I don't understand why you would want an expensive, over-priced bauble in the first place. What do you get out of it? Why does it make you feel happy to have something like that? Is it because it's expensive, because other people will admire it and thus admire you? Do you want to be envied?

I've never understood why people wear ostentatious jewelry or expensive watches unless it's part of some kind of power trip. I think our desire to wear such things comes from the notion that we've been sold by our consumer culture: we are what we own.

I think craving jewelry, the expensive kind as some sort of reward for yourself, shows how much you've bought into the consumer myths that our society sells us.

Treat yourself to a massage or something instead. Give the money to charity. The jewel merchants of the world don't need your cash.

One way of getting people to understand a problem and care about it, is to give the problem a human face, an individual that people can identify with. Statistics and abstract explanations of the problem don't have the visceral impact of an individual's story. I don't think it was written to titillate the reader but that's my subjective judgement. If the goal of the article was to get people aware of the problem and concerned about it, it succeeded.

Carol-san,

I wouldn't make the claim of being an expert on the Korean sex trade, especially since I don't speak the language. However, Korea did have a thriving sex industry until the government cracked down on it last year. I don't think that prostitution and human trafficking are synonomous and there are probably many women in the industry of their own volition, just as there are in Japan.

One thing that has happened in Japan, possibly as a result of the crackdown, is a huge influx of Korean women into the Japanese sex industry. Near Ueno Station in Tokyo, in an area called Uguisudani, there are now thirty or more shops and "escort services" blatantly advertising the sexual services of Korean women. Those are the one's that advertise. It's not a secret. You can pick up magazines and books at any major bookstore in Japan all about the sexual services in that area, listing shops, phone numbers, services offered, often with photos of the women and detailed reports about the journalist's "experiences" at these places. Many hotels in the area, offer companions for those who check in, usually with a photo menu.

Sexual intercourse is not explicitly offered because that would violate the prostitution laws of Japan. Other sexual services: anal, fellatio, frottage, simulated sex using the thighs as a faux vagina--these are all listed up.

If I can believe what the police are telling me, and I spent two years in Tokyo as a police reporter (vice, organized crime) for the Yomiuri Shinbun, so I think I have some credible sources, most of these clubs are Yakuza (Sumiyoshikai) backed and not all of the women are doing the work that they were promised. Does it meet the UN definition of trafficking? I don't know.

It would be nice to have statistical evidence that shows a great deal of Korean involvement in the sex trade but no one is taking statistics. At least in Japan, I think you can say with a fair degree of certainity that there are a large number of Korean women involved in the sex trade, a lot of Korean men with organized crime ties brokering the deals, and that some of these women have been duped into doing the work or forced into doing more than they are comfortable with, and in some cases, probably "sex slaves."

Does this hold true in the United States? It might.

Korea has done a lot to improve it's sexual trafficking problems but I suggest you look at the Trafficking in Persons Report for 2004, 2005, and 2006 yourself.

I understand why the Korean community would be up in arms about the articles but the San Francisco Chronicle may not be far from the mark. A tendency to extrapolate the experiences of one individual as indicative of the entire sordid business is a problematic way of doing the story. Before the Korean community chastises the SFC, maybe it would be a good idea to use their community resources to see what the state of events really is in San Francisco for these women.

But Cheney is the defacto President of the United States, so what's the problem? He's like the Self-Defense Forces in Japan, not recognized by the Constitution but existing nevertheless. I'm glad to see that Bush took the time to clarify who's really in charge at the White House. It's the kind of disclosure that I hope to see more of in the future.