Say you are a hard-working immigrant from Korea in the D.C. suburbs of northern Viginia and you feel like relaxing with a bit of the old country. What can you do?
Don’t worry. Adam Smith’s invisible hand is here to help you get that old-school jimjilbang experience (Washington Post):
Behind the modest facade of a 1980s-era Fairfax County strip mall, Korean entrepreneurs have brought a slice of their homeland to their new land: a much-awaited, $15 million jimjilbang, a Korean-style sauna and bathhouse. But patrons and community leaders say the sleek Spa World Resort in Centreville is as much a cultural milestone as a business, reflecting both the size and evolution of the Washington region’s Korean community.
There were already jimjilbangs in the greater New York City area, but the Post reports that this is the first around D.C.
BTW, I guess it is an interesting story but I can’t believe it made page one of the news section.
57 Comments
I like the concept but hate the idea of every other Korean fellow attempting to peek at the junior member of my firm. It’s not the sort of fame I relish. Besides my singing would un-nerve them.
I must say that when I picked up my WaPo from my doorstep and saw the photo caption (only the photo was on page 1), “Korean-Style Relaxation Comes to Northern Virginia” my first reaction was that I seldom would use “Korean” and “relaxation” in the same sentence. My five years in Korea spread over two stints was frenetic and intense, never relaxing. I missed that whole “Morning Calm” thing, I guess.
‘every other Korean fellow attempting to peek at the junior member of my firm. It’s not the sort of fame I relish. Besides my singing would un-nerve them.’
just your imagination but such thoughts would be consistant with my thinking on your average expat. btw, you don’t peek, i suppose? that would be consitant with expat thinking himself real man which would be consitant with my thinking on expat who never seem to tell truth.
A Korean-American I spoke with in L.A. last summer noted the rise in Korean saunas in the region and noted that many Korean patrons were upset that they were being increasingly patronized by “foreigners”. Myself, I’d think that the enormous entrance fees vis-a-vis those in Seoul would be cause for concern.
How, kemo sabe!
Men peek not only at each other but at animals, too.
When photos do contain people related to the task at hand, or the content users are exploring, they do get fixations. However, gender makes a distinct difference on what parts of the photo are stared at the longest. Take a look at the hotspot below.
Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face. For the women, the face is the only place they viewed.
Coyne adds that this difference doesn’t just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site.
#6
Yeah, I guess that old stuff about society repressing women’s sexuality may have some truth to it after all. Ladies don’t look.
Or maybe men really are always stacking themselves up against the competition.
Checking out other men I can understand. We ladies check each other out, too. But DOGS??? The only place I’m aware of where dogs compete with men sexually are the evening shows in Pattaya.
Isn’t that hot-cold sauna experience thing really from Russia?
Sonagi, I agree with your posts here but shouldn’t you at least give the credit to the New York Times article that you cut and paste it from? Or at least give a link to the photo of George Brett that was there along with it?
#4,
They do know that they’re not in Korea, right? And that people can go anywhere they want?
If they just want Koreans in their establishment, then they should put up a ‘Korean Only’ sign.
Heh.heh.heh.
the reaons why it made page 1 news, andy, is that newspapers are trying to reinvent themselves to be more relevant to people. i believe andrew sullivan wrote a good piece on it over at the atlantic not long ago. i’ll find the link and post it. bottom line, the old “compulsory” hard news is simply not resonating with people anymore. why bury it in digest form and put interesting, fun stories on the front?
Did this Coyne person get a Proxmire Award for such a useful application of research funds?
Can’t wait for them anmas to start joining the fray and invade the US too. Now that makes for good publicity!
“… many Korean patrons were upset that they were being increasingly patronized by ‘foreigners’.”
I wouldn’t disagree that some Korean patrons would not like a lot of non-Koreans to come to the spas, but at the same time, these spas are increasingly marketing to non-Koreans. The owners of these spas certainly do welcome non-Koreans (I guess that would go without saying).
