MSG
Once support from the Far East Engineer Corps was confirmed, Ki-jo gave the staff of the Seoul office leave. It was for morale—men who had worked so hard they had not once made it home—and it was also because he knew that when the real fight with the Big Five oil majors began, there would be no time left for holidays.
He sent Seo-gwang and Seok-mun to Eundae-ri first, to rest for two days. He had meant to send Han-su as well, but Han-su refused.
"I'd rather stay in Seoul. For two days, I just want to see as much of the city as I can."
A man without family, Han-su seemed to have no particular wish to go back to Eundae-ri. Ki-jo understood, and made one request of him.
"Before long there'll be something I need to ask of you, Mr. Han-su. If you're to do it well, you'll have to know the streets of Seoul inside and out."
"Understood, sir. I'll walk the city and learn the roads. I've a good eye for them—once I've been down a street, I never forget it. Haha."
Ki-jo pressed a generous holiday allowance into his hands.
After Seo-gwang and Seok-mun returned from leave, Ki-jo climbed into a truck with Ma-ryang and headed for Eundae-ri. They were nearly at the village when he turned to him.
"What do you say we take the family sightseeing in Myeongdong tomorrow?"
"I've work at the factory. Just take Soon-young, please."
"You ought to rest on your day off, too..."
"Forgive me. I'll have to leave it to you, Brother."
"Resting comes harder to you than working, I see."
"And I'm sorry to saddle you with Soon-young on top of it."
"Don't be. It'll be better with my sister-in-law along. Of everyone in the family, isn't she the one who knows how to lift a mood?"
Ki-jo ended the talk there, and the two of them went into their separate houses.
On Saturday morning Ki-jo's family and Soon-young dressed in their best and set out for Jeongok Station. Once he had them in Seoul, he took them into an upscale Chinese restaurant in Myeongdong and ordered. Sunrye and Soon-young startled at the prices, and yet their grins stretched ear to ear at a luxury they were tasting for the first time in their lives.
"Eat up, all of you."
Ki-jo watched them work through the Chinese dishes. The sight alone was enough to fill him.
"Why aren't you eating?"
Sunrye asked.
"I've ordered plenty of it while I was working. I've had so much I'm sick of Chinese food..."
"Still, have a little."
"All right."
Even as he picked at a few pieces, his eyes kept drifting toward the counter. When the young woman minding it was replaced by an older man, he rose.
"Keep eating. I'm going to have a word with the owner."
He went to the counter and addressed the man, who looked to be an overseas Chinese.
"Are you the owner?"
"Yes. I'm the owner."
"What seasoning do you use? Besides oyster sauce—do you use the Japanese kind as well?"
"Oyster sauce, Ajinomoto, it's all the same. If the price is right, we use whatever."
"What are you paying for Ajinomoto these days?"
The owner tore a small scrap from an order slip, wrote a figure, and held it out. Ki-jo was startled. Ajinomoto was selling at four times what he had paid for it in Japan.
"Is this the price per kilo?"
"I could let you have it cheaper..."
At the casual offer, the owner pegged him for a smuggler.
"Is that so? The place supplying us now is expensive, but the quality's solid. You're not cutting the seasoning with something, are you?"
He eyed Ki-jo with a sidelong suspicion. Some smugglers were mixing salt into Ajinomoto and selling it that way.
"Look at the packaging and you'll know. I'll give it to you in the original Japanese wrapping, just as it is."
"Original wrapping, you say? Then I can rest easy. Busan side, or Incheon?"
He seemed to be asking which port the seasoning came through.
"I'm from Busan."
Ki-jo brushed the question aside.
"Then the volume ought to be solid."
"How much do you need?"
"The more, the better. Seasoning prices are up, and the restaurants are suffering for it."
"I can match any volume you want."
"Truly? And the price?"
"Lower than what you're paying now. For you, especially."
"Only for me?"
"In return, gather the owners doing business in Myeongdong and buy as a group. The more of them you bring together, the more I'll keep that special price for you alone."
The restaurant owner's eyes lit up.
"I'll talk to the other owners. Give me a card."
