July 19, 2023 • 29 mins
Shin Sang-hyun and his “New Sergeant Family” took over Myeongdong in the 1950s and later the Seoul criminal underground. But not without some serious battles on Seoul’s streets.
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Joel Bonomini
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Credits
Produced by Joe McPherson and Shawn Morrissey
Music by Soraksan
Top tier Patrons
Angel Earl
Joel Bonomini
Devon Hiphner
Gabi Palomino
Steve Marsh
Eva Sikora
Ron Chang
Mackenzie Moore
Hunter Winter
Cecilia Löfgren Dumas
Josephine Rydberg
Devin Buchanan
Ashley Wright
George Irion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
And welcome to the Dark Side of Soul podcast.
This is Joe, this is Sean, andtoday we're going to continue
our Gangster's series.
I apologize for the large gap,but when I started getting into
this section, it's very denseand it's very difficult to find
(00:30):
what's true and what's not Andcoming up with a tight narrative
, so I was originally dividingit into different eras, but now,
at this point, i think it'sbetter to tell it through by
focusing on actual figures andtelling the history through
those figures.
Does that work for you, sean?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, I'm good, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
It works for me, no problem.
All right, i am going to frontload the episode by by
mentioning we do run the DarkSide of Soul Ghost Walk, which
you can find atdarksideofsoulcom.
We also have our comics WeirdTales from Korean Lore, very
popular.
We have to keep reprinting them.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Just got Yeah, just got the fourth printing of the
first book yesterday.
Good to deliver to my place?
Yeah, yes, so arrived.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
So we're going to order those directly through us.
You can get them also at adiscount if you order them with
your tour.
We'll bring it to you at thetour.
Keep in mind, if you areordering a hard copy, we're
using very cheap rates, so ittakes a long time and we can't
track it.
Now.
If you're willing to pay alittle extra, we can look into
(01:46):
that if you want it faster andwith tracking.
But the gap between what we'recharging and what between the
two rates the other rates isvery large.
So you might be spending like$20, $30 for delivery for one or
two comic books.
Yeah, i apologize, because somepeople yeah, it takes around.
(02:07):
It's like what they used to sayin those commercials in the 70s
and 80s.
It was like taking six to eightweeks for delivery.
That's kind of how it is.
That's how we keep our costslow.
So it's not Amazon speed.
We're so sorry for that.
I'll work on solutions wheneverI can to make it faster.
(02:31):
I'll look, i'll research, butthis is the best we can for
right now.
But you can also get theelectronic version.
That's instant, or get it overthe Dice Latte in Seoul.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
That's like the Dice Comics and Dice and Comics Yeah,
the place formerly known as theDice Latte Yeah, dice and
Comics Cafe.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
It will always be the Dice Latte in my heart.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
It took me ages to stop calling it Dice Latte.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
After Joey changed it , i think he's still actually
Dice Latte on Instagram, soanyway, all right, yeah, so,
picking up, we're going to talka little bit about Myungdong.
We covered before about theKorean Japanese guy Hayashi, how
he helped build the Yakuza inMyungdong in the 1930s and he
(03:20):
got out of the business in 1945after liberation.
Then in the 50s it was KimDoohan Sean's favorite character
, kim Doohan who took control ofJongno, the Jongno area, and
that was in the 50s.
And now we're going to I'mgoing to concentrate today on
who's known as the megagodfather, shin Sang-hyun and
(03:46):
the Shin Sang-sa Pa, the gang,the family, and he dominated
Myungdong with the Shin Sang-saPa from around the 1950s to the
1990s, so he's known as theEmperor of Myungdong.
He was a former sergeant in theKorean army and he was known as
(04:14):
a new sergeant Shin Sang-sa Andyeah, that's how they got their
name, the Shin Sang-sa Pa.
Quick bio Shin Sang-hyun wasborn in 1932 over in Gwangsudong
in Jongno-gu.
His father was a tailor, soduring the Japanese colonial
(04:36):
period that was a goodprofession to have, so they had
like a middle class life.
Shin, he liked sports,especially boxing, judo and
kendo, but in high school he wasseverely punished by his
teachers for not speakingJapanese, which was required in
(04:57):
schools at that time, and so hefailed to graduate.
To make up for that, at the ageof 17 in 1949, he enlisted in
the army.
During that time he was part ofa subjugating pro-north Korea
guerrillas over in Jirisan,which I'm trying to find some
(05:18):
more info on.
This.
I have to look deeper for thatone dead incident, because this
is before the Korean War.
You know more about this?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Jared Ranbarale.
Yeah, i've been to the sites inJirisan.
Most of them are in thesouthern area near Pemsa Gore
And yeah, you can see where theyespecially the guerrillas and
stuff where they printed theirnewspapers and things like that.
They were hidden up in valleysor down in valleys.
Yeah, it's a really cool area.
(05:48):
You go through the trails wherethey were hiding and stuff like
that.
It's fascinating And there's alittle cave there where they
printed, they hand printed theirnewspapers, where they secretly
were passing out among thecommunity of guerrillas and
stuff like that It's amazing,jared Ranbarale.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Wow, i feel a tour idea coming, jared.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Ranbarale, yeah, i mean, yeah, potentially, it's
definitely places that should bevisited.
I don't think they're widelypromoted by people who run tours
down there.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Jared Ranbarale.
No, but that's the interestingstuff that they ignore, jared
Ranbarale.
Well, the Korean War broke outand he got shot in the leg And
in 1953 he was discharged withthe rank of first sergeant in
the Army Special Forces.
