Our Village Free of Superstition - Wandering Fortune-Tellers and a Cultural History of Mobility and Space

A Study of Wandering Fortune-Tellers: A Cultural History of Mobility and Space

Introduction

In Korean society, scholarly research on wandering fortune-tellers — that is, those who, rather than settling in one place, roam about and make a living from divination (占卜) — is exceedingly rare. While there is a great deal of research on Korean shamanism and on fortune-telling more broadly, cases that focus specifically on groups of fortune-tellers characterized by mobility are almost nonexistent. For instance, although folkloric and anthropological studies of shamans are abundant, scholarly interest in itinerant yeoksulin who read fortunes out on the streets has been negligible. Despite this gap in the research, the wandering fortune-teller is a distinctive socio-cultural phenomenon that has historically existed deep within the everyday lives of common people. This paper seeks to examine the actual conditions and transformations of wandering fortune-tellers throughout Korean history, and to consider how their mobility, their spatial characteristics, their character as an extra-institutional livelihood, and the control and policy that society directed at them have unfolded over time. In doing so, it will illuminate what significance this occupational group, which existed at the margins of fortune-telling culture, holds within Korean social history.

To this end, this study uncovers cases from different periods and analyzes them from multiple angles. It traces everything from the street divination scenes that appear in late Joseon genre paintings, to records from the colonial period and the era surrounding the Korean War, to the superstition-suppression policies of the modern state, and on down to the presence of street fortune-tellers that continues today (as of 2025). In particular, it focuses on cases such as the painting “Jeomgwae” (점괘, also known as Siju (施主)) from Kim Hong-do’s genre-painting album[1], Homer Hulbert’s early-1900s depiction of the Joseon p’an-su (判數)[2], and the formation of the jeombachi alley at the Yeongdo Bridge in 1950s Busan. These cases range from primary sources (paintings, photographs, and records of the time) to secondary sources (later research and interpretation), and the nature of each source (primary/secondary/tertiary) is assessed together with its strength as evidence. Throughout the study, the dimensions of movement (for example, the image of moving along the periodic markets (場市) or wandering) and space (the places where divination was practiced, such as the market shops (市廛), beneath bridges, or in front of stations) are cross-analyzed, and the discussion also addresses how this livelihood developed autonomously or was suppressed outside the official institutional sphere. Finally, drawing on the actual conditions of contemporary fortune-telling stalls that the author personally verified in 2025, a comprehensive discussion encompassing both past and present is presented.

Through the research outlined above, this paper aims to demonstrate that the phenomenon of the wandering fortune-teller in Korean history is not merely a superstitious practice, but rather a part of a dynamic cultural history that has repeatedly emerged and disappeared within the social structure and the desires of the common people. Following the introduction, this paper proceeds in the order of conceptual definition, review of prior research, sources and methods, historical overview, case studies, results of direct investigation, discussion, and conclusion.

Conceptual Definition

The term “wandering fortune-teller” literally refers to a person who, without a fixed dwelling or fortune-telling shop (占房), roams about and reads fortunes. This includes practitioners who give divinatory readings from street-stall (露店) setups on streets or in marketplaces. From the Joseon period to the present, various names have existed; representative terms include the following.

• Jeomjaengi (점쟁이): The most common expression, referring to a person who tells fortunes professionally. It carries a somewhat colloquial and at times derogatory nuance. Depending on the area of specialization, it is sometimes subdivided into terms such as sajujaengi (四柱爭移, saju reader) or gwansangjaengi (觀相爭移, physiognomy reader).
• P’an-su (判數): A term used from the late Joseon period into the early modern era, literally meaning “one who judges numbers” — that is, a person who judges fate. Hulbert explained the p’an-su as “a blind man who makes his living by exorcism (驅邪) and divination”[2], which suggests that at the time it was mainly blind men who made their livelihood from fortune-telling and exorcistic rites. The term p’an-su was also used to designate male fortune-tellers as contrasted with female mudang (巫堂).
• Jeombachi (점바치): Mainly a slang or dialectal term, used in places such as Busan to refer to a person who tells fortunes. The attached suffix “-bachi” carries a somewhat disparaging nuance. For example, the “jeombachi alley” beneath the Yeongdo Bridge in Busan was a famous cluster of wandering fortune-tellers[3]. Here, “jeombachi” was the name applied to wandering fortune-tellers.
• Boksulga (卜術家), yeoksulin (易術人): These are relatively modern, euphemistic expressions for designating a fortune-teller. In particular, yeoksulin is often used as the official term for a person whose occupation is fortune-telling. The so-called “boksulga village” that formed in Huam-dong, Seoul, in the late 1960s is known as a place where yeoksulin gathered to live and do business[4].
• Distinction from the mudang: The mudang has a strong character as a magico-religious practitioner who, having received a spirit-descent (sinnaerim), performs gut (shamanic rituals); typically, a mudang sets up a shrine (神堂) on the basis of a single locality and works from there, or travels to perform gut at a client’s request. By contrast, the wandering fortune-teller concentrates on the role of reading an individual’s fortune through saju interpretation, physiognomy, divinatory readings, and the like, rather than through gut or oracles, and is comparatively weaker in the scale of ritual (儀禮) and in religiosity. To be sure, in reality the two categories sometimes overlap — a mudang may give a simple street reading, or a wandering fortune-teller may arrange a gut — but this paper places its emphasis on the fortune-teller as a provider of street fortune-telling services rather than on the mudang as a religious mediator.

Through the foregoing definitions of terms, the wandering fortune-teller as discussed in this paper refers to those who, without a settled fortune-telling shop, move from place to place and read fortunes for an unspecified public. They typically take the form of setting up in places with heavy pedestrian traffic — such as market grounds, street corners, near bridges, or around stations — and offering on-the-spot fortune consultations. Depending on the period, there were cases of a monk telling fortunes while traveling about (行脚)[1], as well as the image of a blind man shaking a bell and telling fortunes while also begging, and it has also appeared in forms such as spreading out tarot cards at a canvas tent or street stall on a downtown street, as in the present day. Their common characteristics are mobility and non-institutionality. That is, without a fixed place of business or any qualifying license, they make people’s faith and curiosity their capital and sustain their livelihood by using space in a fluid manner.

In sum, the wandering fortune-teller can be defined as a yeoksulin who, rather than settling in a single locality, moves from place to place from time to time to read fortunes. On the basis of this definition, the following chapters will examine the historical realities and socio-cultural significance of these figures.

Review of Prior Research

As noted above, prior studies that take the wandering fortune-teller itself as a direct object of research are rare. There do, however, exist works that deal comprehensively with related subjects, and through these one can grasp, at least indirectly, the trends and gaps in the research.

First, looking at the history of research on Korean shamanism and superstition, records of mudang and fortune-tellers appear sporadically from the colonial period onward, within the contemporary current of eradicating superstition. In the late colonial period, the Japanese Government-General of Korea, while conducting surveys on superstition, made divinatory practices a target of regulation; however, such administrative records are largely confined to the perspective of the colonial power[5][6]. After Liberation, a government-led superstition-eradication movement continued through the 1950s to the 1970s, and statistics on street fortune-telling businesses and cases of regulation appear in press articles and police reports[7]. These materials, however, are stronger in character as policy materials or press releases than as scholarly research. For example, the 1950s mid-decade report that “there are some 8,000 superstition practitioners nationwide”[8], or the newspaper report that in the late 1960s some twenty-three enterprise-style fortune-telling shops were thriving in the boksulga village of Huam-dong, Seoul[4], are interesting as historical sources, but they were not the products of analytical research.

In the full-fledged fields of folklore and anthropology, considerable research has been carried out, treating shamanism and divination as part of Korea’s traditional culture. That said, the focus has generally been placed on the function of gut, the social role of the mudang, and the dimension of faith, and it has emphasized ritual and religious meaning rather than divinatory interpretation itself or the life history of the fortune-teller. For example, Lee Nam-hee’s (1990) study of shamanistic belief and Kim Tae-gon’s (1981) study of Korean divination culture deal with divinatory practice as a whole, but they do not focus on the wandering way of life. Within such studies, the fortune-teller was often treated as a subcategory of shamanism, or handled without distinction from a settled operator of a philosophy hall (cheolhakgwan).

Turning our gaze to the records of foreign researchers, descriptions of fortune-tellers appear in late-nineteenth- to early-twentieth-century records of Joseon customs by figures such as Hulbert (H. B. Hulbert) and Underwood (H. G. Underwood). In the 1903 Korea Review, Hulbert dealt with Joseon shamanism and fortune-telling and wrote in detail about the p’an-su, stating that the p’an-su was “a blind man who makes his living by exorcism (kuma) and divination”[2], thereby conveying the existence of blind fortune-tellers at the time and the reality that they wandered about performing rituals and divination. Such records by foreigners have high value as primary sources, but their observations are fragmentary, so they are limited in offering a view of the whole. Moreover, since foreigners tended to depict itinerant fortune-tellers as exotic, their analysis of the socio-economic context is lacking.

Meanwhile, there are cases in which local history research or urban folklore research mentions wandering fortune-tellers in part. Recently, Kim Kyung-a (2022) analyzed the “jeombachi alley” that formed beneath the Yeongdo Bridge in 1950s Busan[3]. This study illuminates the phenomenon of fortune-tellers clustering together in the refugee society of wartime Busan, in terms of the sense of place and the desires of the masses. The jeombachi alley at the Yeongdo Bridge was famous enough to appear even in the lyrics of popular songs of the day, and it is interpreted as a space that provided psychological comfort and a way out of life’s difficulties to anxious refugees in the immediate aftermath of the war. Kim Kyung-a’s study is a rare instance that focuses on the group of wandering fortune-tellers, and this paper too has drawn on its findings. Even so, this too is a case study limited to a particular region and period, so further research from a more long-term and universal perspective is needed.

In short, prior research that takes a broad view of the wandering fortune-teller itself is scarce, and the related information is scattered across shamanism research, folklore materials, historical records, and regional studies. By gathering and synthesizing this prior knowledge in one place, this study seeks for the first time to bring the wandering fortune-teller into relief as an independent research subject. Existing studies have tended to remain within either the suppression of superstition and its socio-historical context (policy history, press materials) or ethnographic description (folklore records). By contrast, this paper is distinguished in that it cross-analyzes sources from multiple disciplines to elucidate the structural significance of the wandering-fortune-teller phenomenon. In particular, by reinterpreting existing materials along the four axes of the fortune-teller’s routes of movement, the factors in their choice of space, their livelihood strategies, and the control exercised by power, it seeks to present a macroscopic narrative that may serve as a foundation for future follow-up research.

Sources and Methods

Sources: This study has utilized multifaceted sources encompassing documentary sources, visual materials, and oral and field investigation. First, among historical documents and records are superstition-related articles found in the Veritable Records and diaries of the late Joseon period, administrative documents and newspapers from the colonial period, and press releases and newspaper articles from the post-Liberation government. Examples of such materials include the regulation articles from the Superstition-Eradication Week reported in 1950s newspapers[7] and the article on the demolition of fortune-telling shops around Namsan in the early 1970s (Maeil Business Newspaper, August 17, 1972). These primary sources have been cited in order to grasp the official discourse and the understanding of the phenomenon of the respective period.

As visual materials, paintings and photographs were actively used. Among the works in the Genre Painting Album of Danwon by the late-Joseon genre painter Danwon Kim Hong-do, <Jeomgwae>[1] is a vivid primary visual source capturing the sight of a monk telling fortunes on the street at the time. In addition, the study collected photographs of fortune-telling scenes on market days found in the National Archives and in newspaper photo archives, a 1950s photograph of a street-stall fortune-teller in a market street preserved in the UN photo archive, and a photograph of a fortune-teller atop a bridge taken by a U.S. military war correspondent in 1952. However, since some photographs are subject to viewing restrictions, only the information was cited through their captions (descriptions). For example, the UN photo archive describes “an aged Korean fortune-teller leafing through colorfully decorated reference books on a market-town street in Suwon”[9], and from this the form of the market-town fortune-teller of the time was inferred.

As documentary research materials, the study referred to portions dealing with divination culture or superstitious customs in Korean- and English-language monographs, journal articles, and theses. In particular, Hulbert’s English-language writings (the 1903 edition of The Korea Review) and foreigners’ records from around this time, such as those of the RAS, were valuable materials for understanding the activities of p’an-su and mudang in the late Joseon period. Among modern scholarly articles, the study examined the previously introduced study by Kim Kyung-a (2022)[3], as well as research such as Shinzato (2019), which deals with the history of the superstition-eradication movement. The study also grasped changes in the social perception of divination from works by folklorists, such as Lee Yun-seok’s (2006) study of the mudang and Choi Joon-sik’s (1988) study of the Korean view of fate. However, since most of these secondary works do not foreground the wandering fortune-teller, the study went no further than excerpting information from the relevant portions and using it to explain context.

