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A triad is a Chinese transnational organized crime syndicate based in Greater China and has outposts in various countries with significant overseas Chinese populations. The organizational structure of Chinese organized crime in the United States is quite complex. Broadly defined, there is a great variety of Chinese criminal organizations. These include gangs, secret societies, triads, tongs, Taiwanese organized crime groups, and strictly US-based tongs and gangs. According to Ko-lin Chin, the foremost academic expert in the U.S. on Chinese organized crime, there is no empirical support for the belief that there is a well-organized, monolithic, hierarchical criminal cartel called the “Chinese Mafia.” The Chinese gangs are best known for trafficking in heroin and opium, but they are in fact as diversified as the biggest multinational conglomerate. Among their other activities are arms smuggling, credit card fraud, counterfeiting, software piracy, prostitution, gambling, loansharking, white-collar crime, home-invasion robbery, high-tech theft, and trafficking in endangered animals and plants. The triads are equally increasingly involved in the smuggling of illegal aliens. U.S. officials estimate that up to 100,000 Chinese are illegally smuggled into the country each year, many of them forced to live in involuntary obedience for a long period of time, while they work off their debt to the gangsters and smugglers that helped them to make their way into the states. In order to simplify and focus our discussion, this analysis will concentrate on the Fuk Ching gang. The Fuk Ching are active in Liberty City, and are regarded as one of the most powerful, and also transnationally active, Chinese organized crime groups in the U.S. (Chin, 1996). They are estimated to have approximately 35 members, with another 20 members currently in prison. Other major gangs in Liberty include the Ghost Shadows, Flying Dragons, Tung On, and Born-to-Kill. The Liberty City gangs, like the Fuk Ching, mainly operate extortion and protection rackets in defined neighborhoods in Liberty City’s Chinatown. Their victims are mostly businesses in Chinatown. In San Andreas, however, the Chinese organized crime presence, and the problem is quite different from that in Liberty City. In San Andreas, the dominant groups are the Wo Hop To and the Wah Ching. The Liberty City Police Department (LCPD), which polices the neighborhood in which the Fuk Ching are active, uses all the standard law enforcement practices commonly used to combat organized crime. These include informants, undercover investigators, and electronic surveillance. In addition, both the police and the FBI support and encourage extortion victims to use hotlines to report their victimization. The LCPD has also created an Asian Gang Intelligence Unit that employs street patrols to monitor street gangs. One of the structural characteristics that make Chinese organized crime different from other forms is the relationship between some of the street gangs and certain adult organizations. The latter are called tongs. The Fuk Ching, for example, is affiliated with the Fukien American Association. The Fukien American Association – as with other tongs and their relationships with gangs – provide the Fuk Ching with a physical place to gather and hang out. They allow the gang to operate on their (the tong’s) territory, thus legitimizing them with the community. Which is what usually appears in San Andreas as well. The smaller Chinese gangs fall under triads, that allows them to distribute and use their street as their so-called turf. In the state of San Andreas, there are more than thirty-two estimated Cantonese-American street gangs, and triads. One of them is the Paul Yin Gang, the street gang gained power in the early beginning of the 21st century when a huge wave of Cantonese-American migrants went to the Korean district of Los Santos. Many of them were smuggled through containers, which forced them to work for the smugglers/gangsters until they paid their debt off. Even though the Paul Yin Gang has had little to no influence over the area for the past twenty years, they've made quite a big name for themselves, as the LSPD had launched multiple raids in the area, charging many affiliates with money laundering charges, and involvement in loansharking. Over the last 2 decades, the United States and especially San Andreas has seen a huge inflow of Asian Americans. A look at how great of an Asian population there is in San Andreas is simply by looking at the enrollment at the University of Los Santos schools. UC Los Santos consists of Asian American and UC Red County is approximately 45%. This migration of Asians has brought many hard workers but it has also brought a new form of gangs more violent and brutal than America has ever seen. The Triads and the Tongs are one of the reasons why some Asian-Americans feel it necessary to join these gangs even though it seems to contradict the Asian "model minority" myth. The Asian American has been stereotyped as the "model minority", which implies that Asians have a strong work ethic, low profile, and a sense of loyalty to their family. Yet crimes by Asians in gangs have been occurring throughout San Andreas much more frequently than in years past. There seems to be a definite irony here in that the increases in Asian-American youth crime and the stereotype of Asian-Americans do not follow the same pattern. One such reason for this deviation is based on a matter of perspective in that one might consider crime by Asian-American youth as an occupation. If one takes into consideration that crime could be considered an occupation, then if the Asian-American work ethic focuses on succeeding in the new world, then the crime cannot be ruled out as an option to attaining financial class success. However, there is a more reasonable explanation as to why current Asian youth seem to deviate from the so-called "model