WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: LilGuyBlastoise
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Second Life of the Trade King ◈
Chapter 12: Upset People (1)
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Seoul. Daeseong Fisheries & Produce headquarters, seventh-floor conference room.
Sales Director Lee Dae-jun slowly tapped the table with his fingers as he looked at Deputy General Manager Kim Han-seop, seated across from him.
The head of Sales Team 3 sat beside them, caught between their stares.
“Deputy General Manager Kim, what are you doing right now?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m so dumbfounded I can’t believe it. No, you’ve got a mouth, so say something. How do you lose a client to some fresh startup?”
“Well...”
“What are you going to do now? Are we just going to wrap this up? Pacific Grain Lines... How old is he?”
“I, I believe he’s twenty-six.”
“Ha, fuck, this is unbelievable...”
Director Lee ran a hand through his hair and tossed aside his thick-rimmed glasses.
“Are we handing Pacific Grain Lines over to some snot-nosed kid? Is that it? Is it over?”
It was not over.
They had slashed their rates so deeply that foreign shipping lines would demand below-rate prices from now on. If Daeseong refused, they would all flock to that startup.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you’re sorry, you bastard!”
Director Lee finally raised his voice.
Deputy General Manager Kim, stiff with fear, stood at attention.
“Y, yes, sir!”
“Are you just going to leave him alone? Hand over all our clients?”
“No, sir!”
“Then what are you planning to do?”
The instant Kim said, “I don’t know,” they might get cursed out, or even slapped. Cold sweat ran down Deputy General Manager Kim’s temple.
Kim had to come up with something.
“Well...”
“Hm? What?”
Director Lee’s sharp gaze seemed ready to dissect Kim’s brain.
“There are signs that Kim Hyun-woo of Yeongdo Trading has been in close contact with David Jo, the manager of Pacific Grain Lines’ Korea branch. David Jo must have contacted Kim Hyun-woo and guided him.”
“So David Jo gave him an opening?”
“That’s right. If we can move David Jo somewhere other than Busan...”
“How?”
Growing more confident when Director Lee appeared interested, Deputy General Manager Kim spoke.
“Director, next month is the time for the Australian head office’s regular personnel rotation for its Korea branch managers. David Jo has been at the Korea branch for five years, and the head office system uses a standard five-year rotation. It is also the point when the head office would begin considering a replacement manager.”
At that, Director Lee picked up his thick-rimmed glasses and slowly put them back on.
“...A regular rotation?”
“Yes, Director. If we submit an official statement to the head office...”
“Hmm, it’s not impossible. They can’t simply ignore our opinion.”
“That’s right. They will have to consider us, given the client stability and priority routes we’ve maintained for five years, when assessing the Korea branch’s operational efficiency. There will also be pressure on rates if they expand to new clients. If David Jo returns to head office next month through a normal personnel transfer, and we recommend someone from the line we’ve worked comfortably with for five years as the replacement manager, then naturally...”
The argument was fairly reasonable. Director Lee nodded slightly, then gave a faint smile.
“Deputy General Manager Kim, you’ve put some thought into this. Since it’s a regular personnel transfer, it’ll look like head office made the decision itself. David Jo will know he’s due for a regular transfer too, so he won’t be able to object.”
“Yes, Director.”
The head of Sales Team 3, who had been watching nervously from beside them, added a word.
“Director, I can contact someone directly in the head office line. I’ll prepare and send an official statement within the next week.”
Director Lee slowly rose from his seat.
He walked to the conference room window and looked down at Euljiro Street for a moment before turning around and saying one thing.
“Let’s do that. But there’s one thing. That green kid, Kim Hyun-woo.”
“Yes? What about him...?”
“I’d like to meet him.”
Deputy General Manager Kim flinched.
“Kim Hyun-woo? He’s only twenty-six.”
“Right. That twenty-six-year-old made a fool of Daeseong Fisheries & Produce’s thirty-two-year-old Deputy General Manager Kim Han-seop.”
“Well...”
It was too true for Kim to make an excuse.
The words cut Kim to the bone.
“That’s why I want to see him. Was that insolent brat just lucky, or is he a tiger cub?”
“Understood. I’ll make contact.”
“Go.”
At Director Lee’s cold dismissal, Deputy General Manager Kim bit their lip and bowed their head.
A deep sense of defeat and helplessness weighed on Kim’s shoulders.
* * *
Right after returning to Busan from Yangsan, I met my father’s eyes as he sat behind the store counter reading the newspaper.
“Father, I met President Lee Man-su. I got the preliminary contract.”
Startled, my father slowly lowered the newspaper.
“...Really? You got it?”
“And President Lee said they’ve forgotten all about what happened between you two. They asked me to pass that along.”
“...All right. You did well. You really did well.”
Was it just my imagination that a faint smile spread across my father’s face?
In any case, just as I went upstairs and hung my jacket over a chair in my room, my older brother shouted from the first-floor counter.
“Hyun-woo! Mr. Park’s on the phone!”
I went back downstairs and picked up the receiver. An urgent voice came through.
“Hyun-woo! We’ve got a big problem! David Jo just contacted me. Pacific Grain Lines has started its regular personnel rotation for the Korea branch manager!”
“What? A regular personnel rotation?”
“They say David Jo will return to head office next month. It’s supposedly the regular five-year rotation... They haven’t decided on the replacement manager yet. But something about this feels suspicious. What happens to us if David Jo leaves and someone friendly to Daeseong Fisheries & Produce comes in?”
“Haah... All right. I’ll figure something out.”
“You have a way?”
“I need to find one. I’ll hang up for now.”