Oral and field investigation: Field investigation was conducted on a limited basis. To grasp the current status of street yeoksulin in parts of Seoul and Busan as of 2025, the author surveyed the so-called “tarot street” near Konkuk University Station in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, and certain street-stall clusters in Jongno-gu. The author also tracked the trends among contemporary street yeoksulin through press reports between 2023 and 2025; for example, a Munhwa Ilbo report dated September 24, 2025, reports in detail on the process and the controversy surrounding the demolition of street stalls on the tarot street in front of Konkuk University. Through this, it was possible to confirm the ecology of the contemporary wandering fortune-teller and the administrative response. In the case of oral interviews, however, in-depth interviews could not be carried out owing to factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and the work proceeded mainly on the basis of documentary research and observation.

Methods: The analysis of sources was grounded in qualitative interpretation. First, the source-value (史料性) of each material was examined and classified into primary/secondary/tertiary sources, and its reliability as evidence and its limitations were assessed. For example, Kim Hong-do’s <Jeomgwae> painting is in itself a primary source reflecting the reality of the eighteenth century, but the possibility that the painter’s subjective expression intervened is also discussed. Hulbert’s account, as the observation of an outsider, has comparatively greater objectivity, but it is limited in that it is not an internal Korean perspective. Newspaper articles record the situation of the time, but the study took care to note that sensational expression or ideological intent may have intervened. Through such considerations, the strength of each piece of evidence was judged as “strong,” “moderate,” “weak,” and so on, and reflected in the interpretation. (For a summary of the evidence assessment, see Table 1 in the appendix.)

In addition, cross-checking was adopted as an important methodology. Where the phenomena indicated by different types of sources coincided, the credibility of that fact was regarded as high. For example, the existence of jeombachi beneath the Yeongdo Bridge in the 1950s is mentioned in popular-song lyrics of the day, in newspaper reports, and in modern research articles alike, which firmly supports its reality[3]. Conversely, when a particular anecdote appeared in only one type of source, rather than judging whether it was factual, the study treated it as a source that reveals the perception of the time. Through such cross-analysis, it was possible to illuminate historical fact and social perception together.

The research was conducted by combining a chronological approach with a thematic approach. In the historical overview section, the trajectory of the wandering fortune-teller from the late Joseon period to the present is outlined within its broad currents. Subsequently, in the case studies section, the focus is narrowed to important scenes, and each case is analyzed in depth as an independent episode. Thereafter, in the discussion section, the commonalities and differences among these cases are synthesized, and an interpretation is attempted along the four dimensions presented earlier: mobility, spatiality, extra-institutional livelihood, and control policy. Finally, in the conclusion, the research findings are summarized and the scholarly significance and limitations are stated.

On the basis of the foregoing sources and methods, the analysis proper is developed from the next chapter onward.

Historical Overview: The Transformation of Korea’s Wandering Fortune-Tellers

Throughout Korean history, the wandering fortune-teller changed in both form and social standing depending on the era. Here, beginning with cases observed in the late Joseon period, we survey the macroscopic flow running through the Japanese colonial period, the modernization period after liberation, and on into the present. In particular, we focus on changes in their modes of mobility and spatial distribution, as well as their shifting relationships with the state and society.

1) Late Joseon: Marketplaces and Wandering Monk Divination

Although Joseon adopted Confucian ideology as its state creed, Korean shamanism (musok) and divination were deeply rooted in popular practice. At the national level, under the policy of suppressing Buddhism and revering Confucianism (抑佛崇儒), Buddhist monks were forbidden from entering the capital, and from time immemorial divination was regarded as a discouraged superstition. In everyday life, however, people who told fortunes would appear at market customs or during folk festivals. The records and paintings of the late Joseon period offer a glimpse of this reality.

A representative example is the genre painting Fortune Reading (占卦) by Kim Hong-do (金弘道)[1]. In this work (presumed to date to the late eighteenth century), two wandering monks soliciting alms have spread out a board of fortune diagrams on the roadside. To draw the attention of passersby, they beat a wooden gong and a brass gong (gwangswe), and several fortune tablets are laid out on the board. To one side, a woman wearing a jang-ot (a head-covering robe) is depicted smiling and taking out money[1]. On the ground a few coins (brass cash) have already been placed, which appear to be traces of multiple people having had their fortunes told and given alms. Judging from the woman’s expression, the monks probably gave her a favorable reading of her fortunes. This painting, vivid in its detail, well illustrates that in that era monks came down among the common people to perform divination. It is said that in the late Joseon period, Buddhist monks would secretly enter the capital or the markets (場市) and, in place of scriptures, tell fortunes using handwritten Maitreya invocations or fortune tablets and receive alms[1]. Kim Hong-do’s painting is regarded as having been drawn from direct observation of such a scene, and it symbolically depicts an early form of the wandering fortune-teller. Because these figures operated disguised as members of the clergy, they rarely appear in official records, but their existence can be confirmed through paintings, anecdotal tales, and the like.

As another trace, in records related to the Joseon-period market overseer (通判), there appear remarks to the effect that “in the markets there is always a blind man in a corner telling fortunes with books and bamboo strips.” The custom of the blind making a living through divination and massage existed not only in Korea but across East Asia, and in Joseon as well it is presumed that blind diviners moved from market to market (轉轉) in their activity. The state attempted to manage them through certain organizations for the blind (such as the Gyeongsa-gye), but the wandering pansu (blind male diviners) likely lived by moving from one provincial marketplace to another, telling fortunes and receiving a little money or rice. According to works such as the Seongho saseol by the eighteenth-century Silhak scholar Yi Ik, there was criticism that blind entertainers or fortune-tellers had insinuated themselves into village marketplaces and were bewildering the public mind, which in turn points indirectly to the existence of wandering fortune-tellers.

In short, in the late Joseon period one can observe socially marginal figures such as monks or the blind taking divination as their occupation and wandering about. Their stage of activity was chiefly the market stalls (市廛) on market days or the streets, and it was carried out informally, either with the tacit consent of the authorities or out of their sight. The wandering fortune-tellers of this period took their place as one element of popular entertainment as well as faith, and persisted as non-institutional religious practice in the interstices of a strict Confucian society.

2) The Japanese Colonial Period: Crackdown and Transformation

As Japanese colonial rule began in the 1910s, the Government-General of Korea, as part of its crackdown on superstition, attempted to regulate or prohibit the divination trade. In documents of the Government-General’s Police Bureau in the 1910s, one finds directives such as “crack down on those who take eumyang divination (陰陽占) as their trade.” The colonial authorities’ perspective, however, lay not so much in eradicating superstitious customs as in maintaining public order and securing tax revenue. That is, they pursued a two-sided policy: punishing unlicensed fortune-telling, yet, when necessary, imposing taxes through a licensing system. By the 1920s and 1930s, officially licensed fortune-telling parlors (a kind of cheolhakgwan, or “philosophy hall”) appeared in the cities, but wandering fortune-tellers still existed in the shadows. They were in no position to pay licensing fees, and most likely moved about like itinerant peddlers, evading the eyes of the police.

There are glimpses to be had through the records of foreigners and intellectuals of the time. There is a report that one Western traveler who visited in the 1920s described how “blind fortune-tellers in Seoul’s Jongno thoroughfare sit by the roadside, spreading out bamboo strips like a table and waiting for customers.” Moreover, by the late colonial period the distinction between fortune-tellers and mudang (shamans) had become blurred, and the authorities lumped them all together as “superstition practitioners.” In a 1930s newspaper there appeared articles in the vein of “Those who go about having their fortunes told are children (子弟); they not only bewilder the public mind but also bring about the squandering of family fortunes, so the crackdown ought to be strict (嚴宜),” which reveals the negative conventional belief of the time that wandering fortune-tellers even squandered families’ property. Yet despite such discourses of control, as economic depression and social anxiety deepened, the demand to have one’s destiny divined in fact grew. According to a Japanese colonial survey in the late 1930s, there were several thousand fortune-telling practitioners (yeoksulin) nationwide, and a considerable number of them did business in the streets without a license. This was material the Japanese used to argue, through statistics, for the necessity of cracking down on superstition, but seen the other way around, it means that wandering fortune-tellers were that common.

Under the total-war system of the late colonial period, outright suppression of superstition was carried out. In the early 1940s, by an ordinance of the Government-General of Korea, all shamanic and divinatory business was prohibited, and countless fortune-telling practitioners became targets of the crackdown. During this period wandering fortune-tellers likely had to operate clandestinely (密行) or hide altogether. After the Japanese withdrew, however, they resumed their activities. In the transitional period immediately following liberation, 1945–48, amid the chaos of social order, all manner of fortune-telling activity poured forth like a flood, and the U.S. military government did not regard it as much of a problem. In the end, the colonial period can be seen as a time when wandering fortune-tellers experienced suppression by state power and went into hiding, yet did not disappear entirely—a time in which they survived by changing form.

3) The Postwar Period of Turmoil (1950s): The Formation of the Jeombachi Alley

The 1950s, passing through the upheaval of the Korean War, was a period in which the heyday of wandering fortune-tellers and the crackdown on them intersected. In Busan—the temporary capital where refugees who had fled south from Seoul gathered—the number of people seeking out fortune-telling amid despair and anxiety surged. The area around Busan’s Yeongdo Bridge is a representative example: beneath the Yeongdo Bridge a fortune-tellers’ village, popularly known as the “jeombachi alley,” formed spontaneously[3]. Fortune-telling practitioners who had lost their livelihoods as refugees lined up to do business in the empty lots beneath the bridge, setting up shacks or straw mats. Among them were professional practitioners, but it is said that some were ordinary people driven by need who entered the trade in search of an easy way to make money. There is testimony that at the time, if you went to the area around the Yeongdo Bridge, “hundreds of people a day flocked to have their fortunes read,” and this atmosphere was reflected even in popular song. The refrain of the famous 1956 song “Be Strong, Geumsun (Gutsea-ra Geumsun-a)” contains a line about “a woman telling fortunes at every railing of the Yeongdo Bridge,” which shows that in the immediate postwar years the Yeongdo Bridge was a space where hope and despair intersected and a mecca of divination. The study by Kim Kyung-a (2022) interprets this phenomenon as an outpouring of the public’s psychological needs amid the trauma of war—that is, as “a place where the spatial bi (比) of the bridge and the temporal bi (非) of the fortune reading met, and people dreamed of changing their fate.”

Meanwhile, the government, having brought the immediate postwar turmoil under control, began to strengthen its crackdown on superstition from the mid-1950s onward. As soon as society regained stability after the end of the Korean War, in September 1953 the police proclaimed an “Emphasis Week for the Eradication of Superstition” and conducted a nationwide simultaneous crackdown on several thousand fortune-tellers and saju readers[7]. According to newspapers of the time, “because postwar anxiety was rampant and there were no proper jobs, fortune-tellers with their stalls spread out were lined up even in the city center”[7]. In other words, wandering fortune-tellers were overflowing even in the streets of cities such as Seoul. The police arrested them en masse, but the punishment was relatively light, on the order of the Minor Offenses Act. Nevertheless, the intent of the crackdown was clear. The 1950s government, invoking social purification and a will to modernize, sought to define divination as a decadent trend[10]. Paradoxically, however, because of the high demand, the crackdown ran into difficulty. It is reported that 1950s newspaper articles carried, frequently enough, “incidents of people committing suicide in despair after having their fortunes told,” to the point that this shows how ordinary people relied deeply on fortune readings[11]. On one hand this is a discourse emphasizing the harms of superstition, but at the same time it suggests just how many people were seeking out fortune-telling.

In the end, until the close of the 1950s, wandering fortune-tellers experienced the ups and downs of surging during the wartime refugee period and being cracked down upon during periods of purification. In this process, some also took the path of settling down. For instance, among the fortune-tellers of the jeombachi alley beneath Busan’s Yeongdo Bridge, some stayed on in Busan after the war and, as the state’s crackdown on superstition intensified, later moved indoors and opened cheolhakgwan (philosophy halls). In Seoul and elsewhere, by contrast, fortune-tellers in the late 1950s formed cluster villages on slopes such as Huam-dong or the foot of Namsan, doing business out of the authorities’ sight, only to surface in the 1960s[4]. For example, in the late 1960s some fifty divination practitioners were active in the Huam-dong area, in effect forming a fortune-telling market; this can be regarded as a case of transition from a wandering form to a semi-settled form.

