I have mixed reactions to these kinds of articles. On one hand, I think the Korean media reports these from a features/common interest point of view, ostensibly presenting something (in this case the lifestyles of room salon workers) as a social ill. On the other hand, I think they’re probably written by men who often times are advocating a glamorizing of these jobs to further stabilize the industry. Where do I stand? Well, I’m the married blogger who probably wishes he could indulge in this world himself, but has foggy points of view on the subject, instead settling for titillating himself by posting any whiff of  said world to a supposed Asian baseball blog.  

As usual, a nice choice by Korea Beat:

In the case of high-quality, though not top 10%, room salons, suppose that one woman works there for three months meeting customers. She will make about 200,000 ($204.60) won per day. That’s the minimum she can expect on average not counting expenses like makeup, hair, clothing, and skin massages or letting customers keep a tab.

If she works four days a week she will make 3.2 million won ($3,273.62) that month. The midpoint for higher salaries is seven to eight million won. Of course that figure doesn’t include the bills for the open secret of the so-called “second round”, and women at top 10% room salons are thought to make up to 20 million won per month.

The part I found a little more interesting was on the personal spending habits of these women. During my 4 1/2 years in Korea I’ve had the pleasure of living in the same apartment building as women undertaking this profession on two occasions. In my last apartment in Busan I’d often run into them on the elevator at around 6 p.m. at night and often around 8 a.m. the following morning when they’d return home. I was always quite curious about their lives. As the article says they often share small one-room apartments and seem to spend a lot of money on makeup and clothing.

Their living costs are not small. The greatest number of them live in Gangnam. They live in old one-room apartments in Yeoksam, Nonhyeon, Cheongdam, and Samseong-dong. Many of them live with a friend or two in a one-room or an officetel, with a monthly rent of from one million to 3.5 million won, not including security deposit.

Also, because they don’t cook their own food they order delivery or go out to eat, and those costs total one million to 1.5 million won each month.

Transportation costs are also not inconsiderable. They tend to use call taxis rather than driving themselves. It can cost 20,000 to 30,000 won per day for those taxis, or 700,000 to 800,000 won a month. Their biggest expenses are clothing and handbags. They can spend two million a won a month on such brand-name goods and some spend tens of millions.

There is also their expenses for entertainment and leisure time. Spending time in host bars and other expensive drinking establishments stacks up their costs without limit. Bills for plastic surgery, leisure, makeup, and sundry others totaled up can easily cross 3 million won a month. When everything is put together the figure reaches an average of 8 to 9 million won per month and can reach 10 million.

People in the pleasure quarters sometimes say this. “The result of spending ten years in this life is having plenty of bags, underwear, silicone, and sighs.”