Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gladiator]

Can any Seoul long timers out there help?

I'm still writing my protracted novel based on my experiences here and I am trying to remember if a rumour/Seoul urban myth I once heard about Takpol/Pagoda Park up in Chongro 3-Ka is true or whether I am confusing it with another place.

Basically a long, long time ago a group of students sniggered some innuendos about Takpol Park when I innocently told them I sometimes went there to watch the old men play Paduk and watch Korean life go by. They seemed to imply that by night it was a meeting place for Korean gays to hold nocturnal trysts (remember this was the mid 90s when massive stigmatization was associated with homosexuality in Korea and any Korean would simply deny gayness existed).

Was/is this true?

[Ya-ta Boy]

Going on the old adage that you should write only about what you know, I suggest you put on some alluring attire and go hang out there after sundown and see for yourself. Nothing like authenticity to lend a novel some veracity. A true novelist would be willing to sacrifice for his art.

[kangnam mafioso]

i lived around the corner from there for a while. that is one weird park! during the day it is full of the most old school, country-bumpkin senior citizens (literally hundreds of them) all drinking mokalli and sitting around waiting to die. at night ....hmmmm....let's just say there are some questionable characters lurking around. there is a small gay district somewhere nearby with bars and stuff ....don't know exactly where it is.

you probably should just go and observe for yourself ....take a pad and pencil (and some mokolli) up there around midnight

[chronicpride]

Tapgol Park seems to fall into that Korean rumor cliche that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. There once were some gay coffee shops in the area, which then generated rumors of it being a 'cruising' area for gays at night. Whether or not that is actually true is up for debate among the gay community. But there are gay saunas in the area, according to Utopia-Asia. I also remember seeing a nightlife site (in Korean) that had maps of clubs in Seoul and there was a subsection for gay clubs in Jongno and Itaewon. Don't remember the site, though.

[Gladiator]

Thanks for clarifying that Chronic Pride and for the er, 'creative' solution Ya Ta Boy (though I don't think I'll be doing a Hunter S. Thompson a la 'Hells Angels' for Takpol Park!)

[ekim]

[RACETRAITOR]

The park in Sinchon is known as a lesbian meeting place.

[chronicpride]

[Son Deureo!]

Funny, the rumor I heard about Tapgol Park was that it was where old Korean men go to pick up ajumma hookers. That's not a rumor I have any interest in attempting to confirm however, so you'll have to find that one out for yourselves.

[twg]

It's quite lovely at day though, I must say.

[kangnam mafioso]

[SarcasmKills]

If a friend comes to visit you in Seoul, no trip is complete without a stop at Tapgol to see drunk old people noraebanging and dancing their arses off..

[twg]

[hairy sue]

I checked it out in the winter of 1993. I think the alleys just north and east of the park were more of a pervert zone than a gay area. There were some small quiet bars and a couple of soft porn movie theatres, and there were a few guys hanging around who seemed to be looking to hook-up. I walked through a few of the alleys and then left -it was freezing cold in February. I got the impression that it was the type of place where pervs would go to mast ur bate in a movie theatre, or maybe transvestites could find a partner...not really a Gay area.

A couple of months later I discovered there were two gay bars located in the alley where the 3 Alley Pub is now located. There was gay bar on the second floor of what I believe now is a Balinese restaurant? (I'm not sure, I haven't looked up there in a long time.) Anyway, it's the restaurant that is above what used to be Holy Chow. I was curious and I tried to get in but a Korean guy at the door told me it was only for Koreans, then he asked if I was gay, (I'm not) and he was very nice and said something like this is not a good place for you.
There was also a gay bar in the basement of the same building, I think it is now a hostess bar called Mooma (or used to be called Mooma)?

I looked around HyeHwa and found nothing much but a few lousy photo galleries and some large hofs.

Then I went to Hongdae and it was just dance clubs, kind of like a college bar strip. I remember the the best place was what would eventually become Joker Red. It was tiny and very crowded. My friend said there was some really popular old place that had a sort of cabaret show, but we never went in - the girls wanted to dance.

It wasn't until a couple of years later in about 1995 that I found out there was a gay bar in what came to be known as Gay Alley (behind Geckos, where Wolfhound is now located). I don't remember the name of the place, but they let me and my girlfriend in and that was the first time I was in a gay bar in Korea. Eventually a few other gay places sprouted up in Gay Alley, I think a few of the later ones are still there back by the stairs below the reggae joint.
I'm not sure when Homo Hill started, I may have missed that early on.

I remember there were rumours of a lesbian bar on Yeoido back around 1998. Then around 2000 I heard Lesbos had moved to Shinchon, but I'm not sure if that is the same place.

[swetepete]

I don't know about Tapgol Park, but I slept at the Hamilton Sauna in Itaewon once and had a guy grab my bratwurst while I was snoozing. I was fully clothed and all. Well, it was still traumatic. I wound up to hit him but he just looked at me like a hindu cow*, completely bovine and unthreatening, and I found I couldn't smack him. He was just so completely shocked that I was got mad--probably he thought he would do me a favour. Also he was about half my weight; so, I just swore at him, scurried off into the corner, and fell promptly asleep again.

I sure felt violated, but in retrospect I think not knocking his teeth out was the right thing to do. I didn't know lying on your back and snoring was a gay come-on in this country; he didn't know that sometimes people go to that sauna to sleep. I mean, I could go off and say it was like sexual assault or something, but it wasn't. It was just some poor silly lonesome homo thinking he'd found his night socket.

Water off a duck, dudes. I feel sorry for gay people here, and I'm glad they have places to go to for their stuff. Would've been better had they put up a sign in English saying "Welcome to Hungry-4-ManLove Sauna," but whatever.
*Chuck Pahlaniuk