This posting about memorable bar brawls over at Blackfive got me thinking about memorable brawls I have witnessed during my time in Korea. I have seen plenty of stupid drunken beer brawls in the ville, but they usually ended pretty quick and were relatively unmemorable. Just a bunch of drunks pushing and shoving acting tough, the whole while someone would break them up. There was a couple of fights though that were quite memorable that I will never forget. The first one was at the Rendezvous Club over in Dongducheon.
Back in the day the Rendezvous Club was a nice place to go to meet local Korean girls because there were no juicy girls there at the time. The club was really the only place in the ville where locals and GIs mixed. The locals would arrive in the club right after curfew hit because back then the vast majority of GIs in the ville were gone and back on Camp Casey because of the curfew. The few GIs that remained in the ville past curfew had what was called a Warrior Pass. Back then every company had a limited number of Warrior Passes that the First Sergeant and Commander could give to people to stay out after curfew. The soldiers that had Warrior Passes were usually older, more mature, and higher ranking and not from the younger 18-21 year old age group that statistics show cause the majority of alcohol related incidents. Plus the younger soldiers that received a Warrior Pass for the weekend usually used it to hang out with juicy girls all night and not to hang out at the Rendevous Club with local Koreans. The locals all knew this and thus had no problems mixing with the soldiers that did go to the Rendezvous Club after curfew.
The Rendezvous Club was really a nice place back then and was operated by a guy named Mr. Han. Mr. Han was not your average GI ville bar owner. Mr. Han if I had to guess was about 35-40 years old back then and over 6 feet tall, well built, with really long hair. He had a few huge Koreans working security for him at the club and he always made sure his club had the most beautiful female bartenders in town. The local police would occasionally stop by and pay their respects to Mr. Han as well. In short he was the perfect stereotype of a Korean gangster.
Mr. Han from what I heard was one of the head Korean mob bosses in TDC and operated a number of the juicy girl clubs in the ville. Anyway there I was, drinking a few beers with Mr. Han with a few of my buddies at the bar counter. We were all friendly with Mr. Han since we frequented his club so often. He spoke good English and despite being a mob figure was actually a really nice guy to us GIs. Anyway a fight broke out towards the front of the bar where the dance floor was at. No soldiers were involved, it was strictly a Korean on Korean fight. There must of been about 15-20 people going at it and then some guy grabbed a beer glass and threw it at this other guy, but missed and the glass shattered against the wall near some Korean females.
That was when Mr. Han sprang into action. He suddenly jumped over the bar and landed a round house kick on the guy that threw the glass. That kick could have been straight from a Korean gangster flick. From there he preceded to kick the living crap out of him and then turned his attention to another guy and began using more kung fu moves on him. Mr. Han and the club security got the fight under control and literally kicked the people out. The first guy Mr. Han had kicked the crap out of could not leave the club under his own power. The club security just grabbed him and threw him out in the street in front of the club. After the fight we figured it was probably a good time to finish our beers and get out there.
We walked outside and the guy that got the crap beaten out of him was still laying in the street in front of the club. A soldier I didn’t know was walking down the street and saw the guy bleeding and came over to assist him. He said he was medic. He started checking the guy out and one the club’s security guards that was standing at the entrance of the club came over and told the medic to leave him alone. So that is what we did, we left him alone and walked way. There is times where you have to let Koreans handle business their own way and this was definitely one of those times. The guy was left to bleed in the street as a reminder to everyone else to not start any fights in the Rendezvous Club.
I haven’t been stationed at Camp Casey since then and I haven’t been to the Casey ville for years so I have no idea if the Rendezvous club is even open any more or if Mr. Han still operates the place. If so he is a nice guy to us GIs, but whatever you do don’t piss him off. If anyone has any interesting fights they remember in Korea feel free to comment on them. By the way here is a link to the funniest fight I have ever seen in Korea.
