We’ll miss the beloved youth of Itaewon.”Īs the numbers of dead rose over the weekend, government officials responded poorly or not at all. Such splendid youth suddenly cut short, leaving behind so much regret. A bistro called Itaewon 121 already displayed a large banner: “Pray for Itaewon. We passed a bartender whom I recognized from a nearby whiskey joint, his face a mask of grief. Near the memorial, we kept running into his friends from the neighborhood: the door attendant at a night club, two fellow dog owners clutching white bouquets, the owner of a takeout shop on the corner of the alleyway. He didn’t know what had happened until later that night, when the sirens became constant and friends from other countries began to send him worried text messages.
Rob had indeed gone out on Saturday, dancing, drinking, and walking with friends just a block away from the alley where the crowd crush occurred.
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The pair is known locally for their elaborate matching Halloween costumes: this year, they were Anya Forger and Bond from the anime series “Spy X Family” in 2016, they dressed as characters from the Hayao Miyazaki film “Princess Mononoke.” It was Rob I texted first when the Itaewon news-so gruesome, so surreal-lit up my phone. My friend Rob, a longtime Itaewon resident, and his dog, a Samoyed named Dubu (“Tofu”), walked over to meet me. I could hear the unmistakable tok of a monk’s woodblock and smell a bloom of incense as I climbed the stairs. Someone had posted a sign that read “헬러윈 행사 취소 / Halloween canceled” to a column inside the station. On Monday, Halloween proper, I went by subway to visit the growing sidewalk memorial. Most of the victims were women in their twenties twelve teen-agers died. Those stuck in the middle were suffocated, dragged underfoot, sent into cardiac arrest. More and more people glommed onto the crowd from either end, pushing and shoving toward the center. But, as hundreds of revellers crammed in, on their way to or from the subway or a party at the nearby Hamilton Hotel, no police officers or guards were there to direct traffic. What happened? That narrow passage, a few steps from the Itaewon subway station, is open on both ends. Late Saturday night, a hundred and fifty-six celebrants were crushed to death, mostly in one popular Itaewon alley. Since taking office, Yoon Suk-yeol, the new and increasingly unpopular South Korean President, has lifted many pandemic restrictions and focussed instead on managing his brand and deflecting public criticism. During the deadlier months of the pandemic, the government (the Seoul city and national authorities are closely linked) cut off access to the narrow alleyways of Itaewon in the interest of social distancing, which is to say, they also knew about the dangers of overcrowding. I remember being there for the holiday in 2018, as a mass of zombie nurses, vampires, and anime characters swirled around me, decadently, on the street.
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Saturday, in particular, would mark the full resumption of Halloween partying, a neighborhood tradition, after the restrictions of COVID-19. In the lead-up to Halloween weekend, authorities had estimated that a hundred thousand people would gather nightly in Itaewon. It has, for this reason, always been a zone of encounter, where people can be themselves and where the strictures of life in a small, high-pressure country give way to companionship and pleasure.
military garrison that was inherited from the Japanese colonists. The district, about half a square mile in size, sits at the base of a U.S. There is freedom and fun in this concrete warren of bars, restaurants, and night clubs. In Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood, you’re reminded that South Korea is neither homogeneous nor locked into an abstemious order. There were queer kids in club clothes and businessmen in dark suits, just off their commute. The mourners wore college-letterman jackets teen-age couples held hands and cried as they set down sprays of chrysanthemum. The victims were primarily Korean but also Uzbek and Sri Lankan. The crowd was half mourners, half journalists, standing over a rectangular pile of white flowers, notes, and sundry tributes to the too-young dead: cup ramen, cigarettes, soju bottles.
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