Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

It was Friday. The by-election campaign came halfway, and the voting gap between Minister Jin-Woo Lee and his opponent— the former news anchor— was getting smaller again.

“According to the public opinion poll, it’s 48:52 now. Minister Jin-Woo Lee’s campaign camp must be anxious about the current status.”

After his past comment became a hot issue, which said, “While the women living in Gangnam District are all beautiful, the women in other areas are so ugly, and that’s why I’m living in Gangnam District,” the former news anchor candidate lost a lot of supporting votes; however, he was gradually recovering.

His fan club was mighty and showed their unchanged solid bonds.

“Oppa, cheer up. We are here for you.”

This candidate’s good look was certainly playing a critical role in keeping his popularity even in politics. The female members in his fan club were enthusiastic in supporting him unconditionally even though they had their husbands at home. Even for the people outside his fan club, some of them were sympathetic to him, and saying that it was not fair for him to be criticized for the comment that he made decades ago.

Some people even attacked the candidate— Minister Jin-Woo Lee— instead, by questioning if he had done anything for the community ever, so far.

Accordingly, at this moment, no one could tell for sure which candidate was leading the election.

Gun-Ho was reading a newspaper in his office in GH Building, Sinsa Town, Gangnam District when he received a call from Minister Jin-Woo Lee. It was unusual for him to call someone first. He had been arrogant enough not to ask for anyone’s help until then. He probably realized by then that he was in a situation that urgently required someone’s help.

“Mr. Class Manager? It’s me, Jin-Woo Lee.”

“Oh, sir, how have you been?”

“I need your help.”

“I have one more thing to reveal, that could well do the job that we want, but I’m going to open it to the public maybe in the middle of this month.”

“What about now? Can you do it now?”

“It will have about the same effect as the first one. If we open it now, we are giving enough time to recover again.”

“You think so?”

“Don’t worry about it, sir. I’m certain that you will win at the end. We just need to keep doing things as we have done so far.”

After getting off the phone with Minister Jin-Woo Lee, Gun-Ho made a call to Min-Ho Kang.

“The thing that I asked you to do… Do you think we’d better wait for later? Or will now be good timing?”

“Of course we have to wait. Midmonth would be perfect.”

“Hmm, I agree with you.”

“Given the current situation, it seems we are doing well. We don’t have to worry much.”

“I’m relying on you on this.”

After getting off the phone with Min-Ho Kang, Gun-Ho was thinking about whether he should send the fund to Better Society Community’s two workers and Min-Ho Kang now. And then, he decided to do it later.

“I will send them the second payment later when they actually start working on our second attack.”

Gun-Ho went back to reading the economic newspaper that he was reading before he received the call from Minister Lee. At that moment, his phone started ringing again. It was from Min-Hyeok Kim in China.

“President Goo? It’s me, Min-Hyeok Kim.”

“Oh, President Kim. It has been a while.”

“I’m sorry that I didn’t give you a call more often.”

“It’s okay. We don’t have to talk all the time. I just need to hear the final outcome of the business at the end of the year. Don’t I?”

“Well, still, I should give you a regular report on how things are going here. You are the major shareholder of the company after all.”

“I’m sure it’s going well. I don’t worry a thing about the company in Suzhou City because I have you there— Mr. Business Wizard Min-Hyeok Kim.”

“Haha. Mr. Business Wizard? You are silly. I’m not near the wizard level. When Dyeon Korea’s Director Kim visited us in China last time to help us with Dyeon China’s establishment, I begged him for his help.”

“Begged him for what?”

“Since he was in China, I asked him so badly to help our company with sales.”

“Did you get what you asked for?”

“He visited five potential client companies for us in the area, and successfully procured three client companies for us.”

“He is very good.”

“I was with him when he visited those companies. He has his own strategies and tactics in doing his sales. He was using the element of fear in earning the business.”

“Are you saying that he was scaring them?”

“Yeah. He mostly criticized the products that they purchased from their current vendor companies, saying that if they keep using bad products like that, they will soon encounter numerous problems even though they don’t see any now. When he talks, he uses some fancy technical terms, and that makes him look highly knowledgeable and more convincing apparently.”

“Really?”

“He once said like… ‘We can’t even imagine using a product of this quality in Korea. I know the vice president of your head office in Korea very well. If he finds out that you are using a bad product like this, he will be really mad.’ Basically, that’s how he scares them.”

“Well, whatever tactics he uses, that worked, right? And you got several new product orders. Congratulations.”

“Dingding earned a couple of business for us as well.”

“It’s really nice to see you and your spouse helping each other’s business. So, how much monthly revenue are we making now?”

“GH Parts Company made about 1 billion Korean won last month.”

“1 billion won? That’s not bad at all. It has been three years since you moved to China, right? You must be well settled in there by now, and I’m sure you speak Chinese very well too. I guess your belly became larger as well, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. I need to watch my diet. My belly is getting bigger because of the oily Chinese food that I’m having every day, I guess.”

“You said that we have about 100 workers there, right?”

“Yes. We usually maintain about 100 workers. If the company was in Korea, we would probably have 40 or 50 workers considering the size of the revenue. We can have 100 workers because we are in China. I treat my workers very well, and I don’t go crazy power tripping, and maybe that’s why we have an extremely low turnover rate. Once they work at our company, they stay here.”

“Having a low turnover rate is very good. That shows how well you are running the company.”

“I hope this company generates 30 billion won annually.”

“I believe you will achieve that goal sooner or later.”

“How’s Dyeon China doing?” Gun-Ho asked.

“They have four machines fully working right now, and they have good production capacity. They receive the first raw materials directly from Lymondell Dyeon in the U.S.”

“That’s good. You don’t have to get the first raw materials through Dyeon Korea since it will cost more. They haven’t made any sales with the products that they manufactured yet, right?”

“Actually, they sold some of the products already. Several large Chinese companies purchased the products that Dyeon China manufactured locally, trusting the brand name— Dyeon.”

“Hmm, is that right?”

“You will receive an official report about it soon. Dyeon China is providing the products to Dyeon Korea’s old client companies in China with the products that they manufactured in their new factory.”

“Hmm, I see.”

“Dinding joined the club last week, where all the female presidents from the companies in the industrial park gather together on a regular basis. She already made some friends from that club, and those women are willing to help Dingding’s business.”

“Hmm, really? That’s very nice.”

“There is one female president of a large company among the club members, and she likes the fact that Dingding speaks English fluently. She often asks Dingding to get together, and she even visited Dyeon China’s factory the other day.”

“Really? Well, any connection or network there at this moment will be helpful. I hope Dingding is also having fun with them.”

“Yeah, but since Dingding is now seven months pregnant, she can’t be as active as before. She is trying to reduce her activity level.”

“Oh, that’s right. She is pregnant. Your role as her husband is critical at this time, you know that, right?”

“Her father and mother often visit us here, so she should be okay.”