He went down to Degu and whatthey say no, no, in my readings
(06:45):
they keep calling the gangstersfists.
So they say, like he instantlyin that one year, that when he
got to Degu he just knocked outall the local fists and then he
created his organization,shinsang Sapa.
It's hard to say really fast,shinsang Sapa.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Jared Ranbarale.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
So in 1954, his gang was recruited by the police to
disrupt the campaign of anE-Singman Sigmundri rival, and
he hated it and vowed never toreturn to politics.
He didn't like what he felt itwas really dirty.
(07:27):
So he went to Seoul and hesettled down next to the Central
Theater in Myeongdong I thinkwe know where that is or was And
again, gradually.
This is how you get ahead.
You just beat up everyone.
It's like Street Fighter orMortal Kombat, i don't know what
it is It's like or Mike Tyson'spunch out, you just beat up all
(07:52):
the other leaders and you moveup, or higher and higher and
higher in the ranks.
And he had his sights on thethen Myeongdong Emperor, yi Hua
Yong, which he talked aboutbefore And so he's the new kid
in town and he didn't reallyknow much.
He was just trying to make hisname.
(08:12):
He beat up a guy he thought wasYi Hua Yong at the Ujuro
Taeyang Coffee Shop Was thewrong guy.
This guy was the president of aradio company.
Yeah.
So Yi Yongbok, who is thedesignated successor to Yi Hua
Yong, heard about this And he'slike okay, we need to teach this
(08:34):
guy a lesson.
So he led 60 gang members andthey stormed Shin Sanghyun's
office in Myeongdong And Shinretaliated by getting a group of
six men together and raided LeeYoungbok's house And so another
protégé of Yi Hua, yong ParkIlgap.
He went in and mediated andhelped the two reconcile And
(09:01):
Shin became the leader of, likethis, pen Myeongdong faction.
So he was able to get everyonetogether.
This is how it works.
I mean, it's like Game ofThrones.
It's hard to keep track of whateveryone's doing.
You know, it's very similar toKorea in the late 19th century.
It's so hard to find out whowhat faction is is aligned with
(09:23):
who, because they change so muchand they combine and they split
.
So Korean history is all aboutfactions, cell division, mitosis
.
Green history is all aboutmitosis, love, splitting up,
getting together and splittingup.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah, you mentioned this, like in your in your other
series, the fall of Chosun.
Yeah, it's always the factionsman, It's always So mitosis.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
You were like why is Korea split?
Well, that's, that's how Koreagoes.
It seems like in history And Iknow that wasn't like a
preconceived notion, it's just apattern I keep noticing going
through any section of Koreanhistory.
I mean we've do yet.
Fall of Chosun, which ishundreds of years ago, and then
the gangster era gangster era asa gangster, gangster era, which
(10:15):
was, you know, less than 100years ago.
We'll return to the podcastafter this message.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
In our first comic we explored ghastly Korean folk
tales while walking the streetsof Seoul.
This time we are ambling theKorean highlands with terror
tales set in those storiedlandscapes.
Welcome to the dark side ofSeoul.
Weird tales from Korean loremountains of the macabre.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So in 1955, the faction, the Shinsangpa
Shinsangsa Pa faction, saved aman named Kim Ung-gyu from being
beat up by Kim Doohan's Jungnofaction, And Kim Ung-gyu wanted
revenge against AOMAS, who isthe new leader of Kim Doohan's
(11:18):
faction.
Now, some of this I have gonebefore in my previous episodes,
but I'm just bringing this allback up today.
And so Shinsangsa Pa heardAOMAS was dancing at the
National Museum of Korea becauseI guess that's what you do at
the National Museum of Korea andset up an ambush.
(11:38):
Aomas was able to escape byjumping out the second story
window where he broke his leg,and it was very shameful that
this all happened because ajunior like Shinsanghyun bested
him.
Yeah, at the time Shinsanghyunwas only 23 at the time.
(12:00):
So 1956 is the famous GoldenCarriage raid.
So at the time the Dongdaemunfaction and the Myungdong
factions were at odds And GoldenCarriage, which in Korean was
(12:22):
called Hwangum Macha, was acabaret that was cone by Yi
Hsueh Young in Gwancheol-dong,which is Kim Doohan's Jungno
territory.
Now we talked about the Sam-Uhe, which is kind of a
paramilitary gangster group,thug Terrorist Organization that
(12:43):
did a lot of Shingmenry's dirtywork And there was a
combination of the SodaemunJungno and Yi Jungjae's
Dongdaemun factions.
They used this Golden Carriagecabaret as an excuse to show
their strength.
They weren't really that upset.
It wasn't really that they wereupset that it opened in Jungno
(13:06):
territory.
They were just using it as anexcuse to show that they put
Shin in his place.
So Myungdong heard that theywere going to go up and they
were going to trash the GoldenCarriage.
So they got wind in front ofthe Golden Carriage and they lay
(13:26):
in wait And they were greatlyoutnumbered.
But the thing is, a lot of theMyungdong gang were veterans of
the Northwest Youth League andwere experienced fighters.
And the Sam-Uhe well, they hadjust finished the ceremony where
they all got smashed, drunk andthey had no structure command
(13:48):
system.
So the Myungdong gang just usedcatapults That's why I keep
reading is catapults, catapultsof bricks and stones at the
Sam-Uhe as they approached anddrove them off.
Now I have links to this andour notes on our website.
I found clips from the Koreandrama Savage Age, which I think
(14:10):
was done in the 90s.
You can tell it was done onvideo, not on digital video, and
I found a clip with Englishsubtitles that depicts this.
