{"id":6601,"date":"2012-05-09T02:30:12","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T09:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=6601"},"modified":"2012-05-05T21:20:53","modified_gmt":"2012-05-06T04:20:53","slug":"orient-express-a-poem-and-street-photography-on-south-korea-by-jack-hubbell-1981-1983","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/09\/orient-express-a-poem-and-street-photography-on-south-korea-by-jack-hubbell-1981-1983\/","title":{"rendered":"Orient Express: A Poem and Street Photography on South Korea by Jack Hubbell (1981-1983)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eric’s Note<\/strong><\/span>: For this post, I am honored to feature the words and photographs of Jack Hubbell<\/a> and his experiences in South Korea as a G.I. I thank Jack very much for sharing these personal stories that tell much about himself and the experiences of those in Korea.\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

From what I have heard,
\nthe aim is to follow the tracks
\nand not cross them.
\nCrossing achieves nothing.
\nSimply scars the velvet landscape, and
\ncorrupts both soil and soul.
\nNo, if your objective
\nis to reach the end,
\nit is best to sink down
\ndeep into the tracks
\nand ride the rails
\nto your final destination.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Life can be easy
\nwhen you hold a ticket
\nfor the passenger car.
\nIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a closed cell environment with
\nyour privileged life
\nencased within glass all while
\nthe pedestrian blur beyond
\nmust brace against your passing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Box cars.
\nCattle cars.
\nOpen air freight.
\nClimb on up but\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\nHang on for dear life.
\nFor dear life.
\nAssuming you hold it dear.<\/p>\n

The Orient Express.
\nSounds pretty exotic doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it?
\nParis, Prague, Budapest.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Step up. Step up.
\nYour fate is about to
\npull out of the station.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nA year in the Far East.
\nThe true Far East.
\nOne ecstatic tour of duty
\non the Orient Express.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hello G.I.
\nWelcome to our country.
\nHave your way with our women.
\nAnd now you go. You go.
\nYankee go home.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I was so desperate to see the orient
\nthat I volunteered for South Korea.
\nNot for a mere one year tour, but two.
\nAnd for one of those two whole years,
\nthose Korean inhabitants
\nwere fodder
\nfor my pleasure.<\/p>\n

Walk into a brothel at night
\nand all is glitter and seduction.
\nWalk into that same establishment
\nduring the daylight hours and
\nyou see the torn vinyl,
\nthe splintered plywood,
\nthe stained and matted carpet,
\nthe stench of humanity
\nof which you are part.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One year into that two-year tour
\nand the siren stupor
\nof whore amore
\nevaporates.
\nThat city of sin
\nresolves into focus.
\nI see who they are.
\nI see who I am.
\nAnd we begin to talk.
\nAnd that city I knew so well
\nchanges.
\nHow the doormen and bouncers
\nare more than doormen and bouncers.
\nHow they are so easy to smile
\nin my presence,
\nyet how no girl smiles in theirs.
\nHow the girls who are absent on
\nsupposed vacation
\nall seem to come back
\nwith bruises.<\/p>\n

How the one bar owner
\nwhose club got a little too popular,
\nsuddenly breaks both of his legs.
\nHow the booze of which you imbibe
\nis laced with amphetamine
\nso as you won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pass out
\nand stop drinking.<\/p>\n

How every other girl you meet
\nhas a striation of scars
\nrunning up and down her forearms.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How these girls come
\nto embrace the pain
\ntheir prescribed lives entail.<\/p>\n

How those repeatedly slashed
\nand healed forearms
\nact as transcript and testimony
\nto the travail their lives had become.
\nThey with their arms
\na multitude of scars.
\nAnd here it should be noted
\nthat for scars to form
\nyou have to have
\nsurvived the wound.
\nAnd this they did.
\nVery few girls died
\nby way of slashed wrist,
\nbut die they did.
\nAn unstoppable momentum.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Did I mention how a train
\npassed through this town?
\nHow it had no reason to stop?
\nHow it would barrel through
\nat high speed?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There in that
\nsecond year of my tour,
\nI was told a secret that was
\nkept from us military tourists.
\nThat almost every week,
\nsome unfortunate girl
\nwent down to the train tracks.
\nAnd yet there upon her arrival,
\nhave the understanding
\nthat there was no good reason
\nto follow them.
\nThat there was no good reason
\nto cross them.
\nRather to simply
\nstep to the middle,
\nface their fate,
\nand wait
\nfor the
\nOrient Express
\nto come and
\ntake them away.<\/p>\n