I put down the receiver, went back upstairs, and changed clothes.
“There’s no such thing as coincidence.”
As a commodities trader, every event in the world was the result of coincidence piled upon coincidence. Even so, if I had one guiding principle, it was that there was no such thing as coincidence.
No, coincidences might exist. But everything that happened to me had a cause, and if I failed to identify that cause in advance, I would have to bear every result that followed.
So I could not accept Pacific Grain Lines suddenly moving up its regular personnel rotation as a coincidence.
If it had been an expected personnel transfer, David Jo would not have leisurely given me documents at a coffeehouse.
He must have believed there was still time.
“Daeseong Fisheries & Produce...”
They were the most suspicious.
A regular personnel rotation would happen eventually, and gathering clients’ opinions was also a normal procedure for head office. If the result was a manager friendly to Daeseong Fisheries & Produce, the Yeongdo Trading line itself would be cut off. It was a perfectly conventional way for a large corporation to block the path of a weaker company.
I raced downstairs, picked up the store phone, and dialed the direct number for the Pacific Grain Lines Korea branch.
“Mr. David Jo, this is Kim Hyun-woo. Mr. Park told me.”
“Mr. Kim, I received notification of the regular transfer. A five-year rotation was bound to come eventually, but I didn’t expect it to proceed so quickly.”
“Mr. David Jo, I have one request. Do you know the contact information for the trade officer at the Australian Embassy Trade Office in Korea? The person in charge of entering the Korean feed market.”
“What? The Australian Embassy Trade Office? Why do you ask?”
“There’s something I want to confirm. And if you leave so suddenly, it’ll put us in a very difficult position. I believe someone’s influence is behind this abrupt personnel transfer.”
“Surely not... Are you saying you intend to reverse head office’s decision? It would be very difficult for an outside party to influence a regular personnel decision by head office.”
“I don’t think anything in the world is impossible. I need to act first. So please tell me. You know the trade officer’s contact information, right?”
David Jo paused to think before replying.
“There is someone named Kevin Matthews. He sometimes has connections with head office’s Korean business as well. Just a moment.”
After giving me the direct number, David Jo asked,
“Mr. Kim, are you going to meet Kevin Matthews?”
“Yes. The Australian trade office only needs to send formal notice to Pacific Grain Lines’ Australian head office. It should say that Han-il Feed’s preliminary contract is being evaluated as an example of expanding Australian exports to Korea at the government level. Once that is sent, Pacific Grain Lines’ executives won’t be able to follow Daeseong Fisheries & Produce’s opinion exactly when choosing a replacement manager. For their Korean business to keep moving, they need someone the Korean government welcomes as the Korea branch manager.”
Silence followed, and I could tell that David Jo understood the point I was making and was considering it.
As long as Pacific Grain Lines was a company exporting grain to Korea, the Australian government’s policy of expanding exports to Korea was a major part of the company’s business.
That meant the company could not ignore the Australian government trade office line if it wanted to do business in the Korean market.
The moment the Australian trade office formally notified Pacific Grain Lines’ executives that it considered the Yeongdo Trading line a decisive example of expanded exports to Korea, removing David, the manager who had built that line, through a regular personnel transfer would mean directly disregarding the Australian government trade office’s assessment.
For the head office executives, comparing the opinion of one Korean company against formal notice from the Australian government trade office would hardly be a difficult decision.
“And one more thing. If the Australian trade office also states that it considers Manager David Jo the person who first solved the five-year-old problem of entering the Korean market, then removing him through a regular transfer becomes a loss for Pacific Grain Lines’ executives. It creates the possibility of extending his term or delaying the choice of a replacement manager.”
An incredulous voice came through the receiver.
“Where in the world did you learn something like that?”
What I was pushing for was a matter in the political sphere.
On the surface, it was not something a mere twenty-six-year-old could come up with in practice.
Looking into the eyes of my father, who was watching me from afar, I answered as if it were nothing.
“Uh... I saw something similar when studying international trade cases at school. A home government’s trade channels can play a decisive role when a foreign company enters Korea. Since Pacific Grain Lines is directly tied to the Australian government’s policy of expanding exports to Korea, I thought a similar mechanism could work.”
“Ha, impressive. All right. I’ll give you the number.”
I hung up and immediately called Kevin Matthews’s direct number, but it only rang without an answer.
Unable to give up, I called the Australian Embassy Trade Office’s main number instead.
A Korean receptionist answered.
“Hello. This is Kim Hyun-woo, president of Yeongdo Trading. I’d like to arrange an appointment with Trade Officer Kevin Matthews.”
“One moment. I’ll check Trade Officer Matthews’s schedule for today... His schedule is full today. Tomorrow morning would be possible.”
“Is there any way I could see him today? I can arrive within five hours if I leave Busan.”
“...One moment. I’ll pass that on to the trade officer.”
Hold music played for a long time.
The receptionist returned.
“The trade officer says that meeting today will be difficult because of his schedule. If you leave a message, he says he’ll contact you tomorrow.”
“...All right. Please tell him that Kim Hyun-woo, president of Yeongdo Trading, wishes to meet regarding the Han-il Feed preliminary contract. Tell him time is urgent, so I’ll go directly to Seoul.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, I’m leaving now. I’ll be in front of the Australian Embassy in five hours.”
“E, excuse me...!”
I hung up and shouted toward my father and brother.
“Father, I won’t be home tonight!”
“Where are you going?”
“Seoul! Hyung, I’m borrowing your car!”
I snatched my brother’s car keys, rushed outside, and started the engine.
Even if I had to wait outside the Australian Embassy all day, I had to meet him.
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