Word: pusan
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...Mile Stench. Pusan is a city of filth, poverty and disease-yet it is the major supply port of the Korean war. Its harbor is jampacked with ships from nearly a score of nations, bringing in fresh men and equipment, taking out the wounded and sick and wrecked or worn-out equipment. Pusan's days & nights are noisy with the clatter of U.S. military traffic, ancient taxis, rachitic streetcars (some from Atlanta), and the snorting and lowing of oxen. In dry weather dust all but obscures the city's one traffic light, which is attended by a listless...
...Part of Pusan's plight is that of any squalid Oriental port, but much is due to the war. Refugees have swollen the population from 400,000 to 1,000,000. Many have no place to sleep except a pile of grimy rags in the streets or huts made of discarded U.S. Army canvas. Food is scarce and prices are high, even for those with jobs. Rice for a family of four or five costs $60 a month; Pusan wages run from $10 to $15 monthly...
Most pathetic victims are the children. Of the 70,000 homeless children in South Korea, 10,000 are in Pusan. Some are mere toddlers, squatting numbly in the gutters, devoured by flies by day, by rats at night. The older children get along by stealing, begging, pimping, shining shoes. Most of them, like Choi Jung Mook, fear another winter...
...Have a Cough." Choi Jung Mook is six years old. Last week he was living with four other boys in a corner of the Pusan railway station. A TIME reporter asked Choi what he will do when winter comes again. "When it is cold again," said Choi impassively, "I shall die." Why did he say that? "Because the last time it was cold, my brother died. He had a cough. Now I have a cough. So the next time it is cold I shall...
There are still a few moneyed Koreans in Pusan. By decrees and posters, Syngman Rhee's government has tried to discourage the flaunting of luxuries-yet smugglers do a thriving business in watches, cameras, cosmetics, silks, velvets. The new Mijin ("Beautiful Progress") Hotel is thronged with those who can pay as much as $15 for a room, $5 for a meal, 75? for beer, 50? for coffee. The only acceptable money in the Beautiful Progress is U.S. currency or checks...