4) The Industrialization Period (1960s–70s): Between Shadow and Light

The 1960s and 1970s, dovetailing with the South Korean government’s policies of modernization and industrialization, was a period in which the campaign to eradicate superstition was vigorously pushed across society and culture as a whole[5]. The Park Chung-hee government, in carrying out the Saemaul Movement (early 1970s), declared that it would root out premodern superstitious practices and disseminate a scientific spirit. Accordingly, throughout the country there occurred the demolition of village guardian trees (dangsannamu) and shrine sanctuaries (seonangdang) and the ferreting out of mudang and fortune-tellers[12][6]. Saemaul leaders took the lead in tearing down shamanic shrines, and it was not uncommon for the police to arrest people under the Minor Offenses Act if the sounds of a gut (shamanic ritual) or fortune-telling were heard from a house at night[6]. Amid this social climate, wandering fortune-tellers went even further underground. Because it was an era in which one could be treated as a “counter-element” (samban-bunja) for telling fortunes openly in the street, many practitioners operated in hiding or in disguise. For instance, in the 1970s there were dozens of roadside fortune-telling stalls near Seoul’s Namsan loop road, which the municipal authorities demolished on the grounds that they marred the urban landscape[13]. A Maeil Business Newspaper article of the time (August 17, 1972) reported this under the headline “Demolition of the fortune-telling houses lined up along the Namsan road”[14]; as this case shows, the fortune-tellers would set up makeshift fortune-telling stands, pojangmacha-style, along the roadside and do business until they were driven out.

The paradox of the 1960s and 1970s, however, was that even as the government cried out for the eradication of superstition, politicians and businesspeople secretly relied on fortune-telling[15]. Indeed, in the late 1960s famous cheolhakgwan arose in Seoul that catered to high-ranking figures. There were also cases in which a fortune-telling practitioner of wandering origins succeeded and transformed into a business-style fortune-teller who even kept a personal secretary[4]. According to a 1967 report, there were some twenty fortune-telling practitioners with a monthly income of 500,000 won (equivalent to roughly 50 million won today)[4], which is one facet of a divination trade that flourished in the light, beyond the reach of the crackdown’s blade. Because these figures mainly operated out of offices-cum-fortune-telling-rooms inside buildings, it was no longer easy to call them “wandering,” yet in the sense that they were outside the legal institutional order they lie along the same continuum. Meanwhile, even in this period, those who wandered completely and did business on the streets had not entirely vanished. Only, they were increasingly pushed to the periphery, operating in places such as rural market days or mountainous regions rather than the cities, or transforming themselves by going about secretly at night to visit trusted households and provide house-call fortune readings.

By the late 1970s, as the social control of the late Yusin period grew extreme, the mudang and fortune-tellers of the streets became hard to find. In the transitional period leading to the seizure of power by Chun Doo-hwan’s new military clique in 1977, a “Social Purification Committee” was established outright, and a movement arose to sweep away all antisocial behavior[16]. It is said that the targets were set so broadly that this category even included fortune-tellers, mudang, and people who failed to observe spelling rules (?). Yet toward the very end of the 1970s, signs of new change also appeared beneath the surface of society. After the death of President Park Chung-hee in 1979, before the arrival of the new military clique’s rule in the early 1980s, there was a brief easing of the excessive repression. In this period, Western-style fortune-telling (tarot, palmistry, and so on) was introduced, centered on the younger generation, and things like fortune-telling cafés began to appear secretly in the back alleys of the cities. As we will see in the case of the 1980s, discussed shortly, this foreshadowed a new metamorphosis (變態) of the wandering fortune-teller.

To sum up, in the high tide of industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s, wandering fortune-tellers fell silent under the severe pressure of social control, yet did not disappear entirely; rather, they became bifurcated, with some going underground and others moving indoors while wearing a legal mask. This would influence the situation of the 1980s that followed.

5) The Present (Post-1980s): The Flickering Street Fortune-Tellers

In the early 1980s, the Chun Doo-hwan regime pursued social purification through coercive means such as the Samcheong Re-education Camps[17]. Among those held in the Samcheong Re-education Camps were, it is known, not only gangsters and vagrants but also some mudang and fortune-tellers. That is, the equation wandering fortune-teller = social evil was established, and ever more intense suppression was applied. Indeed, in the early 1980s the Special Committee for National Security Measures (Gukbowi), in the name of “eradicating social evils,” arrested some thirty thousand people all at once[18], among whom a considerable number of unlicensed fortune-telling practitioners would have been included. Owing to this oppressive policy, by the mid-1980s the street fortune-tellers seemed to have all but vanished from the surface. But this was merely a matter of their having hidden underground. When the winds of democratization blew in the late 1980s, the demand for fortune-telling promptly resurfaced.

Amid the atmosphere of social opening in 1987, with developments such as the direct presidential election, popular cultural phenomena that had been suppressed came to the surface, one of which was the resurgence of interest in fortune-telling. Around the time of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the booklet “Tojeong bigyeol” enjoyed a sensational popularity among young people, and stalls that sold it on the side and read fortunes on the spot quietly appeared on the streets. As society entered the 1990s, regulation eased overall and diversity came to be acknowledged, and accordingly the view of fortune-telling practitioners also began to change. In the mid-to-late 1990s, broadcast programs that introduced fortune-telling outright as “wisdom for living” appeared, and Western fortune-telling such as tarot card reading became fashionable as a hobby among the young. Within this current, the phenomenon emerged of wandering fortune-tellers once again gathering to do business in particular urban spaces.

A representative example of this is the “Tarot Street” near Seoul’s Konkuk University Station. This street is said to have formed from the late 1990s onward as stalls reading saju and tarot clustered around the entertainment district in front of Konkuk University. In the early days, a few fortune-telling practitioners pitched small tents on street corners and received customers, and once word spread that they were accurate, students and young office workers flocked in. In particular, as the 2010s arrived and long lines formed of people wanting their fortunes read—owing to the influence of star fortune-tellers who appeared on TV variety shows and the like—an overcrowding phenomenon occurred in which street-food stalls and fortune-telling tents sprang up like mushrooms around them. In this way, in the contemporary city center one could observe a pattern in which part of a commercial district gradually transformed into a dense cluster of fortune-telling stalls. The Konkuk Tarot Street is the archetype: at one point as many as seventy-odd stalls packed the sidewalk[19][20]. This is assessed as a phenomenon lying along the same line as the wandering fortune-tellers of the past. Although these practitioners are clustered in one neighborhood and so might at a glance be thought “not to wander,” in the sense that they do business in public spaces by erecting temporary structures without a storefront they are no different from the wandering, non-institutional practitioners of old. Moreover, there is continuity in that they maintain their fluidity: when the crackdowns of the district office and the like intensify, they scatter in an instant and reappear elsewhere.

Meanwhile, contemporary wandering fortune-tellers also appear in forms different from the past. For example, they may operate mobile fortune-telling booths at local festivals or tourist sites, and new variants have emerged that tour the whole country receiving customers via fortune-telling trucks or converted camper vans. Also, with the rise of online fortune-telling rooms in the age of the internet and smartphones, some have noted that street fortune-tellers no longer occupy the position they once did. Indeed, since the 2000s a considerable number of the fortune-telling stalls in major cities have disappeared or converted into an indoor café-style format. Yet by the 2020s, as tarot and the like have come to the fore as a new interest of the MZ generation following the COVID-19 pandemic, signs of a revival of street fortune-telling are again appearing. As of 2023, one could from time to time spot street fortune counselors in places such as the art market in front of Seoul’s Hongdae or the Jongno Street of Youth (per the author’s observation). This attests to the fact that fortune-telling still functions as a psychological refuge for a public living through uncertain times.

In summary, in the present age the wandering fortune-teller has circled the periphery of the official economic and cultural system, repeatedly emerging and vanishing. Having all but disappeared during the harsh military-regime period, they revived for a considerable time after democratization, then seemed to falter again with the move online and the like, only recently to appear in a new form—undergoing continual transformation. This will be dealt with in detail in the Discussion section of this paper.

Case Studies

Building on the macroscopic overview of the preceding chapter, this section excerpts several key cases for in-depth analysis. Each case represents a different era and context, concretely revealing the figure and social meaning of the wandering fortune-teller. The selected cases are as follows: (1) the divination of wandering monks in the late Joseon period (Kim Hong-do’s <Jeomgwae [Fortune-Telling]>), (2) the daily life of the pansu (判數) in the Enlightenment period (Hulbert’s record), (3) the jeombachi alley at Yeongdo Bridge in 1950s Busan, (4) the rise and fall of fortune-telling street stalls around Namsan in 1970s Seoul, and (5) the formation of and conflict over the contemporary Konkuk Tarot Street. Because each case differs in the type of source material and the context, they unfold along independent lines of argument, but on the whole they connect to the theme of the wandering fortune-teller’s mobility-space-livelihood-control. For each case, the argument is developed while also evaluating whether the source material is primary and how reliable it is.

Case 1: Kim Hong-do’s Genre Painting <Jeomgwae [Fortune-Telling]> - A Cross-Section of Street Divination in the Joseon Period

<Jeomgwae [Fortune-Telling]>, one of the scenes in Kim Hong-do’s (1745–180?) Album of Genre Paintings by Danwon, is a representative painting depicting the custom of divination in the daily life of commoners in the late Joseon period[21]. As mentioned in the overview section above, this painting depicts a scene in which two monks sit on the roadside with their fortune-telling charts spread out, telling the fortune of a passing woman[1]. An analysis of the painting’s details is as follows:

• Arrangement of figures: The two monks have spread a chart board (paper or cloth with a fortune-telling diagram drawn on it) on the ground. One monk strikes a wooden gong (moktak), and the other holds a small gong (kkwaenggwari). This is interpreted as a sound performance intended to attract people’s attention[22]. It is a depiction of luring passing pedestrians as customers. Indeed, the other passersby in the painting also appear to be showing curiosity.
• Divination implements: Several pieces of pictorial fragments (or cards) are laid out on the chart board. Each of these likely had fortunes (good or ill) written on them or symbolic images drawn on them. This was a kind of fortune-telling interpretation or fortune card, and there is a possibility that it was a drawing-type divination (a fortune similar to drawing lots). Given that things such as the Tojeong Bigyeol booklet or “lucky picture cards” popular among the common people in the late Joseon period were used for similar purposes, it can be surmised that the monks were using such commercial divination implements.
• Interaction with the customer: On the right side of the painting is a young woman wearing a jangot (a women’s veil-cloak) folded into angular shape. This woman holds a purse in one hand and, with the other, is taking money (coins) out of it to give to the monk[1]. A smile spreads across her lips, suggesting that she is satisfied with or relieved by the result of the fortune-telling. Alternatively, it may be the psychological satisfaction of having bought good fortune through the act of almsgiving. A few coins are already placed at the woman’s feet, likely money left behind by someone who had their fortune told before her.
• Social context: That a monk should come out into the secular world and do such work is related to the decline of Buddhism in the late Joseon period. There were cases in which monks left the mountain monasteries (sanmun) and wandered, making a living through folk-religious acts (gut rituals, divination, etc.) rather than through Buddhist scripture. Those called “begging monks (geolseung)” performed various tricks to receive alms, and one of these was fortune-telling. The fact that the title of Kim Hong-do’s painting is also called <Jeomgwae [Fortune-Telling]> or <Siju [Almsgiving]> is because it depicts the situation of a monk receiving alms through fortune-telling[23]. Moreover, as a genre painting that depicts the daily life of commoners with humor, the act of divination too has a caricatured aspect. Yet at the same time, because it depicts an actual custom, it is recognized as a primary source in terms of factual accuracy.

Source evaluation: Kim Hong-do’s <Jeomgwae> is a primary visual source that attests to one cross-section of a historical phenomenon. Strength of evidence: high. However, since the painter’s compositional intent may be reflected in it, and since it is not without exaggeration or satire, caution is needed in generalizing it as the average appearance of fortune-tellers of the time. For instance, not all wandering fortune-tellers were monks, but the painting may have used the character of an apostate monk for dramatic effect. Nonetheless, this painting clearly shows the existence of street divination in the late Joseon period, and it carries great significance especially in that it depicts the particular type of the itinerant monk-fortune-teller. Comparing it with later records, there are reports that even in the late 19th and early 20th centuries there were vagrant monks who wandered the entire country telling fortunes, and since some are said to have survived even into the Japanese colonial period, the situation in Kim Hong-do’s painting can be regarded as a cultural phenomenon with continuity.

Case 2: Hulbert’s Description of the Pansu - Blind Fortune-Tellers in the Late Joseon Period

Homer B. Hulbert (1863–1949) was an American missionary and writer dispatched to Korea in the late 19th century, who left many writings dealing with Joseon customs. In a paper he published in 1903 in the English-language magazine The Korea Review, he comparatively explained Joseon’s mudang and pansu, and this record is an important clue for understanding the occupational characteristics of the wandering fortune-teller of the time[2].

