[KOREA ENCOUNTERS] Blaming victims of 1974 go-go club fire

Daewang Corner fire, published in The Korea Times Nov. 5, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

By Matt VanVolkenburg

On Aug. 5, 1972, a fire swept through the Daewang Corner building near northeastern Seoul's Cheongnyangni Station, killing six people and injuring over 80 more.

The eight-story building housed "a department store, several restaurants, a bank branch, offices, apartments, a hotel, a private educational institute and a theater," so when the fire broke out on the first floor, some 3,000 people were left in danger.

Firefighters rescued 356 people using ladders, while others escaped via ropes or by jumping, which led to injuries.

In an editorial, The Korea Times criticized the fact that the firefighting operation took five hours, despite the arrival of 80 fire trucks, and wondered if "the recent transfer in the jurisdiction of firefighting from the national police to the metropolitan administration is the cause of such inefficiency."

"Propane Again" editorial cartoon, published in The Korea Times Aug. 8, 1972. / Korea Times Archive

It also noted that the fire was found to have started in a restaurant when leaking gas from a propane canister exploded. This, it "vividly" recalled, had also been the cause of the Daeyeongak Hotel fire which had occurred on Christmas Day in 1971, seven months earlier, which caused 164 deaths and remains the deadliest hotel fire in history.

As it turned out, the previous buildings on the site of the Daeyeongak Hotel had also suffered fires and the same was true for Daewang Corner.

When this modern shopping center opened in the fall of 1968, an ad declared "The birth of a deluxe city in eastern Seoul!" which the Maeil Gyeongje argued "washes away the filthy impression of Cheongnyangni Station and shows off the face of a new Seoul."

In December 1970, however, a fire caused by spilled cooking oil broke out at a chicken restaurant in the basement. Luckily, no one was injured.

In the aftermath of the fatal 1972 Daewang Corner fire, calls for better fire prevention were made. On Dec. 2, 1972, the Korea Times reported that, starting that month, police would "conduct thoroughgoing examinations of anti-fire facilities in four-story or higher buildings, hotels, apartments, theaters, markets and department stores across the country once a week."

"Fire Danger" editorial cartoon, published in The Korea Times Oct. 18, 1972. / Korea Times Archive

That very evening, 3,500 people packed Seoul's Citizens Hall, Korea's largest theater, to see a concert celebrating MBC's 11th anniversary when a fire broke out, trapping many audience members. Though all 12 singers managed to escape with little more than minor injuries, others were not so lucky. 53 people died and over 70 were injured, particularly in the stampede to escape the fire.

Among the dead were Lee Nam-yong, the director of Citizens Hall, and five other city government officials.

Outside, Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil and Home Minister Kim Hyun-ok arrived to direct firefighting operations. Also present were Seoul's mayor, the national police director, the Blue House chief secretary and the chief of presidential security, the latter two being dispatched by President Park Chung-hee.

An investigation found the cause of the fire to be faulty wiring for the stage lighting, and arrests were made.

A report on the difficulties faced by firefighters noted that at Citizens Hall, in "their desperate efforts to put out the fire, the firemen suffered burns, fell from the roof and broke their legs, and were hit by falling debris."

Firefighters at this time often spent their shifts in watchtowers throughout the city, which were freezing in the winter. As watchman Chong Won-yong of Seoul's Jungbu Fire Station pointed out, however, it was "getting more and more difficult to see flames due to rising multi-story buildings and brilliant neon signs." As a result, only 3 percent of the 781 fires which took place in that station's jurisdiction in 1970 were detected by watchtowers.

Authorities duly promised to promote fire prevention, and fire inspections were carried out with greater frequency, but to little avail.

One building examined and given a certificate of fire inspection was the nine-story New Namsan Tourist Hotel, which, despite its "magnificent fire escape stairs and exits," was the site of a fire that killed 19 people on Oct. 17, 1974.

New Namsan Tourist Hotel fire, published in The Korea Times Oct. 18, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

As it turned out, the fire exits had been locked, the hotel possessed only one fire extinguisher, rather than the 18 mandated, and the staff ran away rather than trying to alert the guests. A Korea Times editorial noted that only 10 of Seoul's 500 buildings with eight stories or more had passed safety inspections and wondered if the victims of the 1971 Daeyeongak Hotel fire had "died in vain."

