Look-Alikes
When November came, change reached the people around Ki-jo as well.
The first of those changes was the appointment of Paik Sun-yup, president of Cheongsan Defense Industry, as ambassador to the Republic of China—Taiwan. Ki-jo received him in his office when he came up to Seoul with his resignation in hand, and congratulated him on the posting.
"Thank you for everything. The place you made for me, President Lee, is what let me endure a difficult time."
At Paik's thanks, Ki-jo offered gratitude of his own. He did not particularly like the man, but he held that life meant getting along even with people one did not like, and he let none of that feeling show. They parted on dry, businesslike terms. Ki-jo had needed him, and he had needed Ki-jo; theirs was a connection Hausman had brokered.
Watching Paik leave Cheongsan, Ki-jo thought him a man of stubborn good fortune. His younger brother, Paik In-yup, would suffer for a while because of a bad history with Park Chung-hee, but after that he would live a life anyone might envy. Paik Sun-yup himself would be treated with respect to the end of his days, for he had once saved Park Chung-hee's life.
Having settled his account with Paik, Ki-jo named Professor Kim Moon-hwan president of Cheongsan Defense Industry and entrusted him with precision machinery and the munitions business as well.
Not long afterward, a great change came to Cho Choong-hoon of Hanjin, too. Possessed of the enterprising mettle of a first-generation chaebol, he was not content to haul cargo for the U.S. military and nothing more. With the money he had earned alongside Ki-jo, he bought airplanes. When they had met in 1959, Cho had spoken of the success of the Soviet Sputnik 1.
"From here on, space and aviation are going to be where the future's money is. I've fallen behind you on land and at sea, but in air transport I'm going to step out a pace ahead."
He expected international aviation to flourish enormously, and he did not merely talk. In June of 1960 he bought four Cessnas in the United States and applied to the Ministry of Transportation for certificates of airworthiness. With light aircraft he launched an air-taxi business. It was the first step toward Air Korea.
That same Cho Choong-hoon came to see Ki-jo in November. He strode into the office and spoke with a smile so bright it seemed to shine off his face.
"Hey, Ki-jo! The license for Air Korea finally came through! Next year I'm bringing in a forty-seat twin-engine, too! From now on, when you go back and forth between Seoul and Busan, you fly my planes. Understood?"
He was a vigorous man even on ordinary days, and that day the vigor ran higher still. Ki-jo did as he had learned from him and poured the tea himself, easing the man's excitement down.
"I understand, hyung-nim. From now on I won't fly KNA. I'll fly only your Air Korea."
KNA — Korean National Airlines. A state-owned enterprise.
"Thanks, Ki-jo. Just you watch. KNA is choking on chronic deficits right now, and that's because they're operating airframes that are far too old. Airplanes—even if they cost more, you've got to bring in new ones. That's how you avoid accidents, and how maintenance doesn't bleed you dry."
"A new airframe will drink less fuel, too."
"That's exactly it! The Convair I'm bringing in is much faster than KNA's DC-4, and it burns less fuel. Watch me. I'll take the domestic market. And not only domestic—starting with Tokyo, I mean to push out into the Southeast Asian routes as well. In the end, the money is made on international flights."
Already finished with his plans for overseas routes, Cho breathed fire in front of Ki-jo. To Ki-jo's eye the man was thirty years ahead of everyone else. He held a clear vision for air transport, a field no one else would so much as glance at. Even Ki-jo, a man returned from the future, could see that Cho possessed an uncommon vision and a drive to match. He assured him that Air Korea would surely succeed.
After talking airplanes at length, Cho put a question to him.
"Oh, and one more thing. That bus business of yours—are you expanding into Incheon?"
"No. I mean to devote myself only to the Seoul city buses."
"Is that so? All right, then. Next year I'm thinking of running a seated bus between Incheon and Seoul."
"A seated bus, you mean?"
"Yes. A bus where every passenger rides sitting down, in comfort."
Even then, a seated bus was a notion difficult to imagine. There were not enough buses to begin with, and the companies, determined to raise the number of passengers per vehicle, packed them to the doors with standing riders. Cho meant to break into the Seoul–Incheon route, already held by established firms, by offering a service a cut above: seats for everyone.
"That's remarkable, hyung-nim. You'll succeed. I'm certain of it."
Ki-jo cheered him on. Because of Ki-jo, Cho had not made the fortune in U.S. military logistics that he had earned in the original history. Even so, he had steadily saved what he had made and launched an aviation business. It would be hard for a while, but in the end that business would meet with magnificent success.
Even amid the nation's turmoil, people were each walking the road they had to walk. And another man who would leave his footprints on modern history was changing as well.
Chang Jun-ha.
Chang Jun-ha had taken charge of the National Construction Service and was driving it forward. Intellectuals who, under Syngman Rhee, had relied on nothing but the pen were, under Chang Myon's government, stepping actively into public life. The National Construction Service he would advance was a colossal project—dams, power plants, and roads the length of the country—on an annual budget of forty billion hwan. The moment Chang Myon became prime minister he had sought Chang Jun-ha out and asked for help, and Jun-ha and the members of his International Research Institute had proposed the work. Those institute members were, in effect, the professors and intellectuals who published Sasanggye.
Chang Jun-ha came to DBC so that he might meet Ki-jo and Chang Key-young at the same time, and before announcing the project he asked for their cooperation.
"I must ask a favor of you both. Please have the Hankook Ilbo and DBC publicize, on a grand scale, that we are seeking people of talent to join the National Construction Service. We have no advertising budget, so I am sorry to come asking empty-handed."