Also, it’s not really all that pricey if you think about it. In the U.S. these kinds of spas are considered something too eclectic for the average person and it’s really something for the rich. So a comparable visit in an American place, plus a masseuse is like $100-200. A Korean spa? $20 to $40 entrance fee, $20 for the masseuse plus tip ($20-30). Comparatively less expensive and within reach of the average person.
The reason why a Korean spa may be popular to non-Koreans is generally economic and not because anyone is curious about Korean culture.
Lots of non-Korean reviews on yelp.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/olympi...../query:spa
http://www.yelp.com/biz/centur...../query:spa
Great points, Wangkon. Let me ask you something, is the price ever an issue with Korean clientele who have not been in the U.S. as long and are used to the price levels in Korea? I sometimes wonder if the same is true regarding meals in Korean restaurants.
I guess one would have to know too if the 찜질방 in the U.S. are comparable to those in Korea, or if they are much more upscale, in line with the type of frou-frou day spas you mention.
Adam Smith’s invisible hand is here to help you get that old-school jimjilbang experience…
I know it’s sophomoric, but that sentence made me laugh.
# 14,
I don’t know… when I was in Korea, things were that much less expensive, particularly meals that included meat and fish.
I don’t know how much 찜질방 are in Korea, but I heard they are less, like $10 entrance fee vs. $20 to $40 in the U.S? I believe the price difference has to be the fact that 찜질방’s in Korea are more blue collar and quality can vary more, where the 찜질방’s in the U.S. tend to be a notch nicer and more consistent. At least that’s what I hear.
Un, Pawi, some things are really cool *not* to know.
Actually, the idea of Korean establishments in the US not letting in “foreigners” is pretty old.
Regularly, in Koreatown Oakland and some places in San Fran, they wouldn’t allow foreigners in. I once went to some stank Korean nightclub in San Fran to actually do a bit of research for an NPR story on the “booking” phenomenon. I had a Korean American friend make a reservation, since I knew they wouldn’t let in a bunch of roundeyes (and I do mean that, since other Asian Americans are OK to go); of course, I wanted to check my theory, so we just proceeded to walk in, at which point the bouncers asked if we had a reservation, since they “were full.” Sorry, but we just don’t have room, and blah blah.
At like 8 PM. Riiiiight. So, to his surprise and chagrin, I said, “actually, yes, we are coming to the birthday party of so-and-so-Korean-name, and the reservation is under her name.”
He reluctantly let us pass, at which point we sat at a table and got some sound, and the fact that the room was maybe at 1/10 capacity, with a few brave singles on the dance floor and only a few tables filled with bodies, was not lost on us.
We got our sound and left, but that was pretty standard procedure for anything in K-town involving the possibility for bodies to mingle, as in night clubs, room salons, and I would assume the JJB. Since foreigners are “dirty” and all. Might make the water murky, I guess.
“Coyne adds that this difference doesn’t just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site.”
Wait, where else were we supposed to look at?
Mr. Metro,
Your post reeks of the racism you purportedly experienced. May I propose a more mundane reason why “night clubs and room salons” don’t like to admit foreigners other then you generalization that Koreans believe foreigners to be “dirty”…
Korean night clubs in the U.S. allow indoor smoking, which is illegal in California. You let a few “round eyes” in who don’t have a connection to a known Korean club goer and there is a fear that you let in an undercover government agent. Yeah, allowing smoking indoors is wrong, but it’s not racism.
With room salons, same reason. A lot of the gals don’t have green cards.
I mean, sure, some Korean vice establishments may not want you in for the basis of race, but my point is that it’s not the sole or even the primary reason why they won’t want to let you in.
#16…fresh off the ‘plane’ koreans do complain about the price difference between korean restaurants here and in korea. but they slowly realize that other things are cheaper here and things balance out. as for JJB, because it costs so much, i know many koreans would only go there on special occasions or maybe once a month in the states as opposed to once a week or more in korea.
my brother was denied entrance in a night club in Germany.
he is quite sure it was because of his race.
