I was looking through some old documents and came across a story I had written 10 years ago. I don't think I ever shared it with anyone - for you youngsters this was well before the self-aggrandizing age of Blogs. But it was interesting to see I had a similar style back then.
So a little back story. I was 28 years old and living in Santa Monica, CA, working for The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). I had just returned from my first overseas assignment in Seoul, Korea.
Below is the story just as I wrote it ten years ago. ____________________________________________
Finding a Little Seoul
After a long week of 12 hour days in Korea, and a successful client presentation, Steve and I were invited to an evening on the town by one of our clients with whom we had been working closely. We had spent a week in the Ritz Carlton and were feeling comfortable in Seoul, Korea. Now it was time to really see the city.
The evening began with dinner, which seemed simple enough, but our adventure was only about to begin. Our host, Mr. Te knew very little English. He motioned us through some crowded alley ways until we arrived at a charming little restaurant. As we sat down, Steve and I prayed the menus would have some English translations on them. They didn’t, but after some searching, the waitress was able to find a couple of menus with English translations. Mr. Te was excited to offer a few suggestions. His choice for the main course was translated as “Flesh of animals”. He then pointed out his suggested drink for the evening, a very common but traditional alcohol “Drink of potato”. Little did our client know he had chosen a vegetarian, Steve, and a Mormon, myself, to spend a night on the town with. Our feeble attempts to explain our odd dietary restrictions did not resonate with our host, so Steve and I decided I would do the eating, and Steve would do the drinking. To this day I don’t know what kind of “Flesh” I was eating, but I must admit it was good. After a couple of shots, Steve took a liking to the “Potato” drink.
We emerged relatively unscathed from dinner, I was a bit full, and Steve was a bit ... But now it was our turn, according to Korean custom which we had brushed up on, to treat our host. A typical night on the town could consist of 5 to 10 different stops with each member of the party treating the others to food or drink at different night clubs. Because we wanted to make a good impression on our client, (translated as “BCG was paying the bill”), we chose a posh bar at one of the city’s nicest hotels. The bar was very elegant. I tried their fine selections of juice, and Steve and the client, sampled Korean and Japanese beers. By this time we were communicating quite well. Even though we could only share one word jokes, we couldn’t stop laughing. Then Mr. Te began to entertain us, Jim Carey style, with an impressive array of facial contortions. The long day was beginning to wear off.
We were having such a good time, that our client insisted we go dancing, and he knew just “the place”. So off we went to one of the swankiest night clubs in Seoul. Little did we understand Mr. Te’s enthusiasm for dancing. As we entered the club, we walked past the booths and tables in the back and marched right up to the dance floor and took some seats at a bar table that was literally on the dance floor. The music of course prevented any conversation, so we ordered the required food and drinks, which sent Steve and I into sticker shock. We had heard about places like this, but WOW!. No sooner had we ordered, when Mr. Te got up and dragged Steve and I onto the dance floor. As Steve and I looked around we noticed something very odd. The place was filled with women, at least four women to every man. We also noticed there were only about four other people dancing. All eyes were focused on us, two white guys with no dancing ability whatsoever, dancing with the Korean version of Jim Carey. So Steve and I boogied with each other until the real fun began. Mr. Te decided we needed some women. So he forcibly grabbed the closest girl and dragged her over to dance with Steve. What a scene, Mr. Te grabbing women, Steve and I refusing, Mr. Te thinking we needed to see more before we decided, Steve and I laughing uncontrollably at the situation we found ourselves in, Mr. Te thinking we are having a fun and grabbing more women, and the poor women fighting off Mr. Te and the two dorky Americans. How we escaped I can’t remember, but we did. On our way out we took a wrong turn and ended up in the Karaoke rooms. We spent half an hour wandering down dark hallways past hundreds of raucous private parties unable to find our way out. When we finally found someone to help us, Mr. Te eagerly inquired about the rooms, but found they were booked weeks in advance. I can’t say I was too sorry to hear that. Standing on the street in the early morning air and snow, we were at a loss for our next activity so we all gracefully called it an evening.
During the night we did learn something about Mr. Te. This man supports his wife and two children, his parents, and his brother and his wife in a three bedroom apt. an hour and a half outside of Seoul. During the evening he spent his own money to entertain us, which by any standard was a lot. While our evening makes for a good story, I think Steve and I have rarely received such genuine “entertainment” from a client. In fact our entire experience in Korea was filled with extremely kind people who helped us in any way they could. We have all given the party line to new recruits of the wonderful adventures in business that await them if they join BCG. More often than not, those adventures turn out to be screaming and elbowing our way through United Shuttle delays, or chasing after the latest diet craze to get rid of all those overpriced, gotta-have desserts, because the company is paying dinners. But every once in a while you really do have one of those “hey, this is gonna make a great story” kind of adventures. I wish we could all have more of these.
