Hyundai Executive Challenges Korean Ways

(A WSJ excerpt)

Ted Chung is a rarity among business executives in South Korea.

He doesn't care about how many people are reporting to him. He socializes with employees no matter what their job is in the company. He openly solicits and publicizes complaints about his company. And he doesn't drive around in a black car, standard issue for an executive of his stature (His is blue).

Mr. Chung since 2003 has been president and chief executive officer of Hyundai Card and Hyundai Capital, the financial services companies that are part of the same business group as Hyundai Motor Co.

Résumé
Education: B.A., Seoul National University, majored in French literature; M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Career: Norton Industrial Ceramics, Boston; director of international trading, Hyundai Corp., executive jobs at Hyundai Mobis in Tokyo, San Francisco, San Diego and Seoul; president and CEO of Hyundai Card and Hyundai Capital since 2003.
Extracurricular: Skiing, horseback riding, sending messages on Twitter (diegobluff)

He led one of the most successful—and well-known—turnarounds in recent Korean corporate history. Facing a $900 million loss in 2003, Mr. Chung sold a 43% stake in both companies to GE Financial Services Co. and then adopted GE's risk-assessment practices. He pruned lower-profit customers and adopted sophisticated brand management techniques to re-shape the image of both firms.

To Korean customers, the change is most visible at Hyundai Card, which has gone from fourth-place to first in transaction value. With a blend of design, marketing and high-quality service, the company created an air of exclusivity and aspiration around its credit cards.

To make such changes, Mr. Chung attacked much of what's traditional about Korean corporate life, blowing up notions of lifetime employment and age-based seniority. He showed dozens of top executives the door and allowed employees to shape their own career path rather than being assigned jobs randomly, as is common in big Korean firms.

Mr. Chung, 50 years old, first engineered a radical corporate change when he was assigned to lead a factory in Mexico of another Hyundai Motor-related company, called Hyundai Mobis. "That was the most important stage of my business life," he says. Last year, Hyundai Card and Hyundai Capital produced a net profit of $714 million. Mr. Chung, meanwhile, has become one of the most widely followed Korean executives on Twitter.

He spoke recently at his office in Seoul with Evan Ramstad. Some excerpts:

WSJ:What was your first job?
Mr. Chung: My very first job was at Norton Industrial Ceramics in Boston. It's a ceramics engineering company. They make ceramics for semiconductors and the Cobra or Apache helicopters. And they hired me as a business development manager to develop the Korean market. I did not do too much.

WSJ: What did you learn there?
Mr. Chung: Understand the company before you take a job. That company was a good company, but I couldn't understand all the chemical formulas, which I had never, ever heard of. It was kind of torture.

WSJ: How did that make a difference in terms of how you view career choices?
Mr. Chung: It was a very short but good experience to work inside a U.S. company. Maybe that does not represent all U.S. companies but at least I could see what kinds of mechanisms and human relationships existed in the company. And then, I moved to Hyundai.

WSJ: What did you see that was different about the mechanisms or the human relationships at a U.S. company compared to a giant Korean business group?
Mr. Chung: For example, at Hyundai, if you call in sick, they ask what's wrong and all of the doubting questions. At Norton, one time I said I was sick and I just went to New York to see my friends. And then, when I came back, I found like a hundred get-well cards in front of my door. It killed me. So, a good lesson: Don't lie.

WSJ: Do you have a kind of a philosophy about the workplace?
Mr. Chung: Actually, I am trying to create the very hardest working environment with only a few good people. I do not have too many executives or too many employees. So being very selective, getting hard-working people and then very high performance, and then very high treatment, and then nice working environment and the respect. Hard-working people create pressure and productivity, but they get compensation and privacy.
Also, they need a break. So, unlike other [Korean] companies, we ask every executive to have at least two weeks of vacation and you don't have to make any report in advance. When it comes to business, we want people to get harder. When it comes to private things, we want to be much nicer. And employees need pride.

WSJ: What do you mean by pride?
Mr. Chung: Pride in their individual work. Pride in the company. Pride in the people they are working with.
WSJ: Can you connect how that work culture you have created has affected the results?
Mr. Chung: Some people just say it's about people for PR reasons, but I really mean it. This kind of working environment and flexible spirit can accommodate more talented people. I think every company should be this way. For example, we hire many people from many different backgrounds. But banks or other competitors tend to just hire people with only a financial background, which limits their imaginations. We have a very nice analyst and financial guys, but also, we have many different people. The whole picture is perfectly optimized to take a more imaginative or innovative approach to work.

WSJ: What book have you been reading lately?
Mr. Chung: Jim Collins' "How the Mighty Fall." Because we are not God, we will go down someday, temporarily or forever. But we want to stay in this growth mode a bit longer. Jim Collins educated me twice, how to go from good to great and how to keep your greatness one day longer.

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The IB Job

I must admit that I never really understood what life in the investment banking sector was until I immersed myself into its daily frenzy. It has been a truck full of unsolicited pressure and work demands, and I wasn’t even part of the real action. I guess the stress is so borne out of the office walls that a mere onlooker can easily get enveloped by it. Here’s a pretty interesting chronicle of life in a securities firm. I enjoyed reading this one:

The following article is based largely on the author’s summer internship experience at Banc of America Securities, as well as on interviews conducted with the other analysts at the bank.



Investment banking. For an eager job seeker, these two words conjure up magical images of skyscrapers silhouetted against the night sky, high-powered men in pin-striped suits making deals that change the course of the stock market, and glamorous lifestyles paid for by huge bonuses. Looking in from the outside, investment banking may indeed seem like a dream job. The mysterious and oh-so-enticing world of high finance lures the unwary with promises of big paychecks and even bigger opportunities, and hapless econ majors flock to Wall Street like bees to a honey pot. While many of them know what they are getting themselves into, having had internships or otherwise done extensive research, a fairly large portion enters investment banking with only a vague idea of what it entails or the sacrifices that it demands.

