Previous rumors of popular girl group members visiting host bars have been confirmed through investigations done by Newsen‘s reporters.
After receiving a tip about girl group members visiting a host bar in Kangnam, Seoul, reporters raced to the scene and were able to catch an interview with a madame under the requested conditions of anonymity and no photos.
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<Is it true that popular girl group members ‘A’ and ‘B’ visit host bars?>
Madame: “They are frequent customers of a store named ‘L’ that closed a few months ago. ‘A’ is a customer I received while ‘B’ found another madam.”
<Who do they usually go with?>
Madame: “‘A’ is usually seen with daughters of rich families, fashion designers, and friends from her agency. ‘B’ often visits with close solo female artists.”
<We received reports that they caused a big enough commotion for the business to call the police.>
Madame: “There’s a lot of rumors about this neighborhood, but nothing like that happened. There are rumors like celebrities breaking glass bottles and hitting men with it, but these girls just drink quietly and sing karaoke a bit before leaving. We are a bar after all, so we do get those types of customers once in a while, but we just tell them to leave and never accept them back.”
<About what percentage of your customers are female celebrities?>
Madame: “Less than 5%. There are about four stores that are considered the highest level of quality in Kangnam. The industry isn’t so big, so news about who went where and how their manners were like flies fast.”
<What do female celebrities do?>
Madame: “Since they’re well known figures, they all have designated hosts that they drink with. Once they get bored, they’ll ask their madam for another host of similar taste.”
<Are there male actors that work as hosts?>
Madame: “There are a few even more handsome than Jung Woo Sung and Jang Dong Gun. Some are rookies from dramas and movies or trainees. We have one currently in a famous entertainment agency. They’re all working for personal reasons, but they get a fair amount of customers.”
<Besides ‘A’ and ‘B’, who else visits often?>
Madame: “Some of the original girl group members and some actresses. Agencies will also have birthday parties or celebratory dinners here.”
韩国首尔江南区牛郎吧凌晨两点钟 What’s going on in a Gangnam Host Bar at 2am? (Part 1) http://thegrandnarrative.com/2011/03/13/korean-host-bars-male-prostitution/
Host Bars? I confess, I’d always assumed they were one-off novelties, largely created for the purpose of perpetuating Westerners’ sexual stereotypes of the Japanese. It came as a real surprise then, to learn that they are in fact a booming business in both Japan and Korea, with hundreds of establishments just in the wealthier parts of Seoul alone.
Not to be confused with the unfortunately named “Ho Bar” chain in Hongdae, they’re known as ho-bba (호빠 in Korea (“host clubs” in Japan), which translator Marilyn strongly suspects the name is a play on obba (오빠 or (lit. “older brother”, but often used romantically). Just like a friend of hers said the jeong (정 in the more upmarket jeong-bba (정빠 version is short for jeong-teong (정통, or “authenticity/legitimacy”.
새벽2시, 강남호스트바에선무슨일이(상) / 여성고객하루 1만명… 주부, 10대급증 ‘탈선’ What’s going on at a Kangnam host bar at 2am? / 10,000 female customers daily… housewives, teens rapid increase is “deviation”
Kangnam, in Seoul, is becoming a hotbed of deviation in which host bars (popularly known as ho-bba) sprout like poisonous mushrooms. According to police and the industry on the 18th, in the Kangnam area at least 100 ho-bba, legal and illegal, are visited daily by an average of 10,000 female customers, a considerable number of whom purchase sex. This has been confirmed by this paper’s investigative coverage of areas with many ho-bba like Nonhyeon-dong, Seocho-dong, Cheongdam-dong, and others, from Oct. 24 of last year through Jan. 17. Putting together the testimony of several industry sources, the total yearly sales of Kangnam-area ho-bba are estimated at ₩300 billion. However, because most businesses operate without a license or are “two-part businesses”, these sales are not being detected by tax authorities.
(Table caption: Progress of crackdown on female sex-purchasing * Purchasing of sex and procuring of prostitution {unit: people})
100여곳성업… 年매출 3000억 Around 100 places thriving … 300 billion in sex sales
Industry sources unanimously said the hundred or so ho-bba that can be found just in “the three Kangnam boroughs” – Kangnam, Seocho, and Songpa – are thriving. Investigative coverage found five jeong-bba (high-level ho-bba), including “D”, “P, and “B”, and it is estimated there are about ten “Japanese-style ho-bba” (also known as “dad rooms”; host bars that hire men ousted from jeong-bba, from the ages of twenty-five to late thirties), including “R”, “V”, and “B”. There were three each of “D bba” (dum-ping bar – a low-price ho-bba) and “public” (ho-bba in which prostitution occurs), including “M”, “S”, and “G”. The results of the special site check revealed that there are also five businesses without a license or that have changed their type of business into an illegal one. It was found that, as this type of business increases, between 1,300 and 2,000 men work at jeong-bba or other host bars just in the Kangnam Station area on subway line 2. This is the first time the specific, actual conditions of host bars, like the number of people involved, sales, location, and so on, have been confirmed.
