[Intro]
[M] A whole bunch of people through email and facebook and twitter asked..
[S] Choi Se7en (Korean singer) and some other K-pop people went to a rug 'n tug
and now we're gonna talk about prostitution in Korea.
[M] So for those of you who didn't hear what happened
Se7ven and Sangchu (Mighty Mouth) basically went to a 'Happy Ending' massage parlor
and were caught by some undercover reporters.
And a lot of reactions were like... [S] Oh my God!I can't believe this has happened!
No! They would never do such a thing!
[M] Well, it seems like a lot of people who are Korean were kinda like...
[Both] Yeahhhh....
[S] For us we weren't surprised about this whatsoever because I think a lot of people don't understand
how big prostitution is here in South Korea.
[M] What I will say from the get-go is that prostitution is actually 'illegal' in Korea. [S] Yes, mhm.
[M] But there seems to be a lot of covering your eyes to it and shutting your ears to it and pretending that it doesn't exist.
[S] Even though it's illegal it's pretty much wide-spread illegality.
For those of you who don't know just how big it is, it actually surprised me when I found out the stats about it
supposedly it counts for four percent of the GDP of South Korea...
which works out to something like 13 billion dollars a year
people spend on sex in South Korea.
And the stat that really freaked me out is supposedly one out of every five men
pay for sex four times a month!
So think about this: if you know five guys
one of them, at least one of them,
goes to a prostitute or different prostitutes four times a month!
At least!
That's f... that's crazy! [M] That's crazy.
[S] I don't know anybody from where I'm from in Canada that has ever gone to a prostitute
or at least has like admitted it. [M] I don't even know where to go to find a prostitute in Canada
I mean I know we have them... [S] Mhm.
[M] But it's like I don't know where to go, while it feels like in Korea
they make it pretty clear.
First off, hooker cards.
They're like little, tiny business cards with pictures of girls, not naked but like...
[S] In bikini. [M] Semi-naked or like...
[S] And like, you see like thongs and stuff, and at the bottom of the cards they have phone numbers
and what do you think you'd call this phone number for?
[M] It's like they were scattered everywhere
this is where little kids could see it, it was stuck underneath the windshields of the cars...
[S] Yeah, any car that has been parked for a few hours
their like, windshield wiper is full of it.
[M] Anyone could see these anywhere and you could kinda guess what they're for.
[S] And when you walk around the streets of Korea as well
you might see these inflatable balloons, a lot of those are advertisements for restaurants like:
"here's some chicken and beer!"
and some of these of these inflatable balloons have pictures of girls in bikinis pushing their boobs together
offering special massages.
My knee is sore, let me go to this bikini girl to rub my knee for me...
[M] I have this sport injury, do you think she does deep tissue massages?
[S] ...Yes. [M] Do you think she's certified and can I write it off of my tax?
[S] I don't think you wanna admit this to the tax man. [M] Oh...
[S] And another thing that we found hilarious
and I'm sure a lot of people find it hilarious as well
is that the agency wound of saying that:
"Oh! He didn't.. he didn't know that he walked into a special massage place.
He was just looking for a massage cause his knee was sore!"
[M] At 2AM!
[S] Bullsh*(censorsheep bleats)*!
Everybody knows that this is bullsh*t. [M] Yes. There are massage parlors in Korea
for massaging and this is not one of them.
[S] If you're looking for a medical massage go to a certified doctor
don't go to the place with the girls in the bikinis.
And there's a sign outside of the massage parlor that says:
'Anma'. Anma means happy ending.
What do you think that is.. it's not like
Wow! [M] It's a Disney Store, Simon!
[S] My knee is miraculously better, thank you for that! That's not what happy ending means!
[M] Perhaps it means something like Cinderella and the Prince finally find each other...
[S] Well they find each other's parts let's say...
[gasp]
And the last and probably most obvious form of prostitution is the redlight district
which you can literally stumble upon without knowing.
We were at Yongsan Station when we first moved to Korea,
Simon was playing basketball at the American Army Base. [S] Yep.
[M] So we were cutting through the shortcut to get to the American Army Base
and there's like this street with glass
it looks like a butcher shop.. [S] Yep. [M] With like glowing red lights, or I'm sorry, pink lights.
[S] They're very pink, they're not red! [M] That's right, the pink light district...
and there's girls wearing bikini's and underwear just posing and stuff.
And it's not just the Yongsan area, there's also three or four different notorious redlight districts which anyone can just stumble upon.
[S] Another thing that you might not necessarily see overtly but you know it's like a secret symbol
for prostitution is double barber shop poles outside a building.
[M] You know the like swirling ones that are like red and blue and white kinda like, "hey get a haircut here."
[S] It's... you're not gonna get a special haircut there. You're gonna get rugged 'n tugged
or some other services if.. why am I even advertising this? I'm not trying to say: well they're for this I'm just saying this is what they're for!
[M] Don't go in there and be like: "I'm looking in a barber shop, old fashioned-hairshaving
don't, you.. don't go there for that.
[S] Old fashioned-hair shaving! [M] Yeah...
[M] I..yeah
[M] No no no no
[M] It's not a barber shop [S] No, god [M] Okay
[M] Also something that some people might know about and some people may not are host clubs
[M] And I don't mean like the Ouran Host Clubs like...
