WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
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◈ Regressed Assistant Manager Kim Can Read Minds ◈
Chapter 20
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The plane left the runway and climbed.
I thought of the last text I’d received before turning off my phone.
[Make sure you contact me when you arrive. You know you have someone waiting for you now, right?]
Now I had someone to contact when I arrived. Someone waiting for me to come home, too.
I smiled without realizing it.
Beside me, Kang Minho gave me a puzzled look.
I cleared my throat for no reason and took the Segwang Pump documents out of my bag.
When I opened the folder, I saw the air waybill for the ten demonstration pumps.
They were scheduled to arrive at Don Mueang Airport two hours before us.
“Did you check on the cargo?”
“Yes. I’ve also requested a truck to transport it locally.”
Choi Dongsik had said that if we found a site that needed the pumps, we could run them there ourselves. If the response was good, we could even leave them for a trial.
In fact, Choi had welcomed the idea, saying it was much better than going with nothing but documents.
As he studied the manual, Kang Minho suddenly asked,
“But Manager Kim, do you think we’ll really find a use for these?”
“Why?”
“Team 3 couldn’t sell a single one in six months. I’m not sure a week-long trip will change much.”
[Even Manager Kim might struggle with this one.]
“You might be right.”
“Sorry?”
Kang Minho looked surprised that I’d admitted it so readily.
“It’d be stranger if I promised we’d sell them all in a week when Team 3 couldn’t sell any in six months.”
“That’s true.”
“But we’re taking them anyway. Life’s a series of accidents and coincidences.”
Kang Minho smiled faintly.
“Like how I applied to Taeseong Trading because I didn’t want to take over my father’s bookshop, then ended up working under you?”
“Oh? You’re calling that an accident?”
“I’d call it an opportunity rather than an accident.”
“You’ve certainly learned how to talk lately.”
“I’m learning a lot from you, sir.”
He even bowed his head, looking so cheeky that I couldn’t help laughing.
Outside the window, a long bank of rain-heavy clouds stretched out below us.
“It’s the rainy season in Thailand now. There could be a sudden downpour, or equipment that was working fine could break down. Nobody knows when they’ll need our products.”
I closed the pump documents.
“That’s why we prepare. If we’re still looking for the manual when an opportunity comes, we’ll be too late.”
“Like when you were on that home shopping show?”
“You watched that too?”
Kang Minho grinned.
“They still keep showing reruns. My mother saw it and placed an order too. She said she was really shocked when you threw the bowling ball.”
“Really?”
“I heard some people at our client companies recognized you too.”
[I wouldn’t have been able to say a word in front of a camera. Will I ever be able to do what Manager Kim does?]
A little later, an announcement told us we would be landing soon.
A dark brown river and canals came into view outside the window.
Rainwater had collected in places along the roads running between the low buildings.
The plane slowly touched down on the wet runway.
* * *
When the plane door opened, hot, humid air pushed into the boarding bridge.
Outside the windows, the runway shimmered in the midday heat.
We followed the other passengers toward immigration, where a staff member in a suit greeted us with a sign bearing my name.
[MR. KIM SEONGJUN]
[ANANTAKUL GROUP]
“Mr. Kim?”
When I nodded, the staff member pressed their palms together in greeting.
They took our passports and cargo documents, then guided us to a short line beside the regular immigration counters.
While we signed our arrival cards, another staff member handled our luggage and customs clearance for the pumps.
Before I knew it, we were sitting in a lounge with cold water and wet towels set out for us.
Kang Minho perched awkwardly on the sofa and looked around.
“Manager Kim.”
“What?”
“In Cambodia, we had to do everything ourselves, from immigration to collecting our luggage. This time, there’s nothing for us to do.”
“Anantakul Group has really gone to some trouble for us.”
When we left the lounge, airport staff led the way with our bags.
Beyond the arrivals area, Lalita stood waiting with her staff.
She spotted me and waved happily.
“Welcome to Thailand, Mr. Kim.”
“I didn’t expect you to come and meet us yourself.”
“After all your help in Cambodia, of course I would.”
There was no sign of the flustered person who had been at a loss at the Cambodian airport.
Her sun-tanned face was full of a confidence she hadn’t had before.
Lalita turned her gaze to Kang Minho beside me.
“Someone from your company?”
“This is Kang Minho, a staff member on my team.”
Kang Minho bowed, looking nervous.
Lalita smiled and looked him up and down.
