SKPHCAMP

Return to the Kingdom, 2008

The general pattern of streets and alleys in the village of Sinchon and Cherry Hill remain remarkably the same as when I was there in 1973-75, which means that they are the same as they were since the 1960s, at least. The main gate of Ascom City's Camp Market, the only remaining US compound at Ascom City, has now been walled over separating the base from what was once known as the most infamous and the first of all the Korean Camptowns, Sinchon, dating some of its activity to the period of the Japanese occupation when the area of Ascom City was an Imperial Japanese military depot.

See Kathy Moon's study, Sex Among Allies, a chronicle of the US troop withdrawal from Ascom City in the early 1970s and the social and financial upheaval that was a consequence for the camptown world at Sinchon.

The images of Ascom City are of the Camp Market compound wall nearest to the main street that runs west from Bupyong-dong toward Sinchon, and of the main gate that used to lead into the village. This gate was affectionately known as the "idywaa gate." Korean "business girls" that worked in the camptown would stand on the other side of the road and call to GIs to "idywaa GI," which meant to "come here, GI." Other images include the main corner at Sinchon.

The alleyways described in Seasons in the Kingdom are there, except as one goes deeper into the village, where urban development has changed that portion of the village. The location of the Greendoor club is completely gone and appears now as a vacant pile of rubble along the main street. The alleyways behind the Greendoor and the alleyway that cut from the main street to the interior street are still there and recorded here, as are other alleyways that leave places along the interior street and zigzag back into the village. These images are a glimpse back in time to a geographic location that still exists despite its past. I say this, because within a few steps of Sinchon and Cherry Hill are huge apartment blocks that dot the once agricultural fields and seem to peer down into these villages without a sense of what they had been or what they had meant to Koreans at that time.

The generic quality of these alleyways are historical markers for me of a place that is long gone. They are also reminders for the next generation of Korean camptowns that depend still upon US servicemen and the human trafficking of Central Asian and Phillipino women to populate them. See ROKDrop for a webblog that posts information about the current state of Korean camptowns and prostitution near American military facilities.

Please feel free to contact me if these images stir memories of your time in Korea. I will be posting images of my recent travel to Korea, spending time in Jeonju, Jinju, Goseong, Nagan Village, Haeinsa Monastery, Gyeonju, Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto, and a few days in Seoul, when I took the time to visit these old camptown villages. Korea is a land of great richness, incredible hospitality, fierce independence, and strong national identify. I take pride in our mission to the ROK and my small role in it, but I also regret the abuses we inflicted upon people that our are friends and allies.