[S&M] ♫ Kiss kiss fall in love ♫
[M] Now on the legal side these are supposed to be bars where you're just going to meet company
[S] Right [M] Just to talk
[S] Yes.. [M] And you buy extremely overpriced food and drinks and the person you are sitting with you have to pay for their food and drinks
[M] And supposedly that's where it all stops [S] Yes [M] Just going there to talk
[S] Right, that's...that's you're just being hosted with good company [M] Yes
[S] But if you wind up getting to know them a little bit more then you can wind up getting some extra services on top of that
[S] That aren't necessarily on the menu
[S] Think of it kind of like that like if you have a cable guy come over to your house so to set up your tv
[S] If you pay him a little bit extra and you get in his good book then he can set you up with those free channels
[S] It's kind of the same thing with a host club except in this case, instead of extra channels you get some extra sexual services
[M] Yeah, which are all of course off the book [S] Yes, and illegal and supposedly don't happen here but they really do
[M] And these places aren't like necessarily in sticky neighbourhoods
[M] There are some really famous locations in like Apujeong and Gangnam and there have been celebrity scandals in the past
[S] Right [M] Where like Kpop groups went to a "Host Club" and a lot of people online
[M] I remember reading comments
[M] Were like, "I don't understand what's so bad about this" [S] Oh, what's so bad about this
[M] Yeah, but we know that host clubs have different connotations that can go deeper
[S] Right across the street in fact, they have the "Sexy Bar" on the top floor
[S] And I would be like, "oh, does that mean sexy people go there?"
[S&M] No, it doesn't mean that
[M] And there's all different versions of this like, "Just Company" totally legal things happening
[M] Like, for example you know Norebang, the singing rooms
[S] Mhmm [M] Well you can also go to ones where there are really beautiful women that will sing with you in the rooms
[S] You pay them to come to your room and sing with you and pour you drinks, and then for a little bit more
[M] Something extra might happen, and people go there for business meetings and it's a...mostly guys
[S] Yeah [M] Let's be honest, and when I say mostly I mean, it's guys
[S] One out of every 5 men you know
[S] Now one of the things we want to get across with this TL;DR is that I know that as soon as we do a serious topic for a TL;DR that a lot of the commenters are like
[S] "Oh my god, I can't believe that everybody's like this" [M] Yeah [S] We did one of racism a couple weeks ago and everyone's like
[S] "Oh my god, I can't believe that in all of Korea thinks that Malaysian people are like this!" which isn't necessarily true, it's only some people
[S] So don't get the idea that every single Korean man is walking around with a raging boner and just like offering everyone money to have sex with him
[S] It doesn't work that way
[M] In fact I have a close Korean friend who's a guy and he told me that he like had a lot of uncomfortable situations where he was out with his male friends
[M] And they would go out and they'd eat and they would drink and when they got drunk they would suggest going to like the "Sexy Norebang"
[M] Or like a sexy host club or something, and he was very uncomfortable and he never went but he got guilt tripped by other people [S] Yes!
[S] This is what was so disturbing when you told me about it like his friends would be like
[S] "Well why ruining the fun for everybody else?" [M] yeah [S] Like we should be doing this as a group
[S] And it's like that really weirded me out as well
[M] Now we think that this is one of actually the biggest problems of Korean society, and I don't mean prostitution
[M] I mean the idea of your elder telling you what to do [S] Right [M] And the fact that you can't go against it
[S] You must respect what the elder says [M] Yeah, so the problem is a lot of people will say this is what happened in like Se7en's case as well as excuses is that
[M] Se7en's superiors and the army wanted to go and they had no choice but to be brought along
[M] Or I didn't want to go to this bar by my sunbae said to me, you know, "Well you have to come" and you can't disrespect them
[M] So I feel like that excuse comes up a lot in Korean culture, like people who drink too much and are throwing up on the streets they'd say
[M] Oh it's not my fault [S] I had to do it 'cause my boss told me to do it
[M] Or like people who are out all night long and don't see their wife and kids [S] I had to do it 'cause my boss [M] Oh because my boss pressured me
[S] Same thing with prostitution, "oh I have to do it because my superior's doing it"
[S] We're going to talk more about this in our blog post, so if you want to carry on the conversation a little bit more then click on the link here
[S] And we'll be able to discuss into more like
[S] So that's it for this week's TL;DR if you have a question for next week's TL;DR leave your questions in the comment section below
[M] And to check out if the question's already been asked, you can thumbs up to get them to our attention or you can even send us a tweet
[S] And don't forget to subscribe for more TL;DR where we talk about sensitive topics that I'm sure that are gonna piss off some people
[M] I know, it can piss off people all they want but it's a fact!
[S] It's out there
[M] It's a friggen fact [S] It's out there, you can't deny it [M] If you come to Korea you will see it, and you can not deny it
[M] I don't know how people deny it, I just don't get how they're like nope, nope this doesn't happen in Korea! [S] Nope, *inaudible sounds*
[M] I'm gonna put you in a headlock and drag you to the red light district near our home which is one block away from the police station
[M] Police station, red light district, what?