“Does Taeseong Trading hire people based on their looks too? How are you all so tall and handsome?”
When Kang Minho looked at me in confusion, Lalita burst out laughing.
“I’m joking. Let’s go to the car.”
An imported car with a three-pointed star emblem waited for us.
An escort vehicle and the truck carrying the pumps lined up behind it.
As we left the airport, Lalita began telling us what had happened after we parted in Cambodia.
“I reported it to the Cambodian police, but how am I supposed to trust them? I don’t want anything more to do with that place.”
“Was everything all right at your company?”
“I did get scolded for being foolish enough to fall for a scam. But you sold all the remaining stock to Korea for me. They said I’d prevented a loss and opened up business with Korea, so it passed without any major trouble.”
Lalita looked at me with a smile.
“That’s reason enough to come and meet you at the airport, isn’t it?”
She glanced at the truck following us.
“So this time, you’ve brought water pumps?”
“Yes. Thailand has a long rainy season, so I thought there would be plenty of places that could use them.”
“That’s true.”
Lalita gave a light smile and turned to look out the window.
That was all she had to say.
Anantakul had been using Japanese products with proven performance. Korean pumps they had never heard of held no interest for them.
The car entered central Bangkok.
Colorful taxis and motorcycles crowded together on the rain-soaked roads.
Golden temple roofs appeared between old shops, while rows of new high-rise buildings and cranes rose behind them.
The car barely moved in the heavy traffic.
The driver took a phone call, then reported something to Lalita in Thai.
“What’s happened?”
“The road up ahead is flooded. I think we’ll have to take a little detour. Is that all right?”
“Of course. It’ll give us a chance to look around the city in comfort.”
The car turned at an intersection.
In the distance, I noticed a building where construction had stopped.
The crane stood still, and sandbags were piled high at the entrance to the underground parking garage.
“Is that another hotel Anantakul is building?”
“Yes. It’s a new hotel. Construction has stopped because of the rain over the past few days.”
“Could we stop and take a look?”
“At the construction site?”
I nodded.
“Yes. We happen to have pumps right behind us. Pumping out the standing water shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“I’m not saying Korean products are bad, but even the Japanese pumps broke down while draining the water.”
“Why not give just one a try? If it doesn’t perform, we’ll remove it right away.”
Lalita narrowed her eyes at me.
“Mr. Kim, are you serious?”
“Yes. I’m confident in our products.”
“All right. It won’t cost anything to give it a try.”
[They said it would take at least a week for the new pumps we ordered to arrive.]
She said something in Thai, and the car entered the construction site.
Lalita smiled, looking from the site to me.
“But don’t blame me if your clothes get dirty.”
As soon as I stepped out of the car, my feet sank into the mud.
We followed a ramp covered in boot prints down to the basement, where muddy water had swallowed half the parking garage.
Several small pumps were running constantly, but water was collecting faster than they could drain it.
The workers had moved their equipment upstairs and were simply waiting for the water to go down.
The site supervisor approached and bowed to Lalita.
His gaze moved to the pump boxes being unloaded from the truck.
“What are those?”
“Products brought over from Korea. We’re going to test one.”
The supervisor looked less than pleased.
“We urgently need to get this water out. If we connect unfamiliar equipment and it stops again, we’ll have a problem.”
“Mr. Kim, do you still want to try?”
I looked over the muddy water filling half the parking garage and estimated the area.
When I’d tested the Segwang Pump units myself in Korea, they had pumped up to one metric ton of water per minute.
Even if their performance dropped by half here, the water level would fall noticeably within thirty minutes.
“Let’s run it for just thirty minutes.”
The site supervisor reluctantly nodded, then told the workers to remove one of the small pumps and connect the Korean pump in its place.
“Minho, let’s set it up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kang Minho and I carried one pump down to the basement.
Construction workers gathered around to look at the unfamiliar product.
We filled it with fuel a worker brought over and checked the oil.
Kang Minho connected the intake and discharge hoses, then filled the pump with water.
His careful reading of the manual on the plane had paid off.
“Manager Kim, I’ll start it now.”
When I nodded, Kang Minho pulled hard on the starter handle.
On the second try, the engine roared to life.
A moment later, a thick stream of water poured from the end of the discharge hose.
The volume alone was on a different level from the small pumps already there.
[That’s fast.]
[It’s draining smoothly without anything getting stuck. This is a Korean product?]
The workers’ eyes fixed on the stream of water.
After ten minutes, the water level had fallen noticeably below the stain left on the wall.
