Life as a Flying Dragon

Kushkin.

This season of The Chinatown Sting has been about the rise and fall of one gang, in particular the Flying Dragons. I tried over and over it to get the perspective of someone who'd actually been in the gang, but no one was willing to speak to me until now today. An interview with someone who's going to tell us about the harsh life he led in the gang, how it recruited kids, and how it all came to an end for him. I'm Lady Jane Kott, and this is a special bonus episode of.

The Chinatown Sting.

Cowboy, who now goes by CB, came to the US from Hong Kong in nineteen seventy one when he was six years old. He joined the Flying Dragons shortly after he started high school. That was back when a man named Michael Chen aka the Scientist, was the leader of the gang. In nineteen eighty three, the Scientist was shot and CB managed to stay on in the gang as it acquired a new boss, Johnny Ing aka Onion Head.

Onion was like a different regime. He was like, go out make money everyone. It was like the Soviet Union they disbanded. You give a freedom, they go, say to yourself, what the fuck I will do with it. We don't know how to make money except distributing drugs. So that was the new era.

CEB would later serve almost two decades in prison for drug charges unrelated to the trial against Johnny, and then for racketeering. He was one of many Flying Dragon members indicted in nineteen ninety four. He was released in two thousand and seven. I met with CB at a tea shop on Pell Street, right by the Flying Dragon's old headquarters. He was honest about how brutal the gang used to be, but not as remorseful as you might expect. I asked him why he joined the gang in the first place.

Well, from my early days I was bullied.

When I came to the country, I lived in the Bronx of all places, so my conditioning started there. Like I always said, this was like nineteen seventy one. If you look at my school year picture, I went to kindergarten, I think first grade, second grade. You see in the yearful pictures, you see some brown faces, some black faces. Wife, there's only one yellow face, which was mine in the whole school and maybe in that whole damn community. I'm

I'm not kidding.

I was walking and decide the street with my little backpack. I see a bunch of kids that I walked the other way, but they always see me every day. It was like ing John with me, so I had to either fight of like that type of lifestyle conditioning changed me in a certain way to begin with, you know what I mean. Long story short, fast forward. I'm in Queen's Vacational High School. There was a branch or the

They bethinking he's a game?

Might not you approach him and you literally confront him and say where are you from?

To find out?

Yeah, which you would tell by your attitude and your responses. You know what I mean. There's a purpose to that one.

You could root out enemy gangs too. It's a possible recruitment, you know what I mean. And young kids all want to belong to something. And the reason why I chose the Flying Dragons was they had a moral foundation. What they preached to me and the originally was that we're here to protect the Chinese community. I mean it sounds a little bit hypocritical though, but they said that we're

These are basic laws that they were told me. And I said, whoa, this is.

Something I could get down with our apartments here, one of the cardinal rules was no girls can go up there. So our leader at that time, Michael chen Right, it was very serious what he did.

He was a leader before Onion Head. Yes, and he was known as the Scientist.

Yes, he had a lot of rules. He ran this with a strict iron.

So you moved into one of these apartments here on Pell Street as a teenager.

Yes.

When I first came down here, my bed was four chairs put together. Oh wow, yes, you have to go to a probation. He tested you to see do you have the right stuff to be a full fledged member. Actually he also did psychological profile me. A lot of us were actually only sons, so we're looking to belong somewhere, and a lot of us, my fellow brothers a generation, we were all.

Picked one and bullied.

He needed people who really wanted to feel like they belonged in the gang.

And we're gonna be like committed to it.

Yes, because we were bullied.

We wanted to fight back, but we didn't have the power fight back. So he knew how to profile us that way, and in retrospect, he built an army of freaking ultra violent people because we all had a common element of hatred for them.

Shadows, which were it. Yeah, I was gonna say, not too far. Also, can you tell me about the war with the ghost shadows?

But we foll every day almost right. But it's political too.

Because you guys were both fighting for who was going to be the most important you.

Know what, The line, or should I say, the indoctrination fit was that we are.

The protectors of this community, not them.

