The National Neighborhood Unit

The Miss Korea selection had ended in success, and no sooner was it behind him than Kijo took a call from Lee Jeong-jae.

"President Lee? It's me. Lee Jeong-jae."

Kijo had come to feel that Jeong-jae and his circle trusted him. All through the selling of ten thousand duty-free television sets there had not been a single hitch. He had passed the sets on without taking a middleman's cut, and whenever one proved defective he bought it back without a word of complaint. Come at a man like that, and he has little choice but to treat you well in return.

"Good day, sir. You've been well, I hope?"

"Of course. And you, President Lee?"

"Well enough, thanks to you. I'm grateful, as always."

"The gratitude ought to be ours."

Lee Jeong-jae had turned Dongdaemun Market into the mecca of the television trade. A new understanding had settled over the city: radios belonged to Myeongdong, and televisions to Dongdaemun. That it had come to be so was in no small part Kijo's doing.

"I'd like to sit down to a meal with you, President Lee. What do you say? Can you spare the time?"

"Of course. Call, and I'll make the time whenever you like."

A big, loose laugh rolled down the wire.

"You've got a good nature, President Lee. Ha. My brothers want ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to eat with you too—you don't mind, do you? How about today?"

"That suits me."

He took the invitation gladly. Kijo's creed was a simple one: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

He had set the hour and was putting his desk in order when his secretary announced that Kim Seogwang had come.

"Send him in."

The door opened, and Seogwang edged through it, hesitant to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠last.

"President... I know you must be busy, but there's something I need to tell you..."

"I'm not busy. Go on."

Seogwang was a man who made a point of hearing out even the lowest clerk, so Kijo assumed he had come with some suggestion or other.

"It's... well, I took the post of neighborhood-unit leader, didn't I..."

The moment the words landed, Kijo knew. So it's come.

The National Neighborhood Unit was the organization that would later give birth to the block meetings known as the bansanghoe. When Seogwang had announced at the start of the year that he meant to become a unit leader, Kijo had tried to talk him out of it. But the neighborhood had put him forward precisely because he gave so much of himself in service to others, and Seogwang, for his part, seemed to believe that as leader he might do a great deal of good—so in the end he had taken the post anyway.

Neither Seogwang nor the people of the neighborhood knew the truth. The National Neighborhood Units were, in fact, an election machine built on Syngman Rhee's orders. Rhee had meant from the first to raise them up and bend them to the ballot.

Nowadays the notion of the military taking the lead in a civilian watch would be absurd. In the 1950s, it was entirely possible.

The air changed in February 1957, when Lee Ik-heung—the very man who had made his name on the line Your Excellency will be so relieved—stepped down as Minister of Home Affairs and Jang Gyeong-geun took the chair. Jang had graduated from the Third Higher School in Kyoto, that elite gate to the imperial universities, and from the Faculty of Law at Tokyo Imperial University. Brilliant enough to pass the judicial track of the Higher Civil Service Examination while still a student there, he had followed a career of that stamp straight into the colonial legal bureaucracy. A collaborator, in plain words.

What Jang organized was the National Neighborhood Unit, cousin to the Patriotic Squads the Japanese had built to watch and control the daily lives of Koreans. Just as those squads, at their height, had numbered some 310,000 units and more than 4.25 million members, the National Neighborhood Units were knocked together with startling speed.

Anyone who became a leader in an organization of that kind was bound to feel that something was wrong. Seogwang had.

"President... orders came down from above. They're telling me to look into the residents' political leanings and report them..."

He looked wretched.

Kijo nodded. "If you don't want to do it, then don't."

"But the man giving me the orders is from the Jongno Police Station... If I report on how people lean, the ones who back the opposition will suffer for it. And if I don't report, I'll be the one who suffers..."

Seogwang let out a long sigh.

"Director Kim. You want to step down as unit leader, don't you?"

"Yes, President..."

"All right. I'll see to it that you can."

"Thank you, President."

Relief broke over Seogwang's face, and Kijo put a question to him.

"The Miwon promotions must be wearing you thin already. This has been a hard thing to carry on top of it."

"Aigoo... I went and played the busybody, and dug my own grave. I've regretted it more times than I can count."

