If You Can't Take a Joke...

by Gordon Gray

  I grabbed my bag and followed as best I could. Then, I remembered. The curfew began at midnight and this train full of passengers all had to be home in the next sixty minutes. When we got outside the station, I realised what the real panic was about. Taxis were few and far between.

  It was 1981 and Korea was still under a curfew from midnight. It had been under a curfew since the end of the Korean War. We had to be off the streets by midnight or run the risk of being arrested as possible North Korean spies. That included me, being obviously foreign – probably especially me.

  Queuing for a taxi was out of the question. It was hijack time. As each taxi pulled up, it was besieged by a mass of jabbering Koreans. They fought each other to get into the taxi, then pulled their friends in while trying to keep others out. Gradually, we fought our way to the front of the battle. KY yelled at a driver and tried to push me into the taxi, but a briefcase in the ribs from a Korean sumo wrestler slowed me down a little and the taxi had gone. Then, after a while, KY saw his chance: three women were fending off two men as they tried to commandeer a taxi. KY pushed me headfirst into the back of the taxi behind one of the women. He pushed on the door until most of me was inside, stuffed my bag in as well, then he yelled something at the driver.

  The car accelerated away from the chaos with people jumping out of the way. I managed to settle into a part of the seat and wondered what was going to happen next. The women were clearly not at all happy that this tall foreigner had been forced on them, but said nothing and totally ignored me. I was staying at the Lotte Hotel near the centre of town and hoped that the taxi was going in that direction. The streets were dark, as in those days Seoul had very few bright lights. The curfew killed any idea of nightlife, so it was a depressingly dark and dull city. This was reflected in its residents. Most Koreans I had seen had a very glum look about them. After a few minutes, the taxi pulled up outside the Lotte Hotel and we all scrambled out. I tried to pay but the ladies in the front had paid already and they disappeared quickly into the hotel, not wanting to have anything to do with this strange creature. I stood still and took a deep breath of the crisp cold air, picked up my bag and went inside. Welcome to Korea.

  On the Saturday morning in the office, I asked KY what it had all been about and had he got home OK? He had. He saw someone he knew and they grabbed a taxi home together. He said that he had heard the women shouting at drivers that they wanted to get to the Lotte, so he waited until they had got a taxi and then pushed me in too.

  After a busy week with a lot of travelling and as I had never been to Seoul before, I was at a loss as to what to do with myself but not exactingly bursting with energy as jet lag was still affecting me. I spent a quiet weekend in the hotel. I wandered through the underground shopping arcades and looked in the many small shops selling colourful silk ties and scarves, ginseng in all forms, and Korean ornaments, then looked round the vast Lotte department store with its huge food section that sold types of fish that I had never seen before. The Lotte is Seoul’s equivalent to Selfridges or Harrods.

  I relaxed in my room snoozing, reading or watching a little TV. The only English language TV at that time seemed to be the American Forces AFKN TV and that showed an endless list of troop flight arrivals and departures to the USA for the American Forces or ‘family/community bulletins’. If you were lucky, you might catch an episode of MASH. Everything else was in Korean. After a few trips, I got braver and did some sightseeing if I had a spare half day. I have always been lucky in that I am very happy to be on my own for long periods and enjoy the freedom it gives me; so, a weekend on my own in Seoul or anywhere else is not a problem in terms of feeling lonely.

  A Typical Week in Korea

  That was my first visit to Korea in 1981. The arrival in Seoul station being the culmination of a week’s trip to the south. Decca Radar supplied marine radars that had been ordered by shipowners for installation onboard new ships being built in the many Korean shipyards. It was part of my job to visit these Korean yards three or four times a year and make sure that they were happy with the deliveries, installation kits, manuals and operation of the radars.