So in respect, we felt like robin hoods and we felt that they were the Antichrist, so we had to come back them I mean that's how that's once against that with teenagers too young, that.

Was maybe they had the opposite story exactly.

Maybe they were taught something else to this is what we were taught to believe it.

And what was the relationship between because also on Pell Street you had the gambling parlor and then you also had the Hip Sang association, right, and what was the relationship between you guys in your apartment.

And the because back then in the days, right, the FDS nine Joints was the military arm for the hip syns Okay under the Uncle seven regime, Uncle Benny regime, who.

Was the head of the of the hip saying yes, and.

He was he was finally looked at us like the godfather of China.

Right.

What about where were the Uncle Sevin's gambling houses? Where were the locations?

Well, it's of information. Number fifteen's over there and the famous number nine right.

Next to us.

We had apartment upstairs which was used to monitor street activity and act as a protection over there. We had an apartment across the street there too and went down there too. So all this was a purpose of just sleeping, not partying, nothing else. And you also get use it as a place where you put the troops. You gotta be close by you close by the cloud. Think of it as troop barracks. Barracks were the soldiers.

How did you get your nickname?

Cowboy?

Let's just say I was a little bit like like like the image goal, a little bit rampunctious and reckless when I was young, as I was small, I was the youngest of the crowd, young or small. But it's just it because I was picked on so much.

I fight. Some people come out and put machetes on me. Every day was violence, you know when we were young. You know how we were trained to fight? Street fighting. I don't know even know.

Back in the days, there was a lot of vagabonds, bums how you are called on the streets of Bowie.

They lay all over the streets, all over. It's not like this.

So our elders will tell us it sounds cruel to practice on them, but.

We will kick them out. We're tell them to get off the street.

We thought we're doing the service because they're lying front of the business stores and everything, and we're here to protect the neighborhood, clean up the airs, and we'll tell them to move if they don't move then, you know, obviously we would have to force him to move. And that's how weaking our training from to fight in the streets. Drop over a hat.

Wow.

Otherwise, the normal lay person, you tell me right now to fight or hit somebody, you can't if you never hit a person. It's a little threshold that you don't know how to pass unless you did it already. To be violent or another human being is something else, you.

Know what I mean.

It's not something i'm gonna say I'm proud of, but it's something that was conditioned, conditioned for us to be just like soldiers.

In nineteen eighty three, the body of Michael Chen, also known as the Scientist, was found inside an office belonging to the hip, saying that community Association on Pell Street he had been shot to death. His murder was never solved, and the man who took over the gang after him would be a very different sort of leader.

We'll be right back.

I'm back with CEB, a former member of the Flying Dragons gang in Manhattan's Chinatown in nineteen eighty three, after spending his early teenage years under the Scientists leadership, CB now eighteen, had to adjust to life under a new leader, Johnny Yang on your head.

It was basically it wasn't so strict. It wasn't that many rules that you had to follow. Under Michael there was so much code of conduct. Hm, you have to carry yourself a certain way. You can't do this, can't do that. No, But on the onion is more or less like like we'll make money.

But here's the problem.

Well, young, all we knew as kids going up was rules and engaging in street violence. So it's only natural. The next thing that fell upon us was this dribbled drugs on a different level. Of course, we had the balls, you know what I mean. We spoke English, so it was a natural choice.

Why do you think Johnny like, why was that his approach?

Why wasn't he stretched like like the scientist is.

Different. He's not as.

Controlling, you know what I mean, as controlling as Michael Chen was. So I guess there's something that fell on his lap too. I'm sure there's other people that want to step up for that position, but then there will be opposition. Here's one person with enough street creds. You have enough street creds and time in for people to respect you. You know what I mean, so for you to take that role, then people will fall in line, right.

And out of everyone we've talked to you on this series, I think you probably know Onion the best. Like, how would you describe what he was like?

What's he like? Person?

You need to understand something in the streets. We all have a persona. Nobody breaks out a character, okay, and nobody really gets to know each other.