Investment Banking: The Job
So what is investment banking? On a big-picture level, i-bankers (or just “bankers,” as they call themselves) help companies raise capital and provide them with strategic advice. What that basically means is that they assess a company’s financial capabilities and decide what would be best for that company. A company that decides to go public—Google, for instance—needs investment bankers to arrange an IPO (initial public offering). A company in need of cash may turn to an investment bank in order to raise funds through the issuance of either equity (stocks) or debt (bonds). Investment bankers also act as advisors when companies are being bought (the buy side) or sold (the sell side) and when companies merge. Additionally, there is something called a leveraged buyout (LBO), in which a public company is bought by a small group of private investors. These investors — known as “the buyout group”—finance the acquisition by levering a ton of debt on the target company and then using that company’s profits to pay off the loans. Once the debt has been paid off, the company’s cash flows can be used to line the pockets of the investors.

At this point, unless you have developed an immunity from repeated exposure, all of these financial terms are probably giving you a brain rash. Leverage, mergers, acquisitions, LBOs, equity, debt, blah, blah, blah. It’s all good and well that investment bankers do all of these things, you probably want to say, but what do they actually do? There are two things that define the life of an investment banking analyst: Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. Analysts spend so much time using one or both of these programs that they often have dreams—and nightmares—about them. Aarthi Sowrirajan, a summer analyst at Banc of America Securities (B of A), dreamed about being trapped inside an Excel cell and unsuccessfully trying to use the shortcut keys to get out. Similarly, I once woke up to find myself trying to edit a PowerPoint presentation with the joystick of my cell phone. For an analyst, spreadsheets and slides become a way of life.

In general, there are four common activities that the analysts engage in. The first—and usually most hated—is spreading comps. In order to seem smarter than the average Joe who can look up a company’s financial information on Yahoo, investment banks maintain files on the companies that they do business with and on their competitors (hence the name, comps—comparable companies). Every time a company releases new financial information, analysts update the files by inputting the new data into the Excel spreadsheets that have been created expressly for that purpose. However, since companies exist only to make the bankers’ lives more difficult, each company has a slightly different method of reporting its financials. To make these companies truly comparable, analysts have to go through the companies’ public filings and adjust the financials for any nonrecurring items, hidden charges, and so forth. One of the main goals of spreading a comp is to accurately calculate the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization), which is then used by the investment bankers to approximate the company’s cash flows.

Comps usually take anywhere from 20 minutes to a couple of hours, depending on the speed of the analyst and the number of nonrecurring charges that he has to adjust for. (Notice my politically incorrect use of “he” as a general pronoun. I’m allowed to do this because (a) I’m a female and (b) investment banking is a very male-dominated profession.) The company’s filings with the SEC, usually a 10-K or a 10-Q, range in size from 30 pages to 400, and the analysts have to go through all the footnotes and the management’s discussion of the operating results in order to sniff out any unusual and nonrecurring items. Unless you have the hots for accounting and financial statements, you will enjoy spreading comps about as much as going to the dentist. “I have forty comps to do, forty!” gasps David Tompkins, a first-year analyst at B of A, during his second week on the job. Yep, that’s forty visits to the dentist for poor David right there.

Another common task is putting together a PIB (Public Information Book) on a company. This is considered a very simple job and analysts usually try to pass it off to the summer interns, if such creatures are present. Making a PIB involves gathering all the recent company filings and information about the company from sources such as Hoover’s and Bloomberg, making copies of the gathered materials, and binding everything together to make several books. At B of A, we had Presentation Services that would make copies and bind books for us, but at many smaller banks, the analysts have to do everything manually. In the latter case, hole-punching and fitting pages onto a spiral spine take up quite a bit of an analyst’s time. After they are made, the PIBs are distributed to everyone on the deal team and used by the team members to get smart about the company.

A step above comps and PIBs is the third task—making a pitch book. This is something that investment bankers at all levels, from managing director to a lowly analyst, take part in. Pitching is key to investment banking—and it has nothing to do with baseball. Making a pitch refers to the investment bank offering its services to a prospective client—a salesman’s pitch, if you will. “It’s a sales-driven profession, a sales-driven world,” says Rebecca Jarvis, a second-year analyst at B of A. Investment bankers pitch an idea to some company (potential acquisition or divestiture, debt or equity offering, merger, etc.), with the implication that if the clients like the idea, they hire the bank.

Associates and senior people usually make all the decisions about what goes into a pitch book and how to arrange the information. All that remains for the analyst to do is follow the directions and create whatever graphs and charts the senior people deem appropriate. The biggest challenge here is making sure that everything is nicely formatted and all the numbers tie together. Attention to detail is of utmost importance because prospective clients often form their opinion of the bank based on the materials presented. A sloppy pitch book could lose a bank millions of dollars in revenue. To make everything as perfect as possible, a pitch book undergoes over a dozen revisions (turns). Turning a pitch book may be as simple as inserting a footnote and taking out a few words, or it could mean making additional slides. Either way, the quest for a perfect pitch book has led to many sleepless nights for the analysts and associates.

Finally, there is financial modeling, generally considered to be the “fun” part of being an analyst or an associate. It is also the most skill-intensive task that an analyst gets to do, requiring knowledge of the company’s operations, accounting, corporate finance, and Excel. As a simplified representation of a company’s past and future performance, a good model allows you to test your assumptions and analyze their impact on the company. There are earnings models, financing models, merger consequences models, discounted cash flow (DCF) models, and LBO models. As a new analyst or summer intern, you are unlikely to do a lot of financial modeling, but exceptions do occur.

