In a truly heart-wrenching story, the Dong-A Ilbo reports that a Japanese tourist — a 24-year-old university student known only as Mr. M — was busted on Saturday night for attempting to solicit sex from a prostitute in Cheongnyangni’s infamous “588″ red light district. The unfortunate tourist had just forked over W60,000 to a 23-year-old Ms. Kim and was about to complete the business transaction, so to speak, when the blue boys swooped in for the arrest. To add to the embarrassment, the Japanese embassy was informed of his transgression. Mr. M told police that “588″ was quite famous on the Internet (perhaps he saw this film), so he paid the naughty neighborhood a visit out of curiosity. He also said that in Japan, men are not usually punished for purchasing the services of a young lady. Police stressed, however, that Korea is NOT Japan, and foreigners will be punished according to the nation’s tough new anti-prostitution laws as well.
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16 Comments
exactly
its sorta like a factory that produces cocaine
raid it and then leave everything there so more cocaine can be made!!!
if they want to stop it they can
close the freaking places down dont let anyone in there
get the bulldozers and level the place
I wonder what would happen if I went down there with a telephoto and took shots of all the action. You think they would hassle me for photographing it? Sounds like a wonderful way to get in trouble for doing something legal. Maybe I can even get on MBS/SBS! w00t!
Well, Yongsan is wide open again for business again, too.
Beware.
That sounds like a man talking from ‘experience’ about Yongsan. Just kidding. I would like to see the headlines when a Korean gets caught in Japan if Japan ever forbids it. I’m sure Korean would somehow relate it to Tokdo and history textbooks.
I’m sure the guy being Japanese had *nothing* to do with it (sigh).
He should have been arrested for his actions because it is against the law.
Still, I wonder why these red light districts are still running full tilt if the police have a “crackdown” down on prostitution? It seems like somebody is getting paid off for these places to remain in operation. This Japanese guy was unlucky, but if you hang out in places like this, you can??t expect everything to go smoothly. Reporting the Japanese man??s arrest in the paper was a waste of time though. Perhaps they should report on how the police are doing a shitty job fighting the prostitution problem this country has.
Park Chung-Hee??s regime started promoting sex tours in South Korea to the Japanese in 1972, and the number of Japanese tourists jumped from 96,531 to 217,287 within a year. The Internet has apparently been used to promote this “Korean Wave.” Infidelity is deeply rooted here, and hence prostitution will always thrive, legal or not. The “crackdown” was just an appeasement to USFK, who asked Korea, “How can you expect us to fight human trafficking and prostitution while you at the same time turn a blind eye to your own useless laws?” I saw a dramatized documentary the other day on inet TV about Russian prostitutes trafficked in Korea. Guess what? Not a single Soldier or westerner was a customer, only wealthy Koreans and maybe some Japanese on “business” trips. Sexual promiscuity in East Asia is here to stay. Land of the Morning Come.
Tacky, but true.
If you teach here, ask students about fedelity, they just dont seem to care.
A friend of a friend tells me the steam and creams and barber shops haven’t missed a beat, but a weigook walking down a 588 alley is going to stick out like a sore thumb. Discretion, discretion Grasshopper.
whats the big deal?? Sex is sex, and it will always have customers, i.e. caligila of roman times. Why not tax it and get it over with……..
Message to KrZ:
I l-o-v-e the idea of getting in trouble for doing something legal. Request that you let us know if and when you choose to down there so we can make us a little posse of camera snapping folks (Koreans and non-, men and women) to go there and document a brazen breach of the laws.
Tough cheese to the Japanese guy for getting caught, but gee something stinks when they make THAT the news story.
Wait a second…isn’t this supposed to be “Korea-Japan Friendship Year 2005?”
?????????:??????????????????!
is this how block quotes work?
How cool!
This is such crap. I bet if our friend from Japan paid his way out it we would not be reading about it. Shake down. These places have not disappeared; they are still doing a healthy business. Who are we kidding?