Thirty minutes later, a long stretch of concrete floor had appeared along the edge of the parking garage.
Looking pleased, the site supervisor approached Lalita and explained something.
After listening, Lalita looked at me in surprise, then walked over.
“The site manager seems to like that pump. Could I see a quotation?”
I took the English quotation I’d prepared out of my bag.
Lalita’s eyes stopped at the line showing the unit price.
[It’s half the price of the Japanese pumps. If the performance holds up, we could sign a contract for the Korean ones.]
Without showing any reaction, Lalita read through the quotation again.
“You said you brought ten to Thailand, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll buy eight for now.”
Lalita passed the quotation to one of her staff and smiled.
“Congratulations, Mr. Kim. You’ve made a sale as soon as you arrived in Thailand.”
Kang Minho clenched his fist without realizing it.
Seven more pumps were installed at the site alongside the first one.
Kang Minho and I showed the workers how to use them.
They were simpler to operate than the Japanese products already there, so there wasn’t much difficulty.
Drrr...
With each pump that started, the engine noise echoing through the basement grew louder.
By the time all eight were installed, our trousers and shoes were covered in mud.
Lalita took two towels from a staff member and handed one to each of us.
“Mr. Kim, did you bring the pumps with this in mind from the start?”
“Of course not. I heard Thailand has a lot of flooding during the rainy season. Major floods are common too.”
“And you brought ten just on that basis?”
“I thought there had to be at least one place in a country this big that needed our pumps.”
Lalita chuckled.
[He was like this in Cambodia too. What an unusual person. The more I see of him, the more I want him working for me.]
I wiped the mud off myself with the towel she’d given me.
When I turned, Kang Minho was staring blankly between me and the pumps roaring through the construction site.
We had secured the sale of eight out of ten pumps within half a day of arriving in Bangkok.
It was news that would leave Team 3 feeling rather bitter.
“...Manager Kim. You’re incredible.”
[I had my doubts, but he really pulled it off.]
* * *
After we left the construction site, Lalita took us to our hotel.
It was so luxurious that I felt embarrassed walking in with muddy shoes.
Chandeliers hung from the high ceiling, and the marble floor was polished enough to reflect our faces.
“Not bad, is it?”
“Not bad? It’s wonderful.”
“Thailand has a lot of tourists, so competition between hotels is fierce. Even so, this is the hotel we’ve put the most effort into.”
Lalita was about to continue explaining the hotel when a staff member hurried over and whispered in her ear.
The smile disappeared from her face.
[Why does Grandfather keep telling me to come? He wouldn’t normally insist I come in person.]
After sending the staff member away, Lalita turned back to us.
“Mr. Kim, I’m sorry, but I think we’ll have to postpone the negotiations for the additional natural rubber shipment by two days.”
“That’s fine. We’ll think of it as a holiday at a nice hotel.”
“Thank you for taking it that way.”
“Lalita, could I ask you a favor?”
“What is it?”
I handed her a sheet of paper.
I had taken the staff names, dates, hotels they claimed to have stayed at, and local companies they claimed to have met from Team 3’s Thailand business trip reports.
“These are Taeseong Trading employees.”
“Yes. I only need you to check whether the meetings actually took place on those dates, and which hotels and vehicles they used.”
Lalita looked through the list.
“Did these people get into some kind of trouble?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s why I want to check.”
At the bottom of the list were Deputy General Manager Jang Taeho’s name and the Pattaya itinerary he had wanted to hide.
Lalita folded the paper in half and handed it to a staff member.
“All right. Give me a few days.”
“That will be more than enough.”
The next morning, Kang Minho and I ate at the hotel buffet.
Perhaps because he’d worked so hard moving pumps at the construction site the day before, Kang Minho cleared two plates piled high with meat.
As we were finishing, a Thai man with short hair approached our table.
“My name is Athit. I’ll be looking after you during your stay.”
Athit was the driver and escort Lalita had assigned to us.
He was fluent in English, so we didn’t need to find a separate interpreter.
We rode in his car to the hotel construction site we’d visited the day before.
More than half the floor that had been submerged in muddy water was now exposed, and the equipment moved upstairs was being brought back down, one piece at a time.
“There were no problems overnight.”
I looked around as I listened to the site supervisor.
The office wall was covered with planned locations for hotels and resorts Anantakul would be building or expanding.
Even after construction ended, there would be plenty of places that needed pumps for facility maintenance.