Now this is very romanticizedAnd the more I keep reading
about this is they really playedfast and loose with the history
on this, so don't use SavageAge as your guide.
(14:30):
Nonetheless, very fun 10 minutevideo to watch.
In this one they confront theMyungdong gang in front of the
Golden Carriage And there were afew individual fights.
And, oh my goodness, these are,like I want to say, kung Fu
fighting, but it is not Kung Fu,but it is very.
(14:52):
It's good martial arts actiongoing on here In classic Hong
Kong style zooms and cuts andeverything.
It's really fun to watch.
Bunch of yeah so a bunch ofguys fighting.
Then they will break it out andthe police break it up, so,
yeah.
(15:13):
So after they drove them off,sam-uhe stormed the Myungdong
faction, but the Myungdongfaction fled in advance to avoid
police intervention.
This all deepens their conflictAnd this leads to the Chung
Chung Chung Chung, no X incident.
Now, this is why I say SavageAge isn't that accurate, because
(15:34):
in that the the, the accident,the Chung Chung Chung, no X
incident, happens right afterthe Golden Carriage raid, when
actually there's a two year gapbetween the two.
So there's two years offighting between the Myungdong
and Dongdaemun since then Andactually the Myungdong faction
was starting to fall, apart fromfinancial and political
(15:56):
troubles And public opinion wasalso against the Dongdaemun
faction after the Jang ChungDang simply a obstruction, which
I talked a little bit before inthe last one, but I'll go over
it again And the Dan Song Sasniper incident and various
political terrorist acts.
So, jang Chung Dang, whathappened in 1957.
(16:21):
The National Southern Committeeof the Opposition Party the ones
that were against Singman Rheeheld a lecture on state affairs
at Jang Chung Dang Park, whichyou can go to today, and this
was meant to condemn SingmanRhee's liberal party.
Now it is estimated that200,000 citizens attended this
and they were fed up withSingman Rhee's party And Joe
(16:47):
Byung-ok, who was the DemocraticParty's presidential candidate.
He was coming up to themicrophone when he was booed at
by youths, presumably theDongdaemun gang, and Joe
Byung-ok made the mistake oftelling them to come up to the
mic if they had anything to say,and that was the cue for 50
(17:07):
Dongdaemun members to storm thepodium with clubs.
Now Kim Doohun, who was thereand he was trying to get into
politics, tried to calm the mob,but it failed.
Dongdaemun gang doused the ampwith gasoline and set it on fire
and they assaulted thecameraman filming the
proceedings And coincidentally,the police didn't show up until
(17:33):
the gangsters were gone.
That was strange, wow.
And when the police showed up,they just dispersed the lecture.
You notice that this is thetypical Korean thing You know I
talk about.
You know the Korean governmentdeals with conflicts is kind of
like the dad driving the car andthe kids arguing in the back.
They don't care who started it,they just want to stop.
(17:55):
So they just said just todisperse the lecture, just like
okay, whatever, you're all bad,go home.
Pissed people off.
So it made it made.
It did not make Simunri lookany better, it just made Korea
look even less democratic.
I'm not going to reiterate, i'mjust going to review the 1955
(18:16):
Dangtsung Sass sniper incident.
This guy named Kim Dong-jin wasplanning to expose a lot of
political assassinations thatthe Dongdaemun game were doing
And the Dongdaemun gang decidedto.
Uh, uh, he decided to wait onexposing them and he went into
hiding.
And then he, jung Jae, the headof the Dongdaemun game, put a
(18:38):
head on him And in Hwasoo, uh,one of the members, uh, remember
that Kim Jong-jin, kim Dong-jin, loved movies, especially
Westerns, and so stagecoach wasum going to premiere over at the
Dan Song-sa Theater, which wasthe theater in Korea And, um, uh
(19:02):
, they went and ambushed themand Lee Seok-jae shot Kim
Dong-jin.
He survived, um and um, yeah,we said that before.
Lee Seok-jae said that he meantto wound Kim, not kill him,
because, uh, uh, and he wassmiling when he said that.
And the judge asked why theywere smiling and he said, well,
if you know how, uh, he couldprove what a good shot he was.
(19:23):
And he, he, he shot threecigarettes in front of the
police, which I think is a myth,because you know we talked
about that before That thatreally they would end in a
courtroom.
All right, anyway, so this isall happening in the in between
these two years.
Uh, in the meantime, uh,another uh capo over the
(19:44):
Myeongdong, uh, jong Bong-gu,defects to Dongdaemun Makes it
worse, and so, um, uh, so also,some thugs entered Myeongdong
and shot off a gun and fled, andeach he, hwa Yong uh, the
Myeongdong emperor, assumed itwas Lee Jong-jae, and so they
(20:06):
got axes, rented a Jeep becauseyou could do that then and
attacked Lee Jong-jae'sstronghold.
And uh, now it looks like thereporters were there waiting.
Lee Jong-jae knew it was goingto happen, and so they had
already.
Lee Jong-jae had already fledand had these reporters there,
and and only the police and thereporters were there And um,
(20:29):
they threatened the police withaxes but then dropped them and
fled.
As a result of this, yihua Yongand his men were arrested And
part of the Dongdaemun Gang, yiZhongjie's subordinate, yu
Jiguang.
He was arrested as well And hehimself was sentenced to eight
months in prison.
(20:49):
The Myeongdong Gang totallydisintegrates after many members
were sent to prison, includingXin Sanghyun.
Xin Sanghyun was sentenced tothree years, but he served one
year and six months based onappeals, and when he left he
went out and rebuilt theMyeongdong organization, and
(21:12):
after he did that, it is saidthat he pacified the whole fist
world in Seoul.
