Pyeongtaek is one of the cities in the gyeongi-do province. It is a “hush city,” similar to Los Vegas with its old saying “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” But no such thing is ever uttered about Pyeongtaek South Korea because Koreans and most Asians are very conservative. They have strong values in tradition and believe in keeping things discrete. However, they are very open in public in terms of what they want to know about foreigners and what they share. One of the secrets of this town and all of Korea is the double bared polls.
It is something everyone knows about but no one talks about it. The cops pretend to crack down on the double bared polls that tells you that there are “prostitutes” when the polls are spinning. I say pretend because there is a prostitution house right next to a police station downtown. There is a 6 block ring downtown called “red light district,” you can walk there at night and all eyes are on you; you are stared by the pimps and the girls a friend told me who was once chased around for taking a camera there. There are several places where you will see a “girls house” and a police station on the same block. But there is good reason for this.
The reason is simple, prostitution is illegal but the government taxes it. Does that make sense? So, they know about it but look the other way; but why? Well, three letters, GDP (Gross domestic product). Prostitution accounts for about 5% to 15% of Korea’s GDP. Does that explain it? Oh the hypocrisy of man!
What do you think? In U.S, Los Vegas is similar to Pyeongtaek in a lot of ways because it has the “sin city” reputation although PyeongTaek is not widely known unless you travel on the Eastern part of the world.
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