G-Men

Since their recent discovery in the wild, G-Men have sparked heated debate amongst gay naturalists. Some pose that the G-Man represents a species completely new to science, while others posit that they are simply a new-found breed of the northeastern Asiatic bear. Endemic to Japan, they are noted for being less hirsute and than their occidental counterparts, and exhibit a higher propensity toward polite conversation over tea or beer.

There has been a relative explosion of G-Man culture, not just in Korea but all over 'Asia' and even back in the 'West', providing an excellent case study for the evolutionary (as opposed to simply imperialist) nature of globalization. I was lucky enough to have a recent edition of G-Men Magazine gifted to me which covers Seoul specifically, and managed to track down a den of activity in Jongno. The magazine, as hefty and glabrous as it's subjects and from which these photos were drawn, also included this advertisement featuring homoeroticized acupuncture that basically would have made my trip to Asia worthwhile all on it's own.

Oh, well if you insist...

Perhaps due to the strength and ubiquity of the music industry, casual public singing in the United States has in many places fallen by the wayside. Karaoke offers most of us little more than an opportunity to wink and nudge at one another after a couple of beers over our common lack of talent. Not so in northeast Asia, where noraebang culture is alive and well, and people’s trills and vibratos are as sharpened and honed as a samurai’s. I never quite seem to understand just how my Korean friends trick me into getting up in a tiny teched-out room and doling out another dose of ‘Bad Medicine’, but I my best to explain how Janis Joplin and the Violent Femmes form a part of my national heritage.

A poke in the public eye

Yesterday I finally sat down to an interview with famous Korean actor Suk Chun Hong, at his restaurant in Itaewon. In 2000, Hong became the first high-profile person in the country to come out of the closet, though after last eight years, he remains the only one. A charming man, he seemed quite accustomed to telling his story as well as having a microphone more or less invading his face.

Here's a clip from it in which he recalls coming out to his parents the night before going public in a Korean magazine:



He did eventually decide to stay in Korea, and it’s a good thing he did. After a very difficult period of about three years he was back on the air, and in the wake of such serious (albeit negative) publicity, his career rebounded and today he’s busier than ever. In fact, this last summer concluded the end of a 12 part series he hosted called “Coming Out”, relaying the stories of young gay men and women in Seoul.

Korea, despite it's perennial labeling as a 'conservative society', harbors a tremendous curiosity regarding sex and the new phenomenon of alternative sexualities. Open discussion of the topic is so new there's almost no social context within which to frame it. Perhaps that helps to explain why the majority of seats at Seoul Queer Film and Video Festival consistently sell out to straight women. The problem is, there's nowhere to get those images from the real world as very few people desire to come forward about their own lives.

Toward the end of our interview I asked Suk Chun what it was like to have the responsibility of crafting the image of what a gay person on his own.

"For eight years, a really long time, I fought all by myself, almost alone. I felt very lonely, very tired... but I'm waiting for people to come out and fight next to me." With a laugh he adds, "I need friends, actually."

And little by little however, they do appear to be creeping up. One friend of his, Hyun-suk Choi, became the first openly gay candidate to run for a public office when she made a bid for parliament on the part of Jongno district this last spring.

Liberation Day

Seoul City Hall, spangled with 27,000 plastic baubles and daintily guarded by a wagon fort of police security buses

'Fun Size' rose-of-sharons adorning the Gwangwhamun gate (currently under renovation to correct general Park's slipshod handiwork)

Today is liberation Liberation day here in Korea, marking 63 years since the end of the Japanese rule over the country - and there's much to celebrate, with the country having gone from one of the poorest nations in Asia to the world's 13th largest economy since that time.

I was quickly corrected by my friends however that wishing people a "Happy Liberation Day!" is rather culturally inappropriate. Keep in mind that Korea is a society in which, traditionally speaking, you're not supposed to smile on your wedding day, and should rather be taking in the enormity of what you're about to do. So I traded it out for the somewhat less peppy "I am honored to know this important day".

