Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

After getting off the phone with Director Woon-Hak Sim, Gun-Ho searched his photo files on his smartphone. He remembered that he had previously taken several pictures of Mori Aikko during the Matsuri (festival) in Heian Shrine in Okazaki Park.

“Oh, here It is!”

Fortunately, Gun-Ho still had a picture of Mori Aikko saved in his smartphone. In the photo, Mori Aikko was in a colorful Kimono posing with a Wakasa (a traditional Japanese oil-paper umbrella) in her hand, and her face was covered with a heavy geisha make-up. Gun-Ho sent the picture to Director Woon-Hak Sim’s cell phone.

It didn’t take a long time for Director Sim to call Gun-Ho after looking at the photo of Mori Aikko.

“I received the photo that you sent to me, sir. From the picture, I can tell that she is a quite beautiful woman. How old is she?”

“She is in her early 20s.”

“I see. You said that she played a role in a Taiwanese TV drama before, right?”

“Yes, she did. That TV drama hadn’t aired though. The drama production company went broke and couldn’t finish the production. But, since she did shoot several episodes of the TV drama, acting is not new to her.”

“Does she have an agency representing her? Which entertainment agency is it? BM Entertainment has a connection with an agency in Japan. I can ask them to contact her agency. I can’t say much for now whether she would be a good fit for the role in our movie or not since I haven’t met her in person, and also I haven’t seen her acting yet.”

“She is not working with an entertainment agency. She is a professional dancer, not a professional actress who appears on TV regularly.”

“Can you be in touch with her at any time, sir?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Okay then. I will call you again later.”

After getting off the phone with Director Sim, Gun-Ho mumbled to himself,

“I’m not sure if it was a good idea for me to expose her like this. She is my precious treasure. Maybe I should have kept her to myself.”

It was Saturday.

Gun-Ho and Young-Eun went outside with their baby boy in a stroller.

“I want to show my boy the world outside home.”

Gun-Ho was wearing jeans and basketball shoes. He put on sunglasses as well. Gun-Ho and Young-Eun ran into a few old ladies while taking a walk. They all stopped for a second to look at their baby. They looked all joyful when they looked into the baby’s face saying how cute the boy was, and they asked how old he was.

“He is a little over 4 months now.”

“Oh, my. He is adorable. He looks like a doll.”

Sang-Min smiled frequently, and he was indeed a cute boy. His hair grew a lot, and his fluffy hair helped him look even cuter. Sang-Min had beautiful fair skin just like his mother.

“Oppa, you look younger today with the jeans.”

“Come on. I’m young.”

Gun-Ho and Young-Eun were walking along Yangjae Riverside while pushing their boy in the stroller. When they felt thirsty, they drank the beverage that they brought from home, which were placed under the stroller.

Gun-Ho held Young-Eun’s hand. Young-Eun seemed to be in a good mood, and she held Gun-Ho’s hand firmly. Gun-Ho took several pictures of Young-Eun and his boy that day. He wanted to capture the moment in photography.

“I will print these photos out,” Gun-Ho said to Young-Eun.

At that moment, a jogger, who looked like he was in his 60s, stopped when he saw Gun-Ho taking a picture of his seem-to-be his wife and a baby, and said, “You seem to be such a happy family. Let me take a picture of you two with the baby. Give me your smartphone.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Gun-Ho and Young-Eun posed for a family photo. Gun-Ho embraced Young-Eun’s shoulder while standing behind the stroller, so Sang-Min can safely appear in the photo too.

It was Monday.

Gun-Ho went to work in GH Mobile in Jiksan Town. As soon as he arrived at his office and sat on the sofa, President Song and Jong-Suk Park entered his office.

“How was your trip to America?”

“It was good. We had a meeting with the West Moulding Corp.’s president and their plant managers.”

“Is that right? So, are they willing to sell us their twin screws?”

“They mentioned the contract that they made with Lymondell Dyeon. And they said that they can’t sell their products to Lymondell Dyeon’s competitor companies according to the contract. However, since they have never heard of a company— GH Mobile, they said they can sell their screws to us fine.”

“Did you buy the screws? You should buy the screws.”

“They said that they manufacture their products after they receive a product order, so they don’t have any screws available for us to take with us at that time. So, we made the purchase contract with them and made our first product order.”

“How much are they asking?”

“They said that they can’t give us the screws for the same price as the price that they sell to Lymondell Dyeon for, and their price for us is 20,000 dollars per unit.”

“How much does Lymondell Dyeon pay for the same screw?”

“They said that they can’t disclose the price. I asked them several times, but they were firm about it. Instead, they said that the deal between them and us would be kept confidential.”

“Really?”

“According to them, their screws are not mass-produced products, and the demand is very limited. The screws are carefully crafted by their skillful engineers, and it takes several days to finish one.”

“Hmm.”

“It seems that they are manufacturing quality products. The U.S. federal government is one of their clients. They provide the government with essential parts that are used in building a military warship and aircraft.”

“Hmm, really? When are we supposed to send them the payment?”

“We will send it today. They said that once they receive the payment, they will send the products right away.”

“We ordered four screws, so we will have to send them 80,000 dollars. We will have to file a report with the foreign exchange authority since the amount is high.”

“Yes, we have to, sir.”

“Even if they send the screws right away, it will take a long time for us to receive them by ship.”

“They said they would air ship them to us. We will receive them within a few days.”

“Oh, we need the electrohydraulic drawing too in addition to those twin screws.”

“Director Park didn’t forget to ask them for it. We have it with us.”

“Well, I guess you are all set then, Mr. Director Park. We can build the machine once we receive the screws, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

President Song said with a smile, “I talked with Dyeon Korea’s Director Kim on the phone earlier, and asked him to send one of their machines to us if they have one that came to a half because it’s waiting to be repaired or even for a maintenance service. Director Park needs a sample machine that he can dismantle to verify all necessary parts. So, we can figure out what parts that we need to purchase or make a request to fabricate one.”

“Mr. Director Park, it sounds like you have a lot of work to do.”

Director Park scratched his head.

“We will need to contact several different manufacturers like a foundry, a factory that manufactures a hopper feeder, and also a factory that does extrusion work too.”

At the moment, Secretary Hee-Jeong Park brought three cups of tea to Gun-Ho’s office. President Song said while sipping his tea, “For now, we will focus on building a machine that Dyeon Korea is using. If that succeeds, we will make an additional product order to the West Moulding Corp. in Seattle.”

“Hmm.”

“When we told the West Moulding that we are going to build a large-sized extruding machine just like Lymondell Dyeon’s with the screws that we ordered, they seemed to be interested as well. Assistant Manager Ji-Woong Kim talks with West Mounding’s plant manager on the phone sometimes.”

“Our chief research officer here used to work at the BMW research facility in Germany before. Ask him to find out if there are any companies in Germany that could produce a twin-screw like the one that we need.”

“Yes, sir. The more we know, the better position we would be in.”