Word: kisaeng
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When the samurai hordes poured across the Sea of Japan into Korea almost four centuries ago, a legendary Korean kisaeng (courtesan) named Gae Non vowed to kill the invaders' leading general. She toasted her prey at an outdoor party, then bound herself to him with a sash as a token of eternal love. A moment later, so the story goes, she plunged into a nearby ravine, dragging the general with her to death and fulfilling her vow. In Seoul these days, the kisaeng response to a new and different kind of Japanese invasion is a lot more affectionate...
...this year Seoul officials expect more than 500,000, about 70% of them in all-male tour groups. Last year Japanese tourism was worth $58 million; in 1973 the figure is expected to reach $120 million. The major reason: many Japanese males have come to believe that the Korean kisaeng are more accomplished (and quite a bit cheaper) than the ladies patrolling the Ginza back home. In recent years, Japanese males with a penchant for lechery almost automatically headed for Taipei and the charmers of the red-lit Grass Mountain. But last September's break in Taiwan-Japan diplomatic...
Seoul offers 1,500 registered kisaeng, most of them young and pretty. The girls are licensed, as an official directive specifies, to "entertain her guest in his hotel room." Among licensing requirements: a rigid twice-a-month phys ical checkup. (Kisaeng pick up their cards, oddly enough, in Seoul's Y.M.C.A.) Once approved the girls trip off to work in one of Seoul's twelve "licensed restaurants," don their time-honored chogori (loose blouses) and chima (flowing skirts) and get to work...
...witnessed by TIME Correspondent S. Chang recently, a typical party begins when the kisaeng, each bearing a numbered tag, flutter into a banquet room filled with an equal number of Japanese males. Matching their numbers to those borne by the guests, the giggling girls kneel and begin serving food and drinks. A band plays, but the guests never quite enter into the party spirit. Instead, after an hour or so of eating and nervous fidgeting by the guests, the kisaeng leave, change swiftly into bell-bottoms or miniskirts, then lead their partners to a line of cabs...
...combined fantasy and perspective with superb brushwork and a cautious use of color that in many ways surpass his Chinese models. No such inhibitions bothered Sin Yun-pok (see overleaf), whose sumptuous scenes were often shocking to his contemporaries. One such scene of a kisaeng (geisha) party, with dancing girls performing on mats out of doors to the music of the hatted orchestra, is something no Korean gentlewoman could have witnessed. But to Westerners, it gives an intimate view of Korean gentry, alive with the delights and pleasures of their peaceful 18th century life...