WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: LilGuyBlastoise

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◈ Second Life of the Trade King ◈

Chapter 3: Grain Ship Supply Bidding (1)

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“Bidding? Do you know how to prepare a quote? Do you have a registration certificate? The deadline is four days away. If you submit a formal quote, our agency can review it. I’ll report it to the higher-ups.”

I took the registration certificate from my inner pocket and showed it to him. Caught off guard, Mr. Park’s mouth fell open again.

“Hey, did you come prepared for this?”

“…It just worked out that way.”

Mr. Park chuckled, then suddenly turned serious.

“But, Hyun-woo, if you get into this, you’ll be going head-to-head with Daeseong Fisheries & Produce. They’ve had a monopoly for five years. They won’t just sit still.”

“I know.”

“…Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Uncle Park’s eyes grew grave.

For a moment, he looked torn between stopping the reckless son of his former business partner and helping him.

I spoke calmly.

“Uncle, if there’s a bubble in the price, someone has to clear it away. There’s no reason that someone can’t be me.”

He looked at me for a long while, then finally let out a short sigh and nodded.

“…All right. Come to our office in Yeongju-dong at nine tomorrow morning. I’ll give you the bid forms and the Australian shipping line’s provisioning list. The deadline is four days away, so you need to prepare a quote within three. Can you do it?”

“Yes.”

“…I don’t know what your father would say if he found out.”

“I’m not planning to tell him.”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” Uncle Park said with a bitter smile.

When I stepped out of the coffeehouse, the salty wind from Busan Port struck my face again.

As I crossed Yeongdo Bridge back to Yeongdo District, my mind raced wildly.

I had secured the qualifications to bid. Now I had to prepare a quote within three days.

Using the average prices in Sydney and Melbourne as a baseline, I needed to add Korean procurement costs and come up with a price that was competitive while still securing a margin.

I also had to find domestic suppliers for each provisioning item.

And above all, Daeseong Fisheries & Produce, a company that had survived on inflated prices and a five-year monopoly, would not just sit quietly after I moved in on its territory.

They might pressure Uncle Park. Bid information might leak.

But one thing was clear.

The company had been able to monopolize the market for five years with inflated prices because no one in Korea knew the international average rates.

Not even a thirty-year dock veteran like Uncle Park, nor an established agency like Dong-yang Shipping Agency, knew the average prices at the Port of Sydney.

That was the true nature of the bubble.

And that was where I could enter.

* * *

At nine the next morning, I opened the door to Dong-yang Shipping Agency’s first-floor office in an alley in Yeongju-dong.

The cramped office held four small desks. A schedule of arrivals and departures at Busan Port was pinned to one wall, while framed logos of Australian, Japanese, and Southeast Asian shipping lines hung on the other.

Uncle Park rose from the desk near the entrance and handed me a thick brown envelope.

“These are the official documents. The Australian shipping line’s provisioning list and our bid form are both in there. Take a look.”

I spread the papers from the envelope across a corner of a desk.

The Australian shipping line was Pacific Grain Lines, and the grain carrier was the MV Adelaide Star.

Its scheduled arrival in Busan was the Tuesday of the third week of January.

After Busan, it would sail to Tokyo, then leave Tokyo for Shanghai.

The supplies taken on in Busan were intended to last roughly twenty-five days, through the Busan, Tokyo, and Shanghai route. The provisioning list specified the quantities required for its crew of twenty-eight.

Perhaps because of my thirty years of trading experience, the standard pattern for twenty-five days of provisions for twenty-eight people immediately came to mind.

The proper bid price formed automatically in my head as I calculated Korean procurement rates for the proportion of food supplies, tons of fresh water, drums of lubricating oil, and boxes of cleaning supplies.

Uncle Park casually remarked from beside me.

“Daeseong Fisheries & Produce still hasn’t replied to us. Looks like they’re trying to raise their prices again this time. Good for you.”

“…I suppose it is. All right. I’ll do my best.”

I put the documents back into the envelope and left the office. Uncle Park followed me to the door and added one more thing.

“Hyun-woo, even if you can’t do this, you won’t lose anything. Just think of it as giving it a try. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself.”

He was trying to ease the burden for me, so I gave a brief nod before leaving the alley.

The shape of the quote was already taking form in my head, but I accepted Uncle Park’s kindness warmly all the same.

Jagalchi Market was not far from Yeongju-dong. If I followed the waterfront toward Jungang-dong without crossing Yeongdo Bridge, it took about ten minutes.

It was late morning, after the dawn auction had ended. The market had settled slightly after its busiest hours.

The stallholders were tidying up, and shop owners at the wholesale stores were organizing their ledgers.

The smell of fish and the salty wind assaulted my nose together.

Hairtail, mackerel, and squid lay on ice before the stalls, their scales glinting in the sunlight.

Further inside the market, I spotted a shop with a sign that read Hae-seong Fisheries.

It was a medium-sized business among Jagalchi’s wholesalers.

A vague memory from thirty years ago surfaced.

I seemed to remember hearing that this was a shop my father had dealt with during the Yeongdo Shipping days.

When I stepped inside, the owner, apparently in their late fifties, was sitting at the counter with an open ledger, doing calculations.

They wore a thick padded jacket and work pants. About half their hair was gray, and their fingers were remarkably thick.

