Korean Job Discussion Forums

[SHANE02]

Your wallet that is.

http://koreabeat.com/?p=940

Check out this story at Koreabeat. Apparently Kevin likes dropping 7 million won on basically nothing, poor guy.

Foreigners-Only Bars in Itaewon


The Weekly Chosun recently took a prurient look at the seamy side of Itaewon � which, let�s face it, is nearly every side of Itaewon anyway � with the writer going undercover to work in a foreigners-only bar. From these pictures it shouldn�t be hard to figure out where it is.


�Sunny, a customer came in. Get in here!�

As soon as the westerner, stomach bulging, came into the shop the manager called out the order. The man turned to my chair. Gracelessly, he called me over with, �hey baby, come on.� My face turned white. �Oh my god!� Taking a deep breath, I followed the manager�s directions and introduced myself. She started to explain the rules of this �foreigners-only bar�, where I began working today and which is currently thriving near Itaewon.

On March 19th, I searched on a jobs website for �foreigners-only bar� (외국인 전용바). A five to six month-old ad turned up. One said, �you can learn English while having free talking with the customers.� Another said, �we�re looking for people who have studied abroad in the UK or US and want to talk in English with native speakers. And we can help out people who haven�t mastered English yet. Those who speak English well can make four to six million won a month and beginners can make from 1.5 to three million.�

At 8 pm the same day I called the bar. �I�m calling in reponse to your ad,� I said, asking what kind of work is involved and how much I could make. A woman whom I guessed to be in her 30s said, �it�s difficult to give a long explanation so just come see it for yourself.� I hung up and easily found the bar near Itaewon Station. In front of the entrance on the second floor was a red sign that said, �Foreigners-only bar, must be at least 19 to enter.�

The bar was cozy and made of wood, making for a relaxing atmosphere. Around the C-shaped counter there were 10 seats and plenty of whiskey and beer. There was a pool table and five other tables and sofas. After a moment a woman in tight jeans and straight hair came out. It was the manager I had spoken with on the phone.

She made a brief greeting and asked my name and age. She wrote everything down before the next question. �What did school did you go to and what was your major?� I answered, �I graduated in February from Z Women�s University and am planning to go to graduate school in the UK. I�m here because I want to improve my English ability.� Then the manager told me about what wasn�t in the ad.

�The people who come to my bar have a high ability. You have to be able to talk about lots of things in English. Z Women�s University is good enough. The basic salary is 600,000 won and you make more every time a customer buys you a drink. So you can make a lot of money.�

�For example, a Jack and Coke costs 20,000 won so if you get 10 of them you make 100,000 won, and the other 100,000 is the bar�s. Customers can touch you lightly but just laugh and turn them down. It�s not good to get too stuck to one customer. Ha ha.� She hired me on the spot to start in April.

I went into the bar at 8:30 in April. First the manager decided to give me the nickname Sunny. She had me go through some small doors at the counter and change my clothes. The tiny 1-pyeong room was full of shoes, clothes, and makeup and hair stuff. I hurriedly put on stockings and a blue dress that my father had given me for graduation.

I was looking good when a short woman in a black dress came ine. �Tonight�s your first time? Me too� nice to meet you.� She smiled and was really pretty. I wanted to be friends with her so I said, �hope to see you a lot,� and she ran to her seat. Ah, too bad. I worried that someone here would recognize me.

Wearing the dress I came out into the hall where seven or eight women on a sofa like in a waiting room. I sat with them.

The distinctively featured A walked in knowingly with her creamy breasts in a tube top. Sitting next to her was 33-year old B, who said, �last night I felt like I�d have to go to the emergency room. I got so drunk and hadn�t eaten and had some inflammation.�

She is 21. Currently taking a break from her university in Seoul, she started working at the bar last summer. Seeing my obviously oblivious face, she asked, �are you getting ready for school, too? There are lots of us like that here, huh?� and I nodded.

�At first I started because I wanted to learn more English too, but I just speak meeting words so I haven�t gotten any better. Don�t expect to learn English here. Foreign assholes, Korean assholes, they�re all men, they get drunk and grope you and stumble around, what can you talk about with them?�

�If you�re not learning English why have you been here almost a year,� I asked. She said, �I�m too used to the money, I can�t quit.� She pointed to another woman in a red dress, C. �See her? The tall one with the perm. She sometimes makes seven million a night. Split with the bar thats 3.5, right. She�s the most famous one here.� By �famous� she meant that she is known by the customers and very popular.

C is 23 and stands over 170 centimeters, with a nice body like a model. Her face has prominent cheekbones and is a typical northern beauty. She sent me lots of messages. To be popular you need relationships with regular customers.