The eight we’d installed yesterday might only be the beginning.
If their performance was recognized here, we could offer the same products to other sites.
To sell the three hundred units piled up in Segwang Pump’s warehouse, we first needed results like these.
As Athit was about to turn the car toward the hotel, I called to him.
“Athit, which places suffer the most whenever it rains heavily?”
“Among the hotels?”
“No. Places where people live.”
Athit thought for a moment, then pointed toward the river.
“There’s a village not far from here. It’s the first place to flood when it rains, but the road isn’t good.”
“That doesn’t matter. Please take us there.”
“And let’s stop at a supermarket on the way.”
We picked up rice, bottled water, drinks, and even school supplies before heading to the village.
The farther we went from the city center, the narrower the road became.
Beyond the end of the paved road was a village of old wooden houses packed close together.
Dark watermarks were clearly visible on the walls and posts of every house.
A study room on one side of the village was shut tight. Through the windows, I could see high shelves packed with clear plastic boxes holding notebooks and textbooks.
“Did the water come all the way up here?”
“Yes. Last year, it reached the ceiling.”
“Where do people go when that happens?”
“I’m from this village too, so I know it well. When the rain gets bad, people go up to the school or somewhere higher.”
Athit looked around at the watermarked houses.
“But they can’t stay away for long. Everyone here lives on what they earn day to day in this area. As soon as the water goes down, they come back and clean up again.”
The villagers began unloading food and school supplies from the truck.
A child standing outside the study room peered into the car and asked Athit a question.
[Didn’t Lalita come?]
It was Thai, but I recognized Lalita’s name.
Athit smiled and answered the child.
“Does Lalita come here often?”
“She’s been coming since she was a university student. She’s kept supporting that study room too.”
Athit looked toward the study room and added,
“I learned English there myself.”
He pointed to the girl who had just spoken to him.
“Her name’s Mai. She’s very fond of Ms. Lalita.”
With her bright, alert eyes, she looked clever.
I went farther down into the village.
Water was already rising around the canal connected to the river.
The village’s old pump kept running weakly, then stopping.
‘Heavy rain will hit this area before long.’
I couldn’t remember the exact date.
But before this rainy season ended, central Thailand would be struck by severe flooding.
A village that flooded even in normal conditions couldn’t possibly escape unharmed.
I thought of the two pumps left on the truck.
“Athit, would it be all right if we installed two pumps here?”
“Here? Just a moment.”
Athit looked taken aback, but soon called Lalita.
“Mr. Kim, how did you end up all the way out there?”
“I was getting restless staying at the hotel.”
“You’re going to leave the two remaining pumps there?”
“Yes. I think they’ll need them if it rains any more.”
There was no answer for a moment.
“All right. I’ll add them to the payment for the other eight.”
“I’m not selling these to Anantakul. Please think of them as a donation to Ban Chainam.”
“You really are an unpredictable person, Mr. Kim.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
If the pumps made it through an actual rainy season here, their performance would speak for itself.
More importantly, knowing that people would lose their lives in the coming flood, I couldn’t load the two pumps back onto the truck and leave.
“Minho, let’s set them up.”
“Yes, sir.”
With the villagers’ help, we placed one at the existing drainage channel.
We installed the other at a low stretch of road connected to the canal.
Once we finished, we showed Athit and two villagers how to start them and check the fuel.
Brrrum...
The first pump started with a rough rumble.
As the engine settled into a steady rhythm, a thick stream of water poured from the discharge hose.
The second worked without any trouble too.
When the standing water began draining into the canal, the children watching shouted with delight.
Though we were covered in mud, we didn’t leave right away.
One of the children kicked a soccer ball toward us.
“Minho, shall we play a game with the kids?”
“Now that’s something I’m good at.”
Teams quickly formed, and two slippers were placed on the ground instead of goalposts.
It hardly counted as soccer, with everyone rushing after the ball together.
But even that seemed enough to make the children laugh with delight.
Kang Minho ran around sweating as if he’d forgotten he was on a business trip.
After a good run, the children stopped chasing the ball one by one.
Mai pointed at the tightly closed study room and asked Athit something.
“What’s she saying?”
“She wants us to open the study room now that the water’s gone down.”
Athit passed the request on to a villager nearby.
A little later, when the tightly shut door opened, Mai beamed and ran inside.
Several other children pushed the soccer ball aside and followed her.
As the children took books from the high shelves and settled into their seats, the two new pumps outside kept pumping water without rest.
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