Dabang

A tabang (Hangul: 다방 Hanja: 茶房) is Korean coffee shops, but they differ from the more traditional coffee shops.^{[citation needed]} There are many in the smaller towns as the meeting and socializing places for residents in small town, since there might not be other social venues. Some tabang are also associated with call-girl prostitution services.

History

Tabangs had their origin in 1902.^{[citation needed]} A Madam Lyuov^[1] opened a hotel and called the coffee shop a tabang. They proliferated from that point on as places where people could come and talk or discuss business over a tea or a coffee.^{[citation needed]}

They function as many things, depending of course on the owner proprietor. Some are places for old people to play Paddock or Go (a Korean-Chinese board game),^{[citation needed]} or just hang out,^[2] others merely serve tea or coffee to its patrons, others deliver coffee or juice to its patrons, and others are small mom and pop stores where the family might be living in the back.

Of the numerous types of Tabangs, one particular type called a "Ticket Tabang" ^[3] is known in South Korea as a source for discrete prostitution. Ticket Tabangs make up a small percentage of Tabangs. Often when a person orders coffee from a Ticket Tabang, they are aware the service includes sex. Ticket Tabang women often deliver the coffee on a scooter and then provide a sexual service upon arrival. Ticket Tabang employees can be seen driving scooters to and from Ticket Tabangs in the more rural communities throughout South Korea.^[4] There is a culture of acceptance about the services the girls offer. The service is seen as a need where ever there is construction, and or hotels or motels. Even with the potential for prostitution the service the girls provide is just part of the overall scheme of things in the same way as a mobile food vendor, or pizza delivery service.

Location

Tabangs are everywhere. In some provinces they are called Tashils. The smaller villages have many of them, because it is where people socialize. The prettier the agashis of course the more socializing there is. You will see them on every corner in some of the smaller towns. Wherever there is industry or construction of sorts using a lot of men the tabangs flourish. Kumi for example is a big industrial city and it has many tabangs.^[5]

Many of the tabangs that send girls out for deliveries do not serve walk-in customers. A slang term for the girls is "obong " or "obong sui" ("obong" is supposed to be a plate in english)

Other services

Many customers use the girls to service clients with coffee while they conduct business. Others use the girls to help them clean up their apartments. For foreigners they are a good source of local information, and help with appliances in one's apartment that he or she is not familiar with. Some tabangs as well as the girls, even have a cute guy to deliver to female customers. Sometimes the term "Pedal" is applied to the girls delivering coffee the same way it is applied to the delivery of meals or pizza.

Staff

Many of the girls come from dysfunctional families. Others come from functional poor families. Now and again you will meet a coffee girl who wasn't satisfied with her previous job, and opted to be a tabang girl to make enough money to maybe pay off a credit card debt. ^[6] University students become tabang girls in the semester break sometimes. Some girls even send money home to support parents, and or brothers and sisters. Some tabangs are quite brutal in their control of the girls, and the girls working in those tabangs are forced into a servitude that is almost impossible for them to paye off. The majority of the tabangs though are very fair, and allow the girls to come and go as they please. Tabang owners naturally look for ways to maximise their profits. Some of the girls are housed by the tabang in a regular apartment. In the morning they are picked up, and driven to work by the tabang staff. Others who are little bit more independent share motel rooms.

Costs

A customer in a tabang would never pay more than W3000 for a cup of coffee,^[7] or sometimes less for a tea. Tabangs are the best place to try Korean teas, because they serve all of them. Some have their own special brews, but if one wants to get a handle on Korean teas, tabangs are a good place to start. They also sell and deliver (by auto bike or car) juice, urmul cha or nang urmul Cha. Costs 6000W to have a coffee delivered during the daytime, and W9000 in the evenings after after 7P.M. A Juice or Urmul cha costs W12000 during the day, and W14000 to W16000 in the evenings.

Local norebangs call the girls to sing with men as company, and the hoffs or drinking places call the girls for company as well. The tabangs charge at least $25 an hour for the girl's services.

Advertising

The printing industry covers tissue boxes with an individual tabangs telephone number, and name. These are placed in motels or left with a customer to adverise services. The tabangs distribute the magnetic labels with the tabang information as well as the plastic cigarette lighters with tabang telephone numbers. There are also the standard pieces of cloth tied at its corners that all girls use to carry their coffee.

Tabangs and popular culture

The movies "You Are my sunshine" and "The Isle" depict true to life behaviour of the girls when they deliver their coffee. "Shin Jon Wan" the escaped convict spent a lot of time at tabangs as well ^[8]

Police clampdowns

Every so often the police announce that tabangs engaged in prostitution will be closed down. It's standard procedure, and more a public relations exercise to appease the sensibilities of the general public. Certain tabangs will be closed, but they will move and start up at a latter date. Nobody will be any the wiser, and the police of course will order coffee or juice from them again anyway.

There was an incident in the Jeollanamdo province of a tabang being closed for using an underage girl to deliver coffee, and service to its customers.^{[citation needed]}^[9] A policeman spent 9 years tracking down a guy who murdered a 21 year old tabang worker. He said the case bothered him, and he just couldn't let it go. He of course was involved in other work during the 9 year period, but he still found time to put in the extra work to find the guilty perpetrator. ^[10]