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Journalism of Courage
They’re clean, well located, discreet, run by the most wholesome of people. And they’ve earned a reputation that has spread right across the world. they’re the Korean ‘Love Hotels’, where rooms are let out by the hour or two — depending on one’s confidence and ability — to young Koreans looking for something spicier than kimchi. Having stayed at two such hotels (they’re motels, actually, hotels are for the men in suits) in Seoul and Busan, I think it’s fair to say that reputation has perhaps has been a little unfair to these hotels. As long as you’re not expecting the Sheraton, this will do nicely.
Of course, there was a massive clean-up operation before the World Cup got under way. Out went all the erotic pictures that apparently made up much of the decor in each motel; out, too, the books that were kept for bedside reading, if you ever got down to that. In came a proper reception with a counter. In the old style, guest and motelier never saw each other’s faces; you chose your room from the pictures on the wall, picked up the appropriate room key hanging there, left your cash at a hole in the wall and went to greater glory. There was no question of staying the whole night (now that would be really pushing it). Jules, a writer with a Taiwanese paper and a fellow resident in Seoul, told me how, just a few weeks before the World Cup started, he’d walked into one such motel, in all innocence and asked for a room for the night. He was shooed away and he immediately thought it was some sort of reverse-racism. Then a friend made him wiser.
I chose my motels through the Internet; the only difference between rooms in any motel was ‘king-size’ and ‘queen-size’ beds. I haven’t figured out the difference; the price was the same so presumably it’s something to do with the roles people play (more on that later).
In the rooms, everything is squeaky-clean; the towels, the bed-linen, the laminate floors; the dirt, such as it is, exists only in metaphor. There isn’t much else by way of decoration but there is, for reasons as yet unexplained, a packet of Lucky Man razors in each room. And there’s a TV set with that staple of all motels: 24-hour porn. I guess you can take out the naughty pictures and the books but you can’t change your TV programming. So there it is, in glorious technicolour, the seamy side of Korean youth laid bare, if you’ll pardon the pun. They have different names in different cities. In Seoul it was called (and I swear this was how I came upon the channel in the first place) Sky Movies. The little (very little) I’ve seen of this channel — though, as every channel here is Korean, watching it has one advantage: you don’t need subtitles — shows that there’s little by way of plot or script. The girls are all well-groomed, very good-looking, the men unshaven, unkempt, loutish. Strangely, though, women seem to have the stronger characters; maybe that’s where the queen-size beds come into play. Many of these films have been shot in motels such as the ones I’ve stayed in and I can’t help but think that, as I’m filing this, with Paraguay about to take on South africa, my room in my absence is being used for an equally passionate spectacle. Why let industry suffer in the name of sport? Food and drink don’t exist at these places. Busan at least has a coffee-dispenser on every floor. In Seoul, you’d need to walk quite a bit for your morning tea and toast. On the other hand, cheap — and safe — food is never very far away, if you’re okay with local fare. And so I know that when I go back tonight, whatever else may have taken place during the day, there’ll be a clean bed and sheets and towel, dinner — even past midnight — a five-minute walk away and a welcoming smile. For $50 a night in World Cup country, that’s more than I can expect.
