Cheongsan Foods

February was a busy month for everyone at Cheongsan.

The cannery equipment and the ramen machinery brought in from Japan arrived separately at Busan and Incheon, and hauling the shipments inland and installing them in the plants sent every department head from the Seoul headquarters out into the field.

Kijo had established Cheongsan Foods to take charge of canning and ramen, and he began with the cannery going up in Busan. A cannery alone would not be enough. They also needed a can-fabrication plant to manufacture the containers, and a research institute to study the technology itself.

Korea already had canning facilities left over from the Japanese colonial period, still in operation, and factories built with support from the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency—UNKRA—and the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. Their technical standard, however, was low, and what they turned out was crude.

Kijo’s aim was canned goods that would meet U.S. military procurement specifications. Only then, once the Vietnam War broke out, could they pass American certification quickly and open a path to supplying kimchi to the Korean troops stationed there. The canned rations issued to those forces were purchased by the U.S. military and then provided to the Korean army.

To meet that standard he meant to bring in technicians from Japan and the United States. The Americans would come through Frank at USOM; the Japanese were due in Korea shortly. He would seat both at the Cheongsan Foods Research Institute and have them raise the safety and nutritional quality of the cans. Clearing the U.S. military bar meant high levels of nutrients such as calcium and vitamins, durable containers, and contents that could withstand high heat—a thicket of problems. In a sense the institute, more than the cannery itself, was the heart of Cheongsan Foods.

“Good lord, sir. You’re really planning to turn out this many cans? You’re putting rice in them too?”

Seogwang, who had come down to Busan with him, stared at the institute’s research list in open astonishment.

The eleven flagship items Cheongsan Foods intended to develop were these:

Rice, and ten side dishes.

“Sir, who’s going to eat rice out of a can? If we make something like this, I think we’ll do nothing but lose money.”

“If a war starts, they’ll eat rice out of cans.”

“A war? You mean there’s going to be another June Twenty-fifth?”

Seogwang’s eyes went round. Kijo answered with a smile.

“There will never be another June Twenty-fifth. But Vietnam’s been looking shaky lately, hasn’t it? If the Americans go ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into Vietnam, our army will go too. Then the day will come when people eat their rice out of a can.”

Even so, Seogwang still looked unconvinced. Rice was something you boiled in a pot or a kettle. Canned rice was beyond imagining; it was written all over his face. Kijo knew perfectly well that a true market for instant cooked rice—the sort later sold as Hetbahn—would not open for another forty or fifty years, and the sight of Seogwang unable to accept the idea made him want to laugh.

He turned to Park Yang-ho, a Korean from Osaka who had come over with the machinery imported from Japan, and gave him his charge. Park was a veteran of twenty years in a Japanese cannery, and he was to serve as plant manager.

“Plant Manager, your first task is to do everything you can to improve conditions so these cans are made under sanitary conditions.”

“Understood. Then we’ll start by getting sanitary uniforms for the workers, and I think the toilets inside the plant will have to be moved well away.”

Park pointed out that the factory toilets sat far too close to the production line.

“Understood. We’ll tear them down and build new ones. If there’s anything else you need, speak to Manager Kim Seogwang.”

Easygoing as he was, Kim Seogwang ought to get along with an Osaka Korean like Park. Kijo also asked him, once the cannery machinery was installed and the trial runs finished, to look over the deep-sea fishing vessels Cheongsan Fisheries had brought in. Cheongsan Fisheries was already pushing a business of its own: used Japanese boats that could take tuna and pack it straight into cans for export.

Fortunately, Chairman Park’s open-door policy on Japanese private investment was also granting tariff relief when domestic firms imported production equipment from Japan. Set beside the Syngman Rhee years, it was a markedly flexible, industry-friendly line, and the government was carrying it out one measure after another.

Having looked over the cannery in Busan, Kijo returned to Seoul and headed for Dobong-ri in Nohae-myeon, Yangju-gun, Gyeonggi Province. Nohae-myeon, where the Cheongsan Ramen plant stood, was due to be absorbed into Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, in 1963. Unlike the cannery, which he had sited in Busan for the ease of gathering raw materials, he had built the ramen plant close to Seoul, near its market.

He met Lim Dae-hong, president of Cheongsan Foods, and the two of them walked the floor together, looking over the installed machines.

“This machine blends the wheat flour with the mixing water and kneads the dough. When the dough moves over here, rollers sheet it into a noodle belt, a cutter turns the belt into strands, and then they go up onto the conveyor.”

Kijo walked the line while Lim, who had the process by heart, explained it.

“How do you make the noodles curly?”

“You adjust the speed of the conveyor.”

Lim went on through the steaming stage, where the strands were cooked once, and the forming stage, where they were shaped into neat squares, and then spoke in detail about the frying.

“You fry them in refined oil at 150 degrees Celsius so the moisture flashes off and the noodles take up the oil. Cool them properly at room temperature after that, and the noodle is finished.”

True to the man who, in the history Kijo remembered, had created Miwon and built the Daesang Group, Lim had grasped the noodle-making process with painstaking care. Looking at him, Kijo felt a pang of guilt.

“President Lim, please think ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of this company as your own.”

“Sir?”

Lim had not caught his real meaning.

“Of course I intend to run the ramen plant as if it were mine. I have no thought of doing a slapdash job just because I’m a hired president.”

Kijo had not forgotten what he owed the man who had given him the idea for the Miwon business, a contribution that had helped raise Cheongsan. Someday he meant to split the ramen division out of Cheongsan Foods, give it to Lim, and repay that debt.

Lim went straight on to the soup process.