A scantily clad woman is rescued from New Namsan Hotel during a fire, published in The Korea Times Oct. 18, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

Less than three weeks later, on Nov. 5, the front page of The Korea Times read "Administrative Faults Responsible for Big Fire" as it reported on a fire that had broken out two days earlier at ― once again ― Daewang Corner. This time, however, 88 people were killed, and 35 injured.

Daewang Corner fire, published in The Korea Times Dec. 24, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

The fire, caused by an electrical short circuit, started near a hotel and go-go club on the sixth floor at 2:48 a.m. Like many such clubs, Time Club illegally remained open past 2 a.m., so more than 200 young people were dancing there as the flames spread. Unaware of the fire until it was upon them, 72 people lost their lives in the club.

Newspapers listed the names of the dead, their ages and addresses. Most were in their 20s, and three were in their teens. The list of 48 unidentified bodies ― 33 of them women ― included entries such as "Female (155cm, small navy bag, gold necklace, green pants, plastic ring on the fourth finger of the left hand)."

A half-naked girl is rescued from a fire at Daewang Corner, published in The Korea Times Nov. 5, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

In a Nov. 10 article titled "Go-Go Dance Clubs Dance to Violations," The Korea Times reported that these clubs were attached to tourist hotels, of which there were 29 in Seoul. They were supposed to close at 2 a.m. for hotel guests, and other customers were to leave by 11 p.m., but most clubs stayed open all night, keeping their doors closed during the curfew. Despite being intended for foreign guests, 95 percent of patrons were Koreans.

In the aftermath of the fire, 42 "decadent" entertainment establishments were forced to suspend operations and tourist hotel nightclubs were made to close three hours early, at 11 p.m.

Go-go concert, published in The Korea Times Nov. 10, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

The reason these clubs broke so many rules was that most tourist hotels illegally leased their attached clubs to people whose aim was to sell liquor, which was a misuse of tourist hotel privileges such as exemption from certain taxes.

Those renting the clubs would recruit managers who had to deposit a guarantee of up to 1 million won which could be seized if not enough liquor was sold, and waiters were recruited by the managers in the same way. As a result, fearing the loss of this guarantee money, on the night of the fire Time Club's manager reportedly played down its seriousness to keep the liquor flowing, and once the danger became apparent, waiters prevented guests from fleeing before they paid their bills. Seven of the club's employees were among the dead.

Daewang Corner worker arrested, published in The Korea Times Nov. 6, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

Amid calls for improved fire safety, some media outlets, likely encouraged by the government, decided to exploit the tragic loss of life in order to rail against the decadence of the "go-go tribe" and the clubs that encouraged the "high-spirited rhythm of revelry without regard for business hours."

Weekly Woman magazine was particularly enthusiastic in this regard, publishing three articles spread over eight pages in its Nov. 17 issue. The first opened by asserting without any proof that the recent fires had "unexpectedly exposed a cross section of sexual promiscuity."

This was followed by another which ignored the fact that people had continued dancing because they were unaware of the fire and twisted this into the headline, "Even if I burn to death, I'm going to dance." It asserted that "Amid moody hallucinatory lighting and deafening psychedelic music, the number of go-go tribe members who go wild all night long is growing like poisonous mushrooms every day."

"Hotel Fires" editorial cartoon, published in The Korea Times Nov. 5, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

The final article purported to be the memoir of a 24-year-old woman who for three years had followed her friend into the world of go-go clubs and abandoned herself to all-night dancing and the "unbearable pleasure" of promiscuous sex, only for her to undergo an abortion and discover her friend's name in a newspaper's list of the Daewang Corner dead.

Declared to be "a lesson for many in the go-go tribe," the article ended with the former go-go tribe member coming to her senses and making a plea: "God, please wipe the evil go-go madness from this world!"

Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr, and co-author of "Called by Another Name: A Memoir of the Gwangju Uprising."