Although the abovementioned tasks are the most common, they are far from being the only activities that analysts engage in. An analyst’s life has no routine and duties vary from day to day. You might be asked to come up with an idea for a deal toy (an object to commemorate the completion of a transaction) or to prepare an interoffice newsletter, to find data on tea bags or to attend a meeting with a client. In short, you will do whatever needs to be done.


The Life of an Investment Banker
Now that the mystery of the actual investment banking activity has been cleared up a bit, you probably want to know if the rumors about long hours and big paychecks are true. Well, let us begin with the good part—the paychecks.

The earnings of an investment banker are closely tied to how the economy is doing. Bonuses make up a large portion of the earnings, and they tend to shrink together with the Dow Jones when recession hits. Now that the economy is improving, the bonuses are going up again. A first-year analyst can expect 35-45K in bonus, a second-year analyst about 20K above that, and a third-year analyst’s bonus is about eighty grand. At the associate level and above, the bonuses can be simply huge. In contrast, the base salaries are good without being outstanding. A common figure floating around this year is 55K for starting base salary. There is also a sign-up bonus for full-time hires of about 10K. To learn more about the salaries, check out www.careers-in-finance.com/. The information there is a bit dated, but can give you a rough idea of what to expect.

In addition to the salary and the bonus, investment banking comes with a few other perks. At Banc of America Securities, bankers who stay in the office past 6:30 pm (as analysts and associates always do) can order dinner worth $25 and have it be paid for. Same goes for the weekend, plus $15 for breakfast or lunch. The bank also pays for cab rides in the evening and on the weekends. And, for some unfathomable reason, the bank provides cell phones and takes care of up to $40 in monthly bills.

Furthermore, if the bank wants to recruit you, you can expect to be wined and dined in high style. Events for the summer interns in Chicago have included outings to the Cubs and White Sox games (where we had front row or box seats and were booed at by the crowd for wearing suits) and dinners in great restaurants and bars. My junior mentor, Rebecca Jarvis, even treated me to a pedicure. After the recruiting is over, the new full-time hires get their share of the corporate treatment during their five-week training in New York, where they live in a hotel right on Times Square and have events every week.

Having heard all this, you may be wondering why people do anything other than investment banking. It is the perfect job, right? Well, not quite. The hours that an investment banking analyst puts in are beyond anything that regular people with their nine-to-five jobs can imagine. Analysts spend 80-120 hours a week in the office. To give you some idea of what that entails, an eighty-hour week means that you’re in the office from 9 am to midnight every day of the week and five additional hours on the weekend. A 120-hour week means that you’re pulling a couple of all-nighters and working straight through the weekend. Think of the worst finals week you’ve ever had at the U of C and you might come close to what investment bankers experience on a regular basis.

There is also a lot of pressure that comes with the job. Deadlines are looming every day. Everyone from an associate to a managing director (MD) wants things done yesterday. If there is a pitch book going out to a client next Monday, the MD wants to see it this Friday. This means that the vice president (VP) wants to see it on Wednesday, and the associate wants it completed by Tuesday morning. You, as an analyst, probably got the assignment this Monday and now have less than one day to complete the presentation. Needless to say, you are not going to be sleeping much that night. You are also likely to be working that weekend, making all the changes that the MD comes up with on Friday. The unpredictability of the business is often what makes it so difficult. Kurt Sunderman, a summer associate with B of A, admits that he had to cancel plans twice during his ten-week internship. “The worst part about this job is when, after a difficult couple of weeks, you think you have Friday night off, only to learn on Friday afternoon that you would be working that entire weekend,” reveals second-year analyst Rebecca Jarvis. She has also discovered that people unfamiliar with the business often find it difficult to comprehend the all-consuming nature of investment banking and often think that she chooses to stay in the office on a Friday or a Saturday night to avoid socializing. The lack of control over their own lives can be very frustrating to analysts, who are on call 24-7 thanks to a handy device known as a Blackberry.

In general, investment banking wreaks havoc with an analyst’s social life. Juggling family and friends when you have only one night a week free becomes a virtual impossibility. That is why, Rebecca says, many of her friends are themselves analysts at B of A. They know exactly what she is going through on those late nights and are always willing to lend a hand to help her get done faster. Being friends with the people in the office mitigates the stress of the job and makes those 100-hour weeks tolerable. For Rebecca, the level of camaraderie and teamwork that she found in the office is the most surprising—and pleasant—aspect of the job.


Investment Banking as a Career Choice
Now that you know something about investment banking, the big question is whether this job is right for you. Although you only work as an analyst for two or three years, it is not a decision to be made lightly. According to summer analyst Himal Agarwal, your time as an analyst can be “the hardest two years of your life,” and a summer internship is “a must” for anyone considering this profession. Vikas Sekhri, a first-year analyst, agrees with that assessment. “Definitely do an internship before doing this full-time,” he advises. Ask yourself if you would be willing to give up your life for two years and whether you will enjoy the work itself. If not, then no amount of money will be enough to make up for the hell that you will go through.

Should you decide to make the sacrifices that being an investment banking analyst requires, the world is your oyster. Because of the steep learning curve and the hours spent on the job, just two years of investment banking gives you a wealth of experience and a set of marketable skills that make you a highly desirable employee. Hedge funds and private equity firms will be knocking on your door trying to hire you. If you really enjoy investment banking and wish to continue in the profession, it is possible as well. Although investment banking is never a nine-to-five job, the hours beyond the analyst level definitely improve. Associates usually get to leave the office before 9 pm on a semi-regular basis, while the senior people tend to go home before 7 pm. There are exceptions to everything, of course, and I have seen some managing directors in the office at midnight, but those instances are rare. In general, bankers above the analyst level do have some kind of life outside of work, so a long-term career in investment banking is feasible.

