Packedin Okpo
Don’t go to Pilipino bars when you have already had a fair bit to drink. This was what I was saying to myself at about 7:30 in the morning and wandering lost in the streets in Okpo.
For my first visit to Okpo, where a friend from England had been working for 4 years, had my wallet a lot lighter and nearly had me getting a taxi back to Tongyeong at 7:30 in the morning after just falling out of a bar.
I was taken by my friend, under orders of his then girlfriend now wife, for a night out around Okpo on Geoje Do Island. Okpo is a major Korean shipyard town with many westerners all working for one of the major ship building companies. Many are contracted for a period of time usually 4 years. After drinking in various bars around Okpo many of which were quite quiet, my friend was told to take me to one of the many Pilipino bars. These bars are usually owned by Korean men but have all Pilipino staff working for them. They are usually brought over for a year under the impression they are going to be dancers or singers and they end up working everyday for a year, in a bar as a waitress of sorts.
The girls also have to sit with the men that come to these bars and try to get them to spend as much money as possible. This means you buy them drinks and they sit with you. Scattered around the bar were various men from different countries draped around a Pilipino girl, some holding hands some feeling a thigh or two. As you walk in the door girls are waiting by the door and jump to their feet to take you into the bar. The two girls that were our waitresses for the night were both new in almost that day and put straight to work. They were a bit like the hare caught in the headlights of the oncoming car. You can’t help feeling sorry for them especially if it wasn’t what they were expecting to come to.
I had never experienced a bar like this so that is why my friend’s wife told him to take me so I could see exactly what goes on. They told us exactly how they got there and how they were feeling. They told us that they have to get at least five drinks a night bought for them otherwise they don’t get paid. No matter what drink they get you still pay about 20000 won which is about 10 pounds or twenty dollars. We were drinking Jack D which must have cost a fortune there. We played pool with the girls and bought them a few drinks. It’s a shame the bars are like that, as this bar could have been one of the better bars in town, as it had a big dance floor and a really great Pilipino band playing.
As it got late my friend paid up the bill and then we went back home and left me on my own which was his biggest mistake. By now I was quite merry with drink and after a few minutes ended up with a few girls all around me talking unknown to me they were all buying drinks on my tab. The next thing I know it’s very early in the morning and they are sending me out the door. I must be the only person ever to be asked to leave so they can shut. I was then confronted with the fact that I had no idea of how to get back to the apartment. I could not remember which way it was so began wandering up and down a few streets trying to recognize where I was. I was in fact only about 200 meters away from where I should have been, I know now.
Then I looked at my credit card bill from the bar which was utterly ridiculous but it was my own fault for being drunk. So I then had the great idea of dialing every recent number on my phone as I had yet stored my friend’s number. The first number I dialed was had the sound of a Pilipino girl who seem to recognize my voice, “Ah Iain where are you”. I was thinking who the hell is this I hadn’t gave my number to anyone I wasn’t that drunk. It was one of the girls from the bar who must have picked up my phone and called it to put her number on it. I explained I was lost and then managed to get her off the phone so I could try the next number which happened to be my mate. He told me to look left and put the phone down.
So that was my first experience of Okpo and Pilipino bars. I am glad I saw it and experienced it, maybe my wallet didn’t but I had no clue. These girls are some of the most beautiful, intelligent woman in the world with great personalities but unfortunately simply can’t get a decent wage in their own country, so put their trust in somebody offering something better and end up having to sit with and maybe more, with normally over weight, old westerners who only really after a bit of company. Lots will be married men away from their families but many are single guys. There will be those woman who know what they are coming to and do it very well but I do feel sorry for those who genuinely have come to make a bit money thinking they are going to be a singer or dancer. They even have to do an audition which may involve singing and dancing.
