Ged Carroll

Category: korea | 韓國 | 한국 | 韓国

Annyeonghaseyo – welcome to the Korean category of this blog. This is where I share anything that relates to the Republic of Korea, business issues relating to Korea, the Korean people, Korean culture and the Korean language.

At the time of writing this category descriptor its been about 10 years since I have last been able to visit Korea. In that time the country has risen on the world stage.

There have been continual disputes with Japan and more recently continual bitter disputes with China. The Japanese disputes are related to history and territory. Korea had been occupied as part of the Imperial Japanese empire. Independence came with the end of the second world war.

The Chinese disputes are more complex. Chinese investors are buying up Korean property particularly in Seoul, Busan and Jeju island, while many Koreans can no longer get on the property ladder. Chinese tourists blitz Korean shops in a similar way to what they’ve previously done in Hong Kong.

Chinese nationalism has seen claims made on Korean cultural assets from the national dress to kimchi. Finally China has interfered in Korea’s efforts to defend itself from the threat in the north.

Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Samsung launched a new smartphone that I thought was particularly notable that might appear in wireless as well as Korea. If there is Korean subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.

  • Chinese mercenaries + more things

    Chinese mercenaries

    Chinese mercenaries have been around longer than the belt and road. You can come across Chinese mercenaries protecting in the border areas of China such as the warlord regions of Myanmar. But now Chinese mercenaries are increasingly linked with the Belt and Road Initiative. China claims that it isn’t building an empire in Africa, across the former Soviet Union and Sri Lanka. Yet all of the private security companies that Chinese mercenaries work for are state owned. The Chinese mercenaries come out of the PLA, the PLAN marines and the PAP. That doesn’t mean that they are well trained or even well disciplined and they exist in a Chinese legal vacuum.

    There is more connecting China to its empire with these Chinese mercenaries than there was for the army fighting under Clive of India for the East India Company a few centuries before. Task and Purpose goes into the subject of Chinese mercenaries in more depth.

    China

    Honda, Mazda plan to relocate supply chain makers from China | DigiTimes 

    Inside Missfresh’s hunt for investor cash ahead of collapse | Financial Times – probably one of the best comments on this article – Missfresh is only one of a number of Chinese domestic startups that sought US investors, as their own domestic private investors were unwilling to invest. For a Chinese investor, they always consider when and if the CCP may want a piece of the business, or worse take action against the promoters and management. for non performance. The lighter loss being financial and. the greater loss, life.

    China’s Growth Sacrifice by Stephen S. Roach – Project Syndicate – Japanization of an increasingly debt-intensive, bubble-supported Chinese economy. An overly leveraged Chinese property sector fits this script, as does the debt-fueled expansion of state-owned enterprises since the 2008-09 global financial crisis. For China, this became the case for deleveraging, well worth the short-term price to avoid the longer-term stagnation of Japan-like lost decades. Finally, a major reversal in the ideological underpinnings of governance is also at play. As the revolutionary founder of a new Chinese state, Mao emphasized ideology over development. For Deng and his successors, it was the opposite: De-emphasis of ideology was viewed as necessary to boost economic growth through market-based “reform and opening up.” Then came Xi. Initially, there was hope that his so-called “Third Plenum Reforms” of 2013 would usher in a new era of strong economic performance. But the new ideological campaigns carried out under the general rubric of Xi Jinping Thought, including a regulatory clampdown on once-dynamic Internet platform companies and associated restrictions on online gaming, music, and private tutoring, as well as a zero-COVID policy that has led to never-ending lockdowns, have all but dashed those hopes – China was on a rocket ship that it couldn’t control, it is now trying wrestle back control at the expense of growth

    Apple’s VP of Corporate Development Resigns from the Board of Chinese Ride-Hailing Company Didi Global – Patently Apple – looks as if Chinese government regulators likely removed Apple from the board

    Economics

    Yes, sanctions on Russia are working – by Noah Smith 

    Eurostar to axe direct trains from London to Disneyland Paris over Brexit | Eurostar | The Guardian – “We have taken the decision not to run the direct Disney service … in summer 2023,” it said. “While we continue to recover financially from the pandemic and monitor developments in the proposed EU entry-exit system, we need to focus on our core routes to ensure we can continue to provide the high level of service and experience that our customers rightly expect.” – not enough demand from the UK and too much hassle to run

    What’s Hollowing Out the US Workforce? by Michael R. Strain – Project Syndicate – ‘forced’ early retirement is hollowing out the workforce

    Energy

    South Korean shipbuilder bets on methanol-powered vessels in decarbonisation push | Financial Times 

    Finance

    Losses at Klarna quadruple as costs rise and credit losses grow | Financial Times

    Health

    The growing evidence that Covid-19 is leaving people sicker | Financial Times

    Chartbook #148: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? How China, Cuba and Albania came to have higher life expectancy than the USA. 