Both Ki-jo and Key-young agreed.
"In an age like this, overflowing with the unemployed, it's a splendid project and a perfect fit. Three thousand university students to be recruited, and taken on as civil servants besides—would the Hankook Ilbo ever turn down an advertisement like that? I'll push it in an editorial. You know an editorial doesn't carry an advertising fee, don't you?"
Chang Key-young gave his support without reservation, and Ki-jo promised to promote the project through DBC's programs and the entertainers of Cheongsan Heungeop.
Looking at Chang Jun-ha, something in Ki-jo's chest ached. Already in 1960 the Chang Myon government had been preparing the First Five-Year Development Plan and the National Construction Service, advancing the very work of economic development that would become Park Chung-hee's trademark. Park's Five-Year Plans and the Saemaul Movement might well have been taken from projects and ideas the Chang Myon government had already set in motion.
Chang Jun-ha spoke of the project's symbol as well. It was nothing other than clothing.
"Everyone who joins the National Construction Service will wear cotton work clothes."
A notion akin to the Saemaul uniform was already taking shape. At Jun-ha's explanation, Key-young asked a question.
"You won't be doing the construction with university students alone, will you?"
"Of course not. Think of the three thousand students as a kind of site supervisor. At first they'll lack ability, but as they learn theory and practice they'll be remade into fine civil servants. The actual work will be done by hiring people from the regions where the construction is underway."
"So it doubles as a program to increase employment in the provinces."
"That's right."
Even to Ki-jo's eye, it was a genuinely good idea. Chang Key-young, a newspaperman with no shortage of questions, kept on.
"Raising the funds won't be easy. How do you intend to pay the wages?"
"Yes. That's the trouble. Money is short. We can pay only part of it in cash, and we'll have no choice but to mix in goods—rice, barley, soap, cotton cloth. Surplus American farm products, and the relief goods the government receives in aid, are our chief resources."
Ki-jo and Chang Key-young nodded. Such was the economy of 1960: an age when even a government project could not pay wages in money, and had to mix payment in kind.
Ki-jo offered Chang Jun-ha a piece of advice. He had worked for day wages himself, and he ran Cheongsan Construction, so he knew something of a worksite.
"Mr. Chang, once you begin, the laborers will flock to the sites early. They'll probably start lining up around five in the morning."
"That early?"
"Yes. Hungry people can't sleep. Afraid there may be no work left, they'll come out earlier than anyone. The site supervisors will have to come out early too, and keep order. Fights can break out over cutting in line. Or thugs may line people up as they please and skim the wages."
At Ki-jo's words, Chang Jun-ha and Chang Key-young nodded. They had not the faintest notion that in a previous life Ki-jo had been a day laborer on the docks.
Ki-jo felt that the spark of change kindled by April 19 was still alive.
When the talk of the National Construction Corps had more or less run its course, Chang Key-young put another question to Chang Jun-ha.
"Sir, there was an interesting piece in the November issue of Sasanggye…."
The moment Key-young opened with that, Jun-ha understood.
"You mean Mr. Lee Dong-wook's The Necessity of a Korea–Japan Handshake?"
"Yes. I sympathize with the argument to a degree, but there are aspects people will find hard to accept…."
Ki-jo had read the November issue of Sasanggye as well, and knew what they meant. It was an essay that carried a highly provocative claim: Korea's economic growth depends on economic partnership with Japan. With relations between the two countries poor, and the public's ill feeling toward Japan still strong, an argument like that was all too likely to draw stones. People then would rather have starved than bow their heads to the Japanese again and take their money or their technology. Where Japan was concerned, public opinion prized pride over profit.
Chang Jun-ha said this:
"We have to look at reality. Aid coming in from the United States is shrinking, and we still have no industrial base. To close that gap, obtaining loans from Japan is the most realistic course."
Chang Jun-ha had taken part in the independence movement, yet he was saying that to overcome the hardships of the real economy—no, to relieve the hunger of the entire nation—they needed to join hands with Japan. And he added one thing more.
"I understand the Chang Myon government is already in contact with Japan. By next summer, I suspect, we may normalize diplomatic relations and receive the loans."
Chang Key-young voiced his concern at that. Student opposition, he expected, could be as fierce as it had been at the time of April 19.
Listening, Ki-jo thought once again of the normalization of Korea–Japan relations that the Park Chung-hee regime would pursue. Nearly everything Park pushed forward was something the Chang Myon government had already drawn as a blueprint, or was actually carrying out. Of course, looking at that government's leadership and its drive, there remained the question of whether it could have done the work as well as Park. The Democratic Party as it stood now was all too likely to muscle into the concessions of such projects, to drag its feet, and, at the least sign of public opposition, to step back until the work itself fizzled away.
But Ki-jo looked past that worry and saw something else. Even with the country in turmoil, businessmen like Cho Choong-hoon held a firm vision and were sowing seeds for the future in the barren nineteen-sixties, where there was nothing at all. And intellectuals like Chang Jun-ha, however appalled they were by the Democratic Party's conduct, were devoting themselves so that a democratic government, raised at long last, might succeed. Ki-jo was not the only one laboring for the future. In places unseen, many people were making the effort.
Looking at Chang Jun-ha, he felt a pang of regret. After April 19, so many had stepped forward for the country. So many had striven for the advancement of society. Why had that energy failed to gather in one place, scattering instead like water leaking from a kettle full of holes?
He told Chang Jun-ha to contact him whenever he needed help, and added that if Cheongsan Construction could be of use, he would give that help at any time.