[Opinion] Ticket Tearoom

A foreign diplomat at the Taiwanese mission to Korea said, “I will return to Seoul once or twice a year,” upon returning to Taiwan. This is to visit Mt. Bukhan and the fomentation rooms that he fell in love with during his four-year stay in Seoul. He said, “My wife also likes mountaineering and going to the fomentation rooms, so it will most likely be as a couple.” Beautiful mountains around Seoul and the fomentation rooms that they cannot find in Taiwan magnetized them. Every time I see a picture of us taken at Paekundae in the snow covered Mt. Pukhan with arms around each others’ shoulders, I remember his humorous introduction, in fluent Korean, introducing himself as a “Korean Taiwanese.”

The noraebang (singing room) is also another cultural scene that foreigners like about Korea. It is not rare to see foreigners at noraebangs just as often as we see foreigners at Mt. Pukhan. Some foreigners sing the newest Korean pop songs and overwhelm middle aged Koreans who usually can only sing older Korean songs. We can impress foreign friends of ours with bomb drinks, but I think that it cannot be as good as the friendships that we can make at noraebangs. PC rooms are also a Korean phenomenon that surprises foreigners. As a country with PC rooms located on every corner of all streets nationwide, it is not surprising at all to hear about the news a few days ago that Seoul has been selected as the best city during an assessment for the top electronic city governments among 100 cities around the world.

How great would it be that the unique Korean lifestyle culture is all that there is to boast to foreigners? However, the reality is not so. One of the “Korean monsters” that people can never hear of abroad but only in Korea is the ticket tearoom (Ticket tearoom is a tea shop where the owner sells tickets to customers for the hours that the girls working there are out to their customers either serving coffee or prostituting – description by the translator). According to the announcement by the Commission on Youth Protection, they estimate at least 33,000 minors are working at ticket tearooms in Korea. If this should be a sensible country, it should go on a national campaign of “War against Ticket Tearooms” and save the minors working there. It is not a time to announce some statistical numbers leisurely. The percentage of employed minors has not decreased by even a small number.

Two months ago, the people were all frustrated by the news that two girls, who were looking for work to make money for their father suffering from liver cancer, were released from a ticket tearoom that had been forcing them to work as prostitutes. Despite the fact that there are large numbers of people who cry over these sad stories and rage at the absence of the related government policies, ticket tearooms is still a successful business. We worry that the announcement by the commission might end as yet another announcement. We desperately hope to see some results out of this issue since the commission is promoting methods to publicize the addresses and pictures of juvenile prostitution agents who connects the minors to ticket tearoom owners. What if there are more foreigners who finger-points at vulgar cultures such as ticket tearooms than the foreigners who praise Korean culture while being attracted to fomentation rooms and noraebangs?

Editorial Writer Bahng Hyung-nam, hnbhang@donga.com