[Korea Encounters] 'Naked in the streets!' - Korea Times reports on streaking fad of 1974

"Streakers" editorial cartoon, published in The Korea Times March 12, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

By Matt VanVolkenburg

In the spring of 1974, news articles began to appear in the U.S. media about the latest craze to hit American campuses: running about in public while nude, or "streaking." As Time magazine put it on March 18, "With astonishing swiftness, streaking… has burgeoned into an unabashed, pandemic American fad."

The craze was taken up by both men and women, and in many cases this "spring madness" was looked at with amusement by many campus authorities, though not all; one student in Tennessee was sentenced to five weekends in a city jail.

Time interviewed psychologists who opined in turn that the behavior was "fundamentally a ploy to get attention," "an attack on dominant social values" or "a form of escapism that… let[s] off steam." A coed at the University of Tennessee agreed with the latter interpretation, saying that "the pressures of spring finals" played a role, and that "Once you're in the swing of things, you forget that you are nude."

By early March, the fad had spread to campuses throughout the country, with the largest incident being at Georgia State University, where "some 1,500 male and female students hurtled across the campus." Other students suggested a "streak for impeachment" rally on April 1 in front of the White House to "force President Nixon to 'lay bare the facts' about the Watergate scandal."

Streakers in the U.S., published in The Korea Times March 9, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

Streaking was first mentioned in The Korea Times on March 9 when it published a photo of a group of streakers in New Orleans and highlighted a "shy lad in the rear…wearing a ski mask." More in-depth coverage appeared between March 12 and 14, in articles with titles like "New Crazy Game" which highlighted the appearance of streakers in not only the U.S., but also the U.K., where magistrates throughout the country fined those who copied "those fools abroad." Before long a group of Americans streaked the Eiffel Tower in Paris and incidents were also reported in West Germany. On March 16 The Korea Times reported that streakers had appeared in Spain and South Africa over the previous two days.

The fad had spread beyond Europe and Africa, however. On March 9, a male student of the Taipei American School dashed around wearing only shoes and a safety helmet. Two days later, in two separate incidents, an American serviceman and seven American male and female students introduced the fad to Okinawa, and on March 13 the first Japanese streaker was spotted in Hiroshima. Despite warnings by Japanese police that future streakers would be arrested, cases were soon reported throughout the country.

Unlike in other countries with a U.S. military presence, however, the first streaker in Korea was reported to be a local. On March 14, The Korea Times reported that streaking had "at last arrived in Korea yesterday when a young man in his twenties sprinted stark naked for about 500 meters on the road in front of Korea University in freezing weather at 8 a.m."

According to the article, "The unprecedented show lasted for about five minutes," quoting witnesses saying that the young man came naked out of a tea room and was followed by two young men, likely his friends, who were holding a bundle of clothes and a camera to record the feat. Police tried to find the streaker, who had caused women to scream before disappearing into an alleyway. One imagines that the temperature, which was minus 5 degrees Celsius that day, helped speed him on his way.

In response to the domestic advent of streaking, the Korea Times published an editorial cartoon with the title "First Streaker," which shows a traditional teacher brandishing a stick while following bare footprints with the caption "He'd better be the last!"

"First Streaker" editorial cartoon, published in The Korea Times March 14, 1974. / Korea Times Archive

This initial incident was followed by another the next day in Munsan. As The Korea Times reported March 16, "Streaking, prevailing throughout the world like influenza, appeared here again at about 10 p.m. Thursday when 3 U.S. soldiers dashed stark naked for about 300 meters on a downtown street." A witness stated that they "abruptly took off their clothes and shoes while sauntering" down the road and, as with the case the day before, they were followed by three friends holding their clothes. They disappeared into a U.S. military camp before anyone could catch them, however.

But two U.S. soldiers who engaged in streaking the next night were not quite so lucky. Four U.S. soldiers were said to have run naked in bars and in the streets of Dongducheon and Munsan that Friday night, but the two involved in the latter case, who had taken their clothes off in a club, were caught by a Korean patrolman and handed over to US military authorities.

Also on that Friday, a streaking shoeshine boy in Chungmu (now Tongyeong), South Gyeongsang Province, "stunned high school girls on the way home… when he dashed about 800 meters" from Chungmu Theater to the yard of Tongyeong Girls' High School. The 17-year-old told police that he had "done it out of curiosity" and had hoped to appear in the newspaper.

The next day, in his "Scouting the City" column, James Wade published the following limerick:

"American students seemed seekers
A few years before they were streakers.
Now, stripped to the buff
They're strutting their stuff,
And the rest of the world's become peekers."

On March 17, in a letter to The Korea Times, a young man wrote that after hearing about streaking in Japan, he told his "foreign friends that there would not be Korean streakers with confidence," only to be shocked by the headline "Streaking Lands in Korea" the next day. As a youth himself, he stated that "I would do something else, if I had time to do something ridiculous like that… I hope there will not be any crazy youths downtown anymore."

He was not alone in thinking this way. On March 16, the National Police Headquarters directed police stations nationwide "to sternly crack down on streakers" due to their fear that it would spread. Police planned to apply the Road Traffic Law and the Minor Offenses Law against offenders and impose the maximum punishment possible to deter such behavior. On top of this, police began cracking down abruptly on long hair that day, "apparently spurred by streaking practices."

While the number of stories about streaking dropped off quickly after this, there were exceptions, such as when Korea's first female streaker, a 25-year-old hostess, spent 10 minutes walking 500 meters nude through the streets of Yeosu. She not only astonished 200 passersby, but also caused a traffic jam before police arrived to arrest her.

As with all fads, streaking faded away eventually. One article from The Korea Times, titled "Naked in the streets!", however, is worthy of note. It reported that 300 passersby in Seoul's Sangwangsimni neighborhood had been shocked by a naked man who "played hide and seek [with policemen] for two hours before [he] was caught and dressed."

The man, a 32-year-old driver, had felt like undressing that afternoon after drinking three bottles of soju to drown the sorrow of having been abandoned by his wife for her former lover. Before he was caught, he had "found refuge on the roof of a house where he shouted and sang at the top of his lungs."

The fact that this article appeared on July 26, 1970, almost four years before the streaking craze swept the world, may suggest the practice actually originated in Korea.

Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind?populargusts.blogspot.kr.