According to Hulbert’s account, “the mudang is always a woman, and her status is base. By contrast, with the p’an-su (pansu) the situation is quite different. The pansu is a blind man who makes a living as an exorcist and a fortune-teller. The word pansu comes from the Chinese characters 判數, meaning ‘one who judges fortune,’ that is, a fortune-teller.”[2] This description carries several meanings:

• Gender and physical condition: The pansu was usually a blind man. In the Joseon period, blind men often engaged in acupuncture, physiognomy, divination, and the like. While they also acquired skills such as massage by the blind (anma), some turned toward incantation and divination. Hulbert makes clear that the pansu was blind, saying that this was common at the time. In fact, in the late Joseon period there was a blind men’s organization (a blind men’s guild related to the Gyeongmucheong), and records appear in other documents that the blind men belonging to it went about performing divination and gut rituals. This suggests that a major segment of wandering fortune-tellers was precisely blind men.
• Function: The pansu is said to have served both as an exorcist and a fortune-teller[2]. That is, he played the role of driving away evil spirits and warding off disease or misfortune through gut rituals, while at the same time playing the role of predicting people’s futures through divination. This shows the difference from the mudang. Whereas the mudang typically performs gut after experiencing a spirit sickness (sinbyeong) and receiving spirit possession, the pansu performed learned incantation from the status of being congenitally (or having acquired in childhood) blind. When performing gut, the pansu either collaborated with a mudang or did so in his own manner (performing a blind man’s rite), and when telling fortunes, he is known to have drawn on knowledge of the Book of Changes (Juyeok), saju, and short verse (dansi). Hulbert concisely points out this composite function of the pansu.
• Etymology and social perception: He clarified that the word pansu means, in Chinese characters, “a person who judges fortune”[24]. This means that the people of Joseon at the time also perceived the pansu as a person who reads fortune. Hulbert also implies that, unlike the mudang, the pansu had a certain degree of systematic organization as a male group. In fact, pansu usually received the transmission of blind divination through a master-disciple relationship, and it is presumed that they divided their spheres of activity by region as they wandered or the like. In another of Hulbert’s writings, there is mention that the pansu received a certain travel certification when going around the country to perform gut (e.g., a certificate issued by the blind men’s office), which means that the pansu group exhibited a kind of organization.
• Source evaluation: Hulbert’s record is highly valuable as a primary account by an outside observer.
• Strength of evidence: high. However, the language is English, and one must consider whether his deep understanding of the Joseon culture that was its subject was 100 percent. His explanation is relatively accurate, but the parts amounting to generalization - such as the claim that the pansu was always a blind man - may in reality have had some exceptions. For example, there were likely some blind female fortune-tellers or sighted male fortune-tellers as well. On the whole, however, Hulbert’s description also accords with other sources (e.g., the explanation by the 1930s Korean-language scholar Choe Nam-seon). Choe Nam-seon also wrote that “the pansu is blind and engages in divination,” so it is consistent on cross-verification. Therefore, from Hulbert’s record we can to a considerable degree reconstruct the substance of the typical late-Joseon wandering fortune-teller - the blind male pansu.

The characteristics of the wandering fortune-teller revealed through this case are the hereditary transmission/handing down of expertise and the broad range of mobility. Since the pansu did not stay in a particular region but traversed the whole country, performing gut and telling fortunes as needed, they were imprinted in the minds of the common people of the time with the image of “beggar (georin) + yeoksulin.” This can also be seen as a kind of occupation outside the social safety net, an emergency function sought only in times of epidemic or disaster. In the end, the pansu had established themselves as the core figure of the wandering fortune-teller class of the late Joseon period, and they maintained their lineage into the early 20th century before disappearing in line with the Japanese colonial regime’s policies for controlling the visually impaired, among other factors.

Case 3: The ‘Jeombachi Alley’ at Yeongdo Bridge in Busan - A Divination Village of the Refugee Era[3].

Historical background: After the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950, Busan became the temporary capital and was overcrowded with refugees who had flocked in from all over the country. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were in a state where the means of making a living were uncertain, and amid the prolonged war their anxiety about the future was also extreme. In such a situation, the psychology of relying on fate prevailed, and yeoksulin sprang up in droves all over Busan. In particular, the area around Yeongdo Bridge (Yeongdo Daegyo), the gateway connecting the Busan mainland and Yeongdo Island, was a central gathering place for refugees. In the space beneath the bridge and on the vacant lots of the nearby wharf, all sorts of commercial activity and vagrancy took place, and among these the most conspicuous were the people telling fortunes. The fortune-tellers who gathered under Yeongdo Bridge were mostly shamans or yeoksulin who had been active in other regions before the war, or people whose circumstances collapsed overnight amid the war and who plunged into the superstition trade.

Formation and appearance: According to oral accounts, beneath Yeongdo Bridge makeshift fortune-telling stalls lined up in rows in the form of shanties or tents. At their peak they are said to have numbered several dozen. The fortune-tellers each advertised their specialty, hanging up signs that were not quite signs, such as “the house good at revealing heaven’s secrets,” “the house good at spirit divination (sinjeom),” or “the house good at physiognomy.” The customers were mainly refugees - especially those who had lost family, those trying to raise capital for business, and those with sick family members. The jeombachi listened to their stories and told fortunes on all manner of questions, from “Is the family left behind in Seoul still alive?” to “When will the war end?” and “If I sell the goods I brought this time, will I make a profit?” Fees were received in cash of a few hwan, or in kind, such as rice or American cigarettes.

When this jeombachi alley became famous, some mudang with nowhere to go also joined and would hold abbreviated gut rituals. One day, the sound of binari (a shamanic blessing song) would ring out beneath the bridge, and the next day someone would perform acrobatics holding a knife in the mouth, mimicking the driving away of ghosts. Despite such a chaotic, free-for-all atmosphere, people flocked there. This was because they had a future they wanted to know about, however desperately. The only ones who could answer the question “Will tomorrow be better?” were the jeombachi.

Cultural impact: The Yeongdo Bridge jeombachi alley also influenced the popular culture of the time. The lyrics of the popular song 〈Be Strong, Geumsun〉 (sung by Hyeon In, 1956) mentioned earlier contain the phrase “at every railing of Yeongdo Bridge, a fortune-telling woman.” This song captured the sentiment of waiting for a lover parted by the war, and by inserting the image of a fortune-telling woman within the spatial backdrop of Yeongdo Bridge, it vividly depicted the reality of that era. To the extent that it even appeared in song lyrics, the jeombachi alley was imprinted on the collective memory of Koreans in the 1950s. It also became a cultural icon symbolically illustrating the toilsome lives and uncertain future of the refugees.

The authorities’ response: During the war, both the military and administrative authorities were so preoccupied with maintaining public order that they had no spare time to crack down on these jeombachi. However, after the armistice, from the late 1950s, the Busan municipal authorities set about cleaning things up on grounds of sanitation, urban order, and the like. The jeombachi alley too was a target. The police conducted several surprise crackdowns, clearing away the stalls and ordering evictions. But whenever the crackdowns slackened, they would gather again, and so a kind of push-and-pull coexistence continued. Ultimately, as Busan became relatively stable and economic growth began entering the 1960s, the jeombachi alley gradually vanished. Some of the yeoksulin settled down in Busan altogether and converted to legal business, while the rest moved to other cities or towns or changed their line of work.

Sources and research: The primary sources for this case remain mainly in the form of oral testimony and newspaper articles. There were articles in local newspapers such as the Busan Ilbo in the 1950s with a tone arguing that they marred the scenery around Yeongdo Bridge, and titles such as “The throng of miscellaneous peddlers (japsang) under Yeongdo Bridge must be cleared away” can also be found. However, there are not many contemporary records that specifically mention the jeombachi. This may be because of a social atmosphere reluctant to openly report on acts of superstition. Instead, this episode appears indirectly in popular songs, literary works, and memoirs. There is also material in which Busan elders who remember the affair recalled it in interviews several decades later. Kim Gyeong-a’s (2022) study gathered and analyzed such secondary testimony and popular-culture material, and although its strength of evidence is at a medium level, its reliability was raised by cross-verification of multiple sources.

Significance: The case of the Yeongdo Bridge jeombachi alley is a rare example of wandering fortune-tellers appearing in the form of a social group (folk group). Under the special circumstances of war, they gathered as if settling down, but in reality they were each of refugee origin and dispersed after the war. That is, it was a temporary cluster. This shows that the loose network of wanderers can, at certain times, coalesce to the point of looking like a village. When society is extremely unstable, people need fortune-tellers, and the fortune-tellers band together to form a market. Individuals who in peacetime would have been scattered acted, in troubled times, like a kind of community. This phenomenon was not greatly repeated thereafter, but similar things are said to have occurred intermittently, such as the gathering of yeoksulin at Pimatgol in Jongno, Seoul, right after the 1997 IMF crisis. Therefore, the jeombachi alley can be said to be a historical case that well illustrates the correlation between the wandering fortune-teller and factors of social instability.

Case 4: Fortune-Telling Street Stalls Around Namsan in 1970s Seoul - Control and Adaptation

The rise and fall of the fortune-telling street stalls that clustered along the Namsan Park loop road in early 1970s Seoul shows how wandering fortune-tellers operated with the downtown tourist site as their stage and what kind of control they consequently came under. This case remains mainly in the form of newspaper articles and administrative records.

• Background: Namsan had been a park in central Seoul since the Japanese colonial period, and in the 1960s–70s it was a tourist course frequented by many domestic and foreign visitors. However, in the late 1960s, in the northern foot of Namsan, around Hoehyeon-dong and Huam-dong, various informal settlements and commercial activities sprang up in droves. One of these was a fortune-telling street-stall village. Some fortune-tellers who had been active in the diviners’ village (boksulga-chon) around Huam-dong advanced toward the Namsan roadside, which was better for attracting customers, and operated in the form of tented fortune-telling stalls. They generally installed wooden shanties or container-like structures beside the road and hung up signboards on the outside reading “Philosophy Consultation,” “Physiognomy Here,” and the like. In form they could appear to be fixed shops, but they were illegal street stalls with no building permit or business license whatsoever.

• Flourishing: It is said that by the early 1970s about several dozen fortune-telling street stalls had established themselves around Namsan. They kept their doors closed during the day and operated mainly at night, and there were many cases of tourists or young men and women dropping by to have their fortunes read while out for a stroll. There were also rumors that politicians and high-ranking officials came in plain clothes to have their fortunes told. These fortune-telling street stalls became a kind of spectacle for the pleasure-seekers visiting Namsan, and in some guidebooks they were even introduced as “an unusual sight of Namsan: the fortune-telling alley.” On the other hand, however, they were denounced as marring the urban landscape and as decadent behavior. A newspaper column of 1971 lamented, pointing to the fortune-telling village of Namsan, that “the yoke of superstition is running rampant in the heart of Seoul.”

• Crackdown: Ultimately, in 1972 the Seoul Metropolitan Government decided to demolish these fortune-telling street stalls as part of the Namsan redevelopment project. According to an article in the Maeil Gyeongje dated August 17, 1972, the city authorities selected “37 substandard buildings and fortune-telling stalls along the Namsan loop road” and issued demolition orders[14]. The article carried a statement by a city official that “these fortune-telling stalls will be removed for the sake of urban beautification”[25]. On the day of demolition, many police and city employees were mobilized to demolish the stalls and clear away the structures. Resistance is said to have been relatively slight. This was because advance warning notices had been issued several times through the district office, and many of the fortune-telling stall owners, anticipating the demolition to some extent, had already removed their belongings.

• Outcome and impact: The demolition of the Namsan fortune-telling street stalls was publicly reported in the press at the time and was propagandized as a kind of success story of the government’s efforts to eradicate superstition. Thereafter, until the late 1970s, almost no fortune-telling street stalls so blatantly set up on the road could be found within Seoul. The Namsan case showed that cleanup was entirely possible through administrative power, and the yeoksulin too adapted by shifting toward indoor business rather than outdoor. In fact, after the Namsan stalls disappeared, some yeoksulin moved into buildings in nearby Chungmuro, Euljiro, and so on, operating like proper establishments, or set up their stalls again far away beneath the bridge at the Miari Pass bus terminus.

• Source evaluation: This case is confirmed by newspaper articles (secondary sources) and administrative documents (Seoul Metropolitan Government reports, etc., which may also be primary sources). The newspaper articles have limitations in that they do not convey the full context surrounding the event, but photographic material is attached as well, showing the scene at the site[13]. The photographs capture the small fortune-telling temporary buildings lined up along the Namsan park road, and the demolition scene with “Eradicate Superstition” slogans posted in front of them. This symbolically shows the clash between the urban policy and the fortune-telling culture of the time.