"What business card would a smuggler have? I'll stop by again."
"If you've got the volume, you'd better move it fast. Prices are climbing quick, and the owners are about to put in bulk orders with the nakama."
"Understood, sir. Thank you for telling me."
At the word that the restaurant owners meant to order seasoning in bulk, Ki-jo's thoughts grew urgent. Miss the moment, and he would not be able to sell the MSG he had gone to such trouble to buy at a decent price.
He went back to the table and spoke to Sunrye.
"I think I need to step out for a bit..."
"Where...?"
Regret flickered across her face.
"I have to sell the MSG I brought from Japan, and I think I need to hurry."
When Sunrye set her chopsticks down, Soon-young spoke.
"Sis, Brother-in-law's doing it for the business. Why are you getting upset?"
The look on Sunrye's face hurt him. A rare outing to Seoul with his family, and he could not stay with them because of work. But it had to be done. Fighting the Big Five would take a great deal of cash.
"I'm sorry, dear. I'm going to be busy for a while yet. By autumn there should be some room to breathe—let's go to a hot spring then."
"All right. I'll eat well."
Sunrye took up her chopsticks again, as if resigned, and cut Yeong-su's tangsuyuk—sweet-and-sour pork—into small pieces he could manage.
"Soon-young, look after your sister and enjoy Myeongdong. If you lose the way, ask someone."
"Yes, Brother-in-law."
"You know the road to Seoul Station?"
"No. We can ask."
"All right. I'll get up first. Yeong-su, listen to your mother and your aunt."
"Yes, Father."
Happy with the sweet tangsuyuk he was tasting for the first time, Yeong-su smiled brightly. Ki-jo left the restaurant and turned his steps toward Jongno.
He knew the seolleongtang street in Jongno used MSG as well. Even under Japanese rule, an ox-bone soup house could not run without Ajinomoto. He crossed Cheonggyecheon and made for Jongno, and as he wandered that street of milky broth he heard something unexpected from one of the owners.
"What day is it today? Men wanting to supply seasoning keep showing up two at a time."
Another smuggler? Ki-jo wondered.
"What did the man who came before me say?"
"Said it was something they'd trial-produced, and left it for me to try."
The owner held out a yellow powder in a paper envelope. It was not Ajinomoto. In that instant a name rose in his mind. Lim Dae-hong. Founder of the Miwon Group.
Ki-jo searched his memory for when domestic MSG had first appeared. Nineteen fifty-six, or fifty-seven. Two or three years from now. At the moment the man seemed to be going around selling a crude seasoning he had developed himself.
"Have you tried this?"
"Not yet. Use it carelessly, and watch all my customers fall away."
"Give me two bowls of seolleongtang. Put the Japanese seasoning in one, and this powder in the other."
"Why? You want a tasting? Suits me. A customer tries it and tells me what he thinks."
"I'll taste them and give you an honest word."
Ki-jo sat, and received one bowl seasoned with Japanese Ajinomoto and one seasoned with the domestic powder Lim Dae-hong had made.
"Left is the Japanese. Right is ours."
At the owner's word he tasted the broth on the left first. A familiar flavor—the taste of MSG, unchanged across decades. Then he spooned up the broth on the right.
Ah... this.
Flat, and muddy on the tongue. It still could not match the Japanese product for savor. He spoke honestly about the domestic seasoning.
"Sir, if you cook with this, I think you'll go under."
"Let me have a taste myself."
Curious, the owner tried the broth made with the domestic powder and grimaced.
"Hah... figures. Still a long way from catching the Japanese."
"What did he say when he left this with you?"
"Said it was a trial batch, he wouldn't take money, and asked me to keep using it. At this level, though, I feel like I ought to be paid to use it. Heh."
In that moment Ki-jo's heart pounded. A new direction for the business had come to him.
If Lim Dae-hong was thinking of making domestic MSG, there was no reason he could not do the same. The nineteen-fifties were a level field, after all. No one held much better technology, and the production facilities were equally backward. With the starting lines so close, if he set off first and did it properly, he could pull ahead of Lim Dae-hong's Miwon.
