I’ve long joked that the only force stronger than “adult entertainment” in Korea is coffee. Many people over the years have tried and failed to institute moral campaigns against red-light districts, massage parlors, room salons and other vices in Korea. But once the nice, modern coffee shops move into a neighborhood, they push out all those bad things.

Turns out that it’s not just a joke. The Korean JoongAng Daily has a story today about how the number of coffee shops in Seoul have been increasing by 16.7% a year since 2008, but bars have declined by 1% and adult-entertainment facilities have dropped 2.4%.

My one quibble with the article is the continued myth that Koreans used to be shocked by the price of a Starbucks coffee. Coffee shops in Korea, even pre-Starbucks, were surprisingly expensive — and back then, most offered just instant coffee. Just because offices and universities had 100 won coffee machines doesn’t mean that coffee shops were cheap.