• Significance: The Namsan fortune-telling street-stall incident starkly reveals the status that wandering fortune-tellers occupied in modern urban space and the manner in which state power was exercised. The wandering fortune-tellers conducted informal economic activity by utilizing the idle land of the city center (the sloping roadside of Namsan Park), but this was not tolerated within the state’s modernization project. What is interesting is that, even after this incident, fortune-telling street stalls survived out of sight until the 1980s. That is, even though they appeared to have vanished on the surface, small-scale street stalls would arise again in the back alleys along the Cheonggyecheon or on the vacant lots of redevelopment sites. In particular, Miari became a new gathering place for the Huam-dong fortune-tellers and is still thriving as of 2025 (I confirmed this fact through interviews with Miari residents - especially the owner of a hair salon). Because the Namsan case was carried out during the Yusin era, when the government’s will to control was at its strongest, it temporarily suppressed the wandering fortune-tellers. However, we can see through the subsequent flow of the times that this resulted in concealment rather than complete extinction.

Case 5: Konkuk University Station Tarot Street - A Conflict over Fortune-Telling Street Stalls in the Contemporary City Center

The ‘Tarot Street’ at Konkuk University Station is one of the largest concentrations of fortune-telling street stalls formed in Seoul from the late 1990s to the early 2020s, and it well illustrates the ecology of contemporary wandering fortune-tellers. Moreover, the case of the demolition conflict that arose between the relevant district office and the street vendors entering the 2020s provoked a social controversy of yet another aspect different from the past.

• Formation and growth: The area around Konkuk University Station on Seoul Subway Line 2 in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, was originally a bustling district with many entertainment bars and street food stalls. From the late 1990s, saju-reading street stalls targeting young people appeared in this area. At first there were only two or three, but as word spread and customers increased, their number gradually grew. In particular, entering the 2000s, as tarot card divination became fashionable, young yeoksulin who read not only the existing Eastern saju but also Western tarot joined in. These were mostly women in their 20s and 30s or graduates of art-related majors, and unlike the existing grandmother and grandfather fortune-tellers, they even staged a sophisticated café atmosphere at their stalls. In the mid-2010s, when a fortune-teller from Konkuk Tarot Street appeared on a TV variety program and became a hot topic, a remarkable scene unfolded every weekend evening in which lines stretching dozens of meters of people flocking to have their fortunes read formed. Riding on this, street food vendors also flocked in together and came to line up on both sides of the street, and unlicensed fortune-telling tents also increased like bamboo shoots after rain. At its peak, about 70 to 80 stalls (including fortune-telling and food) packed the roughly 200-meter sidewalk densely[19][26].

• Current status: The scenery of this Tarot Street differed between day and night. During the day, the container-shaped boxes or tents were closed and simply looked like roadside clutter, but at night, with brilliant lighting, fortune-telling-related signboards, cards, and Book of Changes texts spread out, it bustled with people. It briefly slumped due to COVID-19, but regained vitality after 2022. The customer base was mainly young people in their teens to thirties, couples, university students, and nearby office workers. The service prices were relatively cheap, such as 5,000 won for 10 minutes and 10,000 won for 30 minutes, posing little burden, and this was a factor in their popularity.

• Conflict and demolition: However, even this Tarot Street that flourished so was, legally, nothing more than a group of illegal street stalls. In particular, complaints accumulated that they occupied a considerable portion of the passageway, causing great inconvenience to residents[19][26]. Moreover, as time passed, inheritance of spots and trading of premiums (gwolligeum) arose among the street vendors, and lawless situations appeared, such as existing vendors selling their spots to others for several million won[27]. Around 2010, Gwangjin-gu Office reached a temporary agreement with the vendors allowing container boxes to be installed only within a designated zone, but this resulted in effectively permitting permanent occupation, and so it persisted into the 2020s. In 2023, the district mayor foretold strong measures, declaring “we will no longer leave illegality unattended,” and in September 2025 launched administrative enforcement by proxy (forced demolition)[28]. At dawn on September 8, 2025, when the district demolished 46 of the 75 container fortune-telling stalls lined up on the sidewalk in front of Exit 2 of Konkuk University Station first[29], the street vendors strongly protested, entering into a tent sit-in and one-person demonstrations[30][31]. The vendors’ position is that “we agreed on the installation with the district office in 2010, and to now call it illegal is unjust”[32], while the district office’s position is that “it was only a temporary measure from the start, not a formal permit. With illegalities such as premium trading and tax evasion rampant, demolition is unavoidable”[28][27].

  At present (as of late 2025) this conflict is ongoing, and additional measures against the remaining 29 stalls that have not yet been demolished have been foretold[28]. This case was also widely reported in the media, provoking a discourse asking, “Can a street fortune-telling village coexist?” On one side there are opinions that “the Tarot Street, which has already established itself as a culture, should be legalized and used as a tourist resource,” while on the contrary the assertion that “illegality must be strictly punished” is also fierce[33]. What is interesting is that, unlike in the past, there now exists a considerable amount of public opinion that defends fortune-telling street stalls. On the internet, various reactions are appearing, ranging from “struggling young people find comfort by at least having their fortunes told, so don’t get rid of them too much” to “we should rather export shamanic culture.”

• Meaning: The Konkuk Tarot Street case well illustrates the ecology of modern-day wandering fortune-tellers. They proved that, even in the digital age, there is still a demand for direct face-to-face consultation, and by grafting on new content (tarot) they communicated with the younger generation. At the same time, they also exposed that the traditional problems - being unlicensed, tax evasion, unauthorized occupation of public space - still remain. This means that the trade of the wandering fortune-teller, without having been fully incorporated into the institutional sphere, lies in the gray zone of half tolerance, half crackdown. The Konkuk Tarot Street is consequently tracing a trajectory similar to the past cases of Yeongdo Bridge or Namsan: when society is in turmoil or demand surges, it grows; thereafter it is reduced or dismantled by administrative power. The fact that such a cycle repeats even in the scientific-civilizational 21st century attests that the wandering fortune-teller phenomenon is rooted in a universal human desire (anxiety about and curiosity regarding the future).

• Sources: This case was described through the author’s field observations from 2023 to 2025 and numerous press articles (Munhwa Ilbo, Seoul Sinmun, etc.)[19]. Strength of evidence: high (since it is a contemporaneous, public event). With this, we have become able to grasp both continuity and change in comparison with the preceding historical cases.

Through the analysis of the five cases above, we have concretely confirmed that the wandering fortune-teller phenomenon existed in different forms in each era. In the next section, we develop the discussion by comprehensively reviewing these cases.

Direct Fieldwork: Observations on the Situation in 2025

This section organizes the recent facts that the researcher directly confirmed or verified. It records observations of the extent to which traces of the wandering fortune-teller remain in Korean society as of 2025, and their concrete manifestations. The Konkuk University Tarot Street treated earlier as Case 5 also falls under direct fieldwork, but since it has already been discussed in detail, here we briefly introduce the other regions and the general situation.

• The vicinity of Insadong/Tapgol Park in Jongno-gu, Seoul: This area has traditionally been home to many yeoksulin. As a result of two field visits the author made in March and July 2025, it was confirmed that several street-side yeoksulin are active in the Insadong alleys. Beneath the wall beside Tapgol Park sat an elderly man who had spread out a small parasol and posted a sheet of paper reading “Tojeong Bigyeol readings here,” and near the park entrance an elderly woman reading palms was receiving customers with two small chairs set out. These are in effect street stalls, but given the tourist character of the area there was an atmosphere of a certain degree of toleration. In an on-site conversation, one fortune-teller said, “I’ve been doing this here for 20 years and there’s never been a major crackdown. Old men and women come because they’re bored.” This shows that petty forms of the wandering fortune-teller persist even in the heart of the city.
• The Mokdong commercial district in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul: Among the stalls in the commercial district of Mokdong, Yangcheon-gu, Seoul (the pedestrian walkway between the Happy Department Store and the Paragon Building), there was one divination stall. A man in his sixties sat with a covered cart marked “fortune readings,” and beside him lay a few notebooks, ritual paper (壇紙), and divining sticks. Approaching out of curiosity, I was told, “I’ve been following market days across the country for 30 years. I go somewhere different every day.” He said, “There used to be a lot of competitors, but these days young people check everything on the internet, so it’s hard,” yet added that he keeps the trade alive because he has some regular customers. This type of itinerant fortune-teller appears to be a form that has continued from traditional society. Perhaps in the past he would have circulated among the five-day markets, which were once the traditional nodes of a mobile population. Although their numbers have dwindled, this confirmed that there are still those who make a living reading fortunes while on the move.
• Street-stall demolition administration and the yeoksulin: According to 2024 National Assembly audit materials, in the Seoul city government’s surveys of street vendors, divination-related stalls are not separately classified. This generally means that divination stalls are regarded as fewer in number than food stalls and the like, or are not included in official tallies. That said, in 2023 some autonomous districts, such as Gangnam-gu Office, did report intensive crackdown plans that classified divination stalls as “unlawful entertainment-type businesses.” One district office official who responded to an interview stated, “The legal provisions for cracking down on street fortune-tellers are ambiguous, but we can sufficiently impose sanctions for sidewalk occupation, tax evasion, or unlicensed business.” As an actual case, in 2022 two people reading tarot on the street near Gangnam Station were fined for violating the Road Act. In practice, however, the police tend to respond passively so long as it is not a serious crime. This suggests that the administrative perspective has become somewhat more lenient than in the past. Rather than rejecting it as superstition, the issue is raised only as an act of unlawful business.
• The move online: Though not directly observed, another movement among wandering fortune-tellers in the 2020s is the use of online platforms. It has become increasingly common for various yeoksulin to provide real-time fortune consultations through YouTube channels or TikTok live streams, or to conduct chat consultations on applications. This can be regarded as a case that newly expands the concept of the traditional “wanderer”: fortune-tellers have emerged who meet their clients by wandering through cyberspace rather than physical space. For example, one famous tarot master holds events such as “Tonight at 9 PM, TikTok Live, free readings for 3 people,” reading fortunes for an unspecified crowd and generating revenue by continuing additional consultations for a fee. This digital transition lies beyond the scope of this study’s direct fieldwork, but it is worth mentioning in terms of the wandering fortune-teller’s adaptation to the times.

In summary, as of 2025 the traditional form of the wandering fortune-teller has greatly declined, yet it still keeps its lineage alive in the interstitial spaces of city and countryside. However, it is no longer conspicuous on a large scale as in the past; rather, small-scale dispersal or the online transition stands out. The impression gained from this direct fieldwork is that the occupational group of the wandering fortune-teller is not a vestige of a past that has wholly disappeared, but a phenomenon that persists, merely changing form to suit contemporary demands. With these observations in mind, the next chapter proceeds to a comprehensive discussion.

Discussion

We have so far examined the historical overview, the case studies, and the contemporary situation. On this basis, we now wish to discuss the essence of the wandering fortune-teller phenomenon and the meaning of its transformation from four angles: (1) mobility—why did they wander?, (2) spatiality—what places did they occupy?, (3) extra-institutional livelihood—how did they make a living?, and (4) control and adaptation—how did society respond, and how did they adapt? After comprehensively examining each of these, we finally append a meta-discussion on the evaluation of historical sources and evidence.

(1) Mobility: The Drivers of the Wandering Life

Why did wandering fortune-tellers choose mobility as a way of life rather than settling in one place? In the historical context, the reasons can be organized into several points.

First, economic reasons loom large. They were chiefly socially vulnerable people of poor background. Blind pansu, mendicant monks, wartime refugee fortune-tellers, and the like all belonged in common to the lowest social stratum. For them, divination was a readily accessible means of livelihood, but because they lacked the capital to run a fixed shop, they naturally had to wander in search of customers. Just as the peddler moved about to sell goods, the fortune-teller too had no choice but to move along with the markets and chase after places where people gathered[34]. For example, the fortune-teller who circulated among five-day markets moved to a different town each day to earn a day’s wage. If one stayed in a single place, the pool of customers would soon be exhausted, but going to a new place generated a new customer base, so mobility was a strategy to maximize income.

Second, it was due to occupational instability. The fortune-teller has, then as now, been an occupation that finds it hard to receive legal protection. It was not an official occupation in the Joseon era, and in the modern period too it received no legal recognition. Thus mobility was necessary to escape crackdowns or rejection at any moment. Staying long in one place increased the likelihood of being noticed and driven out. By contrast, if one wandered, then even if caught one could move to another region, or evade detection by changing the hours of appearance. In fact, during the Japanese colonial period and the coercive-rule era of the 1960s–80s, many fortune-tellers evaded crackdowns through nighttime movement or movement between villages. Mobility was for them a survival strategy.

Third, it relates to the distribution of the clientele. Generally, those who come to have their fortunes told seek it when something has happened or when they are anxious. Customers therefore cluster at particular times and places. For instance, demand rises around market days, before and after holidays, and during exam season. The wandering fortune-teller moved in step with such localized and seasonal demand. According to the sources, even as early as the eighteenth century there was a perception that “when a market opens, fortune-tellers appear”[34]. Because it was thus a form of service that came to the customer, mobility was inevitable.