That well, that's interesting.

And I guess my nicknames Okay, they're not just for show. There's a purpose to it.

I know my Elderns for like freaking years and I don't know his real name.

There's a reason for that.

If I don't know your name, I can never be informing on you. There's a purpose to it, right, So that's why everybody got these colorful nicknames, right. That was given sometimes because based on your personality or whatever to be, you will give a nickname and it sticks to you and that's what you'll refer to. Everything is on a need to know basis, and we don't know where each other lives.

But what was his persona? Just that he was like a business.

Guy, is much much more business like than Michael. It wasn't it didn't put up the airs as.

Much like that was more casual.

You could catch them just sneakers and jeans and a T shirt, very unassuming.

It's so funny because if you read like the newspapers, they're all.

Like Johnny who was always wearing expensive suits.

Like not very unassuming. Yeah, you see him walk on the street. What's character.

He is more interested in making money doing business as opposed to trying to control territory, get into war and all that stuff. All that stuff was just pass for us. That plus a lot of us became what's the word I look for. It's almost a little bit like post traumatic syndrome. By the time Onion took over, a lot of us been through many years of ultra violence.

Johnny came, you guys all had some PTSD. You were like, let's make them everybody.

A lot of us, A lot of us they didn't want to engage in the violence anymore. And also we're growing up. By the time Johnny came in, we were now in our late teens eighteen nineteen, so we realized one thing, ship we need money.

Right, how to make the money in the drugs?

But were you aware of the risks of like this was during the War on drugs. There's the mandatory minimums, Like, were you considering were you thinking about that?

Of course not?

You were going to say, of course we were thinking about th think about the mindset where gangsters real full time not weekend warriors gain that's the life we leave lived by this sor died by this type of thing.

So it's part of it's all part of the experience. If you're going to be scared about that stuff, you can't be a gangster.

Right, you know what I mean?

Were you thinking about the risks you were putting on other people?

Like when you're asking the woman and the madrong parlors to like accept those packages of heroin?

What could happen to them?

No, like the.

Moms Nope, nope, Because why here here's the thing. Nobody's forced to do anything. Really, whoever volunteers I mean terms of trade, would receive BA just they did it for money, all right, Maybe maybe you have to pick certain people that was down on their luck or whatever, but still it was through their own consent. I mean, honest, I myself received the package before. That's my first thing.

That's how you started.

Yet in that drug trade thing, I was paid twenty thousand dollars.

That's a lot of.

Money, yeah, especially in nineteen eighties.

Yes, but it was a due or die job, meaning all you have to do was sit there and wait for the package to come. If the package passion comes in, you get it.

It's clean.

But it was intercepted. It was a sting operation. You're done right, you know what I mean. So it was a due or die thing. I did it once only because I knew it was due or die and nevertheand that I started to move up the chain of distribution instead of just being the meal of accepting, which is really started to find customers to distribute the product itself.

How easy was.

It to bring the drugs into the country, like to get the connections in Hong Kong, and.

Back then it was pretty easy. It said.

Technology was different, you know back then to send the package I we see was just wrapped around with toys in the middle. Part of it was the actual product yourself. Because a seven hundred grand brick is like a size of like a like a dictionary, like a thick dictionary.

Big thick.

But yeah, that's quite big.

Yeah, ten of them put together, Valo like a million dollars. It's about only this bay. It brings me to a store. When I was in China one time, right, somebody sharing me, and how to conceal these packages was to smear the inside of it with tiger shit figer feces. Yeah, I said, what you know why? This is what he said to me. I don't know if it worked or not, but he said, dogs have an intrinsic natural fear.

Oh my god, so dog, yes, it's.

Going to it, they'll move away from it. Back then, that the fact, then the legend.

Back then, the only thing to have with dogs and radar, I mean X ray, not like nowadays, to get it where they see him. You're figuring Adams, you know what I mean. But I remember because I was in China and I asked some people. I said, listen, can you go do a zoo and find me some tiger?

Actually did you do it? Uh?

Yeah?