“For the chicken soup stock we brought in from Japan, I’m thinking of adding more green onion and garlic and building the broth on a base of doenjang, to deepen the flavor. I’ll raise the spiciness slowly, watch how the market responds, and find the level consumers actually prefer.”

Kijo had nothing left to order and nothing left to ask.

“Do whatever you wish to pursue, President Lim. I’m leaving it entirely in your hands.”

“Thank you.”

When the inspection was finished, Kijo headed back to headquarters with Ma-ryang and Hansu, who had been helping Lim, and they talked on the way.

“Any trouble working with President Lim?”

Asked outright, Ma-ryang scratched his head.

“Didn’t seem like they needed us at all. Don’t reckon we’ll have to go out to Dobong-ri anymore. Hansu, what do you think?”

Hansu’s answer was the same.

“If anything, headquarters visiting the Dobong plant would only be a nuisance. They’re handling it fine on their own. I was uncomfortable the whole time, afraid we’d look like some meddling sister-in-law come to spy.”

“That so. Then we’ll let President Lim run the Dobong ramen plant as he sees fit. We’ll just help with the selling.”

Kijo expected ramen sales to stay sluggish for several years. The manufacturing cost was high, for one thing, so it lacked the strength to beat its real rival, jajangmyeon. A bowl of those black-bean noodles ran about 150 hwan, while ramen, like a bowl of pot udon, would have to fetch at least 100. There was no way to match the rich, greasy fullness peculiar to jajangmyeon, and none of the convenience of pot udon, which came out the moment you ordered it. A single pack of ramen also gave you less noodle than a bowl of jajangmyeon, and buying it at a shop to boil at home was still a strange notion.

People were not even used to the word. They took the myeon in ramen for cotton thread rather than noodle, peered at the pale wavy strands through the clear packet, and wondered aloud:

“Why is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this thread so thick and curly?”

Once he had confirmed that the cannery and the ramen plant were settling in properly, Kijo was reassured. Cheongsan Foods was not alone. Cheongsan Construction and Kia Industry, each under a dedicated president, had drawn up their own roadmaps and were growing in earnest.

Infused with Cheongsan’s capital, Kia Industry had entered a joint venture with Honda of Japan in 1961, imported Honda motorcycle parts, assembled the bikes, and sold them. This year it meant to bring in a three-wheeled truck from Toyo Kogyo—Mazda—and produce the K-360, a 356-cc three-wheeled cargo carrier.

Kim Chul-ho loaded a K-360 onto a truck himself, brought it up to Seoul, and presented it to Kijo. With no domestically made four-wheeled truck yet on the market, a three-wheeler would be a precious set of legs for small and middling businessmen.

“This is the three-wheeled truck Kia will be introducing. Maximum load is three hundred kilograms, but we’ve reinforced the original frame, so four full sacks of rice are nothing to it. It doesn’t need to go fast, but sixty kilometers an hour is within its reach.”

Kijo looked the small, tidy truck over with care. Memories of the K-360 from his previous life rose up, and he could not keep the smile off his face the whole time he studied it.

“What will you call it?”

“I’m thinking Kia Master.”

“I like it.”

“Toyo Kogyo originally asked us to put their own brand, Mazda, on the vehicle, but the government refused to allow a Japanese name. So we settled on Master, which sounds similar.”

“Well done.”

Kijo climbed into the Kia Master with Kim Chul-ho and drove it through the streets of Seoul. Traffic officers at the intersections, pedestrians on the sidewalks, and the drivers sharing the road all turned to stare at the three-wheeler he was piloting. Stopped for a moment before a crossing, he drew a question from the driver of a jeep that pulled up alongside.

“From behind I thought, well, that’s a truck. Then I saw the front. Only one wheel up there.”

“Yes. It’s a three-wheeled truck.”

“Say, if you open it up, won’t the thing tip over?”

“Does a truck with a load on it need to fly? Take it easy and there’s no problem.”

“One less wheel than a four-wheeler, so the price ought to be lower. Cute-looking, too. And I bet it sips fuel. Where’d you import that from?”

Kijo would have answered, but the traffic officer’s signal to move fell, and he had to pull away as he was. He checked that the speedometer was working, that the gearbox took each shift smoothly, and that the wipers swept as they should, and then he spoke to Kim Chul-ho.

“President Kim, when you bring motorcycle and three-wheeler parts in from Japan, you aren’t smuggling things like tires on the side, are you?”

The question startled Kim, and he stumbled over his words.

“That’s… well… Bring in even a single tire and sell it, and that’s a worker’s whole month of wages, just like that…”

Kijo nodded. Just as in the history he remembered, Kim Chul-ho had been slipping tires—a popular item—in among the parts from Japan and smuggling them. In 1963, though, customs would catch him, and the prosecutors would open an investigation.

“Kia Industry isn’t so badly off it can’t pay its people, is it? If it ever comes to that, Cheongsan headquarters will support you amply. Do not smuggle. Not under any circumstances.”

He said it while holding the wheel and watching the road ahead, almost offhand. It was not a scolding tone, but Kim Chul-ho’s face went scarlet.

“Understood, sir.”

As they drew near headquarters, Kijo broke into a wide smile.

“It’s an excellent vehicle. While you’re building the Kia Master, learn the manufacturing inside and out. I’d like to see a homegrown truck as soon as we can manage it.”

He stepped down satisfied and shook Kim Chul-ho’s hand.

He was not disappointed that Kim Chul-ho, a master craftsman, had gone so far as to smuggle. In this era smuggling was so widespread that a company which did not do it was hard to find. But in this history, at least, the firms belonging to the Cheongsan Group could not. The smuggling that had run rampant through the fifties would be punished with real ferocity under the military government of the sixties, and it could deal a company a serious blow.