minority" myth because of the two different phases in which Asians came to the United States. This huge inflow of Asians into San Andreas essentially occurred in two phases. In 1965, Congress passed an Immigration Act which abolished the old national-origins quota and increased the limit of 100 immigrants from countries within the "Asian-Pacific Triangle" to 20,000 immigrants per country from the Eastern Hemisphere, plus immigrants accepted within family preference standards: specifically spouses, minor children, and parents of citizens. This gave rise to a major wave of Asian immigration to America. This first wave in the 1 970s consisted of Asians who were highly educated, middle class, and urban. They arrived in a very short time frame, which allowed them to establish themselves successfully in America and thus was born the "model minority" myth. These immigrants were hard-working and stressed education as the tools to success and these tools would allow them to live the "American Dream." But more recently the second wave which started around the mid 1980s to the present, the immigrants from Asia have been mainly refugees from harsh political conditions in Southeast Asia. These recent immigrants arrive seeking new jobs and new opportunities but the job market is shrinking for less-skilled workers due to technological change. There has been increased immigration into the United States because under the current family preference system, it admits not only spouses, minor children, and parents of citizens, but also siblings and children over the age of two. But, for too many of these immigrants, coming to America has been a myth-shattering experience; because they soon realize that it is still very hard to succeed in America. When immigrants arrive in America, they strive for financial status and a comfortable home. However the first means to achieve financial status is through a professional job but a professional job requires training and some form of education. Immigrants who face a language barrier have trouble attaining that education they need especially if a college degree is needed because it is difficult to raise the money to afford higher education. Entrepreneurship is blocked by many of these same obstacles. And media success is forgettable because of the tiny market for Asian Americans in the media. Consequently, these new immigrants arrive in America with little prospect for employment and thus contribute to the growing percentage of Asian-Americans living below the poverty line. In order to simply survive, some Asian youth turn to crime in order to get some of the things that their parents cannot give them, which is usually influenced by poverty, greed, social comfort, and overall attention. Hell Side Wah Ching 1990s The gang’s origins lie in the tag-banging crew Hellside Asian Boys (HAB), whose ex-members made up the core of Hellside Wah Ching’s membership. While original members of HAB were primarily concerned with graffiti and graffiti culture, the merge with KTown Seaside Mafia (KSM) severely transformed the nature of HAB. While prior to the merge, HAB had partaken in petty crime, merging with another tag-banging crew irreversibly changed the crew. Local law enforcement officials had speculated that the clique was primarily 'created' due to the spiking interest in the drug market. Following the merge the gang was known as Hellside Mafia and has been involved in selling drugs onto a new lucrative drug market appearing due to the mass-immigration of Asian/Chinese immigrants in the Little Seoul Area. It's been rumored that certain members of the gang had developed ties to the local tong. It's been speculated that the tong had used Hellside Mafia as their muscle when it came to local extortions and drug trafficking. 2000s At the brink of a new millennium a bloody feud had occurred. What was formerly known as the Hellside Mafia had split into Hellside Wah Ching and KTown Circle Boys. The members of Hellside Mafia whom had pled allegiance to the local tong had then formed the core membership of the Hellside Wah Ching, whilst everybody who "didn't get with the program" became part of the KTown Circle Boys clique. In 2003 the Los Santos Police Department classified them as a street gang for prosecution purposes when three HWC members Nestor Chung, 17, James Chuang, 16, along with Joshua Hu, 17 and Omar Chin, 15 who was not in a gang were involved in the double homicide of Jack Cho, 14 and his father Li Cho, 45, on November 5, 2003. Jack’s brother, Bradley Cho, 17, was a member of the KTown Circle Boys and had a dispute with Joshua at their high school earlier that day. The four assailants were looking for Bradley when they shot and killed his little brother (not a gang member) and his father. It's been said that the tong had severed ties with the Hellside Wah Ching following the homicide of Jack Cho and his father. Little Seoul (忠诚) is a group of Roleplayers aiming to portray a realistic Chinese tong/triad located at Little Seoul, Ginger Street/Sunshine. All aspiring players may approach us ICly, roleplaying a "move in" is highly frowned upon in the faction as neighborhood-foreign locals are not engaged proactively in the faction' activities whether classmates or known locals, friends, etc. are more involved. We suggest reading any sort of guide on how to portray a realistic Chinese mobster member prior to joining us, however, be aware that our faction puts heavy emphasis on environmental/group realism as a whole as well, affiliates and members may not post screenshots on the thread until they've been approved via our approval system as we're very strict on ourselves regarding the fashion regime we've been aiming to give out on our thread. We also have a guide in our Discord server which you are free to read. Upon joining the faction you also instantly agree to be Character Killed by the High Council members within the faction. Anyone wanting to roleplay with our faction is required to join our Discord server.