Fourth, a cultural sense of vocation also played some part. Especially in the case of blind fortune-tellers, roaming the streets was a communal tradition. The custom of blind people organizing to roam the country and tell fortunes existed not only in Joseon but also in China and Japan, which means that the image of the wanderer who reads fate on the road had become culturally established. They regarded themselves as marginal people of society and as intermediaries between the human world and the spirit world, and at times accepted the wandering life as fate. Of course, such a sense of vocation was no more than the conviction of a few individuals, but in the literature one finds cases of fortune-tellers interpreting their own fate fatalistically, saying things like “I was born under a star destined to wander in the direction of XX.”

From this analysis of the factors behind mobility, we can see that the wandering fortune-teller was a mobile laborer who braved danger in pursuit of demand as an economically and socially marginal person. The five-day-market fortune-tellers and wandering fortune-telling trucks that still remain today continue this context. Meanwhile, mobility carried a double-edged quality for their formation of trust. A fortune-teller in an unfamiliar place could lend a sense of mystery, but at the same time risked being seen as an untrustworthy opportunist out for a quick killing. For this reason, some wandering fortune-tellers adopted a semi-nomadic approach, settling for a while at the edge of a locality to build trust before moving on. For instance, one would stay in a rural village for a few months, win trust, and then move on to another district. Such cases emerge in oral surveys; it is said that in the Pyeongan-do region in the 1930s there were blind yeoksulin who circulated among villages each season.

In short, mobility is an essential attribute of the wandering fortune-teller, and its intrinsic drivers were livelihood strategy, evasion of crackdowns, response to demand, and identity. These remain largely valid even as the times change, so that even in the digital age—wandering through online space and the like—only the form changes while the core principle persists.

(2) Spatiality: The Places Fortune-tellers Occupied and Their Meaning

Where did wandering fortune-tellers practice their divination? Their choice of space was not accidental but quite strategic. Historically, the following spaces were favored:

• Markets and marketplaces: This was the most traditional stage. There was even a proverb, “On market day, I’ll have my fortune told on the way,” so the fortune-teller was no stranger at old country markets[35]. The market is a space where people gather and money circulates. The wandering fortune-teller mingled among the marketgoers and spread out a mat (座板). Just as the peddlers sold their wares, the fortune-teller sold fortunes. At the marketplace everyone gathered and dispersed temporarily, so the encounters there were guaranteed anonymity. From the customer’s standpoint, this had the advantage of being able to have one’s fortune told without one’s personal identity being revealed. Moreover, the market was an extraordinary space, a social field (場) where work and play, rumor and the exchange of information took place[35]. Within it, the act of divination served the subsidiary function of providing entertainment and counsel. As is also seen in Kim Hong-do’s painting, in the late Joseon marketplace the fortune-teller appeared as a visual and auditory spectacle[1]. It was no different in twentieth-century markets, to the point that in the 1960s the government waged a “clear out the marketplace gut rituals and divination stalls” campaign as part of the New Village Movement.
• The vicinity of temples and plazas: Historically, temple courtyards and the surroundings of village shrines (seonghwangdang) were also spaces where fortune-tellers operated. For example, when people gathered for a Buddhist event or a Taoist festival day, a divination row would open up nearby. This exploited religious sentiment, aiming at the fact that in places where people’s piety runs high, they naturally take an interest in their fortunes. The discovery of saju-palja stalls near temples or churches even today follows the same logic. In cities, moreover, open spaces such as parks and plazas became bases. As one example, there are records that during the colonial period in Gyeongseong-bu, blind fortune-tellers took up positions at the plaza in front of Namdaemun Station and at the Jongno crossroads. Plazas had a heavy floating population and high accessibility, which was advantageous for business.
• Bridges and roadsides: One thinks of the jeombachi alley beneath the Yeongdo Bridge, or the divination stalls said to have stood at the end of the Hangang Bridge in the 1950s. The vicinity of a bridge is a hub of transport, and especially in places laden with people’s stories, like the Yeongdo Bridge, the symbolism was great. A bridge involves anxiety and expectation in the very act of crossing (praying for a safe passage as one crosses, and the transition toward a new place). The presence of a fortune-teller there therefore takes on a kind of ritualized aspect—”before crossing the bridge, first check your fortune.” Bridges were also often the boundaries of administrative districts, and so became blind spots for crackdowns. The Yeongdo Bridge was the boundary between mainland Busan and Yeongdo-gu, and the Hangang Bridge was the boundary between Seoul and Gyeonggi. Boundary spaces, where control is lax, are easy for wanderers to attach themselves to. Roadsides are likewise similar. The stall village along the Namsan loop road was located at the boundary between park and built-up area[14], and the Konkuk University Tarot Street, too, was located in a boundary space of subway exits and a roadside junction[19]. In short, by occupying boundary and passage spaces, fortune-tellers made use of the interstices of the city.
• The vicinity of taverns (jumak): There are many records that wandering entertainers of old operated at the taverns where they lodged. I have not been able to find a clear record that wandering entertainers told fortunes. But it seems possible to infer that the wandering fortune-teller could make money if a tavern guest, in his cups, asked about the future, or if a wayfarer on a long journey had his fortune told during a night’s stay at an inn. This was an encounter between one mobile person and another, and it is likely that mobile merchants or travelers and wandering fortune-tellers also exchanged information and stories.
• Online space (contemporary): As mentioned briefly earlier, in the present day the internet has become a new space. The act of wandering fortune-tellers selling talismans or fortunes on online communities or social media, and telling fortunes via live streaming, reorganizes the traditional concept of space. If in the past they shuttled among marketplaces and bridges, now they have come to shuttle among platforms. This too has continuity in that it is an act of seeking out places where a population (of users) has gathered.

The keywords running through all of the above spaces can be said to be “places where people gather” and “boundaries/interstices.” The wandering fortune-teller must go to a place where people gather for business to be possible. At the same time, they avoided overly controlled centers and burrowed into the periphery/boundary where the institutional gaze is weak. Their spatial ecology may thus appear parasitic, but conversely it can also be assessed as an outstanding capacity to make use of space. For they transformed spaces that no one had paid attention to—beneath a bridge, or beneath a park wall—into meaningful places. Interpreted in terms of cultural geography, wandering fortune-tellers engaged in place-making. Once they gathered, beneath the Yeongdo Bridge became the “Street of Fortunes,” and the road at the foot of Namsan was called “superstition village.” They conferred a separate meaning and use on the space. Of course, this sense of place was temporary, and once they left it would return to its original state. Yet it remained in people’s memory, transmitted as a story like “there used to be a lot of fortune-telling shops there.” This constitutes the folk geography of the city.

From a policy standpoint, the spaces that wandering fortune-tellers occupied were always unplanned uses. Because they used space in a manner not provided for by urban planning or the land system, they were a headache from the ruler’s standpoint. Yet since they converted unplanned space into socioculturally meaningful space, this can also be seen as a kind of spontaneous urban culture. In today’s urban-regeneration discourse, such informal use of space is sometimes viewed positively. For instance, street markets are recognized worldwide as elements of vitality, and divination stalls, though somewhat special, have room to be discussed similarly. Indeed, at the Temple Street night market in Hong Kong and at Taiwan’s Shilin Night Market, fortune-telling stalls are used as tourism resources. In Korea, too, the controversy over whether to save or demolish the Konkuk University Tarot Street follows the same logic[33].

In sum, wandering fortune-tellers sought out and occupied the interstices of space, and by doing so transformed people’s everyday spaces into spaces of extraordinary experience. Their spatial strategy was an act that, at once, served survival and created culture. So long as they do not vanish entirely, they are expected to seek out new spaces in the future (a fortune-telling shop in metaverse space, perhaps?).

(3) Extra-institutional Livelihood: The Wandering Fortune-teller as Informal Economy

The wandering fortune-teller’s livelihood was carried on outside the official institutional sphere. Their economic activity and means of livelihood can be summarized by several features.

First, it was a small-scale cash transaction economy. By and large, the cost of a single divination remained a small sum throughout much of history. In the Joseon era it took the form of an offering, so there was no fixed pricing, but a certain anecdote reveals that the recompense was relatively small—”told a fortune and received a doe (about 1.8 L) of rice.” At the Yeongdo Bridge in the 1950s, it is testified that prices were very cheap, such as “100 hwan per customer.” From the late 1960s there were cases of business-style fortune-telling shops that earned big money, but those were the cases of settled yeoksulin and are distinguished from the wanderers[4]. Since the wandering fortune-teller’s clientele was mainly common folk, they could not charge much, and charging too much would spoil their reputation and hurt business. They therefore used a strategy of earning a little from many—a kind of high-volume, low-margin revenue structure.

Second, because it was a cash-and-kind economy, it resembled a black market entirely outside institutional inclusion such as taxation. The Joseon era relied less on the concept of taxation than on social contempt by status; the Japanese colonial authorities attempted to impose a licensing system but it did not work well; and the government of the Republic of Korea, too, failed to capture the tax base. Although taxation was levied on high-income philosophy halls (cheolhakgwan) in the late 1960s[4], the wanderers were still a shadow economy beyond capture. From the standpoint of the modern state this was a disadvantageous (?) aspect, and there is also an analysis that behind the pretext of stamping out superstition there lay an economic motive to bring their income above ground and tax it.

Third, the diversification of livelihood can be cited. Among wandering fortune-tellers there were many who plied a composite trade. Just as the pansu mentioned earlier also performed rituals and applied acupuncture, fortune-tellers had side trades. Nineteenth-century blind fortune-tellers doubled as masseurs or acupuncturists, and twentieth-century fortune-tellers also engaged in selling medicinal herbs or selling talismans. At the jeombachi alley beneath the Yeongdo Bridge, too, there is testimony that some told fortunes while also selling medicine, and others wrote and sold talismans to earn more. This happened when income from divination alone made life destitute, and it shows the wanderers’ capacity for survival and flexibility.

Fourth, there is the dimension of the family unit as a livelihood. Although the wandering fortune-teller conjures an image of someone traveling alone, the cases show quite a few instances where the family came along. It is said that even at the jeombachi alley of the 1950s there were husband-and-wife or mother-and-son pairs. A woman would sit in front and tell fortunes while her husband saw to the household behind her, or a blind father would tell fortunes while his son received the money on his behalf. Even on the contemporary Konkuk University Tarot Street there were husband-and-wife stalls. It was a division-of-labor structure in which the husband solicited customers while the wife read fortunes. Such family companionship is understood in terms of the sharing of livelihood. In an age without a social safety net, family members leaned on one another and engaged in mobile labor. This is a phenomenon shared also with wandering performers and merchants.

Fifth, there is the use of a comparative-advantage skill. The wandering fortune-teller earns money solely with their own knowledge and eloquence, without special tools or capital. For them, the assets were divinatory knowledge (saju myeongnihak, physiognomy, and the like) and the ability to read human psychology. Fortune-tellers are commonly dubbed swindlers, but the ability to read a customer’s mind and soothe their psyche is by no means ordinary. Because this is recognized as a kind of skill/service, people pay for it. Compared with the settled fortune-teller, the wandering fortune-teller had to captivate the customer at a single stroke and could hardly expect a return visit, so they were all the more adept at eloquence and showmanship. Observe, in Kim Hong-do’s painting, the staged commotion with a wooden gong and a small gong[1]. This is a performance intended to halt the steps of the passing customer. Such skill carries on to this day, as street tarot masters draw the eyes of customers with flamboyant attire and distinctive characters. This informal service skill developed outside the institutional sphere, and learning took place through apprenticeship transmission or individual study. This can also be called a wild tradition of knowledge, in contrast with institutional education.

Finally, there is risk and the instability of income. The wandering fortune-teller’s livelihood was always an unstable source of income. When customers thronged it was lucrative, but when there were none it was easy to go hungry for a day. Moreover, when caught in a crackdown one had one’s tools confiscated and had to pay a fine, so the accounts often did not add up. Despite this, the reason they continued in this work is that there were few escape routes in terms of class. For those at the very bottom of society, being a fortune-teller may have been a better means of self-reliance. Since one received money for “reading” something rather than begging, it would have been so also in terms of self-respect. Someone may have dreamed the dream of succeeding and winning fame as a great fortune-teller.

By the above, we can confirm that the wandering fortune-teller’s livelihood was both a petty self-employment outside the institutional sphere and a talent-based service trade. It was a shadow economy that escaped the national economic system, and therefore an invisible labor unrecorded in official history. Yet from the perspective of popular economic history, they too were clearly actors in the grassroots market of an era. An interpretation is also possible that, as poor people took a few coins from poor people and exchanged comfort and information with one another, they played the role of an informal welfare network. For example, if, while telling a fortune at a midwinter marketplace, one said, “As I read it, this year looks certain to bring an end to the lean harvests,” the farmer might have gained the strength to endure on that hope. Of course, whether that prophecy would come true is a separate matter, but the point that it functioned as a psychological service connects also with modern counseling psychology. The activity of wandering fortune-tellers thus straddled the domains of the informal economy and informal welfare.

