SOUTH KOREA – It’s 10.30am and Madam Park (not her real name) is out prowling the streets of central Jongo district, Seoul, waiting to make a quick sale.
This 78-year-old targets grey-haired men, in practising the world’s oldest profession.
At Seoul’s heart, next to the busy business district, is a street where sex is for sale by women old enough to be grandmothers. These so-called ‘Bacchus ladies’ – named after a popular energy drink – are the subject of an investigation by Channel NewsAsia’s Get Rea! documentary on South Korea’s elderly poor, which premieres on Jan 31.
At her age, Mdm Park should be at home, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. Instead, she stands on the streets for at least 6 hours a day, waiting for customers.
“In order to survive, I just close my eyes and get it over with,” she said in Korean. “In one day, if there is good luck, we meet three to four men and receive about 100,000 won (S$120).”
She does this so that she can afford the US$250 (S$350) worth of arthritis medicine a month. Her arthritis is so severe that she can barely walk.
When Channel NewsAsia approached her on the street, she said: “You came to play? To meet someone? The room fee is US$10. The fee for the woman is US$30.”
Mdm Park said that she married when she was 19. When she was in her late 20s, her husband gambled away the family home and left her alone to raise four children.
She was working as a kitchen helper and couldn’t afford to send them to school. Today they don’t earn enough to support her, and she claims that they do not care about her.