  We had an agent in Seoul, an old UK trading house with a long history in Korea. Mr KY Lee was one of their local managers who specialised in the marine products that they represented and he accompanied me down to the shipyards. In Korea, an agent was essential. Firstly, to officially introduce overseas companies to Korean businesses; secondly, to act as an interpreter and guide when travelling about the country; and thirdly, because in the early eighties the local companies did not like dealing directly with overseas foreign representatives. They did not speak English and we certainly did not speak Korean. The Korean shipbuilding industry was in full swing by the early 80s and new yards were being built. The Korean Government had declared that its industrialisation policy would be spearheaded by shipbuilding and so being a shipbuilder was a great source of national pride as they were competing head on with their historic arch-enemy, Japan. Their unashamed aim was to overtake the Japanese and go on to be the biggest shipbuilder in the world. They overtook Japan in 2003 and now build over half the world’s commercial tonnage.

  The shipyards were owned by the major Korean companies or ‘Chaebols’. Hyundai, Daewoo, Samsung and KSEC were the main yards in the early 80s, with a number of smaller private yards building specialist ships such as naval vessels. Since then, they have been joined by Sundong and STX. Over recent years, many of the smaller Korean yards have been bought up by these big Chaebols and they are now buying overseas yards as well. They had long ago overtaken the UK as a major shipbuilder and the UK was seen as a spent force. Korean shipyard employees saw themselves as the ‘crème de la crème’ and treated all others accordingly. Due to the geography of Korea, the yards had been built in deep sheltered bays round the southern coast in, or near, Pusan and Ulsan – the major ports in the south – with some yards near Inchon in the northwest.

  The routine that we adopted for these trips was that I would arrive in Seoul from Hong Kong on a Sunday afternoon. I would stay in Seoul overnight and early on the Monday morning, KY Lee would meet me at about 0600 out at the domestic terminal of Kimpo Airport for the hour and a half flight down to Pusan. Even at that time of the morning, Kimpo airport was a mass of people all trying to get somewhere. I used to try and get there early so I could at least get a coffee at one of the stalls before KY arrived. As I sat with my first cup of coffee of the day, waiting for KY, I would be surrounded by slurping, sucking, chomping Koreans, all eating noodles, kimchi or rice for their breakfasts. Above the din of their conversations and yelling orders for more tea, a TV up on a shelf blared out the daily local news. The Koreans ate from plastic bowls with a dedication and an intensity that worried me. If they were this serious about food, what were they like about work?

  In those days, Korean Air flew Boeing 707s on the Seoul to Pusan route. The pilots all seemed to have just left the Korean Air Force and thought that they were still in their jets and threw these poor old 707s around like fighter planes. I tried to chat to KY on the flight. He was a shy man, probably in his early 40s, but spoke good English. He was small and had been a schoolboy during the Korean War. He had had his home destroyed and close family members killed in the war. He said he never had a pair of shoes until he was in his teens. He taught himself as best he could and had realised that learning English was as good a skill as any to learn. Even so, he certainly had never travelled outside the country, but had done well to have got where he had. Speaking English and working for an international company was a fine achievement given his start in life.

  Unfortunately, KY hated flying. The only reason he flew down to Pusan was because the alternative was to give up his Sunday, the one day of the week that the office was closed, and go down to Pusan by train. Landing in Pusan was always a bit nervy as it was prone to fog and early morning mists. The airport is in a flat river valley but the surrounding countryside was all hills and mountains. The plane revved and banked,
throttled back and we sank from the skies; then it revved up again and climbed steeply. Sometimes you would get a glimpse of hillside and trees below you, before it was gone as the plane banked the other way or climbed back into the cloud. Then, a break in the clouds revealed white-topped waves as we swung out over the sea.

  Once we had landed and passed through the modern terminal, we got in line for one of the bright green taxis. Hyundai were now producing the first Korean cars: a simple four-seat saloon called the ‘Pony’. It was a good name because like any beast of burden, the Koreans used them for everything and the suspension was rubbish. The Korean taxi companies bought vast quantities and they were all painted bright lime green. The taxi took us down through a wet morning, into the grey industrial city of Pusan and on to the ferry terminal.

