An observation on the state of women in South Korea
My last blog post was obviously a joke, but this one is a lot more serious. People may not know that this is not my first trip to South Korea. As a matter of fact, I was here 20 years ago, and let's just say that this has given me a unique perspective on things here. I've been observing something that I never would have even realized had I not been here two decades ago.
I was in a McDonald's in Seoul, South Korea the other day, and three young, attractive girls were working behind the counter, giggling and pointing out cute guys. They seemed like high school girls from pretty much any other American city. And it made me so happy to see them like this, realizing they have their whole lives in front of them, and they can practically live it any way they choose.
As I said, this is not my first time in South Korea. When I was here 20 years ago, this civilization was a much different place.
20 years ago, I was a GI in Tongduchon, a town near the demilitarized zone (DMZ), the border South Korea shares with North Korea. The women were the same back then as they are now; they giggled all of the time. The difference was that their lifestyles were so much different. Back then, the typical Korean girl I came across was a bar girl or some kind of prostitute. If they were lucky, they worked in some sort of formal tea shop, but even then things felt a bit suspicious with the women I came across.
But everywhere I went women were involved in some sort of the out of control sex trade. The peole of Korea at that time were finally bouncing back from the 1950s Korean Civil War, and in the 1980s, there was a move to fight against the repressive government that had maintain martial order after the Korean War. Things for the future started to look like they were going to be different as students took to the street and demanded that freedoms be enacted as were promised to that generation.
Every day was a major protest. Tens of thousands of people erupted in the streets during the time the Olympics were coming to South Korea. You could feel change in the air.
During this time, I would have lots of conversations with every women I came across during those days. Unlike the other GIs who were conversing with the women for sexual favors, I was more interested in their lives and what they were hoping to do with them. For the most part, there wasn't a lot of hope, other than an occasional hope that someone might marry a GI and end up in a better life back in the states, which was often more fantasy than reality because GIs didn't historically do a very good job of providing for better lives for their Korean brides once they got them home. During this time, there seemed to be a sense of hopelessness, almost as if there was really nothing that could be done, so the people were doing what they could to make the best of difficult circumstances. I remember leaving South Korea in a bit of a depression because no one seemed to see a brighter future, and no one certainly was all that happy about that particular present.
Now fast forward 20 years, and it's like the entire population has changed. People are going on with their lives, and the society is actually flourishing in many great ways. This country went from being a reactive entity to being a country that is one of the major economic forces in Asia. And the women? I see many of them engaging in the big decisions of every day life, although there is still a major thread of male dominance in the system that may or may not ever be overcome.
But for now, it is so much nicer to interact for a few friendly seconds with a young girl who is thinking about hooking up with her friends to go shopping than it ever was to try to have a conversation with a young woman who has been dirtied by the whole sex industry that ruined so many previous lives. While I'm sure there's still a bit of a footprint of the old ways around some of the military posts, I would like to think that overall things are so much better for the prospects of the women of Korea.
Stumble It!
I was in a McDonald's in Seoul, South Korea the other day, and three young, attractive girls were working behind the counter, giggling and pointing out cute guys. They seemed like high school girls from pretty much any other American city. And it made me so happy to see them like this, realizing they have their whole lives in front of them, and they can practically live it any way they choose.
As I said, this is not my first time in South Korea. When I was here 20 years ago, this civilization was a much different place.
20 years ago, I was a GI in Tongduchon, a town near the demilitarized zone (DMZ), the border South Korea shares with North Korea. The women were the same back then as they are now; they giggled all of the time. The difference was that their lifestyles were so much different. Back then, the typical Korean girl I came across was a bar girl or some kind of prostitute. If they were lucky, they worked in some sort of formal tea shop, but even then things felt a bit suspicious with the women I came across.
But everywhere I went women were involved in some sort of the out of control sex trade. The peole of Korea at that time were finally bouncing back from the 1950s Korean Civil War, and in the 1980s, there was a move to fight against the repressive government that had maintain martial order after the Korean War. Things for the future started to look like they were going to be different as students took to the street and demanded that freedoms be enacted as were promised to that generation.
Every day was a major protest. Tens of thousands of people erupted in the streets during the time the Olympics were coming to South Korea. You could feel change in the air.
During this time, I would have lots of conversations with every women I came across during those days. Unlike the other GIs who were conversing with the women for sexual favors, I was more interested in their lives and what they were hoping to do with them. For the most part, there wasn't a lot of hope, other than an occasional hope that someone might marry a GI and end up in a better life back in the states, which was often more fantasy than reality because GIs didn't historically do a very good job of providing for better lives for their Korean brides once they got them home. During this time, there seemed to be a sense of hopelessness, almost as if there was really nothing that could be done, so the people were doing what they could to make the best of difficult circumstances. I remember leaving South Korea in a bit of a depression because no one seemed to see a brighter future, and no one certainly was all that happy about that particular present.
Now fast forward 20 years, and it's like the entire population has changed. People are going on with their lives, and the society is actually flourishing in many great ways. This country went from being a reactive entity to being a country that is one of the major economic forces in Asia. And the women? I see many of them engaging in the big decisions of every day life, although there is still a major thread of male dominance in the system that may or may not ever be overcome.
But for now, it is so much nicer to interact for a few friendly seconds with a young girl who is thinking about hooking up with her friends to go shopping than it ever was to try to have a conversation with a young woman who has been dirtied by the whole sex industry that ruined so many previous lives. While I'm sure there's still a bit of a footprint of the old ways around some of the military posts, I would like to think that overall things are so much better for the prospects of the women of Korea.
Stumble It!
posted by Duane @ 5:59 PM
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