Busan's Baptism
Busan.
The company I'd visited not long ago.
The CFO at headquarters had been convinced, but things could play out a little differently on the ground.
"Aigoo, sir? That just don't make sense, does it?!"
He wasn't particularly angry. It was simply that his way of speaking, his accent, ran rough and heavy.
As I thought.
Dialect. The Gyeongsang regional speech could sound aggressive the first time you heard it.
"Didn't the explanation I gave the CFO convince you?"
"That don't make sense at all!"
"Ah, so that's how it is."
It might really be that way. Or maybe the optimistic take on the exchange rate had simply sat wrong with him.
Fair enough.
Osung Heavy Industries. One of the shipbuilders that represented the Republic of Korea. And shipbuilders carried a particular PTSD.
An incident from around 2008. The subprime mortgage crisis had driven the exchange rate surging to 1,500 won. Shipbuilders that had taken currency hedges suffered losses in the trillions.
They had exchange-rate PTSD.
"Sir, you just don't know. A bloodstorm tore through Busan, didn't it?!"
The field supervisor had every right to have veins standing out on his neck. The shipyards that went bankrupt over it, the workers who lost their jobs—the scale was anything but ordinary.
That's why I came.
Real companies split into office and field. Non-IT heavy industry especially had no choice. Headquarters in Seoul. The shipyard in Busan. When you sat at opposite ends of the country, this was what you got.
"Don't even think about tryin' to talk the people here around."
"I understand how you feel, foreman, but—"
"If headquarters tries to save a few pennies, it's us workers who get cut!"
I had come to fix exactly that. The CFO had handed me the mission: go down there and persuade them.
Sales work is all like this.
An investment advisory firm was a kind of sales job too. Analytical skill mattered, but in the end the company had to buy. Sometimes they dumped chores like this on you.
I hadn't thought it would be that hard.
"An exchange rate jumping all the way to 1,500 only happens in national-crisis-level events."
"I lived through the IMF, and I lived through the shipyards collapsin', didn't I?"
"I'm saying things like that aren't common."
The working class. Fucking uneducated bastards. No—their view of society simply had no choice but to be different. When a company took a hit, they were the first ones laid off. At their age, reemployment was hard and lives got wrecked.
Actually, investors aren't any different.
The experience of losing a fortune in stocks stayed with you for life. It became trauma; you never looked at equities again.
"Play the stock market and you'll ruin your whole family!" — Latte-generation old man
Something older folks said a lot. Refuting it wasn't hard; the problem was they had no intention of listening.
"You know how the ones who got cut back then are livin'? Barely scrapin' by, not even dead yet!"
"None of my business."
"What'd you just say?"
"No—I mean you're being way too sensitive."
He was coming at it emotionally. The type I hated most. Occupational hazard; our viewpoints diverged.
Layoffs are positive news that lift the stock price.
Cost reduction, so it got classified as a bullish headline. People set out water and prayed for tens of thousands to get axed at a time.
"How am I supposed to believe the exchange rate won't rise? That's the part I don't get first."
"Well, because Powell is someone who can't go to heaven."
"Did that guy even kill people?!"
I had worked in places full of people who thought exactly that. So the working-class mindset never quite clicked for me.
Actually he probably did kill a fair number.
Saying Powell was responsible for about 30 percent of the people who jumped from Wall Street buildings wasn't much of an exaggeration. Especially lately.
A way of thinking rooted in capitalism. I was still turning over how to explain any of this to a single worker when—
"Only hawks get to go to central banker heaven."
"Wh-what? I'm illiterate, I don't know that."
"It means the current Fed chair, Powell, isn't hawkish enough to keep running hardline policy."
"Hey, how come this foreign girl speaks Korean so damn well?"
Rachel, who had been half-dozing and listening, opened her mouth. She had grasped the context from the flow alone.
Well, it's common sense.
To an investor, anyway. The Fed flooded the market with money claiming it was to save the economy. Someday it had to take that money back. Otherwise inflation and bubbles followed. The dove faction hesitated. Finance and politics gave them the side-eye. What if the economy shattered? They knew rates had to rise and still folded.
"Only hawks get to go to central banker heaven." — Robert McTeer
Raising rates while ignoring public criticism. A maxim that reminded everyone the hawks were right.
"So you don't need to be so anxious. Does that give you a little comfort?"
"What, a doll that talks! Foreign girl, so she knows foreign business well, huh?"
"Well, something like that."
Not my concern. Being the emotional type, he valued persuasiveness over concrete details.
Just because a woman spoke he's all soft and gooey, fuck.
Looks. You couldn't always avoid face-to-face work. A foreigner who even spoke Korean well—of course he took a liking.
"In that sense, I have a good proposal."
"Ah, sir was here too. Go ahead and speak."
"……It's a chance to turn it around on them, you see."
"Why?"
