MORNING CALM TALES Glory days of Seoul's black markets

A view of the last remaining black market stall near a supermarket in southeastern Seoul, Dec. 7 / Courtesy of Jeffrey Miller

By Jeffrey Miller

• Published Aug 14, 2025 10:29 AM KST

Only a few days after I arrived in Korea, I stumbled upon something completely unexpected.

My new apartment in Jamsil was just a stone’s throw from a supermarket, a two-story, nondescript building across from Lotte World and the Hanyang Shopping Center. At first glance, it seemed typical of what I’d soon learn were standard Korean housing complexes — usually anchored by a grocery store, a handful of shops selling household items, a small bakery, a dry cleaner, a locksmith, a shoe repair shop, perhaps a pharmacy and even academies for taekwondo, piano or art.

Little did I know that this unassuming supermarket held a secret that would introduce me to a hidden world beneath the surface of everyday Korean life.

At the time, I surmised that this supermarket — likely at its peak in the 1970s — had been a bustling hub before Lotte and Hanyang arrived. Its basement still housed a small grocery store, while the ground floor featured several shops and stalls selling bedding, underwear, stationery and other household essentials.

But that wasn’t what caught my attention.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the unmistakable red of a Pringles can.

“What the hell?” I muttered.

Wandering over to a small stall tucked into a corner on the first floor, I was astonished to find a veritable treasure trove of American-brand goods: Quaker Oats Oatmeal, Dinty Moore stew, Taster’s Choice instant coffee, Heinz Ketchup, Spam, Vienna Sausages, Beanie Weanies, Mennen Skin Bracer, Aqua Net hairspray, Vaseline, Johnnie Walker and Budweiser. It reminded me of Sony Plaza in the May One Department Store in Hamamatsu, Japan — where I’d lived and worked the year before — its aisles similarly stocked with foreign items, mainly from the United States. I assumed this was just the Korean equivalent.

I was wrong.

Only later did I discover that this stall was part of Korea’s thriving black market, courtesy of the U.S. military. While American troops were ready to take the fight north, should Pyongyang decide to attack again, they also fueled a steady flow of contraband goods into the Korean economy.

Here’s how it worked: someone — usually a GI, a dependent or a civilian employee — would purchase goods from the Post Exchange, the commissary or the Class Six store (which sold alcohol). They’d then pass those goods to a middleman, who sold them to vendors at markets like Namdaemun or to smaller shops in neighborhood shopping centers.

Floyd Doney, a former colleague at Yonsei University who had served in Korea during the 1980s — told me that GIs, looking to make a few bucks on the side, would often sell bottles of liquor to the middle-aged Korean women who had set up shop in Itaewon. Those women, in turn, sold the bottles to local bars and clubs. In a strange twist of fate, the same GI might later find himself drinking from the very bottle he’d sold.

But this wasn’t just about a few enterprising soldiers trying to pad their wallets. The scale was much larger. I couldn’t picture GIs going out of their way to hustle cans of Campbell’s Chunky Corn Chowder or Quaker Oats in back alleys. There had to be a network — something organized, efficient and well-connected — running just beneath the surface.

Indeed, many of the black market operations were managed by Korean housewives or others who had regular access to U.S. military bases. One striking example appeared in a 1997 Washington Post article, which profiled a Korean woman married to a U.S. base employee. She reportedly “oversaw a team of 50 runners who would buy beer, meat, cosmetics and other American products on U.S. bases and sell them illegally” throughout Seoul.

This caper instantly reminded me of Martin Limón’s novels about two Army CID agents, who are often sidelined from solving the big mystery by being ordered to go after black marketeers — though even Limón might’ve raised an eyebrow at an underground empire built on Spam, skin cream and Budweiser.

In response to black marketeering in Korea, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) had implemented a rations control program. Service members, dependents and Department of Defense employees were restricted to a monthly quota for duty-free goods such as groceries, liquor and beer. These measures were part of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the U.S. and South Korea, which sought to prevent the unregulated entry of duty-free goods that might disrupt Korea’s growing economy.