Later on, when I started to try to move into importation myself, right, I actually found people in China. China, you understand, it's the death penalty to mess with drugs. Back then, we're still communists, you know me. So we took a lot of boards to do it. So I had to find people go to zoo. They give me some tiger feeces itself.

Yeah.

Did that message make it safely to New York?

No? Not you to Puerto Rico.

It wasn't a destination that was on the radar. And then I have my under links from Puerto Rico bring it back into the States. Yeah, you know what I mean, because that was easy coming into the state.

Did you ever go to the Johnny's State in Pennsylvania.

The shooting place? Now?

Yeah, you never went? Oh you know I went to it.

You went to it?

Yeah?

Really? Yeah, when you mean later on, not when he was around.

My good friend Onion had invited me.

No, I went, like for reporting the podcast, it's now a shooting range officially, How can we never made it to Johnny?

Well, under Johnny's regime, I was also doing other stuff, you know what I mean. I partner up with other members to distribute stuff, some of it his product, not necessarily or his products, you know what I mean. So, like I said, under Johnny's regime, he being a businessman, and while we all still one flag.

But you're kind of doing a different thing.

Yeah, so you didn't you didn't get an invite to the shooting.

I mean, no, I'll be honest.

You to share a story, right, Uh, Johnny was Obviously there's certain things that need to be done, like sometimes people need to bring money back to Hong Kong, right, and you would get paid an X amount of money, strap money on your body.

To bring it back. Way.

I turned down that offer, I see, because I said to myself this.

I still remember.

I said, when I go back, I'm gonna go back on my own court, you know what I mean. I'm gonna go back, not as a worker, but under my own choice. And I did later on, Well, I call it court ambition, call it what you like, you know what I mean. I'm going back as my own man.

He didn't want to go back smuggling money for another.

Guy exactly, something like that exactly.

But the law would soon catch up with CB and with the Flying Dragons. That's after the break in nineteen ninety one, see, he was arrested for playing a role in a drug conspiracy, one that didn't involve Johnny. He was in the mcc that jail on your Chinatown awaiting his trial, and then he saw a familiar face, someone who he hadn't seen for a while one.

Day I woke up, I came out of my tier, my room, and I saw the skinny guy standing in front of the common area. Now in MCC, I was always established.

I was like, let's just sound. I was comfortable a right there.

I had my whole surroundings everything, So I was, holy shit, who's that union. Probably at that time was just Extra died over here. Yeah, it was just Extra died and he landed here. I saw him as holy shit onion. But Lucky ran into me because I said, okay, you're my new roommate. At that time, I had cloud in pash, so I told the CELA, moved my guy out.

He's moving into my room.

But that only lasted for a few days because I'm sure the prosecutor found out had split this up right away.

Yeah that makes sense. Yeah, was he a good roommate.

I mean he's my elder. I mean, I mean this thing that is good and not good, you know what I mean. I still respect the fact he's my elder. So I did the best I can to hook him up, make sure everything is okay. Because in prison, right especially the attention center, the best spot is if you have a job in the kitchen passing out of food because inside there's not much amenities. You know, eating is.

One of them.

So when you have the spot as the orderlies to distribute food, then you hold everything.

So I get a job in the kitchen to distribute food. But those are positions of Cloud in prison.

So you hooked him up, yes, And what impact did his conviction have on on the gang?

There's a void, you know why, because all the leadership was inside. Once you have upper management and even middle management gone, the rest just falls apart.

Yeah, that's just like any organization legit or imit. And the FETs knew that too. The best know what they do.

I guess I was wondering, looking back, do you regret bringing dregs into the country and your time being in a gang in Chinatown and extorting shopkeepers.

But here's the thing, though, when you like the way we so called extort shopkeepers, it's not like we go in there flip their chair. No, because all these they're all members of the association. Everybody over there is a member of the Online Association. Everybody this size a member of the hips In Association. So they pay their adues to the Business Association. Anyway, Now, we when we go approach these stores, this is the line we tell them. Can you help support the young the young brothers in

For real, we will protect you.

