[Korea Encounters] Christmas in the early 1960s: A time of charity, Christmas cards, drunken merrymaking

A bakery storefront in Myeong-dong is decorated for Christmas in 1960. / Korea Times archive

By Matt VanVolkenburg

In the early 1800s, according to a 1975 Korea Times article, Korean Catholics secretly "gathered together and read the bible at midnight and shared makkolli, tteok, tteokguk, and…donated clothes or rice to the poor. They gave their kids a bag filled with nuts, dried persimmons, fruits, or tteok."

By 1960 Christmas was observed by over 1 million people who, as before, tried to comfort poor street children and frontline soldiers. While carolers "made pilgrimages through the streets and sang" in cities and villages, "Jingle Bells" was "drifting from the department stores and over the radio." By this time Christmas had become a much more commercial holiday, however, and when it came to shopping, the most crowded areas "were the bakeries and the department stores fully decorated with Christmas trees, cards and Santa Claus."

The lack of curfew on Christmas Eve, however, turned the evening into a night of revelry, with nearly 80,000 people crowding into Myeong-dong, then the center of nightlife in Seoul. In an editorial, The Korea Times decried the way in which intoxicated merrymakers wandered the streets, asked whether they "suppose that the Christmas season is designed for orgies and extravagance," and suggested people show concern for the needy "in order to enable these poor souls to enjoy the best dishes on this particular day."

This editorial cartoon, captioned "Christmas Hangover," ran in The Korea Times on Dec. 26, 1963. / Korea Times archive

A year later, after Park Chung-hee's 1961 military coup, Koreans observed Christmas in an "austere" mood, with few people singing "Jingle Bells" in the streets or shopping at department stores. Though curfew was lifted and people crowded into cabarets and dancehalls, "the first Christmas after the revolution appeared the humblest since 1945 because of the people's frugality." Even in 1962 this austerity continued, as the paper reported that "The lavish Christmas decorations that festooned the streets of downtown Seoul before the military takeover have disappeared." As well, the government advised public officials "to refrain from holding parties and exchanging Christmas cards," neither of which made retailers very happy.

Things started to change the next year. One card maker claimed it sold 1.5 million Christmas cards in 1963 and hoped to double this in 1964. While foreigners favored traditional Korean scenes like traditional dancers or old men with long pipes, young Koreans liked images of "a child, hands mittened, sledding in the snow led by a dog" or "an English-style hamlet covered in snow." Older Koreans, however, preferred "chaste Korean scenes" but in 1964 abstractionism began to gain popularity and this generation began to "appreciate traditional and native scenes through the abstract medium."

As card sales increased, so did the revelry. In 1964 men wearing "dreadful" ghost or tiger masks blowing "screaming" horns "terrorized the night streets," so in 1965 police banned masquerade parties and the manufacture of such "barbaric instruments." That same year police throughout the Christmas season placed "pleasure resorts such as bars, cabarets, night clubs, restaurants, taverns, tea rooms," music halls, and bathhouses under "stringent regulations" regarding hours of operation and lighting, requiring businesses to be "sufficiently lit for a newspaper to be read 12 inches from the eyes." Bars were forbidden from permitting "dancing of any kind, nor nude shows," and banned "Arbeit" dances, "to which men and girls go without partners and subsequently entertain complete strangers."

Children at Daraeshilgol, a village at the appropriately named Mount Chiak in Gangwon Province, receive a gift of toothpaste from the Children's Times, sister paper of The Korea Times. Many of the children had never seen toothpaste or toothbrushes before.

Despite the raucousness, stories abounded of acts of charity. The YMCA and various public schools organized clothing drives for orphans, and Americans were known for bringing orphans to U.S. military compounds for dinners, entertainment and gifts. In 1965 Korea Times columnist James Wade published a fictionalized account of one of these visits featuring a soused Santa whose "face glowed, but not with Christmas cheer" who lumbered out "to shrieks of terror and moans of lament from the orphans." In the end, it all turned out well, and upon hearing the drunken organist wish him a merry Christmas, the main character replied, misquoting from somewhere or other, "God help us, every one!"

Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr.

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