He no longer wanted merely to smuggle Japanese Ajinomoto. He wanted to make it himself. And if he was going to, he might as well take the name Miwon just as it stood—flavor's own source.
"Sir, sell me that powder."
"This defective stuff? What would you do with it? Use it at home?"
"Yes. It'd be fine enough stirred into soybean-paste soup at home."
"Then give me half the price of the Japanese seasoning. And I won't charge you for the seolleongtang, seeing as you tasted it for me."
"Thank you, sir. Did he happen to leave a card?"
"A card? He did. Why?"
"If you're not going to do business with him, give me his card as well."
"All right."
Ki-jo took the envelope of Lim Dae-hong's trial MSG, the man's card, and a little Japanese Ajinomoto, and left the soup house. He went straight to Seoul Station and boarded a train.
Stepping down at Jeongok, he ran for the Cheongsan factory and sought out Professor Kim Moon-hwan. The professor was at work on the mini-kiln Ki-jo had commissioned—a high-efficiency kiln for turning out cheap brick along the Han River.
"Professor, could I have a word?"
"What is it, President Lee?"
Ki-jo set the Japanese MSG and the domestic MSG on the table and asked him to look them over.
"What's this?"
"Seasoning. I believe it's what's called sodium L-glutamate."
"Aha! You mean Ajinomoto."
"Yes. Would you compare the two?"
Professor Kim Moon-hwan took a loupe from the desk and examined the grains.
"One has uniform crystals. The other looks loaded with impurities."
He saw the difference in quality at a glance.
"Professor, do you know anyone in the chemistry department?"
"I do. A friend who studied at Tokyo Imperial University, same as I did."
"Would he know how to manufacture sodium L-glutamate?"
"A laboratory method—a chemistry professor of any standing could work that out without much trouble. The problem is the process you need when you're making a chemical product in quantity."
Right... the production process is what matters. Like semiconductors...
Ki-jo nodded.
"Why? You going to build a seasoning plant too?"
"Not right away. But I want to leave the possibility open."
"Hahaha. President Lee, can you handle it? You spent every gold bar you had putting up the brick factory."
"Money can always be made again, Professor."
"There you go again. Anyway, you're a man I can't talk out of anything. If you want a seasoning plant, you'll need a field engineer. A professor won't be nearly enough."
"Understood, Professor."
Ki-jo finished with him, left the laboratory, and met Jang Ma-ryang.
"Back already?"
He asked it of a man who had returned from Seoul in a matter of hours.
"I had an errand, so I came ahead. Sunrye and Soon-young will look around Myeongdong a while and come along."
Then the family he had forgotten came back to him, and he was ashamed—mad for business, leaving them in Seoul and coming alone to Yeoncheon.
"I'll go to Jeongok Station. I ought to be there to meet them."
He went and waited. A few hours later a steam locomotive pulled into the station, and on the platform he met Sunrye and Yeong-su as they stepped down.
"You're here already?"
"Oh, Brother-in-law. You were waiting here for Sis? That's so romantic."
"Father!"
Yeong-su threw himself into Ki-jo's arms.
"I'm sorry. I came back ahead because of work. Did you enjoy Seoul?"
Seeing him waiting at the station seemed to loosen the hurt in Sunrye; she smiled faintly. Yeong-su, too, wore a satisfied face, as if he had seen no end of wonders in Myeongdong. Ki-jo carried the boy and walked his wife and sister-in-law toward the village of Eundae-ri.
About halfway there, Sunrye spoke to her son.
"Yeong-su, come down from your father's arms. He's tired. Hold your aunt's hand and walk."
"Yes, Mother."
The boy obeyed at once. Soon-young took his hand, slowed her steps, and fell behind the couple.
Does she have something to say?
Sure enough, Sunrye asked.
"What were you doing in Myeongdong?"
"In Myeongdong?"
He had only been making the rounds of the restaurants there and in Jongno.
"Take this."
She held out money.
"What's this?"
"The Chinese restaurant gave it back."
"They gave the money back?"
He was startled. Sunrye looked at him with tears standing in her eyes.