"Ha—it's all experience. Stepping down as unit leader won't be difficult. Don't worry over it. Put your mind on the work."

He sent Seogwang on his way, and when the hour came he went to the old-style restaurant Lee Jeong-jae had named. Kijo arrived first. When the Dongdaemun gang came in, he rose to meet the four men.

Lee Jeong-jae, Yu Jigwang, Kim Taeryeon—Nakwhayusu, Falling Blossoms on Flowing Water—and Lim Hwa-soo entered in that order. Jeong-jae brightened the moment he saw Kijo, took his hand, and clapped him on the shoulder. Yu Jigwang, himself famous for loyalty, greeted him warmly, one trustworthy man recognizing another. Kim Taeryeon, the Seoul National University man, shook hands in evident pleasure with a counterpart who was both clever and well-mannered. Last through the door, Lim Hwa-soo—granted everything he had asked for—threw his arms around Kijo with a wide grin.

"Thank you, President Lee. Thanks to you we got our girl crowned Miss Korea, and you keep putting our people on DBC. You're the best. Simply the best."

When Lim laid the praise on thick, Jeong-jae laughed and told him that was enough—sit down.

Seated among the four, Kijo made the bosses of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Dongdaemun gang a small gift: pocket albums holding photographs and autographs from the Miss Koreas. The four paged through them with smiles that nearly reached their ears.

"They even wrote our names in. Listen to this."

"Ha—now this is something!"

Lim Hwa-soo beamed over the line, and Kijo, watching the bosses' delight, allowed himself a satisfied smile of his own.

The curtain had barely fallen on the contest before the ten chosen beauties were shut into a camp, losing their nights of sleep to turn those albums out. To be Miss Korea was not to live like a princess. A grinding schedule still lay ahead of them, work meant to lift their names and win the public's favor.

"You do come up with the cleverest ideas, President Lee. The day of the finals I was watching DBC, and I even called in to vote. Ha ha ha."

Kim Taeryeon was full of praise. Kijo had run a telephone poll of DBC's viewers, letting them cast a ballot for the candidate they wanted and folding those votes into the final judging. What would one day be ordinary had struck the people of the 1950s as a stroke of genius. While the finals were on the air, some thousand calls had come in from the Seoul area, and the four hundred and fifty or so who had backed the champion were due to receive a gift DBC had prepared.

"Did you pick the Jin—the champion?"

"No. So close. The one I backed only took Seon, the runner-up."

"We'll send a gift all the same. The Miss Koreas are recording a carol, and it'll be out before Christmas."

"A carol record, with the Miss Koreas? You really are a man who outruns the imagination."

"Every bit of the proceeds will go to the poor and to orphans."

"Is that so? Then we'd better lay in a good stock at Dongdaemun Market. Send us about two hundred copies. We'll sell them for you. Ha ha ha."

Lee Jeong-jae watched, well pleased, as Kijo got along with his younger brothers.

A sharp boy like that—where has he been all this time, and what has he been doing? If he hadn't grown close to Kim Doo-han and Lee Hwa-ryong first, I'd have had him under me...

Jeong-jae smacked his lips and turned to Kijo.

"That senior from Myeongdong, Brother Lee, has been going around feeding the children jajangmyeon—those black-bean noodles. Was that your doing, President Lee?"

"No, sir. I don't know a thing about it."

Kijo brushed it aside. Not because he wished to hide his friendship with Lee Hwa-ryong in front of the Dongdaemun gang, but because he wanted the good deed to travel as Hwa-ryong's own.

"No? He's not the sort for that. Strange. I was sure you'd put him up to it. Can't think why he'd do a thing so unlike Brother Lee. Ha ha ha."

The lie seemed to satisfy him.

"Oh—that's right. I hear the Superintendent's mistress made Miss Korea as well?"

Lim Hwa-soo asked it.

"Yes. She earned it squarely, on her own merits. The president of the Hankook Ilbo was very taken with her."

"Come now. I doubt that..."

Lim's smile turned sly, his eyes narrowing to slits as they raked Kijo.

"It's true. You saw her on television yourself. The walk was confident, the poses polished. She was every bit worthy of Miss Hankook Ilbo."

"Well, Mi-hyang did carry herself well enough. Ha ha ha."

