wares. The area teemed with life, primarily because the economy of TDC was booming. Not only was there a steady flow of U.S. dollars from the local GI village, but also agriculture in the surrounding valleys was more productive than ever. President Pak Chung-hee’s Sei Maul Undong , the New Village Movement, was paying off. Government investment in small family farms had improved life throughout the country. Straw-thatched roofs were disappearing, being replaced by weather-resistant tile. TV antennae were springing up. After two decades of drudgery following the devastation of the Korean War, life was improving in Frozen Chosun. Slowly.
The woman who owned the property was surprised to see two GIs duck through her front gate and enter her courtyard. She’d been squatting in front of a tub of laundry but as we approached she stood, holding her lower back. At first, she was startled when I spoke Korean to her. A lot of Koreans are. They don’t expect it from a GI. My Korean is far from perfect but I can communicate and, as long as they keep it simple, I can read and write the language. The U.S. Army makes it easy to learn. Free classes are offered on base and a free textbook is provided, along with a personable young Korean woman to do the teaching. However, on a compound of five thousand GIs only two other guys showed up regularly. Still, I enjoyed studying. Deciphering a sentence was like solving a puzzle, and I’ve always loved puzzles.
Once I told the woman what we were there for, she didn’t hesitate. She led us along the raised porch surrounding the courtyard and pulled open one of the oil-papered doors. This, she told me, was the hooch that Jill Matthewson had lived in. Other GIs had been here before, along with the Korean National Police, examining the place and questioning her renters.
It was a tiny single room. Like most of the hooches in Korea, its dimensions were only about twelve feet by twelve feet. It did, however, have an overhead fluorescent light, a vinyl-covered ondol floor— heated by charcoal gas running through ducts in the stone foundation—and a beat up wooden armoire. There were five hooches in the horseshoe-shaped compound. Two of them empty: Jill’s and the one next door. I asked what had become of Jill’s personal effects.
The landlady told me that all Jill had kept here were civilian clothes. That jibed with the MP report and what Ernie and I had observed in the barracks. In order to be ready for emergency deployment, all 2nd Infantry Division GIs were required to keep their uniforms and combat gear in the barracks, even if they maintained an unauthorized hooch out in the village. Other than civilian clothing, the woman told us, Jill had kept only toiletries and a few books and magazines here. About three weeks ago, without saying anything, Jill had packed up her few belongings and left. As the landlady told the Korean police, she had no idea where Jill had gone. She’d left without warning. Was she friendly with anyone here or in the neighborhood? No. After learning how to change the charcoal that heated her hooch and how to pump water from the well and where the byonso was located, she’d kept to herself. By mimicking the other renters, Jill Matthewson had learned to remove her shoes before stepping up on the wooden porch and then she’d mastered the most tedious Korean housekeeping chore of all: using a moist rag to keep the warm vinyl floor of her hooch scrubbed and free of soil.
“She very clean,” the landlady told us, “for an American.”
On the way back to the bar district, Ernie and I stopped at the real estate office Brandy had tipped us to. Having already been questioned by the Korean police, the Korean agent was very cooperative, providing all the particulars about Jill’s rental. Then I put the question I’d really come to ask: Why did Jill Matthewson’s landlady have two vacancies?
The real estate agent seemed surprised and thumbed through his records.
The woman who owned the property was surprised to see two GIs duck through her front gate and enter her courtyard. She’d been squatting in front of a tub of laundry but as we approached she stood, holding her lower back. At first, she was startled when I spoke Korean to her. A lot of Koreans are. They don’t expect it from a GI. My Korean is far from perfect but I can communicate and, as long as they keep it simple, I can read and write the language. The U.S. Army makes it easy to learn. Free classes are offered on base and a free textbook is provided, along with a personable young Korean woman to do the teaching. However, on a compound of five thousand GIs only two other guys showed up regularly. Still, I enjoyed studying. Deciphering a sentence was like solving a puzzle, and I’ve always loved puzzles.
Once I told the woman what we were there for, she didn’t hesitate. She led us along the raised porch surrounding the courtyard and pulled open one of the oil-papered doors. This, she told me, was the hooch that Jill Matthewson had lived in. Other GIs had been here before, along with the Korean National Police, examining the place and questioning her renters.
It was a tiny single room. Like most of the hooches in Korea, its dimensions were only about twelve feet by twelve feet. It did, however, have an overhead fluorescent light, a vinyl-covered ondol floor— heated by charcoal gas running through ducts in the stone foundation—and a beat up wooden armoire. There were five hooches in the horseshoe-shaped compound. Two of them empty: Jill’s and the one next door. I asked what had become of Jill’s personal effects.
The landlady told me that all Jill had kept here were civilian clothes. That jibed with the MP report and what Ernie and I had observed in the barracks. In order to be ready for emergency deployment, all 2nd Infantry Division GIs were required to keep their uniforms and combat gear in the barracks, even if they maintained an unauthorized hooch out in the village. Other than civilian clothing, the woman told us, Jill had kept only toiletries and a few books and magazines here. About three weeks ago, without saying anything, Jill had packed up her few belongings and left. As the landlady told the Korean police, she had no idea where Jill had gone. She’d left without warning. Was she friendly with anyone here or in the neighborhood? No. After learning how to change the charcoal that heated her hooch and how to pump water from the well and where the byonso was located, she’d kept to herself. By mimicking the other renters, Jill Matthewson had learned to remove her shoes before stepping up on the wooden porch and then she’d mastered the most tedious Korean housekeeping chore of all: using a moist rag to keep the warm vinyl floor of her hooch scrubbed and free of soil.
“She very clean,” the landlady told us, “for an American.”
On the way back to the bar district, Ernie and I stopped at the real estate office Brandy had tipped us to. Having already been questioned by the Korean police, the Korean agent was very cooperative, providing all the particulars about Jill’s rental. Then I put the question I’d really come to ask: Why did Jill Matthewson’s landlady have two vacancies?
The real estate agent seemed surprised and thumbed through his records.
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