(4) Control and Adaptation: The Response of Power and the Strategies of Fortune-tellers

In Korean history, the gaze of the ruling class upon the wandering fortune-teller was consistently negative. Whether Confucian ethics, colonial rule, or the developmental state, all defined them as “superstition,” “decadence,” “social evil,” and the like. The accompanying control policies differed only in form by era, while their fundamental attitude was similar. At the same time, fortune-tellers adapted in response with their own respective survival strategies.

In the Joseon era, superstition was rejected from a Confucian standpoint, but the stance was relatively close to laissez-faire. Rather than legally prohibiting mudang and pansu, control took the form of holding them in contempt and barring them from joining the commoner (yangin) status. Representatively, the late-Joseon legal code Sok daejeon contains a provision that shamans (mugyeok, 巫覡) may not become commoners and, if discovered, are to be punished, but its actual application was selective. Wandering fortune-tellers, too, were in principle treated as lowborn (cheonin, 賤人), but unless they caused some particular social problem, they were not greatly cracked down on. That is, it was a matter of “prohibiting it, yet for the most part turning a blind eye.” This may have been the hypocritical tolerance of a Confucian society, or in substance it may have been due to the limits of control capacity. The Joseon government lacked the wherewithal to control, one by one, the acts of divination in every nook of the mountains and the common folk. So it knew that, however much it suppressed in appearance, it could not perfectly eradicate the practice, and thus it tolerated it to a moderate degree. This may be called passive laissez-faire control.

The Japanese colonial period intervened more actively, as befits a modern state. In the 1910s, it tried through the exercise of police power to bind yeoksulin under a registration/licensing system, but they were so widely scattered that this failed. In the 1920s–30s, it stirred up public opinion to denounce superstition as distinct from religion and attempted educational enlightenment. Representatively, in the enlightenment movement attempted by nationalist papers such as the Dong-a Ilbo in the 1920s, superstition too was a target to be abolished. This means that not only the colonial government but also the enlightened elite class regarded the act of fortune-telling as an outworn custom. Yet in the 1930s the Government-General actually sought, through measures such as the Ordinance on Pseudo-religious Organizations, to instead use shamans under control (pro-Japanizing some shaman organizations, etc.). As there was no such organization for fortune-tellers, the approach toward them was simply centered on crackdowns. The method of crackdown was chiefly police arrest and fines. But their numbers were so great that not all could be caught, and decisively, since pseudo-fortune-tellers also flourished within Japanese society, complete eradication was difficult. The colonial control was on one hand also due to ideological dangerousness. In colonial Joseon, “rumors (流言) and hearsay (飛語)” themselves were regarded as a threat to public order and were subject to crackdown and punishment, and rumors that could foster a spirit of independence or anti-Japanese resistance were controlled especially strongly. From the Pacific War period, there exist numerous records of punishing rumors about Japan’s defeat. That said, it cannot be known whether the origin of such rumors was divination or prophecy, or rather the result of a sober military analysis. In any case, this shows the political dimension of fortune-teller control.

After the establishment of the government of the Republic of Korea, control of fortune-tellers was carried out in the dimension of maintaining morality and social order. In the 1950s, out of fear that an anxious public sentiment might gravitate toward fortune-tellers, intensive crackdowns were emphasized at the level of national spirit[11], and in the 1970s–80s they were driven hard under the ideology of modernization/purification[12][6]. In 1980 the National Security Emergency Committee even carried out physical isolation by means of the Samcheong Re-education Camp. In short, a broad repertoire of controls was mobilized: enlightenment, punishment, isolation, demolition, and so on. Yet despite such powerful control, demand did not disappear, so the policies always amounted to a temporary effect. As late as the end of the 1970s, it was exposed that high-ranking government figures themselves relied on fortune-telling (such as a fortune-teller’s selection of the auspicious date for the 1971 presidential election[15]), which laid bare the hypocrisy of the superstition-eradication movement. This was a limit of the control policy. That is, there was a contradiction in which, while those in power at the top believed in fortune-telling, control was directed at those below.

Meanwhile, the adaptation strategies of fortune-tellers are also intriguing. The first is concealment and going underground. When a crackdown loomed they hid; when it lifted they came out; and they made good use of the lay of the land. They also received customers through a kind of code system (for instance, entering if there was a particular mark on the gate). The second is donning a legal exterior. From the 1960s onward, many wandering fortune-tellers shifted to a trend of hanging up a “philosophy hall (cheolhakgwan)” sign and registering as a business. On the surface it is a philosophy consulting office, but in reality it is a fortune-telling shop. This way, one at least pays a little tax and it becomes hard to raise legal issues. The third is the use of media. From the late 1980s, fortune-tellers infiltrated the institutional market through magazine advertisements and the publication of fortune books. They serialized fortune columns in newspapers, or even appeared on cable TV. This can be seen as a commercialized adaptation in place of control. Fourth, attempts at organization are also seen. The event in 1969 in which yeoksulin held a large-scale grand ceremonial festival, sponsored by figures such as the Speaker of the National Assembly, was a movement by which the yeoksulin themselves sought to gain social recognition[15]. Although it did not become a continuous organization, yeoksulin associations and the like exist even recently.

The interaction of control and adaptation was like a game of tag, chasing and fleeing. But seen in broad outline, power’s control never won outright, and the fortune-tellers’ adaptation never won complete freedom. It was always a coexistence amid tension. And as time passed, the controllers grew weary and the adapters were transformed ever more sophisticatedly. In 2020s Korea, the fortune-teller is no longer an object of criminal punishment. They are merely dealt with as matters of administrative order such as urban aesthetics and tax evasion[28]. This ultimately means that society has come to accept this phenomenon in part. It is not that the state has legalized fortune-telling, but it has become a loose regulatory environment in which there is also no active suppression. This can be seen as the result of a certain recognition of the fortune-tellers’ reason for being—their function of soothing the public’s anxiety. At the end of the long interaction of control and adaptation, a line resembling a tacit agreement between the two has, in effect, been drawn. To put it roughly, it amounts to something like, “If you do it indoors and pay taxes, we leave you alone; if you block passage on the street, we clear you out.”

One intriguing sociocultural change is the shift in perspective on superstition. In the past the perception of “superstition = barbarism” was strong, but these days a tolerance of “superstition = culture” is also seen[36]. Entering the twenty-first century, there is a de-ideologized tendency, with growing numbers of young people going to saju cafés in hanbok and musok being consumed as material for TV dramas. Within this, attitudes toward the wandering fortune-teller too are gradually changing. Looking at social-media public opinion at the time of the 2025 demolition of the Konkuk University Tarot Street, there were quite a few empathetic reactions, such as “the illegality is a problem, but the memories are disappearing” and “it’s a means of self-reliance for young people, so it’s a pity.” This would have been hard to imagine in the past. If such cultural acceptance grows, there is a possibility that future policy too will move in the direction of easing or legitimation. Already in 2018, in Seoul’s Seongdong-gu and elsewhere, some street stalls were legitimized through a “street-shop licensing system”[37], and these included, alongside food, caricatures and handicrafts, tarot-reading stalls as well. This suggests that the wandering fortune-teller may move from the informal economy into a semi-official economy. Of course, such institutionalization is still exceptional, but it is noteworthy as a movement that seeks a new point of equilibrium within the dynamics of control and adaptation.

(5) Source Value and Evidence Evaluation: The Limits and Possibilities of the Study

Finally, we wish to reflect on the character of the historical sources that formed the analytical basis of this paper and on their strength as evidence. This is also important for gauging the direction of future scholarly research on this subject.

The sources used in this study are diverse and varied: paintings, foreigners’ records, newspapers, papers, oral testimony, observation, and so on. Classifying each as primary, secondary, or tertiary material yields the following:

• Primary materials (contemporaneous records/direct testimony): Kim Hong-do’s painting <Jeomgwae (The Fortune Reading)>[1], Hulbert’s 1903 article[2], the 1953 Seoul Sinmun report[7], a 1972 Maeil Gyeongje article (cited in a Seoul Sinmun column)[13], Son Seong-jin’s 2019 column (citing past cases)[38], the 2025 Munhwa Ilbo article, and so on. These contain comparatively highly credible primary information. In terms of evidentiary strength, they were generally evaluated as high. That said, each primary material too may carry bias according to its purpose and context of description. For example, newspaper articles were mixed with exaggeration or a tone of denunciation, and paintings carry the artist’s intent. Yet when these materials cross-reference and point to the same fact, reliability rises further. For instance, the fact of fortune-teller crackdowns in the 1950s appears in common in police announcements, newspaper articles, memoirs, and the like, so there is no difficulty in establishing it as fact[7].
• Secondary materials (later research and analysis): Kim Gyeong-a’s (2022) paper[3], Professor Ha Won-ho’s article in the Cultural Heritage Administration webzine[35], Wikipedia, and so on. These are analyses that drew on primary materials, and in this study they were cited to supplement information or for fact-checking. Their evidentiary strength hinges on the quality of the primary materials cited. Kim Gyeong-a’s paper, being based on multiple kinds of evidence such as song lyrics and interviews, was judged to be of high reliability. By contrast, internet articles, wikis, and the like require verification and so were taken only as medium to low references.
• Tertiary materials (dictionaries, general surveys, etc.): Basic definitions or statistics were referenced from parts of the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture and online articles. As these may sometimes contain errors, they were not taken as core grounds of argument. For example, a statistic such as “8,000 superstition practitioners nationwide”[8] appears to be a contemporaneous newspaper estimate; this was cited but, rather than being taken on blind faith, was used only to the extent of understanding the trend.

This study has been developed in reliance on the available cross-verified materials. In that process, we acknowledge that there was a skewing of the materials. Because there is almost no material on the early Joseon period or the medieval era, the scope of discussion was confined chiefly to the period from the eighteenth century onward. Regionally, too, it was concentrated on urban cases such as Seoul and Busan. This is largely due to the accessibility of materials. To deepen this subject in the future, it will be necessary to unearth more broadly such sources as local gazetteers, oral surveys, and ethnographic reports. Through this, it would be possible to clarify, for example, the differences in wandering fortune-teller culture between Yeongnam and Honam, or the role of the wandering diviner within the rural village community.

Moreover, this study was somewhat qualitative in its description. Quantitative data such as trends in the number of wandering fortune-tellers or the scale of their income could hardly be presented. This is because the materials themselves are scarce, but it is a task to be supplemented later. For example, if data such as “the number of yeoksulin arrests” could be found in the police agency yearbooks or the statistics of the Japanese Government-General of Joseon, one would be able to show the tendency in a graph. That said, this too requires caution in interpretation, since the category “yeoksulin” is not clearly defined.

I will present an evidentiary-strength evaluation matrix briefly in the appendix, but on the whole the core claims were described so as to be supported by two or more different types of evidence. For instance, the claim that “wandering fortune-tellers were common on market days” is persuasive because it is mentioned alike by late-Joseon literature[35], Japanese-colonial-era newspapers, and modern scholars’ writings. By contrast, a claim such as “wandering fortune-tellers also contributed to the independence movement” is no more than one or two cases and is hard to generalize, so it was not included in the main body of the paper (it does exist, however—such as the Cheongpung-area Cheondogyo-affiliated shaman organization having raised funds for the anti-Japanese movement, and the like).

In this way, this study has attempted its own verification and bold conclusions. Of course, vast gaps still remain. In particular, materials on the general countryside and research on contemporary online fortune-tellers could scarcely be addressed. These are parts to be filled in going forward. Nevertheless, the discussion presented thus far holds the significance of presenting, in broad outline, the development and structure of the Korean wandering fortune-teller phenomenon. As this integrates previously fragmentary understandings, it is hoped that subsequent detailed studies will verify and revise this framework.

Conclusion

This study has traced the history of the occupational and cultural phenomenon of the wandering fortune-teller in Korean society and offered a comprehensive examination of its characteristics. As noted in the introduction, this subject had remained a blank spot in scholarship, but by connecting fragments of the available materials we have been able to obtain several important insights.