#22 - So basically, you’re saying that Korean establishments are flagrantly breaking laws against discrimination in order to cover up any number of other laws being broken? Sounds like a great reason to turn the round-eyes away at the door. After all, it isn’t as if there are any Koreans (or even other East Asians who could pass for Korean) on the LAPD/ICE.
i was denied entry to circle once. i wish i could say race was a factor but i think it had more to do with me not being…um…cool.
# 25,
Yeah, Korean night clubs in CA try to get away with smoking indoors as much as possible. What can I say? It’s not Oklahoma where you can smoke indoors. Korean night club owners consider the anti-smoking law as kinda like the speed limit. The signs are just for decorative purposes.
You know what’s funny? Since Korean bbq is pretty dang popular with non-Koreans, and they can’t use the excuse of night club snobbery to exclude non-Koreans, Korean bbq places do follow a city’s anti-fire ordinances pretty faithfully. Unfortunately, this means that a lot of “soot bul” or charcoal fire places, don’t get built. I don’t know what it is about CA and indoor charcoal fires.
Although there may be a lot of undercover Koreans in the LAPD or ICE, for some strange reason, Korean vice owners don’t seem to be worried about it. I guess it’s just the frequency of taking the risk. They suppose it’s safer when you screen the non-Koreans that come in.
# 25,
Also… I never said Korean establishments in general. I meant Korean VICE establishments, since they are the ones who have less respect for the every day laws.
#27 - I was more implying that it was fairly moronic for Korean club (and other establishment) owners to brave the brunt of the various hefty penalties levied against violators of anti-discrimination laws, when the fine for violating the smoking ban or hiring an illegal alien is presumably not quite as bad — it seems like a phony, post-hoc justification for regular, old-fashioned racism. But hey, I’m no expert on the smoking laws there in LA, so maybe they actually are harsher than the anti-discrimination laws.
I spent a lot of time partying in L.A.’s Koreatown long before it became trendy and was never turned away from any establishment. Of course, this was before California became a strict non-smoking state. I tend to think Wangkon’s explanation is right on the money.
And let me add that in those days, Koreatown was _the_ place to go if you were under 21 and wanted to drink.
@#10
Here’s the link, which I included at the end of my post as I typed it, but for some reason, it didn’t appear in the comment:
Eyetracking Points the Way to Effective News Article Design
Scroll down for the George Brett photo near the end of the article.
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070312ruel/
as to why this would be front page…
who owns the washington post?????
the second coming himself
rev.
MOON
Well, I don’t know about LA Koreatown, but in Oakland and SF, where I was talking about, basically, it was pretty well known that if you were with Koreans, you were cool. If you didn’t have a Korean with you, no dice on clubs and other Korean social places. Or at least, you got the feeling that you weren’t wanted. Don’t think most people thought it was because of undercover vice laws. Smoking was pretty easy to spot if you were the police, and a couple places were shut down when people called it in. One 통닭 place in Berkeley that was known to serve minors was busted , quite famously, when they refused to serve the Chinese and Vietnamese, and someone called the cops. They were raided and put out of business.
It was common knowledge and a major source of tension that Korean places didn’t want Chinese and Southeast Asians in their places. And there were sometimes fights in the parking lots because of this tension.
And the code for the night clubs was to try to keep it as Korean as possible, with whiteys peppered into your group being welcome.
It wasn’t just me that felt the tension, but was a source of minor controversy in the community.
But of course, racism is all in our heads, and if you talk about it a lot, you just have a complex, right?
Or, I guess it was all about smoking and the law, right?
You simply can’t refuse entry to a business to someone because of the colour of their skin. I mean, really, Wangkon, how can you defend that by arguing that they are simply trying to protect the ambiance inside their businesses? What’s next, a speech on how segregation laws should be returned to the books?