On the 17th at Nonhyeon-dong’s “S” host bar, where average women in their twenties often go, counting the number of female customers for five hours showed that about five people per hour visit the business. Considering that it is usually open from 10pm to 2pm the next day, it is estimated that around 80 women visit this place every day. A police source said, “Just the number of places I personally know exceeds 100, and there are more than 1,000 customers,” and added, “I know that about 30% of female customers go out for a second stage.”
http://thegrandnarrative.com/2011/03/21/korean-host-bars-male-prostitution-2/ 韩国首尔江南区牛郎吧凌晨两点钟
What’s going on in a Gangnam Host Bar at 2am? (Part 2)
Part 2 in the series from the Seoul Shinmun, kindly translated by Marilyn; for Part 1 and a wider discussion of what “Host Bars” are exactly, see here. Meanwhile, yes, I realize that those are actually Japanese hosts above, but then I’m afraid images of their less brazen Korean counterparts are rather harder to come by!^^ What’s going on in a Kangnam ‘ho-bba’ at 2 a.m…“Noona, do you want ‘minjja’? Of course we have it!”…A lawless area of female deviance
At the end of last month in Seoul’s Nonhyeon-dong adult entertainment district, after passing the area around the Woo-seong Apartment Complex intersection at about 2 a.m. and entering an alley to one side, adult entertainment bars with flashy neon signs appeared in rows. Among these, we went to ‘K’ business, which was being operated as a room salon and host bar in a ‘1, 2 part form’ (room salon in the evening, host bar late at night).
(Photo caption: Entrance to Seoul Samseong-dong host bar at 1 p.m. on the 18th. Four young men who look like hosts are saying goodbye to two women)
Upon entering, through the crack of an opened door middle-aged men in their 40s and the business’ young women sitting together and pouring drinks could be seen. In the very next room, baby-faced men who looked like they were in their early 20s feeding snacks to women in their 30s or 40s or taking off their shirts and dancing, and other embarrassing scenes could be observed unfolding. Male and female hosts mixing in the same space was unusual. A director who runs this business’ first part said “We run the two parts very separately. It is because the business’ young women consider it uncomfortable to work with male hosts and so often quit.”
Here, one must pay at least ₩180,000 for a bottle of Western alcohol. Compared to top-level host bars, this is relatively cheap so it has gained a reputation among ordinary housewives and office workers as a “good place to have fun without a burden.” After waiting over 5 minutes, a “box” (a team of 10 or so hosts) called “Model”, “Boy”, [Marilyn – I guess these are names of different box -?]and so on entered in a row. “Seonsu” (the designated slang term for hosts [lit. “players”, as on a sports team]) who aren’t stationed at a business but are standing by so that when customers visit they receive a phone call and come, are managed as “bodo.” Male hosts receive a tip of ₩30,000 per hour. Because of the comparatively “cheap” price, housewives and office workers after 9pm, and at dawn, diverse types of women from university students to adult entertainment business professionals said they come here.
Among the seonsu, there were babyfaces who haven’t yet shed their high school student look. “I am Wild Joon”, “I am Hyeon-woo who plays hard.” The self-introductions continued in this kind of tone. Two people talked with us after “choice” [Marilyn – choosing ceremony?].
“You don’t have any younger friends?”
“Does noona like minjja (underage)? Of course we have it! The second kid just now also took the college entrance exam this year.”
Mr. A, a man in his 20s who has been a host for four years, confessed, “There are usually more underage at bodo than at businesses.”
This reporter asked if the so-called “second stage” were possible. “Come on, you already know … I like noona so that’s fine. But it’s an hourly-calculated thing, so…” As far as prostitution on the spot in some rooms
A seonsu in his twenties trailed off while watching for a reaction. It seemed to be talk about the price of a second stage, so this reporter asked “How about ₩500,000 or so?” and he nodded. He said there are sometimes cases in which on-the-spot prostitution occurs in a room.
He then gave comfort to the reporter disguised as a customer, saying, “If the police come in, all I have to do is say I’m a waiter or that noona and I know each other.”
To the reporter who had “played” for a good while and was standing up to leave, a seonsu complained, “Noona, you don’t have to worry about a crackdown. Everything has a solution.”
Destination: Moran Meat Market http://www.chrisinsouthkorea.com/2009/04/destination-moran-meat-market/ If I had to name a place where PETA would fight to close down, the Moran Meat Market would be the place. Across the street from the Moran Market (a market open 1 out of every 5 days; closed the day I went), the Moran Meat Market doesn’t exactly rate high on the list of tourist destinations. I, however, am not a tourist, and feel some obligation to see what there is to see, whether or not it’s a ‘popular’ tourist place. I must say even after visiting the market I was hesitant to write about it.
Again, I warn you – if you are at all sensitive to the treatment of animals, please skip to the next post – nothing to see here.
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发表于 20-2-2013 07:20 PM
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