Itaewon Freedom

The following is the original of my latest feature for Yonhap News Agency - the shorter published version can be found here (worth looking at for the photos by Jake Hanus, if nothing else:

Koreans Drawn to Freedom of Foreign Enclave

Situated just outside the concertina-wire topped concrete walls of U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan  –  home to the headquarters of United States Forces Korea  –  the suburb of Itaewon has long been known as a foreigner-friendly enclave. U.S. troops roam the streets, monitored in the evenings by Courtesy Patrols of Military and Korean National Police; English-language teachers mingle with international students; Africans of various nations peddle jewelry on street corners; and Pakistani, Indian and Turkish restaurants share street space with Western diners and English-style bars.

Itaewon’s foreign flavor precedes all of these newer immigrants, however. Historian Robert Neff, co-author of “Korea Through Western Eyes,” said the Japanese were based in the area when they occupied South Korea and before the Americans moved in. Neff has also been told that a Chinese presence preceded the Japanese but has no proof of that claim.

The faces on Itaewon’s streets have changed again recently, as Koreans reclaim this most non-Korean of suburbs, which was once considered both unsafe and undesirable.  

When Ashley Cheeseman, Executive Assistant Manager of the Grand Hilton Seoul, first visited Seoul in 1997 with his Korean wife, she did not tell him about Itaewon, “because she had only heard bad things,” he said.

The Englishman was told of the area by another Westerner and visited, finding a home away from home. Cheeseman and his wife subsequently lived one suburb over in Hannam for many years, and he continues to visit Itaewon three or four times a week.

“There wasn’t so much of a mix back then,” he said. “People were very segregated. You had the African community going to one place, Filipinos going to another.

“Now, I see this community where everybody is accepted and nobody is looked down or frowned upon.

“You have this perfect combination of young Koreans being in an environment with a lot of foreigners.”

He believes the change began when Korea co-hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup, and Koreans wanted to socialize with foreigners and be part of a global experience. Itaewon was one of several focal points in Seoul where locals and visitors gathered together to watch the games.

Kevin Cyr, the Canadian owner of the Chili King burger bar, is another long-time visitor to Itaewon who has watched the area mature along with Korea itself. After coming to Korea as an English teacher in 1996, Cyr started selling chili burgers from a truck on the Itaewon main street in 2008 and moved to permanent premises on a side street in April 2009.

In 1996, he said, Itaewon was dominated by young American military and English teachers, he said.

“Most Koreans didn’t come to Itaewon because it was still considered dirty and dangerous.”

He said that perception has changed with promotion of the area by the Korean Government and as Koreans “slowly but surely become more wordly.”

“The late-20s, early-30s generation wants to experience more than Korea. A lot of them have either gone abroad, studied abroad or been on trips, so when they come back to Korea, they still want that authentic feeling. They don’t want to go to a Bennigans. They want to go to an Italian restaurant that actually has an Italian cook. They want to go to an American burger joint that actually has a Westerner cooking. They want the authenticity.

“Itaewon is basically the only place that really offers that.”

Koreans on the Itaewon streets gave similar reasons when asked what brought them to the suburb. Young parents Shim Gyu Sang and his wife Choi Hye Young said they both first came to Itaewon as middle school students and now visit every year or two. Bringing their 10-month old daughter for her first visit, Choi said she had noticed many more Koreans in the area.

Koreans frequented the area, she said, because “there are lots of tasty restaurants and many authentic restaurants.”

Nineteen-year-old Lee Jeong Sun, who was visiting to take photos with two of her friends, said she had been to Itaewon “just a few times.”

“When I was just a high-school student,” she said, “I heard that Itaewon is a beautiful place, similar to Europe, with so many foreigners.

“I think Itaewon is not like Korea because so many foreigners live here so they have their own culture and their own behavior.”

Kang Jeong Moon (26) said that he has visited Itaewon to shop, go to dance clubs and meet friends about 20 times in the past 10 years. He had also noticed a lot more of his fellow citizens in the suburb and said it was the foreign experience that attracted them.

“If you can’t go to America, you can still come to Itaewon,” he said.

Another factor that draws Koreans to the area, in a country where social media is an enormous influence on so-called “Netizens,” is a song that became a Facebook and Youtube phenomena in March of this year. “Itaewon Freedom” is an ‘80s-style disco/rap parody that speaks of freedoms unavailable elsewhere in a culture that has rigid expectations of its citizens.

The duo UV, consisting of musicians Yoo Seyoon and Myuji, and rapper JYP donned faux afros to sing lines that include translations of “a world full of youth” and “the world is there.”