    Ideas

    Marco Meyer & Mark Alfano, Fake news, conspiracy theorizing, and intellectual vice – PhilPapers – interesting how a lack of intellectual humility leaves one vulnerable to fake news and conspiracies

    Covey’s 7 habits | Later On 

    Why political backlash is worth fighting – The Face – interesting idea of The Big Backlash as a concept

    Innovation

    The Economics of TSMC’s Giga-Fabs – by Jon Y 

    Japan

    Kishida turns Japan’s energy problems into nuclear opportunity | Financial Times 

    Korea

    K-style — the rise and rise of Korean pop culture | Financial Times 

    Legal

    Apple’s VP of Corporate Development Resigns from the Board of Chinese Ride-Hailing Company Didi Global – Patently Apple – looks as if Chinese government regulators likely removed Apple from the board. Apple was responsible for the largest single investment in Didi Chuxing

    Luxury

    Top Richemont investors set to vote against activist’s plan to shake up board | Financial Times 

    The timely trend for wearing two watches | Financial Times 

    Materials

    Why is China so Obsessed With Food Security? | The Upheaval – really interesting read. China’s scarcity thinking predates the Ukraine conflict by a considerable amount of time

    Retailing

    ‘No Muslim delivery person’: Food delivery app Swiggy faces backlash over customer’s request – via The Independent: Indian food delivery app Swiggy is facing backlash for not issuing a comment after a customer allegedly asked the service to not send a Muslim delivery personnel.

    Meta is teaming up with Jio for grocery delivery via WhatsApp — Quartz 

    Security

    Snowden: US asked British spy agency to stop Guardian publishing revelations | NSA | The Guardian – I am surprised that the former head of GCHQ has been allowed to cover so much in his memoirs

    Storing data on floppy disks? Japan tells bureaucracy time to stop – Nikkei Asia – it also makes sense keeping data off the internet

    ‘On a par with the Russians’: rise in Chinese espionage alarms Europe | Financial Times – the bigger challenge for China will be the contagious mistrust that this will build

    Hackers, Spies and Contract Killers: How Putin’s Agents Are Infiltrating Germany – DER SPIEGEL 

    Singapore

    Software

    France Catches Tax-Dodging Pool Owners With AI Tool – Bloomberg 

    Vietnam

    In Myanmar, Vietnamese firms learn the political risks of backing the junta — Radio Free Asia – interesting that Burmese consumers are boycotting military-owned businesses including MyTel – a mobile carrier that VietTel has a major stake in. Also: Vietnamese firms have begun investing abroad, and, in particular, have sought a place in the 5G marketplace, especially in markets where there is residual fear of China’s communications giant Huawei. – Also: Vietnamese conglomerate THADICO, which has invested in Myanmar Plaza, the largest modern mall and office space in Yangon, ran afoul of the local population when the plaza’s security attacked civil disobedience protesters in November 2021. This led to a sustained boycott that hit the plaza’s 200 retail units hard, compelling the firm to publicly apologize

    Web of no web

    Why a Pixar-Invented Protocol Is the ‘HTML of the Metaverse’ – Slashdot 

  • Korean Drama Trade + Zurich

    I have had my head in PowerPoint presentations and market research reports so haven’t paid much attention this week until I read in this weekend’s FT about the Korean drama trade.

    Extraordinary Attorney Woo

    The premise of the Korean drama trade is a paradox, that while Netflix as a business isn’t doing well with investors and has experienced a lot of short selling, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the companies who produce content for the platform.

    In many western and developing world media markets, consumers have been used to international content. Media industries that more closely match their own values tend to do better. For instance, there has been a brisk Korean drama trade in Middle Eastern countries because there was less sex and violence on display than American media.

    Cracking foreign language markets

    In the English speaking western world, foreign language media has had a tougher time to gain mass market acceptance. Things opened up a bit with the popularity of Scandinavian media, in particular ‘Scandi-noir’ dramas. The ironic thing is that prior to 1964 the films available to broadcast in the UK were either old b-movies, pre-war pictures from smaller studios or foreign-language films. Hollywood saw television as competition, so there was an informal blockade. This ended in the UK when Samuel Goldwyn and MCA began selling films as packages to the BBC and ITV. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing however.

    Netflix then became the world’s entertainment broadcaster*. This meant that over time Netflix had to build up a body of content for lots of different markets. And if you want to be successful in Korea, you need Korean dramas and movies.

    Freedom through the Korean drama trade

    One of the standout aspects of the Korean dram trade has been that it has allowed Korean writers and directors to push the limits of the genre. A classic example of this is Hellhound. Hellhound gets to explore interesting questions around religion, morality, hysteria and power.

    Or you have the nihilism of Squid Game.