By then this was 1960s.
Pak Chung he was in power.
He cracked down, executed YiZhongjie of Dongdaemun, so
Dongdaemun was gone.
The Jongno faction didn't getstrong after Kim Dae-hoon left
(21:40):
and went into politics, soMyeongdong was the king of the
gangsters, and so he seteverything up to make money One
thing that Yi Hua Yong wasreally bad at.
So he set it up to make money.
And remember the original,original, original Myeongdong
(22:01):
faction was started by Hayashi,who was part of the Yakuza, so
Myeongdong has always had alittle bit of a relationship
with Yakuza in Japan, especiallywith Inagawa Kai.
Inagawa Kai I need to practicethis before I In my brain I can
(22:22):
hear it, but I don't speak itout loud Tongue doesn't hear it.
Yeah, inagawa Kai, which is oneof the three Yakuza, and so he
had a good relationship withmiddle manager So Sun-jung, who
was a Zainichi Korean Japanese.
His Japanese name was Nishi YamaMinoru.
Good relationship with them.
(22:44):
He had a good.
They were able to work together, yakuza and the Myeongdong gang
.
They went into the boxing andentertainment businesses.
So Sun-jung of the Inagawa Kai,he managed Korea's first boxing
(23:06):
champion, kim Ki-soo, and otherboxing champions, so they made
a lot of money through theboxing business.
And Shin, he made a newassistant, gu Da-ung, who became
acting boss to handle the dirtywork, and from then Shin was
only involved with big thingsafter that, like partnering with
(23:28):
local organizations or withYakuza organizations Very Don
Corleone things.
See you in the next video.
He just stayed in his officeand just only bothered with
things whenever they reallyneeded some big guns.
And you know what I'm justgoing to say here to be
continued, because I think thatwas a lot of information to
throw at you.
(23:49):
We will continue this with thenext iteration of the gangster
series.
We're going to explore a littlemore of the 60s and some other
characters of this time There wego.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
It's very dense, but interesting.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, very, very.
Even Yomi the White just showedup.
Wow, It's like what are youguys talking about?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, Oh my, that's a lot, and I felt it was.
There's so much stuff going on.
I just have to repeat some ofthe stuff.
Sure, there's no way you'regoing to remember it without
being reminded.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, Yeah, right right.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
We'll return to the podcast after this message.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Take a walk.
there's 500 years of ghastlymurders, forbidden history and
hidden scandals.
Listen to tales of Korea'sdeepest, darkest secrets.
What lies under the concrete Orwho.
The dark side of Seoul Coast.
Walk at darksideofsoulcom.
(24:53):
But now, if you dare, All right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
So, hey, if you have any listener mail, contact us at
info at darksideofsoulcom, byemail or through Instagram or
Facebook Always darksideofsoulon all of our social accounts.
We like to ask questions oranything like you know.
We'll make up an answer for you.
It'll be fine Fun Hear your,hear your letter on the air.
(25:22):
The dark side of Seoul podcastwas produced by Joe McPherson
and Sean Morrissey.
Our opening and closing musicis by Sadexan, which you can
find on Bankcamp under Dead YouDigital.
We'd like to thank our top tierpatrons Angel Earl, joel
Bonamini, sharon Cullen, devinHiffner, min Suk Lee, ryan
(25:46):
Birkebal, gabby Palamino, steveMarsh, mitchie Brewer, ron Chang
McKinsey, moore Hunter, williamHunter Winter, cecilia Lufklin
Dumas and Emily Oomba.
Thank you for supporting us.
You too can join thesewonderful upright citizens at
(26:12):
patreoncom slash darksideofsoulAnd just starting at $5 a month,
you can get a lot of extracontent and support us, support
the show, keep us paying ourbills to keep the podcast going.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah Yeah, and that's a good group.
There was a big chat in theirprivate chat room the top tier
page in private chat about books, some of the books that we're
reading lately.
The topic stuff that we get onis great.
I mean so much stuff that wechat about.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Our topics really come from the chat room too,
from our patrons.
Yeah, I mean our feedback, likewhat they want to hear more of.
I'm like, okay, we'll do that.
Yeah, I mean, that's really whyI finally got around to doing
you on Joel a couple of yearsago.
(27:08):
It was like because we werepressured so much by our patrons
like do this, Yeah, And thenserial killer episode.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Yeah, that series was it three episodes Oh it was
four.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
It was four episodes, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
That ended up being one of our biggest, most
downloaded episodes.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, that's probably popular.
That's a lot of people'sintroduction to the show.
is that one?
Speaker 3 (27:36):
And after Netflix released their documentary
series, we ended up getting abump in views Because it
released released ours first,the Netflix release theirs And
we got a lot of people acrosssocial media were saying, oh,
the dark side of soul podcastabout this is way better.
It goes into better detail.
Yeah, That talks about the moredeeply about the how the cops
(28:02):
goofed that up.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, because the Netflix series really made the
cops look good, because theywere the only sources they use,
basically for this whole thing.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
It wasn't a very good .
I didn't like.
I didn't like the Netflix.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It felt boned in Yeah .
Speaker 3 (28:18):
It was just it was, it was completely one sided.
Yeah, break that down When, ifthe only people there they're
interviewing are the authorities, then you know that they're not
doing it right, because theauthorities are not going to
talk badly about themselves.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, i wish they talked the guy wearing the
sunglasses in his interview.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
No, fucks sakes.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
No, what a rig out.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Oh, i know, And I understand this is a podcast of
two snobby white guys talking,but you know it's not me, i'm
joking.