Cheeseman said the song and the influence of many more foreigners on Korean television added to the attraction of Itaewon.

“There’s nobody there judging you,” he said.

“Especially with young couples, it’s an ideal location to go. They can be more affectionate with each other without people looking at them and criticizing them with their eyes.”

Cyr agreed that the area offers a freedom not easily found elsewhere in this strictly-regimented society.

“For them it’s like they’re living on the wild side,” he said.

Other long-time foreign residents grumble about the influx of Koreans to what many view as their own small part of the peninsula, though none spoken to wanted to go on record doing so.

Cheeseman said he had heard such complaints.

“But at the end of the day,” he said, “we’re in their country. We are the visitors here so to have Koreans with us and socially accepting us – there can be nothing better.”

Book Review: Korea Through Western Eyes, by Robert Neff

▲ Korea through Western Eyes. Seoul National University Press 25,000won

March 30 (Jeju Weekly) As an amateur student of history, I often find history books a little dry and academic. I have no such quibble with the writing of historical researcher Robert Neff, who writes a history column for this publication and also blogs on The Marmot’s Hole. So I was delighted to receive a review copy of “Korea through Western Eyes,” which Neff co-authored with Cheong Sung Hwa, a professor of history currently serving as dean of the Graduate School of Social Education at Myongji University in Seoul.

I now happily add it to my shortlist of essential reading for anyone seeking to better understand Korea and Koreans, and to Koreans wanting to understand how their past appeared to foreign eyes. (Michael Breen’s “The Koreans” is another tome on the list, so Neff and Cheong are in esteemed company.) And the expats of yesteryear were not so different than those who venture here today - a mix of those seeking to enlighten or improve the native populace, traders, government or military officers, adventurers and rogues. Some, like Paul Georg von Mollendorf, Korea’s first Western advisor, adopted Korean clothing, language and customs, which was considered a betrayal of his native Germany by some. Other foreign visitors to the country viewed Koreans as the “other,” seeing them almost as a species apart. English explorer Isabella Bird Bishop, quoted by the authors, wrote, “The Korean makes upon one the impression of novelty, and while resembling neither the Chinese or the Japanese, he is much better than either, and his physique is far finer than that of the latter.” It seems a narrowly Euro-centric viewpoint, but one reads comments not to dissimilar on any number of Korean-related blogs.

The questions that Koreans asked of their visitors in the past were also similar to those foreigners get today, many of which most Westerners would consider rude. Missionary Lillias Underwood, as quoted from her book, “Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots,” described an encounter with the palace women, whom she described as “hardened, coarse and vulgar.” “They examined my dress and belonging with childish curiosity, and deluged me with questions as to my age, why I had never married, whether I had children, and why not, and other things equally impertinent and hard to answer.”

It is through the words of those who lived here during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the reader gains insight not only into life here for the first foreign visitors but gets to know many of the characters and their personalities. One feels for von Mollendorf who lost his position with the Korean government and left the country branded as a traitor and an outlaw. Another character who appears several times is George Foulk, the naval attaché who was in charge of the American legation. His letters to his parents portray a young man living in near poverty and trying to earn funds by dealing in postal stamps and pearls, while criticizing how “extravagant” the missionaries were in Seoul. (In Foulk’s defense, he was not the only one to comment on how well Korea’s missionaries lived, but his letters leave the impression of a petty man.)

Although not the dry prose I dislike from academics, “Korea through Western Eyes” is undoubtedly a scholarly feat, as evidenced in the 12-page bibliography. Although most of the information contained within exists elsewhere, gathering such an extensive collection and presenting it so interestingly was obviously a labor of love. The authors also include dissenting information if sources vary in the details they reported.

On the downside, as an editor I found my eyes drawn to typographical errors and some repetition but, also as an editor, I know perfection is seldom, if ever, attainable. And I can easily overlook such technicalities when a book such as this both holds my attention and teaches me more. For instance, I was previously ignorant of the Baby Riots of 1888, when superstitious Koreans suspected Westerners of killing children and women for medicine or even to eat. Though such suspicions appear unbelievable, the authors note that such rumors were not unique to Korea. Citing George Alexander Lenson, in “Balance of Intrigue,” they report that in 1870 in Tientsin, China, “frenzied Chinese mobs slaughtered a large number of Western missionaries who they believed were making medicine out of the ground up sexual organs of Chinese children mixed with women’s menstrual blood.”

These are only several of many fascinating anecdotes and event in “Korea through Western Eyes.” Accompanied by black and white photographs of the era, many from Neff’s own collection, the book gives a rollicking good read while educating at the same time. For all those interested in Korea, it is available through the Seoul Selection Web site.