    This meant that Korean dramas have got a bigger creative palate and become exposed to a far larger potential audience than previously possible on niche streaming platforms like Rakuten’s Viki or Kocowa. Warners must be kicking themselves, having bought and then shut down early K drama streaming service DramaFever in 2018. Bob Cringely talked about innovation in terms of surfing waves and the danger of wiping out by being too early was as big as missing the wave altogether.

    Back to the Korean production companies that have made these films. June Yoon over at the FT noticed what is now a well trod short term investment play

    • See what K-drama performs well when launched on Netflix
    • Buy shares in the production company if it is listed on the Korean stock market
    • Hold shares and then sell before the price starts to decline to a more reasonable level (after four weeks or so)

    According to Yoon, this is the Korean drama trade. You have seen a similar bounce in the entertainment agencies of K-pop bands with international success already. So this surfing of the wave in Korean stocks makes sense.

    Zurich

    The reason why I hadn’t been paying much attention is that I had a workshop in Zurich. The preparation was all-consuming. This all sounds very glamorous but it wasn’t. I flew in and went to the client office near the airport. Co-hosted a workshop and departed via Zurich airport after seeing next to nothing of the city. It was a long 19-hour day of work and travel. No Instagrammable moments or even shots grabbed by the departure gates. The few observations that I did have:

    • The pound now almost has parity with the Swiss Franc, which gives you an idea about how much Sterling’s depreciation since Brexit must be driving inflation
    • Mars had a really strong presence in the duty free shops. Which was really strange given the strong association of Switzerland with chocolate. It was a major win for the Mars brand that manages to associate its brands with the Swiss country brand in the minds of travellers
    • Switzerland still has a strong presence for tobacco advertising and promotion. The Marlboro chevron was on view in the duty-free store and there was a Winston smoking lounge for the nicotine addicted. I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at this 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago. But it caused cognitive dissonance on this visit. (Disclaimer: I grew up around tobacco advertising, having had Uncles who ran cigarette machines in Ireland and were wholesalers to Irish bars, shops and petrol stations. I still have somewhere a few packs of Jordan B&H playing cards, a couple of Carroll’s Number 1 ash trays for keeping change in and a Reemtsma-branded Maglite torch.)
    *With the exception of China, given that the media industry is one of many sectors that China views as being central to its state interests. This has meant that Taiwanese dramas and documentaries on the Hong Kong democracy movement have been given a platform on Netflix.

  • Objectified garlic + more things

    Objectified garlic puts up a stink in Korea

    I didn’t expect to be writing the words objectified garlic in such close proximity, ever. The reason for this post is down to an advert put together by an area of South Korea to promote its high quality garlic to Korean city dwellers. The advert was full of double entendres and was accused by critics of having objectified garlic.

    The house I grew up in

    Hiscox home insurance did this TV advert that makes really good use of projection mapping to tell a story. I can’t believe that this is now eight years old as an execution.

    Fuzzy logic versus cloud based AI

    I have written a good deal before on the benefits of fuzzy logic which is a much more efficient technology than machine learning for a lot of challenges, particularly if the machine learning is based on cloud computing a la the internet of things (IoT).

    E-mu Systems SP1200

    Back in the 1980s E-mu Systems were known as one of the pioneers of sampling with their Emulator series of keyboards, alongside the likes of CMI with the Fairlight and New England Digital’s Synclavier. They were bought out in 1993 by Creative Techology like rival Ensoniq – eventually they were both merged together. The SP1200 was a sample based drum machine and sequencer that came out in 1987. It gets its distinctive sound from 12 bit sampling done at about 26 KHz. By comparison, a CD based on 16 bit sampling at 44.1 KHz. It was beloved of hip hop producers from the late 1980s though to the mid 1990s. It is still sought after now.

    This video gives you a good idea of how it is operated and hints at the benefits of hardware controls over software interfaces on modern digital audio workstation applications.

  • Guyana + more stuff

    Chinese business corruption in Guyana

    For a while Vice News was the hotness in news reporting, now they seem to have got their mojo back with a report on Chinese business people taking advantage of corruption at the highest level in Guyana. British Hong Konger Isobel Yeung did an amazing report on how Chinese business, especially state owned enterprises, had supercharged corruption in Guyana.

    Hyundai N Vision 74

    Korean car manufacturer has been following the path taken by the likes of Toyota to expand from being a manufacturer of value, but low margin cars. This involved making a luxury division – Genesis is a clear Lexus analogue but with Korean characteristics. N is their version of what used to be Toyota’s TRD or Gazoo Racing as it is now.

