Ban Bok-chang

The story of Ban Bok-chang, called the "Rice Futures God" as a man associated with the rice exchange, was so famous that it was talked about nationwide. At age 12, he worked as a servant for Araki, a Japanese man who was famous in the rice market, and two years later became a price caller at the "Araki Brokerage," relaying between Incheon and Osaka, Japan, the rice prices to futures traders. Then, at 19, he was selected as a market agent of the brokerage and rose in status, but in 1919 Araki went bankrupt and fled to Japan; in the aftermath, the rice exchange was suspended for three months.

When the rice market reopened, Ban Bok-chang jumped in with about 500 won of his own fortune. Thanks to the know-how he had built at the rice brokerage, he went from success to success and earned huge profits. By accurately predicting rice prices—earning as much as 180,000 won in a single trade—he increased his wealth to 400,000 won (approximately 40 billion won in today's value).

In 1921, he held an ultra-luxurious wedding that represented Joseon at the Chosun Hotel with Kim Hu-dong, the "Wondong Big Jacket," a New Woman whose fame was so great that she was revered as a goddess of beauty, and the event became the talk of the town. It is said that the ceremony, at which Incheon Mayor Yoshimatsu personally read a congratulatory address, was so splendid that it rivaled a European royal wedding.

But within just two years, his price forecasts kept missing the mark, and he squandered his fortune and went bankrupt; in 1923 he was even arrested on fraud charges. Afterwards, his wife Kim Hu-dong divorced him, leaving him with three sons. Due to repeated failures and a sense of loss, he suffered a stroke at age thirty and became half-paralyzed.

Eventually, even his mind became deranged, and after living a miserable life for ten years, he died at the age of forty, twenty days before the rice market was abolished in 1939.