So now you know the truth about investment banking. Is it glamorous? At times. Is it difficult and demanding? Oh, yes. Is it worth it? You decide.

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Korea Is World's Fastest Internet

Aka mai Technologies, an internet information agency, released its 2009 “State of the Internet” report, which lists the top 100 fastest internet cities in the world. Of the one hundred, 59 Asian cities made it to the list, dominated by, who else, Japan and Korea. And get this, Korea surpassed Japan at the no. 1 spot! Now, where is Masan, South Korea again? I might want to set up my own PC bang business in that city.



The speed figures (kbps) can really get very shocking, especially if you are like me who's long thrived with third-world speed levels, which is still 10x less when compared with the 100th fastest. The average internet broadband speed in the Philippines is at 2,000 kbps (2 mbps), while Koreans enjoy effin' 40,000+ kbps (40mbps). Come on!

It's a sure reverse culture shock that I'm am going to get once I return to the Philippines. Korea's fast internet has been home to me.

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Ear-loves!

I have developed this special spending vice on fancy earrings since I got here in South Korea, and it’s a spending predicament I find so hard to resist in a country that has long been branded as fashion freaks. Now I don’t know why I decided to throw my personal efforts to looking good straight up to my ears, but I must say that jewelries really do a great job in accentuating. Earrings are probably the only jewelry piece that anyone will see me wearing aside from a watch on my left wrist. Watches are already part of my wardrobe staples, the kind that would make feel me instantly uncomfortable not wearing. I won’t be surprised if in a matter of a while, I’ll treat earrings as such.


Korean earrings can really go bold and daring with its myriad of designs here. My, I see them everywhere and they transform me to this behemoth of an obsessive-compulsive buyer. I prefer studs than dangling earrings. I just think that pearls, crystals, and gemstones as studs look more posh, as compared to the foxy and playful effects of a dangling pair of earrings. I still own a few dangling earrings, though.

Now I went out with my CCAP friends this one afternoon and decided to give them earrings as gifts, since my two middle school student buddies even came from as far as Gangwon-do just to see me and have a tour around Seoul. I also wanted to give something back to them since they let me stay at their house in the province.

We had an early dinner at Mr. Pizza (pretty much like the famous Pizza Hut, except that it has a special leaning towards women) and presented to them my gifts, only to found out that the girls didn’t want to accept them because they have no piercing as of yet. They went on explaining that it is because their mother won’t allow them to wear earrings until they reach high school, so as not to encourage excessive physical efforts to becoming beautiful. The school also does not allow students to have piercings and wear earrings in their elementary and middle school years.

Now why does this story of “repression” (haha) suddenly make me understand more why some Korean women dress and accessorize the way that they currently do?

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Copycat Suicide

And so the WERTHER effect holds up in South Korea. COPYCAT SUICIDE that is.

It even sounds a little weird to hear for the first time. I mean, why would suicide be worth-emulating in the first place?

This well-known type of suicide serves as a model, in the absence of protective factors, for the next suicide. It occasionally spreads through a school system, through a community, or in terms of a celebrity suicide wave, nationally.

The massive wave of emulation suicides after a widely publicized suicide is known as the Werther effect, following the Werther novel of Goethe. To prevent this type of suicide, it is customary in some countries for the media to discourage suicide reports except in special cases.

Yet in South Korea, it’s seems to be the staple dish served by its journalists, whenever possible.

If not, I wouldn’t have quickly read about the suicide of well-known actor and singer, Park Yon Ha. He is the first Hallyu actor to kill himself after a series of celebrity suicides by females in South Korea in recent years. I personally feel sad because I have been a fan of him since the successful debut of Winter Sonata, where he was a part of. He also starred in another Korean drama in the Philippines called "Loving You", and I completed the whole series as well.

According to reports, the probable main cause of his death was stress-- stress from his newly-built, yet losing business and his father's health. His father is currently suffering from stomach cancer, that he couldn't bear the thought of losing him. As mentioned in reports, the actor used an electrical cord to hang himself dead.

The suicide rate in South Korea has long alarmed the world, and while so much praise can be said about the country's progress, it somehow makes me think if it's the price that people have to pay for such easier life. Celebrities have all the money in the world, which society has commonly equated to an easier pursuit of happiness. But I guess, it doesn't seem to always fit that way.

This is really sad. South Koreans are all obsessed with how they physically look... the weight, the skin, the eyes... yet they don't know how to give importance to their mental health.

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Korean Concert for Foreign Residents

I’ve never really been a hardcore music aficionado, ‘though I’d like to think that I know how to appreciate a generally pleasant sound. What makes is especially easier for people to practice such appreciation is when a good venue allows for that music to be showcased in the first place. And well, South Korea simply knows how to do that.

Now for someone like me in the newer generation who’s practically been baptized by the era of electric guitars and synthesizers, it would initially be hard to appreciate old wooden pipes with holes to do the trick in creating music. But again, South Korea isn’t a fusion of culture and technology not to entice anyone to go ahead and see what wooden sticks and several strings could do.

FUSION. Koreans are just so in-love with the word, by the way.