You have a problem, because we're going to show up and we do stand by that.

So you're more like mandatory bodyguards.

Yes, that's the best way they put it. It's I'm the Tory security guard.

You have to hire this security firm, which we have the security guards with this whole neighborhood.

But like I was reading testimony from people, because you know, there was there were these congressional hearings in Washington and nineteen eighty two, and there were a couple of people from Chinatown, like small business owners, and they testified at this congressional hearing about the gangs. And one of them said, I'm a manager at a restaurant located at the heart of Chinatown, New York City. Because my business location is controlled by a gang named the Flying Dragons, I'm constantly

Basically, well, here's the thing, slow, We're not going to go in there and just intimidate you unless you don't go with the program. You have to go with the program. Every store has to follow the program. Of course, this section belongs to and US, so nobody can buck the system. Same as over there too on the other side. So I'm sure if he was bucking the system, then probably somebody had to say something to put him in line.

Put him in check.

Usually usually, like I say, they all know what they know the deal. That's the way they do business in China back then. If you know, being this neighbor around here, you had to pay your dues to the work association, the business association, and to us.

So in your perspective, you are just like one tiny little part of like a system that was much bigger on every single street.

Yes, that's the way business was done in.

China, I mean, but now it's not.

Yes, it's not.

It's I I'll relate my feelings. When I came back out after I was released from prison, right. I never felt so safe. I said, New York City is so safe. Do you know back then, when I was out here, right twenty four to seven, I say, every day I'm strapped.

I have a gun on me every.

Day, not because I want to hurt somebody, go I don't need to take myself, because that's how New York City was. Yeah, But when I came back out in two thousand and seven, I said, Wow, you could walk anywhere and you feel safe.

They cleaned every day, and that was a good thing.

Do you think the gangs will ever come back?

Not like in that form. Nowadays you have a lot of crews five six guys. They don't have a name, but they are here to do business, not to make trouble, not to take over territory, and not to extort anyone. So you still have people that have to conduct illegal businesses. That's true of everywhere, you know what I mean. But in the terms of an actual crew raising a crime, the Feds did away with that already.

Rico.

Yeah, nobody wants to do that because right away you sell yourself for a recal conviction.

Do you think that's better this new way of doing crime?

I'm not gonna say it's better. Well, I know, is this Listen, the streets are safer.

Yeah, what are you doing now?

I moved to different industries you now, I mean for a while I was in the KTV business.

What's that karaoke? Now I'm in the restaurant industry.

And what can you say about what Onion is up to now?

If anything, he's.

A businessman, legitimate businessman.

I will say, yeah, he's totally legit because I know because he works his ass off. Uh huh, you know me in the industry he's in, you know what I mean? Very rough, Yes, it's very rough industry he is in.

And uh, you know what I mean, he has his ups and downs.

Can you say what the industry is there now?

Seafood distribution?

What do you.

People learn from the story of like when the gangs ran in Chinatown in the nineteen eighties and then stopped existing.

What's the taking?

No?

I think the Italians has always been romanticized access stretcher in the movies and stuff, right, but really, little do they know that the Chinese were doing their own thing too. It's just that we're much more secretive. We didn't want that much attention, so it's also it's a part of history. We're just clarifying history and this part of what it was Nowwach.

Everything is clean. It's great, you know.

So at least I'm around to talk about it, you know, so that's a good thing.

Yes, well, thank you. Should I call you Cowboy or.

CV nowadays said by coming CB, I shorten it too much baggage.

With the cowboy.

Well, thank you so much, CV, thank you coming on the show.

Thank you very much. It's thank you.

CB is a former member of the Flying Dragons. This episode of The China Hunstan was produced by Sonia Gurwitt and edited by Julia Barton. It was engineered by Sarah Bruguer. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Our music was composed by John Sung, with additional music by Jake Gorski. Special thanks to Mike Moy of Chinatown Gang Stories for connecting me to CB. The Chinatown Staning is a production of

I'm Lydia Gene Copp