken-Korean, or in
broken-English, “how are you, where are you from, what
is your name, please sit down, would you like a drink,
would you please buy me a drink?
In one case, I actually saw “The Book” that the
girls
memorized all of the standard questions, answers, and
phrases from. What a deal. Great working conditions,
and a free education.
But, what if the girls learn that this life is not
so
glamorous? And, what if they try to run, to break
free of this indentured servitude of the tawdry sort?
Their managers hold their passports and their work
visas. The girls are convinced that if they run, they
will be arrested. I don’t know, they may be right.
Others fear that if they run away, that agents of the
recruiting company back in their homeland will do harm
to their families.
Some clients have the opportunity, as I did, to
“buy”
the girl’s contract and to set her free.
It was relatively expensive, but I was repaid a
thousand times over when “my” gentle 21-year-old waif
cried her goodbyes to me. Sad tears, saying goodbye
to me. Happy tears, knowing that she was finally free
to go home. I saw her last when she got on the train
to Seoul, later to connect with a flight for her home
in Kyrgyzstan. Home, to rejoin her family, to see her
papa, that she sorely missed. Papa hasn’t got a clue
what his baby girl has been doing.
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