The Korean Foundation Cultural Center (KFCC) is a private organization that promotes Korean culture to the world through a variety of programs and activities that cater most especially to the growing number of foreigners in the country. The organization has since held a yearly, free concert for foreigners which they aptly call, “Korea Foundation Free Concert for Foreigners”. Oh, okay, that’s how they called it last year when I caught on their 2009 performance. I just had to notice that this time around, they are calling it the “Korea Foundation Free Concert for Foreign Residents”. I would like to think that the title change doesn’t really mean to discriminate, and is more geared to invite those who are genuinely willing to be exposed and enlightened by Korean culture. I mean, any foreigner who stays and becomes a resident must’ve adapt to a certain level of Korean culture for them to want to stay longer than any other foreigners who are just in South Korea for a short-time vacation.

The concert was held at the hall of the famous Namsangol Hanok Village. One has to get out of Chungmuro Station (Line 3 or 4, exit 7) and take a slight uphill walk to the venue. Their line-up for this year was a soloist music player and a traditional music girl group.

The soloist, Ahn Eunkyung, is a “piri” player. A piri is an eight-hole woodwind instrument that has a double reed. It pretty much looks like a flute except that it is played to point towards the player, instead of sideways like that of a typical flute. For a small and thin instrument like a piri, it's really amazing to hear a trumpet-like sound in it. And there is something really commendable with the soloist's grace and poise while playing the small instrument. To have that humongous grasp of air all throughout the performance is outrightly amazing. Ahn Eunkyung's playlist for the evening were all instrumentals joined by her very own band.

On the other hand, the traditional girl group Miji, dubbed as the "Girls' Generation" of traditional Korean music, is composed of eight ladies. One is the group's vocalist, while the rest are experts in their own instruments.

Two daegum players (Daegum is the biggest member of the Samgeum family, which is composed of 3 transverse flutes-- daegum, junngeum, and sogeum. It has 13 holes and is used in the standard for tuning other instruments, given its wide register.)

Two gayageum players (Gayageum is one of the most famous traditional Korean string instruments. It has 12 silk strings tied to a long resonator chamber made of wood. It is known to have made in the early 3rd century for a king.) 

Two haegum players (Haegum is a hallow and round-shaped wooden resonator covered with animal skin, and a long, wooden neck with strings that hung like a bow. There is no specific position for a specific sound, and therefore a sound pitch is decided by the position of the hand and tension in the strings.)

One saenghwang player (Saenghwang is a wind instrument used in Korean ceremonial court music. It is constructed with many bamboo pipes mounted in a wind chest, and it is blown through a spout-like mouthpiece.)

Miji came out in uniform, colored get-ups, pretty much what anyone would expect in any Korean music group. They're pretty and slim alright, and it is not really surprising, too, for a group that was packaged by a private production company. They played one english song, entitled "Fly Me To the Moon", which comes to me now as a favorite piece for traditional music performances because the song was also played in last year's concert. Everything else in Miji's ensemble were instrumentals. My most favorite piece would have to be "Love Letter", played using the haegum and saenghwang. These two instruments were played as if talking to each other and expressing their trembled feelings of love in a calm and beautiful manner. Saenghwang would also be my most favorite instrument, because I found it rather surprising that a big instrument as such would produce such a calm and sweet sound.

How South Korea promotes and preserves their culture through music, especially at these fast-changing times is really very impressive. The country just don't get to treasure traditional musical instruments, they get to discover talents in expressing such music.

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The Jeju Hospitality

Jeju Island has always been representative of the sunnier side of South Korea, boasting of the most pristine that their beaches could get. The country calls the island their very own Hawaii, so summer is what’s supposed to define anyone’s vacation at the place. For mine ‘though, it was all rain and hospitality. It was a complete yank out of what’s typical and supposedly more enjoyable, but I may well pride myself of creating my intimately-crafted trips that are downright fulfilling.

I purposely went on the June 25 to 27 weekend because a friend who lives in Jeju will be spending her summer vacation on the said dates and offered her home to me. I therefore decided to bug her as she spends time with her family (haha, bad!). Her house in Jeju City is just fifteen minutes away from the airport, so the travel wasn’t that hard except that it rained as soon as I arrived in Jeju.

June 25 (Friday)

I sure woke my friend up at 10am when I called from down the porch of their apartment. But being the kind and hospitable Korean that she is, she welcomed me to her family’s house. My friend even offered me her very own room to sleep for two nights.

We immediately talked about how to go about my weekend trip, since the rain has sure wrecked my supposed trip to the beach and the famous Halla Mountain. I suddenly had no choice but to feast on the MANY indoor museums that the small island has. Anyway, my friend booked my Saturday on an official bus tour, thanks to her mom’s friend who helped us. The friend works in a local travel agency in Jeju City.

While my Saturday has been fixed, I still had the rainy Friday afternoon so off we went to the Jeju National Museum. Jeju, which by the way is the only special autonomous island province in South Korea, has a very interesting story. I found it amusing how my friend said that Jeju came about from a series of volcanic activity from under the sea, with lava pushing its way up, freezing and forming that island that is now Jeju. She said it also explains the famous black-holed rocks that can be found only in the island.

We then had snack in a tea shop where I got to eat 수제비. It's a Korean traditional soup made out of dough flakes torn by hand. The dough was very chewy and a bit heavy on the stomach. It's a soup normally eaten during the rainy days. I ate this with hot tea, of course.

A dinner and a yoga class came after the rainy historic stroll and tea shop visit. My one-hour primer on stretching proved how futile my body has become and how it will eventually take a toll on me if I don’t live more healthily. My friend was of course amazing. She might turn out inspiring for me, when I finally decide to take yoga classes, too. I am still thinking about it, though.

