KMC Forums - New Essay: Korea's Nightlife

Each year thousands of people deploy to the Republic of South Korea. When they go there they leave behind their spouses, children and other loved ones for one year. Each year many stripes are lost and careers are ended because of alcohol related incidents. For what purpose must one drink their self into a stupor? Is it because they are lonely and sad? Do they drink to make the hurt go away? Do they drink for the thrills? I surely do not have the answers to those questions, however I can tell you what I have seen.

The day had come and I had arrived in Korea. I had heard that Korea had a good nightlife, but it was not at all what I had in mind. Before I had reached my room I had met my neighbor, Claudia
“Hi.” She had said to me.
“Hi.” I replied.
“Do you want to go downtown tonight?” She asked.
“Sure.” I had replied.
I was anxious to go and see what it looked like outside the protection of the base’s gates.
When nightfall had come Claudia and I were ready to go out on the town.
We got in the cab and anxiously told the driver, “Main gate please.”
Once we had gotten to the gate we started walking down the strip looking for the bars.
That night, and many others to come, we had seen legal prostitution that was going on inside many of the clubs there. Many males were out drinking with their buddies and then going home with prostitutes, or “juicies” as they call them. Is it legal in the military? No, is the answer. They are not allowed on base. However many things go on in the military that are naked to the eye. In many clubs on the downtown strip you will walk into a club and see half naked girls dancing around waiting to be “bar-fined”, the term they use for when a juicy girl has been bought for the remainder of the evening. Then when 12:30 a.m. hits many of the bars have drunk airmen filing out of them as they rush to the gate to make it back on base before curfew, which is at 1 am. Then once they are back on base they go to the Enlisted Club and drink even more. I suppose they do it for that high-on-life feeling. I can admit that I to was guilty of the drinking, though it only lasted a month. After a month I was getting tired of the same old thing every weekend. I had seen people from my shop get kicked out for doing stupid things that were alcohol related. I also had a friend who had lost a stripe for the same sort of stupidity.

Here is another example of things that happen in Korea’s nightlife. “On any given night you could see women in prostitution costumes hanging out at club doors soliciting GIs; one part come on, one part contempt. An old Korean woman, hands clasped behind her back, spends the night strolling up and down a back alley, approaching young GIs in their downy sports jackets asking "Lady?" as the GI, after questioning “How much?” And “How old?” Will follow her up the hill and down an alley. Later in the barracks the soldiers could be seen imitating mockingly, "Suckee, Suckee, I do everything, I go home with you," clinging to the full metal jacket fantasy that they're still occupying forces in the hooch village.” (Paragraph 2, http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/us-army.htm) The statement above is another military person’s tale of situations that occur in Korea.

After seeing these things happening within just one month my arrival I had decided that drinking was not for me. Everyone else’s stupidity and punishments had taught me that I don’t want to be like them. I respect myself as well as others enough not to do any of the things that I have seen.