And just to make sure GIs and dependents behaved themselves, periodic PSA warnings on the Armed Forces Korea Network (AFKN) TV station reminded everyone of the penalties for black marketeering.

What struck me most, though, was how open it all was. There was no pretense of secrecy. I mean, if it was illegal, why did it seem that no one was paying heed to it? Many items still bore their original Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) price stickers. In a shopping arcade between what had once been Lotte Super and the entrance to Lotte Adventure, an entire section of stalls filled with black market goods operated right under everyone’s nose.

And it wasn’t just homesick expats clamoring for these goods — just as many Koreans were loading up on black market items, from baby formula to six-packs of Sam Adams. On more than one occasion, I saw businessmen snapping up bottles of Johnnie Walker and having them gift-wrapped. It made me wonder just how many deals were quietly brokered thanks to a little friendly help from the black market.

Years later, while living in western Seoul, I frequently visited a black market stall at another major supermarket in search of Folgers Coffee. The husband-and-wife team who ran the place had become familiar faces. Once when I asked about the coffee, the husband told me they were all out but asked me to return the next day. Sure enough, when I returned, my red can of Folgers was waiting for me.

On another visit, when I inquired about a particular item, the husband disappeared for 15 minutes, only to return with exactly what I’d requested. I later learned that there was a “warehouse” across the street — essentially a stockroom filled with imported goods that weren’t supposed to be for sale in the first place. One day, I saw the husband pushing a hand truck stacked with 12-packs of Budweiser.

And it wasn’t just coffee, beer or potato chips. Some black markets offered more surprising items: Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), blocks of government-issued cheese and even the tiny butter tabs you’d typically find in a chow hall.

You never knew quite what you’d uncover when you started digging through black market stalls. Nothing was ever neatly organized — goods seemed stacked and arranged according to some baffling logic that prioritized shape, size and the shop owner’s mood on any given day.

Sometimes, you came looking for a specific item, and other times, you wandered in feeling like a treasure hunter, eager to see what unexpected gems you might unearth beneath towers of Chef Boyardee, Irish Spring soap or bottles of Aqua Velva. Whatever you found, you learned quickly to grab it — hesitate for even a moment, and the next time, it’d be long gone.

Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if these unofficial supply lines played a subtle role in shaping consumer tastes. When I first arrived in Korea, products like Taster’s Choice and Pringles were black-market exclusives. A few years later, they were everywhere — from corner stores to major supermarkets. Perhaps the black market didn’t just satisfy demand — it helped create it.

For those of us “Korean old hats” who recall the heady days of Korea’s economic development, the black market was, for better or worse, one of the small perks of living and working here — even if it meant looking the other way and paying $6 or $7 for a $4 jar of Taster’s Choice. Far be it from me to judge.

That first day, I picked up a couple of cans of Pringles without hesitation. After all, in a city where familiar comforts were scarce, the black market felt less like an illicit operation and more like a lifeline for the homesick expat. Later, back in my apartment, as I savored the pop of that Pringles can, I realized you could rationalize it any way you wanted — but sometimes, a taste of home was well worth looking the other way.

But like everything else, the black market had a shelf life. Its decline began with the arrival of big-box stores like Costco, Homeplus and Carrefour offering imported goods — legally, in bulk and at reasonable prices. Then came online giants such as Coupang, allowing virtually any product — from the U.S. or elsewhere — to be delivered straight to your door with just a few clicks.

As legitimate access to foreign goods expanded, the demand for clandestine channels faded, reducing the once-thriving black market to a faint relic of a bygone era. A handful of black market stalls and hidden shops still linger today, but they're mere ghosts of their former glory days.

What was once smuggled in duffel bags or hidden away in shadowy stalls is now perfectly legal, carefully tracked and algorithmically optimized.

In the end, the black market didn’t truly vanish — it was simply outscaled and outpaced. Those quiet stalls, with their eclectic, anything-goes inventory and faded AAFES price stickers, remain as nostalgic relics of a different Korea — one defined as much by what it couldn’t import as by what it eventually could.

Jeffrey Miller is the author of several novels including "War Remains," a story about the early days of the Korean War, and "No Way Out," a thriller set in Seoul in 1990.