Seoul walking tour turns to the ‘Dark Side’

It is a Saturday evening on a street corner in Seoul’s Ahyeon-dong, and a foreign man is handing out baggies of powder to a group of women.

This is the Dark Side of Seoul Tour, Seoul’s only ghost walk in English, and host Joe McPherson is concerned about the safety of the women on the tour, after rumors in the area from colonial times.

“There were tales of women being harassed by Japanese ghosts, so they used to carry a little bit of chili powder in their purses to throw at Japanese ghosts, because, you know, Japanese ghosts don’t like hot things,” said McPherson, handing out small pouches of chili powder.

“Only Japanese ghosts. ... Korean ghosts, they’ll love it.”

The tour starts by ducking into a nearby alley at the earliest opportunity to explain how a particular area became known as the Alley of Ashes.

It sets the tone well for the rest of the way, as the Dark Side of Seoul tour lives up to its name, covering murderous royal plots, massacres, prostitutes meeting grisly ends, and even a restaurant with blood dripping from the ceiling.

There are one or two less grim asides, including the story of how locals got one over on the government in building the Nakwon Arcade, now the biggest musical instrument market in Korea, and a lament over the passing of Pimatgol’s bustling fish restaurants.

McPherson runs food tours in Seoul with his ZenKimchi food promotion business, introducing people to Korean dining favorites along different themed courses. This is his only non-food tour.

He decided to start the tours out of a combination of missing the traditions of Halloween in his native Alabama and inspiration from the Jack the Ripper tours that are popular in London’s East End. Many other cities have similar tours showing the underbellies as an alternative to the more conventional historical attractions like castles, palaces and cathedrals, and McPherson decided there was room for one in Seoul.

McPherson said he was always looking for more stories ― a tale about a haunted well that draws people to the bottom has been added to a collection of ghost stories told by Cheonggyecheon Stream ― but he has had to leave some out.

This is often because of provenance, or because he can’t find out enough detail about the stories. But in another, a neighbor objected, and in one case he tracked down the site of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Seoul, but said there was nothing left of the place.

One pursuit at a school was abandoned because “I went out to research and then realized I was basically just this middle-aged man skulking round a girls’ school, so I kind of had to give up on that one.”

The tours have been well received, with evenings in October particularly busy, but there is a hiatus in December when it gets too cold.

The Dark Side of Seoul tours run Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays in October and then Fridays at 7 p.m. until Dec. 6. It costs 35,000 won per person to join or 30,000 won for groups of four or more. To find out more or reserve a spot, visit www.zenkimchi.com.

By Paul Kerry (paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)