Once the ice was broken, the rest was simple. The real problem had been that he had no intention of listening in the first place.
Trauma that strong comes with resentment too.
Toward the banks that had pushed the KIKO products that ruined them.
"The bank folks said it's dangerous this time too……."
"That's salesmanship."
"Am I gettin' tricked again?"
"They made a huge fuss over nothing just to push insurance products."
A tactic the Korean political class used all the time as well. You had to draw sides for people to fall for it properly.
No—to believe it properly.
At least it beat getting played by the banks. They would do anything for easy interest business.
"Aigoo, if it hadn't been for sir and the beauty teacher we'd have been in real trouble! Take care on your way!"
The distrust on the ground. We resolved it cleanly. In a direction that left them satisfied too.
"Thanks to you it wrapped up smoothly."
"I was the one who insisted on coming."
"Didn't know someone who obsesses over efficiency would worry about workers."
All thanks to Rachel. She had opened the first crack; after that the persuasion went smoothly. It felt like having a capable secretary along. Worlds apart from a certain someone who only ever grumbled.
Didn't know the efficiency freak would worry about workers.
Beyond me. I had assumed her fanatical fixation on efficiency meant she wouldn't spare a thought for workers' rights.
"It's a question of humanity before efficiency."
"Ahem!"
"Not something one would expect from you, of course."
Our viewpoints had simply been a little different. Even among investors the gap could open.
Fucking bitch.
Clashing with Rachel might have been inevitable. She bitched about every single thing.
"I have one question."
"You only use your anus, I already told you."
"?"
I still couldn't figure out why she kept clinging. Just as I was about to get back in the car—
Weeeing~!
A call came in. Ignoring it out of annoyance was risky given the relationship with the caller.
"Oh, Chan-uk!"
"Chairman, I've taken your call."
Chairman Kang Mu-yeol. My connection with him was proving extremely useful.
Just being able to give investment advice to various companies alone…
Trust was what you needed most. And trust was an invisible value. You could pile up performance and still get ignored. Without performance, one word from the right person was enough.
"I hear you've been doing well lately!"
"All thanks to the introductions from the Chairman."
"Hahaha! Just introducing someone doesn't make it happen, does it? You've got to have the ability yourself."
Korean society. One word from Dulmart Chairman Kang Mu-yeol and most companies were a free pass.
"You went all the way to Busan?"
"Something came up that required a business trip."
"Speaking of which…… since you're already in Busan, could you do me one favor? Not forcing you, of course."
I was receiving help. That made it hard to refuse when a request came.
Fine by me too.
The recent economy was in a downturn. Consumption patterns had shifted accordingly. Dulmart was adapting. He was asking for help with that.
"Shall we go grab a bite?"
"Got another job dumped on you?"
"Yeah. Extension of the same work."
Meal kits. Convenient food sets with ingredients, seasonings, everything in one package. Demand was climbing. Interest rose especially in a recession.
Because things got expensive.
During the boom, consumption levels had climbed. People made money, so they bought the good stuff. Recession thinned the wallets. Satisfying those elevated tastes became a burden.
"Using meal kits as the alternative, I see."
"You could put it that way. There's a distance angle too."
You could eat high-quality food cheap. Famous restaurant food, even.
That's the ideal theory, anyway.
Big marts like Dulmart had every reason to be interested. A way to pull customers in. Competition was already fierce under the surface. For all that, results so far had been lukewarm.
Quality. Realizing high-end taste with a meal kit was nowhere near as easy as people thought.
"Quality?"
"Something you'll never have any use for in your life."
"?"
He had called asking me to solve that. We had first met as people in the food-service world.
If it goes well…
Food Market and Hales Food. The franchise foods I held stakes in could land on Dulmart shelves.
Screech—!
We arrived at the restaurant. Exactly the kind of place Chairman Kang Mu-yeol would ask a favor about once you were already in Busan.
"Gukbap, I see."
"Busan means pork soup. This is a pork-soup specialty house."
"I've had gukbap before."
Nothing especially exotic. For Koreans it was practically a staple. Rachel seemed to have experience with it too. But here in Busan it would be different.
"It reminds me of Japan's tonkotsu ramen—that rich depth. Yet lighter than that, with a deep umami hiding underneath. Just a little salt and it would be perfect."
"Hey! You outta your damn mind?!"
"Yes?"
She scooped a spoonful and savored it like a gourmet. That alone had already crossed a line, but—
Here, you see.
For the locals there was something that made them grab the backs of their necks.
She was about to put salt in it.
"Sa……lt……?"
"You're puttin' salt in it?"
"What kinda idiot puts salt in dwaeji gukbap?!"
The shop erupted. Customers at the next table stood up one after another. Before long they had gathered around our table.
The ever-lofty, unflappable Rachel froze solid.
"H-how about we not do this in Korean……."
She was receiving the baptism of Busan.