I'm joking, i heard, i heardthat we come across a snobby
sometimes, which I mean I get it, it's fine.
Yeah, i know I snob, but youknow me for my taste and
(29:10):
everything, but I see how itcomes across that way.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
I'm not snobby, i'm just negative.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Bye.
And welcome to the Dark Side of Soul podcast.
This is Joe, this is Sean, andtoday we're going to continue
our Gangster's series.
I apologize for the large gap,but when I started getting into
this section, it's very denseand it's very difficult to find
(00:30):
what's true and what's not Andcoming up with a tight narrative
, so I was originally dividingit into different eras, but now,
at this point, i think it'sbetter to tell it through by
focusing on actual figures andtelling the history through
those figures.
Does that work for you, sean?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, I'm good, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
It works for me, no problem.
All right, i am going to frontload the episode by by
mentioning we do run the DarkSide of Soul Ghost Walk, which
you can find atdarksideofsoulcom.
We also have our comics WeirdTales from Korean Lore, very
popular.
We have to keep reprinting them.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Just got Yeah, just got the fourth printing of the
first book yesterday.
Good to deliver to my place?
Yeah, yes, so arrived.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
So we're going to order those directly through us.
You can get them also at adiscount if you order them with
your tour.
We'll bring it to you at thetour.
Keep in mind, if you areordering a hard copy, we're
using very cheap rates, so ittakes a long time and we can't
track it.
Now.
If you're willing to pay alittle extra, we can look into
(01:46):
that if you want it faster andwith tracking.
But the gap between what we'recharging and what between the
two rates the other rates isvery large.
So you might be spending like$20, $30 for delivery for one or
two comic books.
Yeah, i apologize, because somepeople yeah, it takes around.
(02:07):
It's like what they used to sayin those commercials in the 70s
and 80s.
It was like taking six to eightweeks for delivery.
That's kind of how it is.
That's how we keep our costslow.
So it's not Amazon speed.
We're so sorry for that.
I'll work on solutions wheneverI can to make it faster.
(02:31):
I'll look, i'll research, butthis is the best we can for
right now.
But you can also get theelectronic version.
That's instant, or get it overthe Dice Latte in Seoul.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
That's like the Dice Comics and Dice and Comics Yeah,
the place formerly known as theDice Latte Yeah, dice and
Comics Cafe.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
It will always be the Dice Latte in my heart.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
It took me ages to stop calling it Dice Latte.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
After Joey changed it , i think he's still actually
Dice Latte on Instagram, soanyway, all right, yeah, so,
picking up, we're going to talka little bit about Myungdong.
We covered before about theKorean Japanese guy Hayashi, how
he helped build the Yakuza inMyungdong in the 1930s and he
(03:20):
got out of the business in 1945after liberation.
Then in the 50s it was KimDoohan Sean's favorite character
, kim Doohan who took control ofJongno, the Jongno area, and
that was in the 50s.
And now we're going to I'mgoing to concentrate today on
who's known as the megagodfather, shin Sang-hyun and
(03:46):
the Shin Sang-sa Pa, the gang,the family, and he dominated
Myungdong with the Shin Sang-saPa from around the 1950s to the
1990s, so he's known as theEmperor of Myungdong.
He was a former sergeant in theKorean army and he was known as
(04:14):
a new sergeant Shin Sang-sa Andyeah, that's how they got their
name, the Shin Sang-sa Pa.
Quick bio Shin Sang-hyun wasborn in 1932 over in Gwangsudong
in Jongno-gu.
His father was a tailor, soduring the Japanese colonial
(04:36):
period that was a goodprofession to have, so they had
like a middle class life.
Shin, he liked sports,especially boxing, judo and
kendo, but in high school he wasseverely punished by his
teachers for not speakingJapanese, which was required in
(04:57):
schools at that time, and so hefailed to graduate.
To make up for that, at the ageof 17 in 1949, he enlisted in
the army.
During that time he was part ofa subjugating pro-north Korea
guerrillas over in Jirisan,which I'm trying to find some
(05:18):
more info on.
This.
I have to look deeper for thatone dead incident, because this
is before the Korean War.
You know more about this?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Jared Ranbarale.
Yeah, i've been to the sites inJirisan.
Most of them are in thesouthern area near Pemsa Gore
And yeah, you can see where theyespecially the guerrillas and
stuff where they printed theirnewspapers and things like that.
They were hidden up in valleysor down in valleys.
Yeah, it's a really cool area.
(05:48):
You go through the trails wherethey were hiding and stuff like
that.
It's fascinating And there's alittle cave there where they
printed, they hand printed theirnewspapers, where they secretly
were passing out among thecommunity of guerrillas and
stuff like that It's amazing,jared Ranbarale.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Wow, i feel a tour idea coming, jared.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Ranbarale, yeah, i mean, yeah, potentially, it's
definitely places that should bevisited.
I don't think they're widelypromoted by people who run tours
down there.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Jared Ranbarale.
No, but that's the interestingstuff that they ignore, jared
Ranbarale.
Well, the Korean War broke outand he got shot in the leg And
in 1953 he was discharged withthe rank of first sergeant in
the Army Special Forces.
He went down to Degu and whatthey say no, no, in my readings
(06:45):
they keep calling the gangstersfists.
So they say, like he instantlyin that one year, that when he
got to Degu he just knocked outall the local fists and then he
created his organization,shinsang Sapa.
It's hard to say really fast,shinsang Sapa.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Jared Ranbarale.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
So in 1954, his gang was recruited by the police to
disrupt the campaign of anE-Singman Sigmundri rival, and
he hated it and vowed never toreturn to politics.
