Wretched Capital

One day last week a bearded Korean elder, dignified and prim in starched white robe and black horsehair hat, picked his way along a reeking, raucous, filth-strewn alley in Pusan. He ignored the ragged, swarming children and the whining beggar women, who envied the succulent prize which the old man had in his hand. It was the gamy carcass of an alley cat and it was headed for the cooking pot.

Ten-Mile Stench. Pusan is a city of filth, poverty and disease--yet it is the major supply port of the Korean war. Its harbor is jampacked with ships from nearly a score of nations, bringing in fresh men and equipment, taking out the wounded and sick and wrecked or worn-out equipment. Pusan's days & nights are noisy with the clatter of U.S. military traffic, ancient taxis, rachitic streetcars (some from Atlanta), and the snorting and lowing of oxen. In dry weather dust all but obscures the city's one traffic light, which is attended by a listless Korean cop. In wet weather the streets are covered by an evil black slime. Sailors say that Pusan's stench can be detected ten miles out at sea.

Part of Pusan's plight is that of any squalid Oriental port, but much is due to the war. Refugees have swollen the population from 400,000 to 1,000,000. Many have no place to sleep except a pile of grimy rags in the streets or huts made of discarded U.S. Army canvas. Food is scarce and prices are high, even for those with jobs. Rice for a family of four or five costs $60 a month; Pusan wages run from $10 to $15 monthly.

Most pathetic victims are the children. Of the 70,000 homeless children in South Korea, 10,000 are in Pusan. Some are mere toddlers, squatting numbly in the gutters, devoured by flies by day, by rats at night. The older children get along by stealing, begging, pimping, shining shoes. Most of them, like Choi Jung Mook, fear another winter of war.

"I Have a Cough." Choi Jung Mook is six years old. Last week he was living with four other boys in a corner of the Pusan railway station. A TIME reporter asked Choi what he will do when winter comes again. "When it is cold again," said Choi impassively, "I shall die." Why did he say that? "Because the last time it was cold, my brother died. He had a cough. Now I have a cough. So the next time it is cold I shall die."

There are still a few moneyed Koreans in Pusan. By decrees and posters, Syngman Rhee's government has tried to discourage the flaunting of luxuries--yet smugglers do a thriving business in watches, cameras, cosmetics, silks, velvets. The new Mijin ("Beautiful Progress") Hotel is thronged with those who can pay as much as $15 for a room, $5 for a meal, 75-c- for beer, 50-c- for coffee. The only acceptable money in the Beautiful Progress is U.S. currency or checks.

Yet the most wretched of the poor in wretched Pusan know that things could be worse. The 600,000 refugees in the city are people who accepted every hardship to flee the North Korean Communists. On Pusan's grimy walls there are no signs denouncing Wall Street imperialism or urging the Yanks to go home.

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