Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

When Gun-Ho realized that Young-Eun was staring at him, he asked, “What? Something is on my face?”

“Did you… take out a loan from a bank for that business by any chance?”

“Borrowing money is part of business. A businessman sometimes takes out a loan from a bank if necessary. It’s not something you should worry about.”

“Oh, my gosh! People I know from college took a loan of 1 billion or 500 million won to open their own practice. And you say you are borrowing 25 billion won?! You are insane!”

“You have to be insane to be successful in business.”

Young-Eun kept staring at Gun-Ho’s face. She looked worried.

“Don’t worry. I can handle it!”

Gun-Ho laughed out loud and clinked his glass of beer to Young-Eun’s.

“I do trust you, oppa… But 25 billion won is an enormous amount of money. I’m scared.”

“I’m not putting it all at once. There is nothing to worry about.”

Gun-Ho and Jae-Sik met at Incheon International Airport.

“Are we stopping by Shanghai City before heading to Antang City?”

“No, we flew straight to Guizhou Province.”

“Since China is a huge continent, it’s going to take a long time to get there, right?”

“It will take about 3 and a half hours.”

“The flight ticket must be expensive too, huh?”

“It’s 1 million won for two people.”

“Guizhou Province is not very well known among Koreans, right?”

“You have heard of Chinese liquor called Maotai, haven’t you?

“Yeah, I’ve heard of Maotai.”

“That liquor is from Guizhou Province. If you look at its bottle closely, you will see ‘Guizhou.’ In Chinese, it says ‘Guizhou Maotai.’”

“I see.”

Since he was accompanied by Jae-Sik Moon, Gun-Ho purchased economic seats instead of business seats.

“Take this with you.”

“What is it? Is it a weekly magazine?”

“I bought it from a store earlier. You probably need this to kill your time.”

“Haha. Thank you.”

“We will be arriving at an airport in Guiyang which is the capital of Guizhou Province. It’s a bit distant from downtown. I talked with the Chinese people earlier and asked them to send a car to pick us up around 11 am, so we can have plenty of time to get ready. It takes another three hours by car to Antang City.”

“It sounds like Antang City is located in a very remote area.”

“Hahaha. It’s still a city with lots of high-rise buildings and vehicles. It’s about the same size as Anyang City in Gyeonggi Province or Cheonan City where our factory is located.”

“Really?”

The airplane, that Gun-Ho and Jae-Sik Moon were on, arrived at Guiyang Airport in the early morning. They went to the hotel and had breakfast. They then went up to their hotel room to take a shower and took a brief nap. Gun-Ho woke up when he received a call from a young lady around 11 am.

“Xia Zong? Wo Shi Antang Shi Cheng Ji Bashi Gongsi Bangongshi Zhuguan (President Goo? I’m Antang City’s intercity bus terminal company’s office manager).”

“Hi. It’s nice to meet you.”

Gun-Ho and Jae-Sik Moon walked out of the hotel after checking out. A black Audi was waiting for them outside the hotel, and a young lady was standing in front of the car with a rear-seat door open.

“Are you from Antang City?”

“Are you President Goo?”

The lady looked like she was in her early 30s, and she was very pretty. Gun-Ho and Jae-Sik got in the car and sat in the rear seat.

“That lady sitting on the front passenger seat is an office manager of the intercity bus company that we will do a joint venture business with. Her position would be a team leader in a general affairs department in Korea.”

“Really? She is gorgeous.”

“You have to be careful. You shouldn’t do anything stupid here, okay?”

“I guess she is already married.”

Since Gun-Ho and Jae-Sik were talking in Korean, the lady and the driver couldn’t understand their conversation.

While in the car, Gun-Ho made a call to Min-Hyeok Kim.

“I’m on the way to Antang City departing from Guiyang. Jae-Sik Moon is with me. The other party of the joint venture sent a car for us.”

“What kind of car is it?”

“It’s an Audi.”

“Audi is so popular in China.”

“If I start the joint venture with them, can you send Ms. Eun-Hwa Jo here? Since she is a Korean Chinese, she will be of great help.”

“I don’t think she wants to go there since it is located in a deep inland area. Moreover, she has all her friends and her boyfriend here.”

“Do you think she wouldn’t accept the position even if I offer her a higher salary?”

“I don’t think that would work. Her life would change dramatically once she moves there, without any friends. She wouldn’t go there for a few more dollars.”

“What if your company keeps her and sends her to this location? We will pay her more, of course.”

“Okay. I will talk to her.”

They stopped by a village for lunch. The village looked about the same size as a small town in Korea. They went into the largest and cleanest restaurant in the area. Dumplings, deep-fried chicken, deep-fried sweet potato, and etc. came out.

“How is it?”

“Not bad at all.”

“If you work in China, you will have to eat food like this pretty often.”

“When you talked with Min-Hyeok earlier, I heard that you talked about a Korean Chinese lady. Who is it?”

“She was initially hired as an interpreter in Min-Hyeok’s factory. Ever since Min-Hyeok didn’t need an interpreter anymore— Min-Hyeok speaks Chinese very well now— she doesn’t do an interpretation work any longer, but she works in the general affairs department. I asked him to send her here.”

“Is she coming?”

“Young Korean Chinese people are not willing to work in this area since it’s hard to connect with their friends; it is a remote area after all.”

“What are we going to do then?”

“I told Min-Hyeok to offer her a higher salary.”

“How much more should we offer?”

“Companies here don’t officially pay high salaries. The transportation company here runs not only the bus business but the terminal business as well. It’s owned by the government. Unlike the terminals in Korea, they are owned by the government. So, the amount of salary for the workers here are restricted. We can’t freely raise salaries.”

“Then what do we do?”

“We will have to pay her under the table. You can give her 50,000 or 100,000 won from your salary in cash on a monthly basis.”

“Hmm.”

“You won’t get paid much either because of the salary restriction in this country. When Min-Hyeok started working in China for a joint venture here, he got paid by the joint venture and also by GH Development since his salary in China is too little.”

“I see.”

“You will have to be paid also by GH Logistics as well even though you work here for the joint venture.”

“Hmm, I see.”

They arrived at Dong zhan (east station).

Mr. Runsheng Yan who was the president of Antang City’s intercity bus business and also the terminal was waiting for Gun-Ho’s party, with his planning manager— Mr. Chun Chang.

“Hey, President Goo!”

“President Yan, and Manager Chang!”

Gun-Ho and the two men shook their hands in delight.

“Oh, President Moon!”

The president of the terminal and the planning manager greeted Jae-Sik Moon.

“The building is old and shabby, but it looks like a Chinese traditional hotel that I saw in a cartoon book. The window in an office is in a round shape.”

“It’s huge, isn’t it? It’s about 10,000 pyung large. We will demolish the entire building and construct a new and modern building from scratch, as a joint venture. Then we will run the terminal business. In case we get bored with the terminal business only, they also offered to give us the license to run a bus business as well.”

“We will demolish this building? It still looks usable.”

Gun-Ho requested the terminal’s president to give Jae-Sik Moon a tour around the terminal.

“I’ve had my tour last time. Could you give President Jae-Sik Moon a tour?”

“Of course, we will.”

The president of the terminal showed Jae-Sik around the terminal.