He didn't like what he felt itwas really dirty.
(07:27):
So he went to Seoul and hesettled down next to the Central
Theater in Myeongdong I thinkwe know where that is or was And
again, gradually.
This is how you get ahead.
You just beat up everyone.
It's like Street Fighter orMortal Kombat, i don't know what
it is It's like or Mike Tyson'spunch out, you just beat up all
(07:52):
the other leaders and you moveup, or higher and higher and
higher in the ranks.
And he had his sights on thethen Myeongdong Emperor, yi Hua
Yong, which he talked aboutbefore And so he's the new kid
in town and he didn't reallyknow much.
He was just trying to make hisname.
(08:12):
He beat up a guy he thought wasYi Hua Yong at the Ujuro
Taeyang Coffee Shop Was thewrong guy.
This guy was the president of aradio company.
Yeah.
So Yi Yongbok, who is thedesignated successor to Yi Hua
Yong, heard about this And he'slike okay, we need to teach this
(08:34):
guy a lesson.
So he led 60 gang members andthey stormed Shin Sanghyun's
office in Myeongdong And Shinretaliated by getting a group of
six men together and raided LeeYoungbok's house And so another
protégé of Yi Hua, yong ParkIlgap.
He went in and mediated andhelped the two reconcile And
(09:01):
Shin became the leader of, likethis, pen Myeongdong faction.
So he was able to get everyonetogether.
This is how it works.
I mean, it's like Game ofThrones.
It's hard to keep track of whateveryone's doing.
You know, it's very similar toKorea in the late 19th century.
It's so hard to find out whowhat faction is is aligned with
(09:23):
who, because they change so muchand they combine and they split
.
So Korean history is all aboutfactions, cell division, mitosis
.
Green history is all aboutmitosis, love, splitting up,
getting together and splittingup.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah, you mentioned this, like in your in your other
series, the fall of Chosun.
Yeah, it's always the factionsman, It's always So mitosis.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
You were like why is Korea split?
Well, that's, that's how Koreagoes.
It seems like in history And Iknow that wasn't like a
preconceived notion, it's just apattern I keep noticing going
through any section of Koreanhistory.
I mean we've do yet.
Fall of Chosun, which ishundreds of years ago, and then
the gangster era gangster era asa gangster, gangster era, which
(10:15):
was, you know, less than 100years ago.
We'll return to the podcastafter this message.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
In our first comic we explored ghastly Korean folk
tales while walking the streetsof Seoul.
This time we are ambling theKorean highlands with terror
tales set in those storiedlandscapes.
Welcome to the dark side ofSeoul.
Weird tales from Korean loremountains of the macabre.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So in 1955, the faction, the Shinsangpa
Shinsangsa Pa faction, saved aman named Kim Ung-gyu from being
beat up by Kim Doohan's Jungnofaction, And Kim Ung-gyu wanted
revenge against AOMAS, who isthe new leader of Kim Doohan's
(11:18):
faction.
Now, some of this I have gonebefore in my previous episodes,
but I'm just bringing this allback up today.
And so Shinsangsa Pa heardAOMAS was dancing at the
National Museum of Korea becauseI guess that's what you do at
the National Museum of Korea andset up an ambush.
(11:38):
Aomas was able to escape byjumping out the second story
window where he broke his leg,and it was very shameful that
this all happened because ajunior like Shinsanghyun bested
him.
Yeah, at the time Shinsanghyunwas only 23 at the time.
(12:00):
So 1956 is the famous GoldenCarriage raid.
So at the time the Dongdaemunfaction and the Myungdong
factions were at odds And GoldenCarriage, which in Korean was
(12:22):
called Hwangum Macha, was acabaret that was cone by Yi
Hsueh Young in Gwancheol-dong,which is Kim Doohan's Jungno
territory.
Now we talked about the Sam-Uhe, which is kind of a
paramilitary gangster group,thug Terrorist Organization that
(12:43):
did a lot of Shingmenry's dirtywork And there was a
combination of the SodaemunJungno and Yi Jungjae's
Dongdaemun factions.
They used this Golden Carriagecabaret as an excuse to show
their strength.
They weren't really that upset.
It wasn't really that they wereupset that it opened in Jungno
(13:06):
territory.
They were just using it as anexcuse to show that they put
Shin in his place.
So Myungdong heard that theywere going to go up and they
were going to trash the GoldenCarriage.
So they got wind in front ofthe Golden Carriage and they lay
(13:26):
in wait And they were greatlyoutnumbered.
But the thing is, a lot of theMyungdong gang were veterans of
the Northwest Youth League andwere experienced fighters.
And the Sam-Uhe well, they hadjust finished the ceremony where
they all got smashed, drunk andthey had no structure command
(13:48):
system.
So the Myungdong gang just usedcatapults That's why I keep
reading is catapults, catapultsof bricks and stones at the
Sam-Uhe as they approached anddrove them off.
Now I have links to this andour notes on our website.
I found clips from the Koreandrama Savage Age, which I think
(14:10):
was done in the 90s.
You can tell it was done onvideo, not on digital video, and
I found a clip with Englishsubtitles that depicts this.
Now this is very romanticizedAnd the more I keep reading
about this is they really playedfast and loose with the history
on this, so don't use SavageAge as your guide.
(14:30):
Nonetheless, very fun 10 minutevideo to watch.
In this one they confront theMyungdong gang in front of the
Golden Carriage And there were afew individual fights.