�Agh, why hasn�t Kevin been coming lately? He came three straight weeks, maybe he has no more money? Last friday it was three million and a few days ago seven million� just come today! Shit! I know you can spend four (million).�

While smoking a cigarette C said, �these days Kevin is using his head. He said to me, �I really love you but are you just using me?� and didn�t smile.� 24-year old D who was chatting with C said, �I just want to quit and live with my husband.�


10 pm. The first customer has come. An almost totally bald white man and a muscular black man. The manager called me and said, �go up and introduce yourself and tell them this is a �Lady Bar� so they have to buy you a drink.� I nodded my head, but my feet felt heavy. Catlike, 25-year old E was sitting next to the white man. He was E�s regular. Just like that, the black man had become mine.

�H-hi. My n-na.. name is Su.. Sunny.�

I had studied abroad for over nine months and gotten used to foreign things so I thought I would have no problem in English, but my heart fluttered and it was tough just to say my own name. My partner, the black man, seemed to be sizing me up when he asked, �are you new here?� In skimpy clothes little better than being stark naked, E was getting along great with her partner, and compared to her I was a nun. It was my first time and I felt dry. He didn�t seem to look at me in the eye at all. There didn�t seem any way to make a good atmosphere.

My face turned red as a new girl got between us. It was the one I had met in the dressing room. She introduced herself as �Jennifer� and said she was 27. Stroking my shoulder, he said, �you don�t seem ordinary.� A moment later a slender man in glasses came in and sat at the bar. The manager called Jennifer over. Her shy appearance disappeared as she greeted him with excitement. They moved to a sofa a second later.

An hour after after Jennifer�s party moved to the sofa, B told me she was angry. �You don�t know anything and now you�re on the sofa! Are you just going to have a beer and stay there?� Then 30-year old F who was sitting next to me got angry at B. �Don�t you know it�s her first night? At first people don�t understand� on my first night some guy tried to feel me up so I put on a halter neck. Ha ha.�

Seeing my uncomprehending face, F explained, �you have to have a drink every 15 minutes.� And, �if you�re at the bar you can have like a beer or a Jack and Coke, or anyway something that costs 20,000, but on the sofa you have to have cognac or wine.� Cognac and wine cost 40,000 per glass. One bottle of wine is 600,000 up to over one million.

In the end new girl Jennifer couldn�t sell more than one beer over an hour and a half. So she made just 10,000 over that time. Even so she did better than me. I asked her, �what did you talk about?�

�That guy, he said he�s a teacher in a hagwon. I told him I�m planning to study in America and he said he would teach me English. A ten-minute lesson? Then suddenly he wrapped himself around my shoulder and whispered, �if I tip you will you kiss me?� Shit.� She cried and said, �this is so, so different from what the manager told me in the interview.� A ring glittered on the fourth finger of her left hand. It looked like a couples� ring.

�Does your boyfriend know you work here?� I asked. �Of course he doesn�t know,� she said. She used to perform on TV and had decided the month before that she would study in America. �Since I�m not that young anymore I don�t want to go to a language school, I want to go straight to graduate school.� After quitting her job she went to a hagwon every day but her conversation ability failed to improve. �So finally I came to this foreigners-only bar. If I keep getting treated like this I don�t know if I can keep it up.�

While Jennifer and I complained together an unshaven guy with glasses came over. C, who was playing pool, came over too. This was Kevin, the �7 million won guy� she�d been anxiously awaiting. C sat on his knee, kissed and drank with him. that night C was wearing three articles of clothing. There was a soft red chiffon dress, a revealing white skirt, and something black that looked like lingerie. One of the other girls said, �why is she always changing her outfit� looks like she can make a lot of money by making Kevin satisfied,� and winked and went over to him.

It was past midnight so I was feeling drowsy. And the other eight girls were all smoking, making me close my eyes. Fortunately just then a big-bellied foreigner came in. The manager called me over. He seemed pretty drunk already and was dancing as if nobody was watching. I didn�t know what to do and just stood around, and then he took me by the hand, saying, �hey baby, come on, come on.�

After exchanging names I explained, �if you buy me a drink I can talk with you.� He ordered a beer and said, �I�m not buying alcohol, I�m buying you.� He broke into a nauseating smile. He put his hand on my waist and took my hand made me dance with him. The manager was watching and threw dagger with her eyes, saying, �you can�t dance, what are you doing?� A moment later my partner said �your teeth are really sexy,� and suddenly tried to kiss me. I was barely able to slip away from his body but he was out of control. I hurried back to my seat, not knowing what to do.

His face was all red. I just wanted to run away but I stayed calm and sat down on the waiting room sofa. 26-year old G didn�t have any customers at the moment and was reading the English-language magazine Time. She is an economics major at a university in Seoul.

�Sunny, don�t be so surprised. It�s always like this in the beginning. On my first day I really hated it and didn�t think I could do it� but I have a few drinks and learn English and make money, pretty good part-time job, no? If those guy want to grope or kiss you just squeeze your eyes shut and let them�� I didn�t know what to say.