Food and drink warmed the hour, and when the ease had settled in, Kijo slipped a request across the table.

"One of my employees is serving as a National Neighborhood Unit leader. He's been ill of late, and he says he can't keep up the work."

"Who is he?"

Jeong-jae asked it—the man with friends in the police, and a hand already in the neighborhood units.

"The leader in Gyeongun-dong. Kim Seogwang."

"Gyeongun-dong. Kim Seogwang... All right. I'll have him taken off."

"Thank you, sir."

"For a thing like that? It's nothing difficult. Ha."

Jeong-jae laughed, and Yu Jigwang looked at Kijo.

"Brother Young-joo has agreed to be on brotherly terms with you, so from here on, if there's a favor to ask, let's ask it freely."

Yu had barely opened the door before Jeong-jae slid through it.

"You know the Democratic Party is holding a rally on the state of the nation at Jangchungdan Park on the twenty-fifth of May?"

He knew perfectly well. He pretended he did not.

"I didn't."

"Ah. Well. There they are, the Democratic Party, so diligent about work that does the country no good. We've gone into the Assembly more than once to warn them, and they simply will not hear it."

Kijo's mood soured as Jeong-jae let the political gangster show through.

"We'll be going to Jangchungdan Park to keep an eye on them. To hear what those bastards mean to say..."

Kijo knew exactly what Lee Jeong-jae would do at Jangchungdan Park on May 25, 1957. The Dongdaemun gang was going to commit something hideous, and he could not see why the man was telling him of it.

"Word is Cheongsan has quite a few employees who know how to throw their weight around... They say that while you were fighting Cheil Jedang over the seasoning business, you laid a lot of the other side out."

So that's what this is.

Kijo thought he understood, now, why Jeong-jae had wanted this meal. In the original history Lee Jeong-jae had mobilized seven hundred gangsters and wrecked the political rally at Jangchungdan Park. He seemed to be looking for men to do the wrecking.

Kijo had not the slightest intention of helping with the work of political thugs.

"I think the rumors have been stretched. There was a quarrel with Cheil Jedang's sales staff, and a fight did break out, but it isn't as if Cheongsan's people ground the other side underfoot."

"I also heard one single fighter wiped out Cheil Jedang's supply depot in Seodaemun..."

"No, sir. How could that be? The employees got into a brawl, that's all. Plenty of our own people were hurt."

"Is that so...?"

"Yes. The employee who's quitting as unit leader took a terrible beating that day. It seems to have settled into his bones. He's been sickly ever since."

"Ha. I suppose that's what comes of not being professional fighters, like us."

Jeong-jae searched Kijo's eyes, then grinned.

Kijo kept himself low on the outside. Inside, he scoffed.

Professional fighters. Listen to him. Men who walk around with guns...

Measured by fighting strength, the Dongdaemun gang sat near the bottom in Seoul, and it had fewer genuine fighters in its ranks than any outfit in the city. Lee Jeong-jae, Yu Jigwang, Kim Taeryeon, Lim Hwa-soo—every one of them ran in the lower ranks the moment fists came into it. The weapon they actually favored was the pistol. With the police at their back, they threatened men with guns, blazed away, and called the fear they sowed prestige. Which was why, laying plans for the raid on Jangchungdan Park, they were out recruiting people who could truly fight.

Seeing that Kijo was unlikely to be of much help, Jeong-jae let the matter drop cleanly and turned back to the pleasures of the table.

"Enough of the rest of it. Let's talk about making money. No more duty-free televisions coming in?"

"They'll be in soon. I've made a connection with an American firm that's gone into Japan."

"Oh? What's the company called?"

"Paubel Company. I've gotten friendly with the president."

"Have you? You really are a man who knows his way around Americans. Ha ha ha."

"About three thousand sets this time as well."

"Good. Let's sell them hard again."

Kijo had to get along with Jeong-jae's crowd without the slightest discord, without the least hard feeling. A few years on they would fall to a wretched ruin, but if he meant to weather the rough end of the 1950s—the last days of Syngman Rhee's regime—he would need their help as well. Sooner or later a day would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠come when the Dongdaemun gang had something to offer him.

He was prepared to get along with whoever he had to. He did not doubt the patience would be repaid.