June 26 (Saturday)
My friend’s mother woke up extra early for me today so she could send me off to the White Beach Hotel where the tour bus is waiting. As I have mentioned, she helped me book a tour package in Jeju. It still rained this day so it became easy for me to give up on seeing a beach or the Halla Mountain. How the itinerary went was generally fine, I must say.

1) A Souvenir Shop. I ended up buying myself a sepia-dyed summer hat. I love!

2) A mini-horse track. I think this was solely meant to generate money from any tourist’s supposed exhilarating experience of riding… a donkey (toinks!). I didn’t buy the gimmick, though. A picture riding on horse shells out 30,000 won, apart from the riding fee. It’s a guided ride, since the track is pretty small. I found it too boring, and come on, it was raining.

3) A horse show. Pretty interesting, I must say, considering that it’s my first time to see one. The performers were Mongolians and it was nice seeing Genghis Khan’s descendants. The horse skills of these performers must be genetic. I’ve always had this picture of Gengis Khan mounted on his horse and holding his shield.

4) Ilchul Land. It is a family resort complex that owns a tropical botanical garden theme. One of its main attractions is the Micheon Cave. I will never forget how chilly it was inside. South Korean caves are actually cool, because they literally are. Haha. It’s a bit different from how caves are in the Philippines. There, the caves may not be “air-conditioned”, but the rocks and formation are as raw as it gets, and my, they can be genuinely beautiful.

I then worked on a solo flight to the famous Jeju Love Land, an outdoor, sex-themed museum. The sun finally showed up by the late afternoon (around 5 pm) so I was able to stroll in the said museum park. It’s a naughty place. I mean, it should get that way.

My friend then had to call me in the middle of the stroll to remind me about our dinner appointment with her aunt, who wanted to see her niece on vacation. I rushed my way back home and had eel for dinner.

The dinner was then followed by a night stroll by the beach. My friend’s father was kind enough to drive us to the sea and let us get some fresh air.

July 27 (Sunday)
The rain resumed today, but the family still went out do their Sunday service. The father who drove us the night before is a Protestant and invited me over this day. I said yes to the invitation. It was a solemn service that I just lip-numbed all throughout, but what I especially loved about the Protestant service is the intimacy of the whole ceremony and genuine fellowship that comes afterwards. I was the only foreigner in that particular service, so it was a little uneasy, but I hope I did justice to my lack of knowledge on the solemnity of the occasion by being quiet. I did not understand a single word because the readings were spoken using the Korean language.

After the service, the family treated me out to lunch in a buffet restaurant. It was fun eating with them and seeing their amazement with the rambutan fruit. They sent me to the airport afterwards.

It’s not always that we meet extra-ordinarily good people who would welcome us into their homes-- send us to the bus stop and drive us to the seashore. I may not get the summer sun that I wanted from Jeju, but I sure got the warmth from such genuine kindness and hospitality.

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CHEF

I got to see this great new play called CHEF, which may well join the likes of NANTA, JUMP, and those other hybrid, Chaplin-like theatre performances. Well, I call them hybrid because they usually banner traditional Korean themes (bibimpap, taekwondo, etc.) and combine them with modern means of theatrical execution. They’re Chaplin to me given the mime and slapstick stunts that are usually pulled-off.

This new CHEF is actually a beat box action comedy show (and that’s copying its promotional one-liner). I’d like to think that it’s actually that and much, much more. I enjoyed the show very much, and I can even say that it’s way, way better than NANTA and JUMP. It should well work that way because CHEF is the combined concepts of both plays. CHEF was actually produced by the makers of the equally successful martial-arts theatre show, JUMP.

CHEF has similarities with NANTA, because as the title suggests, the characters of the story are chefs. And same with the more popular NANTA, the setting is in the kitchen. I would have to give the credit to NANTA for its originality and its performers’ very skillful ‘chopping’ skills. NANTA has a pretty straightforward plot. The chefs have to beat the 6 o’ clock deadline for the huge orders that they got. The hours that pass towards the deadline allowed for the chefs’ parade of vegetables on rolling carts. The entertainment part comes with the dancing and lots of chopping stunts, to which the actors include slight comedy acts for that complete theatrical enjoyment.

But NANTA suddenly became too simple of a plot compared to CHEF. CHEF is that proud bibimpap-maker that showcases the popular Korean dish to the world. The play is a chef's epic search for the secret recipe of Korea's gastronomic delight. He journeys towards time to achieve both culinary and spiritual enlightenment with the Wulin Warrior-cooks. I actually saw the play with two other friends, and one of them said that CHEF not only promoted bibimpap as a delicious Korean dish, but as a healthy meal-- something that promotes well-being.

Now, similarities of CHEF with the play JUMP became apparent with the myriad of talents that were showcased, which even went beyond martial arts. CHEF had amazing beat box sounds, traditional music, modern operatic tunes, and a capella combined. There were also B-boy stunts involved, plus a pack of comedy that sure sent me to more laughs.

The play was held at the art hall of the very posh Times Square mall, a newly-established building around the Yeongdeung-po area. It is by the way one of my most favorite places in Seoul, which made the whole CHEF experience enjoyably great!

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CCAP Caravan

“It is already one thing to be happy in the company of children; To be genuinely humbled by their hopes and dreams as I experience life with them is another...”

It may be because my stay in South Korea is already numbered, but for whatever reason it is, I find no excuse in not expressing my sincerest gratitude to UNESCO’s Cross-Cultural Awareness Program (CCAP) for including me in their roster of volunteers for this year’s caravan.

Not everyone is privileged to be at arm’s reach to what this diverse world has to offer, and the CCAP caravan is simply the perfect wheel to be close to where the most curious minds are willing to be opened. So armed with my curtain poles and plastic cups (yeehah!), I went onboard with the whole UNESCO crew to Gangwon Province for a two-day cultural immersion.

