By mid-morning the main alley of Namdaemun market in Seoul is ringed by private security guards and police, and the queue – penned behind a cordon – shuffles forward clutching numbered tickets. Those in it, mostly middle-aged women, have waited more than an hour.
In front of them, a stall holder is selling scarves, offering a deal of six for 10,000 won (about $6.80), roughly $1.15 each. The salesman – who is known by nicknames such as “scarf ajeossi”, or scarf uncle – has become something of a national sensation for a sales technique that consists of talking customers out of purchases. “Don’t spend your money,” he quips. “It doesn’t suit you.”
The combination of his affectionate bluntness and amusing selling style – coupled with praise for his looks – has seen him become a huge star on social media, with customers and livestreamers flocking to the market and clips racking up millions of views online.
Lee Mi-hwa, who came from Yongin, about 35km south of Seoul, after seeing him on YouTube, says: “He’s really famous. He’s the hottest thing right now.”
Namdaemun is South Korea’s oldest and largest traditional market, a warren of alleys beside the old south gate that gives it its name, and a place long synonymous with the hard sell.
Passersby stop to ask whether a celebrity is inside due to all the commotion, while YouTubers try to get a glimpse of him, livestreaming the chaos.
The scarf seller does not publicise his real name, so nicknames fill the gap. As well as scarf uncle, there is “Scarfrio”, a playful mashup of scarf and Leonardo DiCaprio, in a nod to his looks and easy charm. “He’s so handsome,” says a woman in the queue.
Scarfrio is rugged rather than polished, dressed in a market trader’s layers for the autumn cold, and poses for selfies with his newfound fanbase.
That appeal has seen him go viral for his salesmanship and he has since opened Instagram and YouTube accounts, racking up millions of views.
On Wednesday, Lee Ji-hyun joined the queue at 10am and reached the front at 11.20am. “I finally got some,” she says excitedly, holding up her prize. “The way he talks is so lovely. A man like that deserves to do well, so I came to cheer him on, and I ended up buying.”
She had stood beside him long enough to hear the sales pitch. “Nothing worth seeing here,” he tells shoppers, and “come on, mum, dig underneath, dig underneath”, endearingly urging them to rummage through the pile of scarves. “He feels like my son, like a younger brother,” she says.
“This fabric is marvellous. Have you felt how soft it is? How is this 1,600 won?” she says. The packaging says made in China.
As his popularity and the crowds have grown, the scarf seller has had to shut up shop several times, with police called in to usher his devotees out of the crowded alley. In early November, private security was hired to manage the hordes and he has stopped announcing his opening hours.
But not everyone is amused. A few metres away, another stall holder, who has sold shoes at the market for more than 30 years, is unimpressed with the crowds that now spill across his shopfront.
“Business is bad. The passage next to me gets blocked and it’s really hard on me,” says the man, who gives his name only as Moon. “The wider area is fine, because the people come. It’s the shops nearby that take the damage.”
Young people film the scarf seller for YouTube and Instagram, he says, and come just to see his face. “This is pulling a lot of people in,” he says. “But there’s no spending.”
Bae Jong-min, who sells scarves next to Scarfrio’s stall, was more upbeat.
“There are a lot of people coming to the market, so for the market as a whole it’s a good thing,” he says, pointing to the restaurants, coffee shops and food stalls. “But I do worry about crowding issues.”
Days earlier, Scarfrio wrote on social media that the attention had left him carrying “enormous pressure and anxiety”, and he apologised to the traders around him.
Lee Ji-hyun, meanwhile, had not set foot in Namdaemun for 30 years, despite living in Seoul. “If I need something I go to the supermarket, I never thought about coming to this market,” she says. “I now plan to come once a month.”
