Last night, as predicted, I went with my businessman friend to a few bars. We initially just went for a quiet drink in Itaewon to chat about life and work. However, at 3am he decided that he was in the mood for a nightclub and we went to a club called Juliana which incidentally is the name of an old friend. It may seem a strange time and day to be going to a club. It was a Tuesday night and it was really late. However this is Korea and things are a little different here. Let me explain…
See in Korea, the traditional nightclubs are completely different to western clubs. For starters, seating is arranged and everyone sits at a table. There is a dancefloor, but it’s not really the primary feature of the club. The men will have drinks and a fruit platter brought to their table. This is part of the service that you have paid for (through the nose). Now comes the interesting part…
The girls sit at their own tables and are taken by the waiters to sit with the men at their tables. It is known as ‘booking’ whereby the introduction is done by the waiter to save the men having to go around chatting up women. It’s quite a spectacle. If the woman is attracted to the men, she may stay and have drinks with the men, or feast on their fruit platter. If she isn’t really into them, she’ll make an excuse to leave and 10 seconds after sitting she’s gone again.
Clubs like this are all over Korea. I suppose the attraction is twofold. First, Koreans don’t really like to meet new people in bars. You don’t see bars or clubs here with free seating and an open bar. Generally, people like to form their own groups and sit together at a private table. Booking is the second part of this strategy, because the men and women still want to meet each other. The problem of private rooms and seats is overcome by waiters dragging unwilling girls and plonking them down onto the seat.
So we were in one of those. Actually we were in one of the most exclusive clubs in Korea. It was so exclusive that my friend had to make some calls to people who had to make more calls to get us in. Not only that, but the price for our table was $500US dollars. Now I protested before entering. I said about 100 times that I didn’t have the money and even if I did, I wouldn’t be spending it so girls could get plonked next to me. Why I could spend that money to travel to the Phillipines, stay in a hotel for 2 nights, swim on the beach, eat some good food, come back and have money to spare. The Porshe outside the door reminded me that this was not the venue to think cheap. Anyway, he insisted that it was his treat, so we went there.
Amazingly, despite the night, despite the lateness of our arrival, there were girls to be dragged. They came, they left. Some stayed a little longer, drank some whiskey, then left a little later. All in all I couldn’t imagine why people would pay $500 on a regular basis for this privilege. I put this to my friend. He said that, sure, it was a lot of money, but that money was allowing you to meet dozens of beautiful young girls, screened by management so that only the best entered. It was the pinnacle of quality that one could hope to find on a random Tuesday. Indeed, the girls were quite good for that time. I can only imagine what it must be like on a Friday night. But it’s still not worth it if you ask me.
So after my friend was completely drunk and I had finished gorging on the fruit platter, I went home. I did miss my night of West Wing, but it was fun and I had a nice Korean experience.
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