I have earlier met up and coordinated with my interpreter and co-teacher for this special cultural class, for there was just so much excitement that I would not want to put to waste. I had to remind myself that even though I will get the perks of traveling and seeing a new place, it is the students’ learning that I should put more weight on.

After four hours of travel, we finally reached the mountainous and foggy municipality of Dogye and headed to the all-girls middle school to prepare for our cultural classes. The bannered countries include Japan, India, Germany, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, and the Philippines. We were promptly welcomed by the school head and the teachers, and were even rendered a dance by the students before we went to set-up our own separate classes.


DAY 1- FIRST ROUND of the PHILIPPINE CULTURAL CLASSES

Richard, a fellow “kababayan” from Cebu, spearheaded the first cultural class. His jolly and funny aura sure drove the girls to a number of laughs. It wasn’t hard for our expert teacher-coordinator to connect to the students, given his fluency in the Korean language. Guided by his PowerPoint presentation, he showcased the Philippines through what commonly defines the country— monkey-eating eagles, yellow bananas, active volcanoes, and halo-halo, among many others. He also made the class interactive by giving prizes to correct answers to his short quizzes.

The class progressed from video-aided lectures to fun dance demonstrations that sure put my resourcefulness to the extreme challenge. The Philippines has long prided itself of its skillful and graceful folk dances adorned with equally traditional materials like bamboo poles and glassed candles. While these materials are a little hard to provide, the curtain poles for the Tinikling (traditional dance) and the plastic cups for the Pandanggo sa Ilaw (another traditional dance) served to be humble, yet extremely resourceful alternatives. The girls had fun balancing the cups on their heads and jumping over the tapped beats of the two poles.

HOME-STAY ACQUAINTANCE IN A FUN CAVE ADVENTURE
AND FOOD-FILLED TEMPLE STAY

After that first round of formal CCAP classes, it was time for everyone to chill and enjoy the rest of the afternoon off by going around the mountains and mists that define the province of Gangwon-do. School teachers, foreign volunteers, and local students joined together on a hike to the famous Hwanseon Cave. This was where I got to meet Haeri, my home-stay partner. Her family has been kind enough to offer their house for me and Yuree, my KIV (Korean Interpreter Volunteer), as we intended to spend the night at the province. It definitely made me enjoy the very steep monorail ride more, as well as the steel bars and stairs that we had to walk on inside the cave. It sure was a pleasure talking and bonding with my Korean student and new-found friend.

After the long and dark stroll inside the cave, our tummies were rightfully replenished by a mouth-watering array of ‘temple’ food. I have never really appreciated eating vegetables until I got to South Korea. No wonder monks in the temple live longer… it is because they live simply and they eat healthily.

THE HOME-STAY EXPERIENCE

The home-stay experience will probably be the most meaningful activity in the whole caravan for me, because I was showered with such generosity and kindness by a Korean family. Home-stays allow us to take a peek into the most mundane, yet genuinely-lived lives of families from a different culture, and let us understand and appreciate its uniqueness.

It was indeed a very homey abode, with a kind mother who prepared well for our one-night stay. After fetching and driving us to their house, Haeri’s mother let us use one of her daughter’s bedrooms (Haeri’s older sister’s room). She also let us eat small cherries, which she got from their backyard, as we spent the rest of the night sharing stories and experiences. I couldn’t be more thankful to have Yuree around to help me relay what I wanted to tell the mother and what I needed to say whenever the mother asked me questions. I also feel grateful for the interest that they showed in wanting to know more about my country just as well.

The night ended with a very much enjoyed and heartfelt talk with Hae-ri, Hae-Yon (older sister), and Yu-ree. These girls sure made me miss my own sisters back in the Philippines as we also used to curl up in the bedroom to have occasional “girl talks”. I would like to think that despite my little language handicap, I was able to get myself across in the same way that I get to sink their messages into my heart.

I mentioned about being humbled by somebody’s hopes and dreams at the beginning of this little story, and it is actually from the very strong-willed and independent dream of Hae-Yon to get into the best school for her education. There was just too much passion that dwelled into her. It must be from hearing Yuree’s own feat in getting into one of the best universities in Seoul, despite spending most of her school life in Daegu, a province in South Korea. The foreign face that she saw in me might also have contributed, in letting her realize how cultural diversity can go and how much there is beyond the foggy mountains that wall her Gangwon-do hometown.

DAY 2- SECOND ROUND of the PHILIPPINE CULTURAL CLASSES

There was littler time allotted for the second class which I led this time around. In trying to spark more interest from the Philippine culture, I shared some tourist spots in the country, discussed the connecting history between the Philippines and South Korea, and compared the lives of Filipino and South Korean students. The heavier themes were nonetheless balanced out by teaching the students a common Filipino game that they enjoyed. I have always regarded Korean students as generally shy, but it did not really take long before we brought out the perky sides in them with that game that prompted some ladies to shake their hips in front of everyone.

GANGNEUNG DANOJE FESTIVAL

We had to end our enjoyable overnight stay at Dogye Middle School, but the rewards to a successful cultural caravan did not finish too soon. The volunteers and CCAP staff participated in a festival in Gangneung, another municipality in Gangwon-do.

It was a fine Saturday afternoon that I personally enjoyed with my co-CEV’s and KIV friends. The festival was of course jam-packed with people who wanted to see a number of “sameulnori” performances. There were booths that gave visitors or tourists several Korean traditional activities to try out like fan, mask, and tile paintings. There were also free tteok’s and makgoelli’s for anyone who can wait for their turns in the long lines.