And, oh my goodness, these are,like I want to say, kung Fu
fighting, but it is not Kung Fu,but it is very.
(14:52):
It's good martial arts actiongoing on here In classic Hong
Kong style zooms and cuts andeverything.
It's really fun to watch.
Bunch of yeah so a bunch ofguys fighting.
Then they will break it out andthe police break it up, so,
yeah.
(15:13):
So after they drove them off,sam-uhe stormed the Myungdong
faction, but the Myungdongfaction fled in advance to avoid
police intervention.
This all deepens their conflictAnd this leads to the Chung
Chung Chung Chung, no X incident.
Now, this is why I say SavageAge isn't that accurate, because
(15:34):
in that the the, the accident,the Chung Chung Chung, no X
incident, happens right afterthe Golden Carriage raid, when
actually there's a two year gapbetween the two.
So there's two years offighting between the Myungdong
and Dongdaemun since then Andactually the Myungdong faction
was starting to fall, apart fromfinancial and political
(15:56):
troubles And public opinion wasalso against the Dongdaemun
faction after the Jang ChungDang simply a obstruction, which
I talked a little bit before inthe last one, but I'll go over
it again And the Dan Song Sasniper incident and various
political terrorist acts.
So, jang Chung Dang, whathappened in 1957.
(16:21):
The National Southern Committeeof the Opposition Party the ones
that were against Singman Rheeheld a lecture on state affairs
at Jang Chung Dang Park, whichyou can go to today, and this
was meant to condemn SingmanRhee's liberal party.
Now it is estimated that200,000 citizens attended this
and they were fed up withSingman Rhee's party And Joe
(16:47):
Byung-ok, who was the DemocraticParty's presidential candidate.
He was coming up to themicrophone when he was booed at
by youths, presumably theDongdaemun gang, and Joe
Byung-ok made the mistake oftelling them to come up to the
mic if they had anything to say,and that was the cue for 50
(17:07):
Dongdaemun members to storm thepodium with clubs.
Now Kim Doohun, who was thereand he was trying to get into
politics, tried to calm the mob,but it failed.
Dongdaemun gang doused the ampwith gasoline and set it on fire
and they assaulted thecameraman filming the
proceedings And coincidentally,the police didn't show up until
(17:33):
the gangsters were gone.
That was strange, wow.
And when the police showed up,they just dispersed the lecture.
You notice that this is thetypical Korean thing You know I
talk about.
You know the Korean governmentdeals with conflicts is kind of
like the dad driving the car andthe kids arguing in the back.
They don't care who started it,they just want to stop.
(17:55):
So they just said just todisperse the lecture, just like
okay, whatever, you're all bad,go home.
Pissed people off.
So it made it made.
It did not make Simunri lookany better, it just made Korea
look even less democratic.
I'm not going to reiterate, i'mjust going to review the 1955
(18:16):
Dangtsung Sass sniper incident.
This guy named Kim Dong-jin wasplanning to expose a lot of
political assassinations thatthe Dongdaemun game were doing
And the Dongdaemun gang decidedto.
Uh, uh, he decided to wait onexposing them and he went into
hiding.
And then he, jung Jae, the headof the Dongdaemun game, put a
(18:38):
head on him And in Hwasoo, uh,one of the members, uh, remember
that Kim Jong-jin, kim Dong-jin, loved movies, especially
Westerns, and so stagecoach wasum going to premiere over at the
Dan Song-sa Theater, which wasthe theater in Korea And, um, uh
(19:02):
, they went and ambushed themand Lee Seok-jae shot Kim
Dong-jin.
He survived, um and um, yeah,we said that before.
Lee Seok-jae said that he meantto wound Kim, not kill him,
because, uh, uh, and he wassmiling when he said that.
And the judge asked why theywere smiling and he said, well,
if you know how, uh, he couldprove what a good shot he was.
(19:23):
And he, he, he shot threecigarettes in front of the
police, which I think is a myth,because you know we talked
about that before That thatreally they would end in a
courtroom.
All right, anyway, so this isall happening in the in between
these two years.
Uh, in the meantime, uh,another uh capo over the
(19:44):
Myeongdong, uh, jong Bong-gu,defects to Dongdaemun Makes it
worse, and so, um, uh, so also,some thugs entered Myeongdong
and shot off a gun and fled, andeach he, hwa Yong uh, the
Myeongdong emperor, assumed itwas Lee Jong-jae, and so they
(20:06):
got axes, rented a Jeep becauseyou could do that then and
attacked Lee Jong-jae'sstronghold.
And uh, now it looks like thereporters were there waiting.
Lee Jong-jae knew it was goingto happen, and so they had
already.
Lee Jong-jae had already fledand had these reporters there,
and and only the police and thereporters were there And um,
(20:29):
they threatened the police withaxes but then dropped them and
fled.
As a result of this, yihua Yongand his men were arrested And
part of the Dongdaemun Gang, yiZhongjie's subordinate, yu
Jiguang.
He was arrested as well And hehimself was sentenced to eight
months in prison.
(20:49):
The Myeongdong Gang totallydisintegrates after many members
were sent to prison, includingXin Sanghyun.
Xin Sanghyun was sentenced tothree years, but he served one
year and six months based onappeals, and when he left he
went out and rebuilt theMyeongdong organization, and
(21:12):
after he did that, it is saidthat he pacified the whole fist
world in Seoul.
By then this was 1960s.
Pak Chung he was in power.
He cracked down, executed YiZhongjie of Dongdaemun, so
Dongdaemun was gone.