"A man who looked like a gangster came up while we were eating and asked if we were President Lee Ki-jo's family."
In that moment he understood what had happened. Kim Doo-han's men, spread through Myeongdong and Jongno, had seen him and his family. He had wanted to keep Kim Doo-han's existence from Sunrye, and it had come out anyway.
"And what did they say?"
"When Soon-young said yes, they bowed almost to the floor, had the restaurant feed us for nothing, and showed us around Myeongdong. They bought gifts for Yeong-su and Soon-young, too."
"Gifts?"
"Yes. Yeong-su said he wanted a book, so they took him to a bookstore and bought him an English book, and they bought Soon-young a scarf."
"And you?"
"I didn't take anything. Why would I accept something for free from a stranger... Getting the meal money back was already more than..."
She dabbed at her eyes. Ki-jo patted her back.
"It's nothing. I agreed to help Kim Doo-han of the Jongno faction with his National Assembly campaign, that's all. Don't think it strange."
"A National Assembly election?"
Her voice rose in surprise.
"It just turned out that way. Last time, when I went to buy cattle, I got tangled up with Kim Doo-han. It's only a few weeks of helping with the election in Seoul, so don't worry."
"You, helping with an election? What are you talking about?"
"I said it's nothing. No need to worry."
He was only dipping a foot into an election Kim Doo-han was going to win anyway. No great cause for concern.
"Did the Jongno men say anything else to you?"
"They asked me to tell you to stop by Umigwan often. They said a man named Kim Doo-han is waiting for you terribly..."
The thought of a gang boss waiting on her husband seemed to frighten her.
"Those men... Election day's still a long way off, and already they're impatient..."
Ki-jo clicked his tongue.
"Dear, this Kim Doo-han—he isn't a frightening man, is he?"
"Nothing to be afraid of. Keep faith with him, and nothing will happen."
He said it with a slight smile, then called back to Soon-young, walking well behind them.
"Soon-young! Let me see that scarf they gave you!"
She came running, Yeong-su's hand in hers.
"Brother-in-law, thanks to you I got an American scarf for free!"
She laughed wide, tore open the paper wrapping, and spread the scarf. It was nylon.
"Yeong-su, shall we show Father the book too?"
"Yes, Aunt."
Soon-young unwrapped the boy's gift and handed it over. Leafing through, Ki-jo found a slip of paper tucked inside.
Mr. Lee Ki-jo,
Our elder brother waits for you without rest, waking and dreaming.
He slipped the note into his pocket, gave the book back to Yeong-su, and said,
"Yeong-su. Learn whatever you want to learn. Chinese characters, English, Japanese—whatever you pick up will help you greatly later."
"Yes, Father."
Ki-jo lifted the bright-eyed boy onto his shoulders.
"You came back happy from seeing Seoul, so next time I'll show you Japan, and America too. All of you—look forward to it."
He said it to his family with a swell of confidence.
"Really? Brother-in-law, you have to keep that promise!"
Soon-young, born under a great star, felt an instinctive liking for the world across the sea, and she beamed. Sunrye worried that her husband's boasting had grown too large. Yeong-su, up on his father's shoulders, was simply glad to see the world from higher up.
"Of course I mean it. Shall we send our Yeong-su to study in America?"
"Thank you, Father!"
The boy answered from above Ki-jo's head. Sunrye burst out laughing at how absurd her husband's confidence was.
"Sis is laughing. On the train you stared out the window the whole way with a face like death."
Soon-young teased her.
"And you—asking men you'd only just met to buy you this and buy you that, as you pleased. You mustn't do that! I won't tell Ma-ryang, but don't you do it again!"
Sunrye scolded her.
"When did I ask first? They said we were Brother-in-law's family and that they wanted to buy things for us. If someone offers me something, I don't refuse!"
Soon-young answered, spirited as ever. Ki-jo smiled, listening to the two of them. Kim Doo-han seemed anxious about the election.
The work is piled mountain-high, but a promise to Kim Doo-han is a promise I have to keep...
Even ten bodies would not have been enough.