# 34,
I’m not saying that it’s right or wrong or that racism doesn’t play into the cards. I’m just offering an explaination other than racism that many of you seem to automatically fall back on for lack of a better, and at times, more accurate line of reasoning.
WangKon936,
Given how what Aristotle terms the “love of one’s own” is ingrained to our psyche, and how ubiquitous the exclusivist impulse is in human societies, I think the “racist” explanation is probably the best default explanation for the aforementioned phenomenon.
#36, I don’t know if “racist” should ever be a default explanation just because the two parties involved are of different race. When that happens, we start to see race everywhere, even where it’s not a factor.
Maybe it is in this case and maybe it isn’t, but non-Korean dogbert says he got into Korean establishments without problem, and Metropolitician was let in when he indicated he knew someone there. If they didn’t want round eyes at all, why would they let him in after he indicated he knew someone?
Maybe they just didn’t want to let some stranger come in with recording equipment.
Metropolitician is very intelligent and makes some valid and insightful observations about race and society, but I think he’d be hard-pressed to find any instances of discomfort or slight he’s experienced that he wouldn’t blame on race.
# 36,
I would disagree. The commonly agreed upon definition of the hotly contested term “racism” would be “belief or ideology that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as being either superior or inferior to another race or races…” per the Oxford English Dictionary. However, the secondary definitions that are popular in the minds of many people in North America is a belief that racism also ties to a system of thinking that another race is somehow sub-human and deserves to be treated less than human through acts of violence and/or discriminatory practices aimed at keeping them in the lower rungs of society.
Just because you are not let into a club doesn’t mean that Koreans at the door of the club think they are intrinsically better then you or that they hate you or want to do some sort of violence towards you or keep you at some sociological disadvantage.
People in general should be more discriminatory and responsible when they throw out a highly charged term like “racist”…. just my two cents.
Well then wouldn’t a club doorman, making the assumption that round-eyes are more likely to be cops, be making a racist assumption? After all, they’re attributing a characteristic (the likelihood of being a police officer) based on a racial classification, and doing so in a fairly indiscriminate manner. I kind of find it strange that your/the OED’s definition of racism is somewhat broader than the idea that race A is inferior to race B, and yet you still would not attribute a racist motive to one race keeping another/all others outside the door at a nightclub.
Zonath,
That’s not what I wrote. Thank you for conveniently (but inaccurately) paraphrasing me to fit your point of view.
Without paraphrasing, what I wrote was:
“…belief or ideology that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as being either superior or inferior to another race or races…”
Which naturally tied to my more expanded definition that I supplied later down in the paragraph.
WangKon936,
I realize that, as Hobbes incessantly lectured would-be political theorists, it is important, perhaps even all-important, to define terms precisely. But while your technical O.E.D. definition may be the original or primary definition of “racism” in the English language, I do not believe it is the most commonly-used, everyday definition of the term today. The dominant usage today seems to me something along the lines of “discriminatory behavior toward other races on the basis of race per se.” I cannot be sure because I do not own any dictionaries, but I would suspect that many dictionaries present my articulation of “racism” as the primary definition. There certainly are online dictionaries that precisely do that. In fact, this is the definition of racism according to the very first Google search entry I came up with:
http://www.wordreference.com/definition/racism
And for the reasons that Aristotle so eloquently and famously elaborated (and which I cannot hope to improve on), I would think that it would be preferable to begin with commonly-used, everyday definitions when we inquire about the concrete human phenomenon like racism, rather than overly technical definitions that seems to me even arbitrary.
Why “arbitrary”? As you may know, the O.E.D. definition you cite was a rather late linguistic invention, coined to describe Western scientific attitude of comprehensive superiority toward the non-white race.
