ABSTRACT
My phone buzzed in the pocket of my jeans. It was a text message from Maricel: “Can u meet us for lunch in Songtan today, Sallie? It’s important that we meet asap”. I texted back “ok” and made the one-and-a-half-hour bus trek down to Song-tan from Seoul. I met them at their apartment, still having no clues as to why they were keen to meet up with me so urgently. We decided on a popular sushi place in one of the back lanes of Songtan, where we sat in a quiet corner booth. We’d missed the lunch rush and so had virtually the whole restaurant to ourselves. After eating and chatting about the latest happenings in the club, Maricel finally spoke up. “Sallie, our contracts all expire in a week, and we will be sent back to the Philippines. We want to talk to you about our options”. I asked her and the others what they would like to do. Three clearly well-thought answers were immediately disclosed, “We could work in a factory, or we could go back to the Philippines or we could try with our boyfriends”. Notably, taking a new contract in a different club was not presented as an option. Running away to work in a factory would automatically confer irregular status, but certainly far higher salaries than they ever received working in the club. Going with their GI boyfriends would mean entrusting their entire futures to the success of the relationship. Very few women worked and stayed with their GI boyfriends after exiting the clubs as their boyfriends would not allow it. Anna’s dramatic step of overdosing, as described in the previous chapter, although extreme, clearly exemplifies what can happen if these relationships go awry.