  By 9.30, we had joined the crowds in the terminal. KY dashed off to buy a sandwich before we boarded a hovercraft for the one-hour journey across to the island of Koje Do where Daewoo and Samsung had their shipyards. It was still raining and a brisk wind whipped up the waves and white horses stretched away into the gloom. The hovercraft was full of shipyard workers and a few young guys in suits who looked like me – sales reps. A TV set was mounted on the bulkhead at the front of the cabin. It was showing Korean cartoons with the volume turned right up to deafening levels to drown out the noise of the engines, but no one seemed to mind or attempted to turn it down. Many people slept, or tried to, as the noisy hovercraft rattled and rolled its way across the bay, with waves and rain sloshing past the windows, towards Daewoo.

  Work started on Daewoo Shipyard in 1973 in Okpo Bay and was only completed in 1981, but by then they were already building merchant ships. It had two vast building docks, where a number of ships could be built at the same time and the yard was dominated by a huge bright yellow Goliath gantry crane, capable of lifting 900-ton ship sections. As we approached Okpo, all we could see beyond the harbour wall was this yellow gantry crane with DAEWOO painted on it in blue.

  In Britain and Europe, shipyards always seemed to be cramped places, hemmed in on three sides by houses and other industrial works right alongside them. Here, it was different. Daewoo had taken the small fishing village of Okpo which lay by a quiet bay and started from scratch. They had built a sea wall across the bay for extra shelter, moved the entire village and everyone in it over the hill to the next bay, reclaimed a vast area of land and built a shipyard. It spread for miles in all directions. Fabrication sheds, welding shops, commercial offices, stores, training centres, steel storage yards, fitting out wharves and dry docks were all scattered about the bay. At the northern end lay the massive assembly docks and the yellow goliath crane. In fact, when we visited it first, there were three different shipyard bus services to take workers and visitors to different parts of the yard.

  Our first meeting was with the purchasing department. Their offices were well away from the ship building area so we were nowhere near any ships. We got a bus from the main gate to the offices; then when we had finished in purchasing, having been berated for our harsh standard contract terms, we took another bus to the electronics technical department which was in a different part of the yard. After that, and a lecture on how to build radars from the assistant manager, it was off by bus again to the installation department. Apart from a few words of greeting, the Korean shipyard managers did not speak English, so KY acted as the interpreter. This did, of course, mean that what would be a half-hour meeting in the UK became an hour and a half or more in Korea. The Korean shipyard staff, all in company uniform of blue overalls regardless of position, seemed to feel that they had to find as much fault as possible with our products, methods, contracts, installation kits and anything else they could think of. I got the feeling that this was partly to impress their juniors who were often within earshot and partly because they were Daewoo Shipbuilding and the customer – therefore you, Mr Foreigner, must be in the wrong.

  Finally, we took another bus back to the main gate. By this time, it was after 5 o’clock and thankfully it had stopped raining as we now had to walk. Breakfast had been the salad sandwich at Pusan ferry terminal that KY had bought and lunch had not existed. KY had booked us into the Daewoo company guesthouse for the night. This was a small boarding house-cum-hotel within walking distance of the main gate for people visiting the yard. There were a number of British guys living there and working in the shipyard on long-term contracts. To make life more bearable, the guesthouse restaurant also had a short, but welcome, Western menu. However, at KY’s insistence, we went to a small single-storey Korean restaurant along the road, where we sat cross-legged on the floor for a bulgogi meal and a welcome OB (Orient Breweries) beer.

  The next day dawned sunny and still. I stood outside and took in the scene. The tree-covered hills around the bay were like folds of green velvet as the low sun caught the sides, then they turned purply blue as they stretched peacefully away across the island. The paddy fields were bright emerald green with the new rice crop and a clear blue sky arched overhead. I could hear the shipyard noises of thumps, clanks, bangs and revving engines as the day’s work started. The yellow Goliath crane gleamed and beyond the harbour wall, the calm sea glistened in the sun. The frustrations of yesterday were soon forgotten. The shipyard spread out below me in the sun, a new developing shipyard – which was set to become one of the world’s biggest, progressing to build high-tech oil production rigs, chemical and gas ships, and eventually warships and submarines. It was for their submarine programme that I was to return to Okpo many years later.