SoKo celebrated by kicking Japan's butt at women's table tennis at the olympics. At my goshiwon we ate pigs head and drank soju, before I slipped away to my secret life as an international gay spy mapping out Seoul's transient lesbian spaces.

Oh, SoKo...I love you.

Though I tragically arrived a full month too late for the rock-opera's full-production remake, it turns out dive-bar Hedwigs are a dime a dozen here, at straight bars no less.

...but I mean really, is anyone that surprised?

not me.

P.S. - Turns out John Cameron Mitchell did a live performance here not too long ago, in a traditional Korean braided wig and hanbok! Hee!

Alright Brian, we can do this...

I look down exasperated at the dozen-odd buttons on the console: all in Korean, none with diagrams. All I want it to do is flush... I brace myself and press a button-Very high-pressure bidet!... Alright, OK, um, that's sanitary. How about this one? No...

Seat warmer, no...

Sounds of nature, no...

Warm breeze, no...

Oh my god! Make the bidet stop! Clawing at buttons I feel myself starting to freak out. The man in the next stall starts laughing...

Got it! I jump up and whip around. The toilet stares back at me coldly. The little digital birds and frogs chirrup and tweet for a moment. Then it silences them... and it flushes.

Too true...

I just hope they get the party together by November...

Ruckus

You know, in all of my 23 years I don't think I've never actually seen riot police. Let alone hundreds of them flooding the streets chanting in unison and beating drums, shields, and helmets.

Well, that milestone was passed last night in Insadong as thousands of people swamped Saemunangil in the latest guerrilla protest in the popular crusade against American beef imports that began in May.







I've talked to a number of people about this whole upset, and I still don't think I quite understand it, but one thing's for certain - it has nothing to do with mad cow. There are a complex mixture of feelings in Korea regarding the US that I think are fairly representative of much of the world - indebtedness, indignation, admiration, bitterness, respect, and the burning desire to be judged on one's own terms in one's own context.

The crowds actually flooded the precise location where I was to meet up with my friend Eric to scout out the nearly 100 (albeit 6-seater) clandesine gay bars of the northern district. Fortunately he rescued me from the rooftop of a subway station and, with a couple of rice cakes, a bottle of soju, and an underground map in hand, we set off, like scouts into the wilderness of sidestreets and backalleys of this ancient city. It was a lot of work, but a sketchy good time! I can't wait to scope out the insides of some of them this weekend.

I call it home...

To enter Itaewon you have to pass under one of two archways on either end of the strip whose lettering gleams: "Welcome to Korea", despite the fact that the area lies in the very heart of Seoul above the crook of the Han river.

Yet they might be better oriented the other way around, for the 'dong' of Itaewon is a seething hot mess of foreign cultures, people and ideas rubbing shoulders, bristling hairs and making love. Turbans, fatigues, fishnets, and prada are sported by foreigners, military men, prostitutes, and korean youths - though not necessarily in that order.

The steam and smoke that fill the night streets, mix and mingle the discharge of street vendors, pipe tobacco, african diners, and subway vents, sticks to your skin and gets in your clothes. In complete defiance of Seoul's space-age modern high-rises and sleepy hanok homes, here is where, in one of the most ethnically homogenous nations in the world, the unknown breathes.

Unsurprisingly, this confusing and permissive settlement is also home to one of the centers of gay life in Seoul. Though by no means the largest, or even the most important, it's certainly the loudest and most visible. 'Homo Hill', located right off of 'Hooker Hill', is hardly the seedy backalley you'd imagine, but a polished and posh attraction that pulls tourists, soldiers, and adventurous locals off the beaten path for a beer and a cocktail. Though it won't have to for long, as last week saw the opening of the first gay bar to creep down onto the main strip - another of many signs lately that the great clamshell of sex in this Confucian society is slowly being plied.