c 2011 Jack Hubbell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under the Overpass<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It took quite some time before I would even go downtown. I was certain that every upholstered chair was infested with lice, and every woman that brushed your arm, was a sadly corrupted vessel for all those diseases the goddess Venus had waiting behind door number three.<\/p>\n

Yes, I did venture down amid the daylight hours, but the night belonged to an alien sort that brought an element of fear to the young man I was at that time. My fear was of some internal or external physical assault that might transpire from encountering this alien culture from the underside up. In the end, the wound was merely emotional, but emotional wounds often cut the deepest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I was stationed with the US military in South Korea from 1981 to 83. Most servicemen were generally assigned for only one-year tours, and their experiences reflect this short time. Their total insights into the culture extend no further than the type of towns which build up around American military bases. Hence, their understandings of the Korean people and any qualities or faults they hold, were made predominately through the people they met there; the type of Koreans who would be drawn to a “G.I. Town”.<\/p>\n

Where these the true Koreans? No more I hope than we military being true examples of Americanism. Since for the most part, the military presence was men, the interactions between Americans and Koreans were mainly limited to those with prostitutes found in the many bars and discotheques which saturated the town. In these American’s pursuit of the perpetual party, all of life’s undercurrents were obscured by an alcohol-induced bliss and the pursuit of the perfect lay.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Toward the middle of my second year, I began to see more than this. Having moved off base into a small one room flat, I saw all the dancers, prostitutes and behind-the-scene people as they were without the party atmosphere. They became people I knew, instead of people I knew of. I still found myself fanning out to see the other people of Korea, but my main interest became the photo-documentation of a small group of dancer\/prostitutes within the town of Song Tan.<\/p>\n

I had had an interest in photography for some time, but never in documentation. Here and now was something beyond myself to focus upon. Without the camera, I do not know that I could have gotten as involved with, or ever cared as much for these individuals. The camera’s lens became a window for me to travel through into their lives. I found them photogenic, for they were far outside the realm of any experience I had ever encountered or seen through a viewfinder. Perhaps the best defense I had against culture shock was to put a camera between myself and this foreign world which then surrounded me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Upon viewing the first group of photos as they materialized within the developing tray, I realized that everything I had been doing photographically before this time was now meaningless. The recording of life—the photo-journal—was all that mattered and via this instant obsession, I was led to intimately know people I would never have known otherwise.<\/p>\n

The photographs that came to make up the sequence known as Under the Overpass originated from a group of portraits I had done of older Koreans who spent their days visiting and gambling under an overpass which crossed the town’s railway. The phrase began to apply not only to these people, but to the population of Song Tan overall and especially to that of the prostitutes I had met. Under the overpass were those who led lives beneath all who lead normal lives. The overpass was the normal life, and under it were all the prostitutes striving to reach it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The vast majority of the military saw none of this and could not have cared less. They were there to do their jobs and have a good time whenever they could. Any hardships the prostitutes endured did not concern them. After all, they had brought it upon themselves. Or had they?<\/p>\n

It would seem a lot of the girls who came to Song Tan had no idea what they were truly in for. They had come with the idea that they would meet and eventually marry the ideal American. Until this came about, most thought all they would have to be was a hostess or a barmaid. The rest knew otherwise, but likely not to the extent they would soon find. Yes, they might have to possibly subjugate themselves for awhile, but how long could that take?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

With their arrival at Song Tan, they had to find room and board. The madams who ran the bars, brothels and discotheques were of course aware of this and lying in wait. In reality the madams were mere fronts for Korean Mafiosi, but because of my own ignorance, it took some time to realize just who they, the bouncers and doormen actually were. This, and why the girls were always so abnormally respectful to them.<\/p>\n