There are two problems with this era-shackled definition, and they were pointed out with unusual cogency by the critics of Dinesh D’Souza’s controversial book, the End of Racism (which adopted the very definition you champion, though you admittedly leave out the “scientific” aspect). First, from a common sense methodological or descriptive perspective, it is patently too restrictive, leaving out many “difference-based” (for a lack of better term) inter-group historic atrocities. For instance, when the Moslems and Christians slaughtered each other, was it not racism because medieval men had only vague notions of scientific biology as we understand it today? Even if you drop D’Souza’s emphasis on “scientific,” and merely stress racial feelings of “superiority,” you run into some daunting problems of explanation. For instance, if you read some of the literature on anti-Semitism, you will learn that not all racial animus toward Jews were inspired by contempt or feelings of superiority but its diametric opposite: Envy. So does that make certain Jewish pogroms were not motivated by racism? Again, your definition of “racism” seems to cover too little.
Second, there is a normative problem as well. To the extent that D’Souza and other conservatives (including outright racists) use your definition, that narrow definition is usually tied to a specific political program or propaganda to downplay the ubiquity or even incidence of racism in America and inoculate the reader against the desire to rectify it. That is, if racism so narrowly defined to emphasize only the two original foundation of modern science and attitudes of superiority, it would be easy to fix it. In fact, for D’Souza, the phantasmagorical “end of racism” is here already!
Now, I don’t want to sound here like a Korean version of Al Sharpton, because I am emphatically not. I dislike labels, but if I had to label myself politically I am closest to being a Burkean conservative. In regard to the more specific issue at hand, I do not, like some race pessimists, believe that nothing has been fundamentally changed for the colored folks in America since the Emancipation Proclamation. Such extremism says volumes about the perceptual powers, and even sanity, of those who embrace it. America, even in the initially unpromising aspect of racial relations, has vindicated Lincoln’s faith in it as the “last best hope for mankind.” (It certainly avoided Tocqueville’s nightmare scenario!)
Nonetheless, I also think in some sense that it is an even more of an unreasonable extremism to reflexively accept the Enlightenment dogma that human beings can be cajoled or educated out of certain habits or even instincts that define, or limits, them as human. And among those ineliminable human “givens,” I would have to number at the top of the chart what I would broadly define as “racism,” which is really the extension of what Aristotle termed “one’s own.”
What Aristotle termed “love of one’s own,” not “one’s own.”
And I won’t bother to clarify other grammatical errors, as I don’t want to be on this Blog all day!
Zonath,
I’d have to agree with WangKon936 there. That was a truly dishonest cut & paste.
Reminds me of many ideologues masquerading as “scholars” today.
# 42,
Huh?
Reader’s Digest version please.
You must have confused me with a full time sociology academic that would be able to easily digest all that name dropping.
Aw, c’mon, Wanggon, give Won Joon a break. Didn’t he remind us on another thread that English isn’t his first language? Don’t be overwhelmed by his obscure terms. He reassures us that his Ivy League vocabulary doesn’t necessarily mean his English is good.
Now wait a second here, Wankon… First of all, I didn’t “paraphrase” — I directly quoted you. But heck, let’s look at your “non-paraphrased definition”:
So, in order for there to be racism, we need:
Belief or ideology that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race.
That’s it… The rest of the OED definition is only an additional, aggravating factor. It’s like if I said something like:
“Roller coasters are fun, especially ones with loops.”
So would you then infer that if I saw a roller coaster with no loop, I would think it not to be fun?
I’m having a hard time figuring out where you’re coming from here… Would you go with ‘most people’ and associate racism almost exclusively with things like feelings of hatred and superiority, or would you adopt the broader OED definition? If you really don’t agree with the OED definition, or feel that it is too inclusive, then why cite it at all?
Now I would agree with your original point that a lot of people find some secondary meaning in the word ‘racism’ that may not quite fit within the actual attitudes of the people manning the door at NoBlacks Nightclub, but are you really arguing that we should adopt such a restrictive definition of racism, or that we should excuse such behavior as ‘not racist’, even despite that behavior being blatantly discriminatory? And if so, would you think it racist that some people think that the different races shouldn’t go to school together, not because one race is supposedly inferior or superior to the other, but simply because the races are ‘different’?
