Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Enigma]

I live on the east coast in Gangwondo and I teach mostly adults. The other night I was teaching superlatives and one of my students (a guy in university) made a sentence about Samcheok (the city just south of me, where he goes to university), and he said it was the most dangerous city in Korea. At first I assumed he was joking, but then I realized he was serious. I asked him why it was dangerous (I've been there many times and dangerous would be the last word I used to describe it), and he said there were lot of gangs there.
So that got me thinking because I've been in Korea for about 3.5 years, most of it here in Gangwondo, and I've never seen any evidence of gangs. I know they exist but I figured they were only a problem in Seoul and some of the other big cities.
I assume they're involved in prostitution, gambling and loan-sharking, much like back home but without the drugs, but just out of curiosity, can anyone enlighten me about the gang situation here?

Thanks

[northway]

I've always heard that Ansan is the most dangerous place in the country (and I've always assumed that there's a fair bit of racism in that statement).

[tideout]

[whatisinmyhead]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kkangpae

sometimes if i see some korean with a large build, an abundance of tattoos, and a cheesy car i will comment about it to my girlfriend. she usually responds by saying that they are "gangsters". given the above article, maybe she's right, but i never even bother trying to explain what being a gangster in america constitutes. i think the korean version is quite mild. and also tacky.

[Stout]

Generally gangsters involved in the usual rackets in Korea are said to keep a low profile by agreement with the police, who sometimes are said to share in the spoils (mild surprise )

[weso1]

First let's get a few details worked out.

"Gangsters" in Korea are kind of a hybrid to the gangs/mafia of the US. In the West we generally thing of "gangs" as street gangs. 20-30 something African Americans in urban locals. The "Bloods" and "Crips" or the "Latin Kings" and "MS13" if it's SoCal.

Mafia is a blanket term we label the various organized crime syndicates on the East coast and these groups tend to organize themselves based not on land or ideology (like West Coast street gangs) but rather ethnicity and nationality. Ex, the Italian Mafia, Russian Mob (the baddest of the bad if you ask me), the Irish Mob, Jewish Mafia, and the Ukrainians.

In Korea, they have both of these kinds of groups, but they are integrated into a single entity. The street gangs are the lower run foot soldiers of the gangsters who control them. Being right in the middle of the two biggest Asian organised crime syndicates (The Yakuza from Japan and The Triads of China) Korea has been somewhat of a battleground for both groups. Because of the large population of both in Korea, Korean gangs or groups are usually a part of one or the other. There are very few wholly Korean crime groups that aren't attached to the Yakuza or the Triads.

Busan has a significant Korean and Japanese Yakuza presence, given it's close proximity to Japan. However, it is not the city Koreans have traditionally equated with being the "Gangster city." That honor belongs to Daejeon. Daejeion is to Korea, what Kobe is to Japan, as Hong Kong is to China (in terms of organised crime.) It's away from the larger cities and out of reach of significant police control, yet central enough to manage the groups criminal dealings.

Gangsters in Korea are rather tame compared to the Hollywood stereotype of Asian mobsters. They primarily focus on prostitution. This is the single largest source of income for Korean Yakuza and Triads and trumps all other sources combined. Other avenues are in gambling, small scale drug running, extortion (pay for protection), and dealing of black market items. The last bit has become a fast growing industry for Asian gangs with the increased commercial trade between China/Japan and North America.

Korean mobsters also take a more "low key" approach than their neighbors. The 250lb guy in an all black suit with neck tattoos and a "pimped out" Hyundai is most likely a wannabe. The bulk of Korean mobsters are small store owners, private businessmen, lawyers (A virtually unregulated practice in Korea), some military brass, and construction personnel. It's not uncommon for a construction crew to made up entirely of gang members, however limited their gang related activity may be. The engineers and foremen are the managers of the group while the laborers are the foot soldiers. This is a way for the group to maintain a cover identity and laundering mechanism to filter dirty money.

An average person will almost never meet a Korean mobster and even if they did, they wouldn't know it. The gangsters here keep to themselves. As long as innocent people don't get hurt or get too heavily involved, the police look the other way for the most part. The government is primarily focused on it's own economy and the military threat to the North. Pink room girls and black market DVD's are of little concern to the government in Seoul.

However, this era of "calm" gang related activity is still somewhat new. Just after the war in the 60's and 70's, rival gangs were of much greater concern. In those days, they took a much more active, and often violent, role in their day-to-day operations. Daejeon and other small-mid sized cities were battle grounds at times. This was before the major crackdown on firearms, and shootouts in the streets, while not commonplace, weren't exactly unheard of either. Things began to stabilize more when the American military began to withdraw from the border and started to be deployed on patrols and postings around the country. At that time the number of American military stationed here was somewhere around a hundred thousand or more. Being out numbered and out gunned, the gangs settled a bit of "truce" between them and have even been know to work with each other. The Triads are mostly responsible for the stolen merchandise and black market goods, while the Yakuza control the prostitution.

In recent decades, the Yakuza numbers have began to fall. With fewer Japanese coming to Korea and a losing interest in organised crime by the younger Japanese population, it's reach is noticeably shorter outside of Japan. The Triads, on the other hand, have seen an explosion in growth and influence. The surging Chinese economy has sent many Chinese to Korea for business dealings, and with them, came Chinese with alternative business dealings. Handling knock off products didn't used to be such a great wealth to control, but with the explosion in trade coming from China, it has itself become a multi billion dollar enterprise. Korean observers estimate that in the next few decades, there may be a larger population of native Koreans that flock to the criminal lifestyle, as legitimate jobs dry up and salaries continue to shrink, even for the university educated. Korean police have largely been relaxed and are ill prepared to handle a large mafia style organization if one should began to be more forceful and violent. This has been brought to the attention of President Lee and he has appropriated funds to train more Korean police to deal with gangs and increase the number career police officers instead of compulsory service members just out of high school.

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By the way, I got all of these from the brother of an ex Korean gf of mine. He was a detective in Seoul who is part of the new organised crime task force being put together by the president. He used to pay me to tutor him in English, but most of the time we just ended up at a hoff drinking a lot and him blabbering on endlessly about all this while I corrected grammar and pronunciation mistakes he made. Although, it wasn't a bad way to spend a Thursday evening and earn fifty bucks.

[northway]

[jvalmer]

[ajosshi]

[bekinseki]

Yeah, that was pretty interesting. I had no idea about gangster activity in Daejeon.

Once I had a taxi driver who was wearing an arm band, and a bit of a tattoo was sticking out from under it. It turns out he'd spent time in prison for being in a gang, and was out now trying to live crime-free.

Impressively, tattoos have come a long way in Korea recently, and it's not uncommon to just see a random Korean with tattoos that are not gang-related.

[rainism]

one of my graduated students has a father who's a gangster.

my VP actually looked into it, since all the kids said it, and it turned out it was true and the Dad was actually a fairly higher up gangster too.

interestingly enough, the girl exhibited far far less princessy behavior than her non "gangster" offspring classmates.

[UknowsI]

[rainism]

[jvalmer]

[ATM SPIDERTAO]

i think my girlfriend's family are all gangsters
i had no idea until i realized the dad might be in jail
suuuuper nice family too. haha also, i like the fact they rat each other out. at least things are in the open. so what exactly happened to the girl with the gangster dad? my gf is like... super gender role defined and loving haha but man, if someone cuts us off on the road, a bit of the rage gets out and now it all makes sense haha