Even just a casual search on Korea's biggest online map service Naver Map shows easily a dozen massage parlors in a single neighborhood of Seoul. There is no accurate data, but some argue that there are more than , such massage businesses nationwide. No, I am not talking about places that provide a 'happy ending'. I mean everything from the massive Foot Shop franchise with locations all around the capital, countless Thai massage shops, to places that have the phrase "sport massage" in the name.
They are all breaking the law. In Korea only someone with a recognized vision impairment can acquire the necessary license to work as a masseur or masseuse. Record indicates that as early as in the 15th century those who couldn't see made a living as fortune tellers or chanters of Daoist texts. A fascinating paper by Im An-su, professor emeritus at Daegu University, explains what happened when Japan formally annexed Korea as a colony in The incoming governor-general's office launched a sweeping campaign to eradicate 'superstitious' practices including the use of public scriptural recitations for blessing.
Training those with visual impairment to perform acupuncture, moxibustion burning small clumps of mugwort, a wild herb, on specific pressure points and massage would make them give up their old profession, it was thought. Although the colonial government considered these practices to be medicalβmeaning only licensed doctors should perform themβthe visually impaired graduates of the training program were given special permission as healers to making a living from them.
Under American rule, in April , the Ministry of Health revoked the licenses granted to the blind healers. It contended that education for such people was inadequate to justify the dispensation. Underlying the decision was also the view that modern Western medicine was superior to traditional Korean medicine, which ought to be phased out.
Predictably, most of those who couldn't see, now bereft of jobs, went back to the old occupation of telling fortunes and chanting scriptures. Alarmed by the turn, the Ministry of Social Affairs issued an official ban on superstitions two years later in , pointedly including "the blind who chant scriptures" in the list of those who would be punished as "unlicensed doctors". So has the situation remained for nearly sixty years. But it doesn't mean that the legally blind's monopoly on the massage profession has been secure.