Food sanitation law doesn�t have provisions for foreigners-only bars. They are called as a �BAR� with only foreign customers to differentiate them from regular drinking establishments. In entertainment bars (유흥주점) the girls are allowed to drink, sing, and dance with customers to get them feeling good. But because bars are classified with regular restaurants, they can�t do that. So it�s illegal for the foreigners-only bars in Itaewon to do so.

A spokesman from the Yongsan-gu Office of Health and Sanitation said, �because foreigners-only bars are not licensed entertainment bars it�s difficult to accurately count them.� I asked him, �can they use entertaining girls?� The reply was, �our team inspects the whole Yongsan-gu area daily from 8 o�clock at night to 1 o�clock in the morning but has never found anything wrong at a foreigners-only bar even once.� They are able to be openly illegal, but the authorities don�t know the true situation. Currently, if you do a search on one jobs site for �foreigners-only bar� 10 locations come up, and all of them are in Itaewon.



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I'd like to see an undecover report on a Korean only booking club.

[Imrahil]

Can't be bothered to read all of that. So did he spend the 7 million won in one night?

[Bibbitybop]

I love the last line in the post. I was thinking the same thing. People might attack these girls for their "sleazy" jobs, or for "taking advantage of" foreigners. Others might attack the foreigners for being stupid enough to pay 20,000 won just for a drink (not even a standing dance??) or for making sleazy advances on the girls. Either way, neither these girls or the customers are going as far as room salon girls, noraebang girls or coffee girls and their customers.

[SHANE02]

[Imrahil]

Ouch! Imagine trying to explain that to your friends or family.

[Cheonmunka]

Sounds like a rip-off. On the other hand, shit, F people, let's invest our money in one of these bars. Make it cheaper with girls who actually put- out.

[darkcity]

i was taken to one of these "bikini bars" (although they were basically just wearing underwear, not bikinis). i forgot where it was, but it wasn't itaewon.

it was terrible. the conversation was mind-numbingly boring, and something is seriously wrong with you mentally if you flirt with these girls and think it'll go anywhere.

people who regularly visit these bars tend to be emotionally vacuous. as i mentioned in another post, see if you can find "The Great Happiness Space" on Bit Torrent (can't find the DVD anywhere). it's a documentary on male host clubs in Osaka. terribly heartbreaking.

[Bibbitybop]

[indytrucks]

Am I supposed to have generated any sort of sympathy for anyone in the narrative by the end?

[crescent]

I had a very good friend who worked in one of these in Itaewan. She made A LOT of money. We talked about everything, so I know she didn't sleep with clients. Sometimes she was invited to expensive lunches with big customers.

In one year and a bit, she made enough money to help finance her move to Paris, and pay for tuition at a design school.

The owner of the place has an apartment, and boyfriend in Manhattan. She was frequently traveling back and forth.
It's tough work though, going by what she says. Most of the girls burn out in a year or less, having to fight off fat, old men... and drink like fish to keep up with them.

[SHANE02]

[TexasPete]

This bar sounds ridiculous. Spending all that money and getting eff all in return? And from what i read, it's actually better to work in a foreigner only bar as opposed to double barber shop poles, norei bong girls or coffee girls. The only "problem" is that it's those damn dirty foreigners pawing their women and not Koreans doing it. There's not even any sex involved in this foreigner only bar!

Apparently the only thing wrong here is that foreigners are doing it. I'm sure there's equivalents for rich K-businessmen here where bars are full of attractive Western women. I know they exist in japan.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

7 million won in a night? Even at W50,000 / drink that's 140 drinks. Something else must be happening there.

I went to one such place in Busan with my Korean friend. We were met by a Russian and a Russian gyopo. Instinctively the (white) Russian sat down with my Korean friend and the Russian gyopo with me. I guess they knew we didn't come for what we were used to growing up. After two rounds of drinks each, which came to about 35,000 for each of us, I decided it was time to make a move.

Sound like the dream job for an alcoholic, doesn't it?

[ceesgetdegrees]

I dropped 300 000 in one of those bars once. It was tupid but pretty fun all the same. I didn't really go the groping route, we just played some pool and then went to the bar and chatted for a bit about various things including her job. She was a friggen stunner though, a little older...maybe early 30's and was pretty personable. I wouldn't do it again...well not in korea anyways...300 000 won in thailand go's a loooooooong way on that sort of entertainment.

[ED209]

Did she mean 700,000won not 7m? Koreans often get their numbers mixed up. And how can you feel sympathy for these girls, they just sound dumb and wouldn't last five minutes in the UK or US before being trafficked into the prostitution industry. And only foreigner bars lie to their staff and have groping customers?