Eh,
I guess I could get baited into a debate where I can drabble all day long about semantics and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but com’on- we all have lives here.
So I’ll get to (what I believe) is the root of the discussion between me and you. All clubs discriminate. There I said it. All clubs certainly discriminate in terms of age, dress, sex (gotta monitor the ratio), etc. So I guess what we can get worked up on is not the fact that they do, because they all certainly do, but does it discriminate in terms of race (I still think racist is still too strong a word given both its hard and soft meanings).
I don’t think what Korean (and perhaps other clubs do as I certainly don’t believe that it’s only Korean clubs that do this) clubs do is racist, but I do believe it’s discriminatory in terms of race. Remember, Metro was allowed in once he told them he knew someone who had reservations. If the club was truly racist, he wouldn’t have been let in at all, regardless of who he knew.
I’ve been in a similar situation where I hosted a party of 10 non-Koreans in a Korean club. Would they have gotten in without me? Not in a million years (especially the two South Africans who looked like Euro trash). Come to think of it, at times they don’t even let Koreans in, particularly if the entire group speaks only English and don’t know a waiter. I wonder how you explain that?
Not true. VIP blacks in the Jim Crow South sometimes got honorary white person status and were allowed into restaurants and clubs under the auspices of white friends and acquaintances.
Hahaha…. good one. Touché.
Wow… talking about splitting hairs of angels dancing on the heads of pins… I think it’s a fair presumption that clubs that discriminate on the basis of race do so on account of racism, rather than some attenuated justification like violating the smoking laws, especially where the laws against discrimination tend to carry much harsher penalties — it’s simply not logical to assume that people would cover up non-public, fairly minor law breaking with exceedingly public, much worse law breaking. But I will concede that there might be an alternative reason — I just haven’t heard one as of yet that makes any kind of sense.
I would guess that people who discriminate due to one type of bias aren’t quite as squeamish about discriminating due to other biases. Or maybe they think that the non-Korean speaking people are actually Chinese or Japanese… Who knows what darkness lies in the hearts of such people?
WangKon736,
“Huh?
Reader’s Digest version please.
You must have confused me with a full time sociology academic that would be able to easily digest all that name dropping.”
Hey, I am a pedant; I cannot help it!
But I would have expected that someone who identifies himself with an almost forgotten historical figure from over a millennium ago–and who is a prolific poster at a web forum for antiquarian sinologists–would be so offended by “all that name dropping”!
Besides, I don’t think your cute dismissal of what I wrote is really fair given two things. First, at bottom, my presentation wasn’t all that arcane. Second, more germane, it is you who chose to employ a definition of “racism” that is preferred by the “sociology academic”–and indeed likely invented by one such creature.
But since you want a “Reader’s Digest version,” you shall have it. You have chosen an extremely restrictive, almost technical-academic definition of “racism” that few people employ in their every day understanding of the term or concept. To me, that is inappropriately stacking the argument in your favor.
P.S. You, sir, are over-rated. You essentially let 궁예 do all the hard work of actually founding a nation, and then stole from him all the glory at the last minute. You exhibited few of the vigorous characteristics that founding monarchs possess; 李世民 you emphatically were not. Most damning, you let yourself be portrayed by the most over-rated, indeed vapid, 사극 actor in Korean history, a true thespian who even faked his college degree!
Off of your pedestal, my friend!
Miss Sonagi,
There ought to be some statute of limitations on accusing me of insincerity when I profess my incomplete grasp of the English language.
Yeah, and I heard that it can be really hot in Jimjilbangs.
Private establishments may control who enters. If Koreans in America want to bust-a-move in the exclusive company of other Koreans, so be it. However, how would they react if a nightclub in Korea allowed entry only to foreigners?
At the beginning of #56, I should have added that I think laws against discrimination by private establishments are silly and oppressive.