My husband, Jae, retired from his wholesale shrimp business in 2004 at the age of 44.
People who don’t know the whole story might say “What a lucky dude!” for retiring early; but I know how much he earned it, and not just because he spent years getting up every morning at 2 am to go to work. It’s really the fruit of his sweat and diligence over the past couple decades.
The boy who immigrated one day to a foreign country as a 7th grader couldn’t go to the bathroom all day because he didn’t know how to ask where the bathroom was. He had to practice his Taekwondo kick to fend off the school bullies, who left him alone but still called him “Bruce Lee.” When his friend Pablo’s dad, who was also the super of his building, took him to the China town one day, he felt such a relief knowing that there were at least people who looked like him living in the same city.
He studied math and science religiously to compensate for his weak English, and he was able to get accepted into Brooklyn Technical High School only 2 years after he arrived in the US. His parents were proud of him when he graduated from Columbia engineering in 1982.
Unfortunately, the year he graduated was the year the US was suffering from the oil crisis. His major, chemical engineering, happened to be one of the fields most affected. Bad luck. He once told me he’d selected his major because the starting salary was one of the highest among engineering fields when he was entering college. If only that had still been the case. Most companies he sent his resume to were laying off people rather than hiring, so he applied to graduate school instead.
There was another stumbling block in his road to career success– me. I met him in NY his senior year in college, right before his graduation. I was studying in Paris at the time and was in NY to visit my sisters. A few months after I returned to Paris, my father was imprisoned and subsequently tortured by the Korean CIA under the military coup. Through the whirlwind, I had to decide whether to go back to Korea or try to stay as a starving student.
We were already engaged by then, so I called Jae and asked him whether he could still take me even though I only had about $100 in my bank account. He didn’t hesitate, though he had no idea how he was going to support us as a graduate student.
That’s how we got married. We had to plan the wedding in basically a month’s time. This is also why he often jokes about how I proposed to him, instead of him proposing. I guess it is true in a way. I was 23 years old and he was still 22 years old, a few days shy of becoming 23.
We moved into his parents’ house, and he had to start working right away. His first job was as a commission salesman at one of the wholesale companies at Fulton Fish market, the biggest wholesale fish market in the East coast since 1822.
My father in law, who immigrated to the US in 1973, opened up his own fish market with a friend at 72nd street and Broadway in Manhattan. Both of my in-laws were school teachers in Korea and had no experience in opening a business, let alone in a foreign country. Despite this, the market was a success. By the time we got married in 1983, he had parted with his friend and opened up his own store in Brooklyn. On weekends and after school, my husband helped his parents at the store. This is why he can still fillet the fish with a sashimi knife.
One summer, while his father went to Korea to see Jae’s grandma, Jae went to the Fulton market to buy fish for the store for a month. I didn’t quite understand his vision, but he was somehow impressed by the primitive nature of the market: guys with a fish hook cursing at each other and carrying cartons after cartons full of fish in the wee hours.
My husband asked “Uncle Julie” from T&S wholesaler whether he can rent one of their stands, and Uncle Julie saw the potential of growing Korean retailers. He also knew my husband through a son of one of his regular customers who recently graduated from Columbia. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, and the beginning of a long friendship between my husband and Uncle Julie.
Julius Sirlowitz, aka Uncle Julie, was one of the last “Jewish mafia” (he could never be a real member because he was not an Italian). He took my husband under his wing and taught him everything about how the Fulton Fish market operates. He also told my husband many fascinating stories about mafias in NY. It’s no wonder that Goodfellas and the Godfather series are among his favorite movies to this day.
In the beginning, my husband had a lot to learn about sales. He didn’t even know what to sell. Korean fish markets started to add fish and chip stands to sell their overbought fish since they were perishable. So, he started selling frozen potatoes to the people coming to buy fish. It was his first item. I remember his first week’s commission was around $300.
Soon his main item became frozen shrimp. Over time he added other seafood, like frozen lobster tails, king crab legs, octopus and squid. His business grew steadily. By the time he retired in 20 years, his gross sales were almost $20 million.
He especially enjoyed trying to buy a large quantity of shrimp before the price went up. Sometimes, the price of shrimp went up in the time it took for him to store them in the refrigerated storage facility. Even a 10¢ increase can become big money when you buy the whole container. It’s similar to the dynamics of the stock market; but it’s also something that he had to buy anyway.
I was clueless of what actually went on at the market everyday, but the stories he told gave a small glimpse. Like the time his pen wouldn’t work because the ink was frozen, or the number of coffees he’d have each morning to fight the cold. There’s no doubt that my husband was literally freezing his butt off day in and day out for 20 years, all for his family.
I was only physically there a few times to meet him after hours. Most of us at home didn’t know what Jae actually had to endure. I once thought about how much more respect our children would have towards their father if they had been there for even one day to watch their dad in action. But it really wasn’t an environment where a kid could have gone on a “take your kid to work day,” so we never tried.
It was only after he retired that I found out that there was extortion going on for a long time. He didn’t tell me because he didn’t want me to worry about him. The Fulton Market was controlled by Italian mafias, and if you wanted their “protection,” you needed to pay their price.
One interesting story about my husband and the mafia boss– After Rudolf Juiliani became the district attorney for New York City, he started a grand campaign to eradicate mafias in NYC. The fish market run by the mafia was no exception, and my husband was called by the FBI. The investigation went on for several days with pressure and coercion, but he didn’t crack. He knew well enough he could disappear one day without a trace if he spoke the wrong name.
Shortly after he was interviewed, my husband received a call.
The big boss (the “Godfather”) wanted to see him at the funeral parlor.
He told me it was something right out of the movie.
“Just call the police if I don’t come back by tonight,” he said.
Luckily, he came home unharmed and was able to tell me the adventure with excitement.
The big boss thanked him for keeping his silence. And he told my husband to let him know if anyone ever bothers him. We basically have a mafia connection now in case we want someone to be “whacked.” We were never tempted to use the connection ( except maybe once on Kevin’s hockey coach ….) but it sure was a fun story to tell. To this day, it is by far the most fascinating story to all our nephews.
For over 20 years, my husband got up at 2 am and went to work with a couple of peanut butter sandwiches, one for breakfast and the other for lunch. By the time he retired at the age of 44, he was tired; it was truly the fruit of his diligent labor.
My mom made a comment once, “I thought Soonbin was marrying an engineer from Columbia! But turns out she married a shrimp guy.”
It’s understandable she might have been disappointed a little in the beginning since she is from a culture where social status is pretty important. But I respect my husband’s courage to start a business he knew nothing about. I’m grateful for all the hard work put in, no matter what other people might say.
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