THE WHOLE CARAVAN EXPERIENCE

The whole CCAP caravan experience is a testament to such fleeting fulfillment of reaching out and contributing to a more open exchange and dialogue of life and culture. Apart from traveling and being able to set foot on a new place, there is that special kind of hype that comes with meeting people, making friends, and strengthening personal relationships. The cultural exchange volunteers (CEVs) do not only get to teach, but oftentimes, are also being taught one of the greatest lessons of their lives.

Thank you CCAP and UNESCO!

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Sassy Girl Goes Full House

My attempt to suddenly show interest in Korea’s showbiz celebrities may come off lamely with this post, but I just happen to be so familiar with the characters of this very, very… let’s say, ‘cute’ news (I knew it. Nice try Ella). Just be reminded that I’ve always been a fan of a nice set of abs and a sassy personality *wink*.

I wonder how Philippine koreanovela fans will react on the rumored "dating" relationship of singer-actor Rain and Sassy Girl lead actress Jeon Ji Hyun?

I suddenly remembered this one afternoon session that I had with my officemates. I used to hold panel discussions in English and part of those weekly 30-minute attempts to spearhead “intelligent talks” was a chance for each participant to share to everyone their “Top News for the Day”. This new girl then shared this news about a well-known Korean actress who went open with her relationship with an “ugly and less popular (thus, less rich) celebrity”, quoting a guy colleague this time who went in unison with the girl’s news to share. The attitude didn’t really shock me since such scrutinizing tendencies of the more common people to these mainstream media personalities seem to be universal. Whether good or bad, we simply have a say over the lives of these celebrities for the mere fact that they are public figures that we pay to pore over.

Needless to say, Bi and Ji Hyun are my cutest couple to date. I think of the personalities of their portrayed characters in Full House and Sassy Girl, and I imagine a fun riot! Oh such effect of these hyped Korean dramas… and I know, I am so behind already. Unless anyone gives me the dubbed copies, I won’t be seeing a new Korean movie or TV series anytime soon.

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DMZ Tour

I really have not much "smart say" about the root of the conflict that is still separating North and South Korea, but one thing sure is it seems to rake in money for both countries for as long as the so-called tension between them exists.

That’s because aside from the temples, hanoks, and spas, travelers and foreigners are equally curious to see the famous DMZ or Demilitarized Zone— that strip of land that separates King JongIl and Lee Myung Bak’s minions.

And while trips to this infamous place would usually ask for passports or foreign IDs, it doesn’t seem to be as strict and scary to go to (ok, so maybe I am assuming here). Well, because it looks like travel groups and agencies have since offered packaged adventure trips and would even encourage taking pictures with soldiers in the area. I therefore conclude that even if Korean men generally despise such waste of time that they call “military service”, it can always be their little chance to feel some star-like, showbiz fame. Haha.

I got the chance to go on a DMZ tour with a travel group here in South Korea, and it even came at a time when the North and South Korean relations recently heated up with the sinking of the South Korean Cheonan ship. Lee Myung Bak put the blame on North Korea, which Kim Jong Il of course was quick to rebound and deny such allegation at. So while the mother of a friend who was with me on the trip had been giving her daughter worried calls about the situation, I actually played that little game of seeing cannon balls on mid-air inside my brain. Hell yeah! Haha.

Travel Group Itinerary:

1.) Goseokjong and its hidden piece of nature. I know how more refreshing it would have been if I actually plunged in the waters, but I guess taking pictures would suffice for now.

2.) Second Infiltration Tunnel. The tunnel was said to be made by North Korean people to invade their Southern counterparts. This is pretty much the easiest way to sneak through North Korea, except that the tunnel's cut somewhere in the middle by a sign that says no one can pass through anymore.

Cameras are not allowed inside, too bad. Not that there were anything overly spectacular. The cave was pretty normal with those low-lying stalactites and dripping waters. The cave was a little chilly inside and if you’re tall, chances are you’d have to bend your body a little to walk through.

3.) Cheorwon Peace Observatory. It provides a view of the Iron Triangle Battlefield, which was primarily the headquarters of the North Korean army. It was pretty interesting to see a Mama Mary statue on our little hike to where the observatory is.

    

For some weird reasons, I wanted to catch on any barbed wire onto the far mountains, for I have always made myself believe that just an inch after that separating wire is North Korea. And boy, who doesn't want to get a glimpse of it?

4.) Woljeongri Station- it was the last train stop before reaching the DMZ. This is the same spot where the fiercest battle was held during the Korean war. The burnt train looked like a rhinoceros to me. Now that's real ancient history, teehee.

5.) The Labor Party Building- a three-story building used as the house of the Labor Party until the Korean War. Many people who were here during the anticommunist movement were later tortured and killed. Behind the building lies remains of people. Bullets and iron chains can still be found even to this day.

The more enjoyable part the two-day trip came in the evening when the travel group had bonfire and toasted marshmallows to make those yummy s'mores! I won't ever forget that certain Maegan who was kind enough to make s'mores for me and my friend. She had a very nice pair of gold flat sandals, too.

 

I had the chance to experience the home-stay type of accommodation for the night. The family who welcomed us to their house had a cute kid named Tae-rin. I will never get enough of adorable kids who really know how to entertain their guests. So what if he cannot speak English, eh? He was my personal bundle of joy in the whole trip.
 

Since I am very tired now and I can't go on with a "trying-to-be" witty take on the North-South Korea issue, I will just take this post as a landmark trip to one of the most controversial places on earth, ever. Teehee.

One thing though, it really makes me sigh and wonder how one country where its people think of themselves as patriotic and nationalistic cannot even unite with one's kin.

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