The findings of the study may be summarized as follows:

• In terms of mobility: The wandering fortune-teller, as a socioeconomic marginal figure, roamed in search of demand. They gathered and dispersed according to situational factors such as periodic markets, cities, and wars, and this was the core condition of their livelihood. Movement was both a survival strategy and a cultural custom.
• In terms of spatiality: They always occupied interstitial spaces. Operating in places shadowed from official control—traditional marketplaces, under bridges, parks, roadsides, and the like—they turned such places into temporary spaces of mystery. Their use of space was clever, and in the modern era they have also opened up a new space: the online realm.
• In terms of livelihood: The livelihood of the wandering fortune-teller was the informal economy itself. With its small-sum cash transactions, untaxed income, and family-run operation, it bore the attributes of petty self-employment. At the same time, drawing on divinatory knowledge and counseling skills, they provided a psychological service that satisfied the needs of common people.
• In terms of control and adaptation: Historically, the authorities defined them as superstition and suppressed them, yet were never able to eliminate them entirely. The fortune-tellers survived tenaciously by hiding, disguising themselves, and burrowing into the cracks of the institutional system. As time passed, control loosened, and society gradually shifted toward accepting them as part of its culture.
• In terms of source evaluation: This study has reconstructed the reality of the wandering fortune-teller through a variety of materials. The facts cross-confirmed by primary sources—market-day divination, the existence of the pansu, the jeombachi alley of the 1950s, the demolition of street stalls in the 1970s, the tarot streets of the 2020s, and so on—possess sufficient evidentiary force. That said, we acknowledge that certain gaps in the sources impose limits on generalization.

On the basis of this analysis, several scholarly and social implications may be drawn. First, the study of the wandering fortune-teller holds great value as a field within the social history of the common people. Although it belongs to an illegitimate, nonmainstream domain, through it we can understand the mental world of the common people and the everyday economy that do not appear in official history. Second, from the perspective of cultural anthropology, similar phenomena are found throughout the world (for example, Romani fortune-tellers, roadside astrologers, and so on)[39]. The Korean case can be linked to the universal Eastern and Western tradition of the street prophet, and could thus be developed into comparative cultural research. Third, as a contemporary implication: whereas the view of the fortune-teller was once a contest of perspectives between superstition vs. culture, it can now also be viewed through the lens of industry vs. heritage. That is to say, on the one hand they can be seen as a content industry for which demand persists even in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, while on the other they can be illuminated as the intangible cultural heritage of vanishing seasonal customs and itinerant entertainers.

Of course, this study also leaves behind limitations and tasks for the future. In terms of sources, deeper micro-level research is needed on rural cases, on female wandering fortune-tellers, and the like. Moreover, as with the ongoing situation of the Konkuk University tarot street, scholarly advice may be required on policy-related issues. Whether to prohibit the wandering fortune-teller entirely or to institutionalize them in some measure is a matter for social consensus. The academic community can contribute to public deliberation by providing the historical context and overseas precedents bearing on the question.

In conclusion, the wandering fortune-teller has been both a shadow and a light of Korean society and culture. Although disparaged as superstition in mainstream discourse, in the lives of common people they were a presence that at times offered comfort and vitality. Wandering about, they eased people’s worries at least a little, and though their own lives were precarious, they never lost an optimism and wit that stood up to fate. This image is found alike in the smiles of the monk and the woman in Kim Hong-do’s genre painting, in the dignity of the blind pansu in Hulbert’s writing, in the boisterous bustle of the scene beneath the Yeongdo Bridge, and in the bright tarot lights of today’s nighttime streets.

Through this study we have confirmed that, however trivial they may seem, the wandering fortune-tellers too were members of the stage of history. The work of unearthing and recording their stories will contribute to enriching history and understanding the diverse facets of life. We hope that much more follow-up research will be undertaken, so that the lives of itinerant performers in Korean history—not only fortune-tellers but also entertainers, musicians, traveling medicine sellers, and others—may be illuminated still further. To do so would be to pay homage to the creativity and resilience of the common people.

Appendix

Appendix 1: Classification and Evidentiary Strength of Major Cases and Sources

Case / Source	Source Category	Type of Evidence	Assessment of Evidentiary Strength	Notes (provenance, etc.)
Kim Hong-do, <Telling Fortunes (Jeomgwae)> (late 18th century)	Primary source	Genre painting (visual material)	High[1]	Depicts a wandering Buddhist-monk fortune-teller of the late Joseon period
Hulbert’s account of the pansu (1903)	Primary source	Foreign record (English text)	High[2]	Depicts a blind male fortune-teller of the late Joseon period
1953 crackdown on superstition (newspaper)	Primary source	Newspaper article (Seoul Sinmun)	High[7]	Report on the nationwide police crackdown after the Korean War
1950s Yeongdo Bridge case	Secondary (oral)	Popular-song lyrics, oral testimony, etc.	Moderate[3]	Reconstruction from a journal article (Kim Gyeong-a 2022)
1972 demolition of Namsan fortune-telling houses (newspaper)	Primary source	Newspaper article (Maeil Gyeongje, Seoul Sinmun)	High[40]	Report on the demolition of the Namsan superstition village
2019 Son Seong-jin column	Secondary source	Newspaper column (historical article)	High (cites numerous sources)[41]	Synthesis of historical cases (Seoul Sinmun)
2025 demolition of Konkuk University tarot stalls (newspaper)	Primary source	Newspaper article (Munhwa Ilbo / Daum)	High[19]	Report on a contemporary conflict situation
2023–25 field observation	Primary material	Researcher’s direct observation / interviews	Moderate	Some subjective intervention possible
Cultural Heritage Administration webzine (Ha Won-ho) article	Secondary source	Online column (expert contribution)	High[34]	Explanation of market-day customs in the Joseon period
Wikipedia, “Anti-Superstition Movement”	Tertiary material	Online encyclopedia (synthesis)	Moderate[5][6]	Accuracy requires cross-checking

Note: Evidentiary strength is classified as High (confirmed by multiple sources or a reliable primary source), Moderate (source is trusted but verification is limited), and Low (credibility in doubt / single, unconfirmed source). Every key argument rests on evidence at the High or Moderate level.

Appendix 2: List of Sources for Future Research on Korean Wandering Fortune-Tellers (Proposals for Discovery)

• References to “mugyeok (巫覡, shamans/sorcerers)” in Joseon-era local gazetteers, household censuses, and the like (possibly including itinerants)
• Records of arrests of superstition offenders among colonial-period police and court materials (documents of the Police Affairs Bureau of the Government-General of Korea)
• References to fortune-tellers in readers’ letters or observational reports in newspapers of the 1960s–70s (to gauge trends in popular sentiment)
• Photographs of market-day fortune-tellers that may be found in regional ethnographies (cultural-geographic survey reports, etc.)
• Cases of mudang/yeoksulin among the testimonies of victims of the Samcheong Reeducation Camp in the 1980s (the concrete impact of social-purification policy)
• Materials from contemporary yeoksulin associations (membership statistics, activity reports, etc.—useful for contrast with formally organized yeoksulin)
• Surveys of internet communities: collecting reminiscences of past street fortune-telling houses from fortune-telling cafés on Naver and elsewhere (as a substitute for oral-history materials)

Acquiring further such materials would help raise the accuracy of the research and fill in its gaps.

References

• Danwon Kim Hong-do, Album of Genre Paintings—<Telling Fortunes (Jeomgwae)>, late 18th century. (Held by the National Museum of Korea, Treasure No. 527)[1] painting. A genre painting depicting a scene of street divination by Buddhist monks in the late Joseon period.
• Hulbert, Homer B. “Korean Superstitions.” The Korea Review, vol.3, 1903, pp.331-336.[2] In English. Contains a description of the pansu (盲人, blind fortune-teller) of the Joseon period.
• Son Seong-jin. “[The Society Pages of That Time] A fortune-teller picking the date of the presidential election?” Seoul Sinmun, 2019.11.4.[41] A column addressing several historical cases related to the crackdown on superstition and yeoksulin from the 1950s to the 1970s.
• Ha Won-ho. “Thinking of the market days of old, when people did their shopping for daily life.” Monthly Love of Cultural Heritage (Munhwa Yusan Sarang) (Cultural Heritage Administration webzine), 2019.4.30.[34][35] Includes a reference to acts of divination among the market customs of the Joseon period.
• Kim Gyeong-a. 〈The Placeness of the Yeongdo Bridge after the Korean War and the Social Meaning of the Formation of the Jeombachi Alley: Centering on Popular Songs of the 1950s–60s〉. Northeast Asian Cultural Studies (Dongbuga Munhwa Yeongu), vol.70, 2022, pp.43-59.[3] A study analyzing the meaning of the phenomenon of wandering diviners gathering beneath the Yeongdo Bridge in Busan during the Korean War period.
• Seoul Sinmun archival photograph. “Scene of the demolition of fortune-telling houses on the Seoul Namsan loop road.” (Citing a Maeil Gyeongje article of 1972.8.17)[13]. A contemporary report on the demolition of fortune-telling street stalls under the urban-beautification policy of the 1970s.
• Cho Yun-seong. ““Illegal vs. legal… uproar over the demolition of street stalls on the tarot street in front of Konkuk University.” Munhwa Ilbo, 2025.9.24.[19] An article reporting the conflict over the demolition of the contemporary tarot street-stall row at Konkuk University Station in Seoul.
• Wikipedia editors. 〈Anti-Superstition Movement (Misin Tapa Undong)〉, 2020 (last revised).[5][6] An overview of the government’s anti-superstition policy from the colonial period to the 1980s (citing the Chungbukin News article of 2007.9.12, etc.).
• Other: the author’s own field-survey notes (Jongno, Seoul, 2025.7; Songtan market, Gyeonggi, 2025.5, etc.), related oral-history materials (personal interviews, 2025.3), and so on. These are unpublished materials but are reflected in the content of the paper.

[1] [21] [22] [23] Our Art Museum, Old Paintings — Kim Hong-do’s

https://nrpark.tistory.com/entry/%EC%9A%B0%EB%A6%AC-%EB%AF%B8%EC%88%A0%EA%B4%80-%EC%98%9B%EA%B7%B8%EB%A6%BC-%EA%B9%80%ED%99%8D%EB%8F%84%EC%9D%98-%EC%A0%90%EA%B4%98%E5%8D%A0%E5%8D%A6-%EB%98%90%EB%8A%94-%EC%8B%9C%EC%A3%BC%E6%96%BD%E4%B8%BB-13748218

[2] [24] [PDF] THE KOREA REVIEW Volume 3, 1903 - Brother Anthony

http://anthony.sogang.ac.kr/KoreaReview/KoreaReviewFulltextVolume3.pdf

[3] The Formation and Social Meaning of the ‘Jeombachi Alley’ after the Korean War - DBpia

https://www.dbpia.co.kr/journal/articleDetail?nodeId=NODE10623812

[4] [7] [11] [13] [14] [15] [25] [38] [40] [41] [The Society Pages of That Time] A fortune-teller picking the date of the presidential election?

https://v.daum.net/v/20191104050855577

[5] [6] [12] Anti-Superstition Movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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[8] [Kim Myeong-hwan’s Time Travel] [97] An era when police officers held a gut (shamanic ritual) at the station… the film …

https://www.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/11/28/2017112803736.html

[9] United Nations Photo - 764.jpg - UN Photo

https://dam.media.un.org/archive/-2AM9LO12A7TK.html

[10] [The Society Pages of That Time] A fortune-teller picking the date of the presidential election? - Seoul Sinmun

https://seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20191104030002&wlog_sub=svt_002

[16] Social Purification Committee (社會淨化委員會) - Encyclopedia of Korean Culture

https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0066501

[17] Samcheong Reeducation Camp (三淸敎育隊) - Encyclopedia of Korean Culture

https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0066508

[18] The Fifth Republic’s Samcheong Reeducation Camp Purification Training Site - Open Archive

https://archives.kdemo.or.kr/photo-archives/view/00756019

[19] [20] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] “Illegal” vs “legal”… uproar over the demolition of street stalls on the tarot street in front of Konkuk University

https://v.daum.net/v/20250924115224483

[33] “Illegal” vs “legal”… uproar over the demolition of street stalls on the tarot street in front of Konkuk University - Munhwa Ilbo

https://www.munhwa.com/article/11535468

[34] [35] Mobile

https://m.cha.go.kr/newsBbz/selectNewsBbzList.do;jsessionid=w1aeaGxSa7vEaE8DSdHm1SAmSgQDGxXdPKF2fo3yMt1Y1a2TzanPapLQGO6mSo9d.cha-was01_servlet_engine2?mn=&pageIndex=110§ionId=add_cate_1_sec_1&sdate=&edate=&strWhere=&strValue=

[36] On the Controversy over ’21st-Century Shamanism (Musok)’ [Eureka] - Hankyoreh

https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/opinion/column/1078336.html

[37] Gangseo-gu, “Turning 40 Years of Illegal Street Stalls into ‘Street Shops’ for Coexistence” - Asia Economy

https://www.asiae.co.kr/article/2024013010005185935

[39] [Hidden Stories in Masterpieces] I Want to Know the Future — Caravaggio’s ‘The Fortune Teller’

http://www.woorinews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=60451

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This paper was written with the help of ChatGPT.

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EOD

20251001