“…What are you here to buy?”

The owner asked without looking up from the ledger. I hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“I’m the son of President Kim Sam-sik. President Kim of Yeongdo Shipping.”

The pen stopped on the ledger. The owner slowly raised their head to look at me.

Then they lowered their glasses slightly and looked again.

“…President Kim? President Kim from Yeongdo Shipping? His second child? Is that really you?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, you’ve really grown. The last time I saw you, you were in primary school. You came to the market with your older brother. Remember when you grabbed a shrimp and ran off, then tripped and fell?”

“…Ah, yes.”

I did not remember, but I played along well enough.

The owner chuckled and pointed at a chair behind the counter.

“Sit down. Want some tea?”

“No, thank you. I just need a little of your time.”

Once I sat down, the owner put the pen aside and began talking about the old days of Yeongdo Shipping.

When President Kim was doing well, Jagalchi wholesalers had lined up to do business with him. It was a shame Yeongdo Shipping had gone under. The owner had heard that President Kim ran a parts shop now, and had meant to stop by but never managed it.

After giving short responses for a while, I naturally brought up the main subject.

“I’ve actually been given a chance to bid on foreign-vessel supply work. I was wondering if I could get a quote for food supplies.”

The owner looked slightly surprised.

“You? As a student?”

I took the registration certificate from my inner pocket and placed it on the counter. The owner looked it over once, then frowned.

“This… isn’t it President Kim’s?”

“Yes, it belongs to the shop. I’m using it for a while.”

“Then did President Kim send you knowing about this?”

“…You could say that.”

The owner stared at me for a moment, then smiled faintly.

“All right. If President Kim trusts his child enough to lend out the registration certificate, there must be a reason. I won’t ask.”

The owner took out a price list from beneath the counter.

It was a list of wholesale market prices at Jagalchi, broken down by item.

The instant I looked it over, calculations began running through my mind.

The food prices on the bid quote Uncle Park had shown me were between two and two and a half times Jagalchi Market’s wholesale prices.

In other words, supply companies were buying from Jagalchi at regular prices, then quoting roughly twice those prices in their bids.

“May I ask one thing? If I buy everything at once, enough for twenty-eight people for twenty-five days, could you adjust the prices a little?”

“How much are you taking?”

I laid out the calculations in my head.

A few sacks of rice, several boxes of vegetables, several boxes of fish, a certain amount of dried seafood, and so on. As I listed them, the owner took notes and calculated with a pen.

After a short while, the owner put down the pen.

“For that amount, I can take five percent off the wholesale price. But you have to pay cash. No credit.”

“Understood.”

As I stood, the owner handed back the registration certificate and casually asked,

“But, Hyun-woo, Daeseong Fisheries & Produce has foreign-vessel provisioning all tied up. Are you planning to go head-to-head with them?”

I paused, then smiled awkwardly.

“…That’s how it turned out.”

The owner watched me for a long moment before speaking briefly.

“Be careful. They’re not easy people to deal with. More than a few of Jagalchi’s wholesalers are in that company’s grip.”

“Yes.”

When I left the shop, the fishy smell of the market hit my nose again.

The last thing the owner of Hae-seong Fisheries had said, that even Jagalchi’s wholesalers were in Daeseong Fisheries & Produce’ grip, lingered in my mind.

The owner of Hae-seong Fisheries must have had business ties with Daeseong Fisheries & Produce too.

Five years was not a short time.

Yet they had given me the price list and even offered a five-percent discount. That would have been impossible without the relationship from the Yeongdo Shipping days.

When I crossed Yeongdo Bridge and arrived at the shop, my older brother was not at the counter. He seemed to be away.

My father sat alone inside the counter. Unlike usual, he was not even reading the newspaper.

“You’re back.”

“Yes.”

Father looked at me for a moment, then spoke briefly.

“President Park from Hae-seong Fisheries called.”

My steps stopped. I flinched and turned toward him.

“…What?”

“They said you came by and got a quote. That you were bidding on foreign-vessel provisioning. They must have called because they were worried.”

Father took a yellowed envelope from beneath the counter.

The envelope was faded. He slowly took out the paper inside and placed it on the counter.

When I stepped closer, I saw that it was a faded sheet from a trade ledger.

The writing had grown faint, but the business name Yeongdo Shipping and the heading Foreign Vessel Provisioning Transaction Records were still clear.

“This is from 1980. We tried foreign-vessel provisioning once too.”

“……”

“We took on one ship and got badly burned. Then we lost the business from two more ships in succession, and Yeongdo Shipping began to falter… Can you do this?”

I did not waver.

“I can.”

“Why do you want to do this? Do you need money?”

“Going to school and studying is good too, but… I want to try the shipping business. Properly. So I hope you’ll trust me. I want to seriously give this a start.”

Father watched me for a long time, then unfolded the newspaper lying in the corner.

“Then do it. Tell me if there’s anything I can help with.”

Normally, in a situation like this, I would have just said all right, gone back, and worked hard alone.

But did I really need to?

“Then, Father…”

When Father looked up from the newspaper again, I said,

“Father, are any of the people who worked with Yeongdo Shipping back then still involved with foreign vessels? In transport or cargo handling, perhaps. I’d like to meet just one person.”

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