  We took a green pony taxi to the Samsung Shipyard, which was on the other side of the island. Samsung were building a series of oil tankers for European owners, which all had our radars being installed. We spent most of the day there, as again we had to see purchasing, electronics and installation departments to clear up and clarify all their various points. However, in Samsung, we stayed in a building by the main gate and the various members of staff came down to us. Again, lunch did not happen.

  That night, we stayed in the Samsung Guesthouse. This was a new hotel and we arrived on the first day that it was officially open. It was built away from the yard, just above the shore on a beautiful deserted inlet of the sea. It was pure Scotland; a still, silent, black sea loch with dark brooding hills behind and the sun setting beyond them away to the west. The hotel was clean and smart. They had a restaurant with huge picture windows looking out over the loch and even a small bar area. The rooms were simple but very clean and all had a peaceful sea view. As KY and I went for a stroll along the beach, I was able to appreciate the beauty of the southern part of Korea. Scotland with rice paddies was all I could think of to describe it. It was totally silent, apart from the sound of the wavelets lapping the pebble beach below the hotel.

  On Wednesday, the weather had turned and a gale was blowing. We went to the hovercraft terminal but I was glad to find that it had been cancelled because of the weather. It was a really dirty day outside the bay and the sea was a mass of white horses. I have never been a fan of hovercraft, especially in any sort of a seaway. We were now forced to take a taxi back to Pusan – the green Hyundai Pony again. The taxi took us up through the hills and paddy fields and back onto the mainland, which is linked to Koje Do by a bridge. It took over three hours for the drive back to the nearest town of Masan. The back seat of the Pony was certainly not built for 6-foot Europeans. The road for the most part was narrow and bumpy, but the scenery more than made up for it. It was stunning with the hills and valleys, small picturesque villages and emerald green terraced rice fields. As we neared Masan, we joined a smooth, flat dual carriageway for the last few miles into town. In Masan, we took an express bus for an hour’s ride back to Pusan, then another taxi to the KSEC shipyard.

  KSEC, or Korean Shipbuilding and Engineering co, was one of the oldest shipyards in Korea and was situated in the town of Pusan itself. The west side of Pusan is built on a number of islands, so deep water for shipbuilding is available quite close to the town. T
his yard had a much more traditional appearance. A grey, featureless administration building fronted the busy main road with the yard and the slipways behind it. Our meetings were all held in one of a number of basic meeting rooms by the main entrance to the offices. These rooms all seemed to have just one large table and some metal chairs. My role was essentially to cover any topics that the shipyards wanted to discuss, as well as keeping them updated on new radars that we might be launching. These topics included all aspects of radar; from errors on installation drawings to commissioning queries; from commercial terms and conditions to radar radiation levels. However, sometimes I felt that we were not really showing a heavy commitment to the Korean shipyard market with just one person coming to the shipyards three or four times a year, but my role in Korea was essentially supporting both the sales and service divisions as the main radar selling had already been done to the shipowners elsewhere in the world. It was therefore reasonable that one man should be able to do it.

  We were supposed to meet the procurement manager in KSEC but were told on arrival that he was not available, so we met with a young purchasing assistant. We had been in discussion for a good while when there was a commotion in the next meeting room. The noise was such that we had to stop talking and wait while things settled down. Chairs were scraped on the floor, people shuffled about and lots of loud greetings exchanged. The purchasing assistant turned round to see what was going on. Through the dividing window, we could see that six Japanese businessmen in suits had come in and were being hosted by a similar number of shipyard officials, including the procurement manager. Like all shipyard employees in Korea, they all wore company uniform. Through KY Lee, the young purchasing assistant told us that, “This is the JRC (Japan Radio Company) monthly meeting. They come most weeks and we have a big meeting each month.” JRC was a major Japanese marine electronics company and our main competitor in the Far East, and the fact that they could fly from their Tokyo HQ to Pusan with a team of six in a couple of hours did not help my mood. With customer focus like this they couldn’t fail. It was, of course, out of the question for Racal Decca to send such a team anywhere.