The Jongno faction didn't getstrong after Kim Dae-hoon left
(21:40):
and went into politics, soMyeongdong was the king of the
gangsters, and so he seteverything up to make money One
thing that Yi Hua Yong wasreally bad at.
So he set it up to make money.
And remember the original,original, original Myeongdong
(22:01):
faction was started by Hayashi,who was part of the Yakuza, so
Myeongdong has always had alittle bit of a relationship
with Yakuza in Japan, especiallywith Inagawa Kai.
Inagawa Kai I need to practicethis before I In my brain I can
(22:22):
hear it, but I don't speak itout loud Tongue doesn't hear it.
Yeah, inagawa Kai, which is oneof the three Yakuza, and so he
had a good relationship withmiddle manager So Sun-jung, who
was a Zainichi Korean Japanese.
His Japanese name was Nishi YamaMinoru.
Good relationship with them.
(22:44):
He had a good.
They were able to work together, yakuza and the Myeongdong gang
.
They went into the boxing andentertainment businesses.
So Sun-jung of the Inagawa Kai,he managed Korea's first boxing
(23:06):
champion, kim Ki-soo, and otherboxing champions, so they made
a lot of money through theboxing business.
And Shin, he made a newassistant, gu Da-ung, who became
acting boss to handle the dirtywork, and from then Shin was
only involved with big thingsafter that, like partnering with
(23:28):
local organizations or withYakuza organizations Very Don
Corleone things.
See you in the next video.
He just stayed in his officeand just only bothered with
things whenever they reallyneeded some big guns.
And you know what I'm justgoing to say here to be
continued, because I think thatwas a lot of information to
throw at you.
(23:49):
We will continue this with thenext iteration of the gangster
series.
We're going to explore a littlemore of the 60s and some other
characters of this time There wego.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
It's very dense, but interesting.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, very, very.
Even Yomi the White just showedup.
Wow, It's like what are youguys talking about?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, Oh my, that's a lot, and I felt it was.
There's so much stuff going on.
I just have to repeat some ofthe stuff.
Sure, there's no way you'regoing to remember it without
being reminded.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, Yeah, right right.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
We'll return to the podcast after this message.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Take a walk.
there's 500 years of ghastlymurders, forbidden history and
hidden scandals.
Listen to tales of Korea'sdeepest, darkest secrets.
What lies under the concrete Orwho.
The dark side of Seoul Coast.
Walk at darksideofsoulcom.
(24:53):
But now, if you dare, All right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
So, hey, if you have any listener mail, contact us at
info at darksideofsoulcom, byemail or through Instagram or
Facebook Always darksideofsoulon all of our social accounts.
We like to ask questions oranything like you know.
We'll make up an answer for you.
It'll be fine Fun Hear your,hear your letter on the air.
(25:22):
The dark side of Seoul podcastwas produced by Joe McPherson
and Sean Morrissey.
Our opening and closing musicis by Sadexan, which you can
find on Bankcamp under Dead YouDigital.
We'd like to thank our top tierpatrons Angel Earl, joel
Bonamini, sharon Cullen, devinHiffner, min Suk Lee, ryan
(25:46):
Birkebal, gabby Palamino, steveMarsh, mitchie Brewer, ron Chang
McKinsey, moore Hunter, williamHunter Winter, cecilia Lufklin
Dumas and Emily Oomba.
Thank you for supporting us.
You too can join thesewonderful upright citizens at
(26:12):
patreoncom slash darksideofsoulAnd just starting at $5 a month,
you can get a lot of extracontent and support us, support
the show, keep us paying ourbills to keep the podcast going.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah Yeah, and that's a good group.
There was a big chat in theirprivate chat room the top tier
page in private chat about books, some of the books that we're
reading lately.
The topic stuff that we get onis great.
I mean so much stuff that wechat about.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Our topics really come from the chat room too,
from our patrons.
Yeah, I mean our feedback, likewhat they want to hear more of.
I'm like, okay, we'll do that.
Yeah, I mean, that's really whyI finally got around to doing
you on Joel a couple of yearsago.
(27:08):
It was like because we werepressured so much by our patrons
like do this, Yeah, And thenserial killer episode.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Yeah, that series was it three episodes Oh it was
four.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
It was four episodes, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
That ended up being one of our biggest, most
downloaded episodes.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, that's probably popular.
That's a lot of people'sintroduction to the show.
is that one?
Speaker 3 (27:36):
And after Netflix released their documentary
series, we ended up getting abump in views Because it
released released ours first,the Netflix release theirs And
we got a lot of people acrosssocial media were saying, oh,
the dark side of soul podcastabout this is way better.
It goes into better detail.
Yeah, That talks about the moredeeply about the how the cops
(28:02):
goofed that up.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, because the Netflix series really made the
cops look good, because theywere the only sources they use,
basically for this whole thing.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
It wasn't a very good .
I didn't like.
I didn't like the Netflix.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It felt boned in Yeah .
Speaker 3 (28:18):
It was just it was, it was completely one sided.
Yeah, break that down When, ifthe only people there they're
interviewing are the authorities, then you know that they're not
doing it right, because theauthorities are not going to
talk badly about themselves.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, i wish they talked the guy wearing the
sunglasses in his interview.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
No, fucks sakes.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
No, what a rig out.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Oh, i know, And I understand this is a podcast of
two snobby white guys talking,but you know it's not me, i'm
joking.
I'm joking, i heard, i heardthat we come across a snobby
sometimes, which I mean I get it, it's fine.
Yeah, i know I snob, but youknow me for my taste and
(29:10):
everything, but I see how itcomes across that way.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
I'm not snobby, i'm just negative.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Bye.
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