    Hyundai N Vision 74

    The N Vision 74 shows a reignition of Hyundai’s interest in hydrogen fuel cells for passenger cars, Hyundai had paused hydrogen fuel cell development for passenger cars in 2021. Presumably the higher energy density of fuel cells together with the skyrocketing price of lithium and cobalt has caused to them to resurrect the programme? The design is a homage to Italdesign’s Hyundai Pony Coupe concept from 1974. The same year Italdesign had also designed the first Volkswagen Scirocco and the Alfa Romeo GTV. Many commentators have compared it to the later DeLorean DMC 12. The DMC 12 was also designed by Italdesign in 1981.

    Hyundai N Vision 74

    There is a good deal of 1970s and 1980s track car vibes in there as well including a louvred back window and muscular arches. The wheels seem to use vintage Speedline influenced guards that would funnel air into the brake discs but keep rocks, sand and snow ingress to a minimum.

    Japanese itchiness

    Japanese skincare brand Muhi is a line of products that deal with itchy or irritated skin from the likes of allergies or insect bites. They have launched a campaign that deals with the subject of crotch itch including an e-sports tournament and a branded series of anime. The e-sport tournament is a clever way of getting attention for the series of crotch related games that they have on the Muhi website.

    Perun

    Perun has done some of the better analysis for armchair warriors following the Ukraine war. The analysis is thoughtful and doesn’t have an inherent bias. He had used to run a mediocre gaming channel, but analysis seems to be his strength.

  • Hong Kongers Book Fair + more things

    Hong Kongers Book Fair

    Hong Kongers Book Fair, an independently organised book fair set up by Hillway Culture was cancelled the day before its official launch. The landlords claimed that they had violated a sub letting clause in the contract, the reality has more to do with the current environment around publishing in Hong Kong.

    Hongkongers Book Fair 2022

    Hillway Culture who organised the Hong Kongers Book Fair are looking to keep local Hong Kong culture alive. And what were the books that would have made landlords and the government concern? The diaries of local political prisoners, locally drawn graphic novels, a phonebook of Ukraine and translations of Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm. You can support the book fair organisers and exhibitors through this online shop.

    I can recommend their ‘Hunted and Endangered’ Hongkongers Book Fair shopping bag and Hongkonger passport cover that misquoted A.A. Milne (its actually from Disney’s Pooh’s Grand Adventure The Search for Christopher Robin and was most likely written by children’s screen writer Carter Crocker).

    If ever there’s a tomorrow

    when we’re not together,

    there’s something

    you must remember.

    You’re braver than you believe,

    stronger than you seem,

    and smarter than you think.

    But the most important thing is

    even if we’re apart,

    I’ll always be with you.

    While the literary detection might be wrong the sentiment nails the terrible present facing the Hong Kong people.

    What Putin’s Russia does with artillery, Xi’s China does with a cowed judiciary, triads, law enforcement and toadying transnational business elites.

    Mid Night Racing Club

    Before Fast & The Furious Tokyo Drift raised the international profile of Japanese illegal racing there was Mid Night. This video tells the story of the Porsche 911 Turbo that was at the centre of the club. What I also found interesting was the emphasis on big American muscle cars at the top of the scene rather than say Japanese tuned Mazda RX7s, Nissan Fairlady Zs, Italian sports cars or the big engined German saloon cars like the Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 and the Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9. Given how on it the Japanese police usually still are on enforcement I was surprised this could go on, let alone have the impact that it had.

    The end of the salary man

    The Asia Society and Adecco try to put lipstick on the pig of how middle class ‘iron rice bowl’ jobs are disappearing even amongst the most successful corporate organisations in Japan, Korea and Singapore. This is the end of a social contract between society, exploitive corporations and governments who collaborated in creating directed economies. This has been tearing away at the fabric of society, a large number of middle aged men are now homeless. They spent their best years not present in their marriages and when made redundant were kicked out of their homes on to the streets.

    Helihome

    In the family farm house were my Mum grew up there hung a jigsaw picture that was of a painting of the post-war American Antarctic Expedition. It captured my imagination with its Trucker Sno Cat vehicles, pallets being moved off bright orange freighters onto sled and a bright orange Sikorsky helicopter.

    I spent a good deal of my early childhood looking at that picture. So if you had asked 6-year old me to come up with my dream camper van, I would have likely come up with something like the Helihome. The Helihome was designed in the early 1970s by a Florida aviation company using ex-Vietnam war surplus US marine helicopters.

    Orlando Helicopter Airways my 6-year old self salutes you.

    BMW 7-series production footage

    I love manufacturing footage. This b-roll of the BMW 7-series production line is particularly interesting. I thought back to the old Japanese animated cartoons of the automated processes that put a mecha into action as the pilot was put into the head. The degree of automation in this line looks like the science fiction of a few decades ago. Which makes me wonder, how has automation been so advanced in some ways and so basic in others. Why are smartphones still reliant on an army of women to hand assemble the devices? Why is UK industry like food services still so reliant on agency workers earning minimum hourly wages?