Upon introduction to the madams, the girls were told not to worry for all would be taken care of. Any thing they might want—room, clothing and furniture—would be purchased for them with a small interest rate attached; they would easily work it off in time. This was the hook, and because of their naivet\u00e2\u20ac\u0161, they would not realize it until it was too late.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At first they were very shy, which was further amplified by the fact that they spoke little or no English. This hindered their abilities to interact with the servicemen, and soon they found themselves owing hundreds or even thousands of dollars in interest alone. The madams told them not to worry; soon an American would offer to pay for all the debts, and marry them. For some, this did happen; for most, it did not. The girls who thought they were only to be hostesses, barmaids and stage dancers now found what their true professions in Song Tan were meant to be, and how this was the only way they would be able to cope with the debts they now owed.<\/p>\n

Their debts continued to climb, and yet the girls were still much too shy (do we honestly feel that they as women, possessed emotions any different than those within our own country?). Their fellow prostitutes began to show them how to surmount this, and with time they began drinking heavily, indulging in drugs and altering their original personas in any form possible. Their lives soon degenerated to pathetic levels. Some rebounded; many adapted and carried on at this level for years. Among them, there were those who decided to end their debts the easy way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was staggering how many suicides I became aware of after moving downtown. Being on the military base had allowed a buffer zone against all of this. After moving, I heard of them so often through girls that I had come to know, that I wondered how much of it was happening to those I had known nothing of.<\/p>\n

The easiest and most popular method seemed to be the slashing of wrists. One of the girls I photographed did it so often, that her arms were literally crisscrossed with scars. Not all such scars were deep though. Having lived with the constant concept of suicide and the razor’s edge, it would appear that these young women’s psyches and perceptions had come to be mutated. I found that many of the women would slash their arms when in distress, but only to the point of getting the scar and not the end result. It almost seemed that all of the girls as an entity had accepted this act of self mutilation as a rite of passage the stress of leading such a life had decreed for them. It was expected. With my new found awareness of such a lifestyle’s existence, I then found myself looking around to find scars everywhere.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The closest I came to any of the girls was of one named Ju He. It should be stated that most of the girls did not go by their true names. They came to Song Tan and picked alternative names for themselves; names they had always wanted, and which came to stand for the alter-personalities they were soon to become. Most of the girls I came to know were through this so called Ju He, and my knowledge of Song Tan’s underworld was through them.<\/p>\n

I had thought Ju He to be one of the most stable of all the girls although at times she would recess into fits of drinking and the use of amphetamines. I found myself forever opening drawers to find small pills which I would promptly flush down the toilet. She later revealed to me that one of the last portraits of her that I had taken was while she was under the influence. Now, when I gaze at this face from my past, it is all sadly appropriate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A month before I was to leave Korea, Ju He slashed her wrist with a pocketknife—one that she had only recently seen me sharpening. Although the two cuts were deep and jagged, there was not a great amount of blood loss and no true danger came to her life. Still, this is hindsight, and at the time I was quite alarmed, insisting that she let me take her to the base hospital to get sutures. She absolutely refused. I sterilized and taped the wounds shut to the best of my abilities but found that on the next day, she had removed the tape, and thereby allowed the wounds to return to their original open and jagged state. By this time the wounds had set and I could not convince her to do anymore with them. It would seem that these permanent marks were to be her proof of anguish and she would not be released of them. She would not release me of them either.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A little over a year after leaving Korea, I received a postmarked parcel from a small village outside of Song Tan. Upon opening it, I found a letter from Ju He. In it she wrote that she was now working as a waitress at a military base close to Song Tan. She was no longer a prostitute; she was no longer under the overpass.<\/p>\n

A short time after this, I found the old pocketknife and threw it away. Who am I to say where the overpass ends or begins? Who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to say that I ever escaped?<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a984 Jack Hubbell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Links<\/h2>\n

Make sure to check out my last feature on my blog with Jack:\u00c2\u00a0The Ink Soaked Street Photographs of Jack Hubbell (aka Cyclops-<\/a>Optic)<\/p>\n