Chapter 105: That Time I Built a Car Assembly Plant in South America (6)

TL: Skye

After the deal with San Marcos was signed, the Korean political world was nothing short of ablaze.

The reason was simple.

[Following the signing of the Korea-San Marcos FTA and the Memorandum of Understanding on industrial cooperation, fierce debate has broken out in the National Assembly between the ruling and opposition parties. The controversy flared up in particular after Hyunhwa agreed to the transfer of core automotive technology...]

As the news explained, it came down to the fact that the agreement handed over automotive technology, arguably Korea's core industry, lock, stock, and barrel.

Thanks to that, ruling and opposition lawmakers went at each other day after day in the National Assembly's Industry Committee.

"We simply handed over our core automotive technology! Is this diplomacy, or is this a handout? Ten years from now, when San Marcos-built cars are shoving our cars out of the American market, who takes responsibility for that?"

"Precisely! Whatever else you might argue, negotiating away electric vehicle technology on top of it is indefensible! Have they forgotten that San Marcos produces nickel, the key material in batteries?!"

Applause broke out from the opposition benches.

A ruling party lawmaker rose from his seat right after.

"Take a look at these numbers. With a single technology transfer we secured seventy kilometers of subway and preferential negotiating rights on a high-speed rail line. That means trillions of won in contracts flowing to the construction and rail industries. Jobs haven't drained out of this country, new jobs have been created!"

"And when exactly does any of that materialize? Ground hasn't been broken on the subway, and the high-speed rail doesn't even have a proposal on paper!"

"The MOU has been signed and working-level talks are currently under way..."

"An MOU? Since when does an MOU, which isn't worth as much as a provisional contract, put food on anyone's table?"

"Oh, come on! You sat on your hands while Samyong Motors was sold off to China, and now you want to make a scene?!"

"Order! Order, please!"

Even with the chair calling for restraint, the shouting refused to die down.

The news, having shown the scene at the Assembly for a moment, switched the screen away again.

[Meanwhile, polling indicates that 64% of the public responded positively to the agreement. Negative responses accounted for 21%, with 15% answering that they were unsure.]

[Hyunhwa Group Chairman Jeong Suman drew attention today when he told reporters that investment in San Marcos is Hyunhwa's future. Vice Chairman Jeong Taeho is reported to have gotten into his vehicle without offering any separate comment.]

[Hyunhwa Motors convened an emergency board meeting this morning to vote on the establishment of a CKD plant and a parts manufacturing plant in San Marcos, approving the San Marcos investment unanimously. Following the news, Hyunhwa Motors shares rose more than 5% to...]

[The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced that it will form a task force to define the details of the FTA. As to whether the National Assembly ratification process demanded by the opposition is required, it would say only that the matter is under review.]

As the news showed, Korea's political scene was running white-hot.

The parties traded blows day after day, and news anchors mentioned San Marcos every single night.

A country whose name 99% of Koreans hadn't known as recently as four years ago was now a regular fixture in the evening broadcast.

Unlike Korea, however, San Marcos was peaceful today, as always.

Because the sort of partisan brawling going on in Korea simply did not exist in this country.

There were no political parties to begin with, so what exactly was there to fight about?

If Yu-jin said it was so, everyone nodded.

For the people of San Marcos, only one thing mattered.

The fact that His Excellency had worked a miracle!

Of course.

"What's a subway?"

Figuring out what that miracle actually was would have to start now.

"A subway is... well, it's a train that runs underneath the ground."

"...Why?"

"Pardon?"

"Why does it run underneath the ground? It could just run on top of it."

"Well... there are roads up on top... and it gets congested, too..."

"Can't they lay it beside the road?"

"It's not that they can't... it's a question of efficiency..."

The truth was, the civil servant didn't really know either.

He'd lived his entire life in San Marcos, so there was no chance he had ever ridden a subway.

All he'd done was search the internet for a picture of the Seoul subway and print it out on a sheet of A4 paper.

"This is a subway."

The citizen peered at the photo.

"...Looks like a snake, doesn't it?"

"It does, doesn't it?"

"And this thing runs underneath the ground?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"You dig up the ground and put it in there, obviously."

"Doesn't sound like that'd work..."

"It's a project His Excellency is driving forward, so it'll work out fine."

"Then it'll work."

His Excellency had said it would be built, so built it would be.

In this country, His Excellency's word was law, and law became reality.

There were no exceptions.

"So what's good about having a subway?"

"You can get anywhere in the city quickly. A trip that takes two hours by bus now would take thirty minutes."

"Thirty minutes? So I wouldn't have to get up before dawn just to get to work?"

"Probably...?"

"That's His Excellency for you! Bringing something new for the people!"

The citizen went off beaming.

The civil servant sighed and called the next petitioner.

"Next, please."

"What's a subway?"

"......"

Scenes like this were playing out everywhere.

At the markets people clustered in twos and threes debating what a subway was, and at Tortilla Farm the workers watched the news in the admin building cafeteria and tilted their heads.

"So what is a subway, anyway?"

"They say it's a train that runs under the ground."

"How's that supposed to work?"

"Beats me."

"......"

Nobody knew exactly, but His Excellency had said it was a good thing, so it was a good thing.

Because that was San Marcos.

***

At that same hour, downtown Libertad,

San Marcos National University.

Thousands of chairs had been set out in the central plaza of the campus.

Graduates in sky-blue caps and gowns filled the seats shoulder to shoulder, and behind them families stood, packing out the rest of the space.

That's right.

Today was the day of San Marcos National University's first commencement ceremony.

The first four-year university in San Marcos, founded by Yu-jin as the centerpiece of his education reforms.

Under a faculty recruited from every corner of the world, it was a place that raised the talent destined to carry the future of San Marcos on its shoulders.

And today.

At last, the first 487 graduates of San Marcos National University sat here in their caps.

487.

As a number, it was nothing to write home about.

But these 487 were the first people since the founding of San Marcos to complete a proper four-year university education.

Which meant that something that had never once happened in the nation's history was happening in this plaza today.

And it was to celebrate precisely that that Choi Yu-jin, second President of San Marcos, stepped up onto the podium.

"......"

In a breathless silence, the graduates rose to their feet as one.

Standing at the microphone, Yu-jin swept his eyes slowly across the graduates' faces.

Bright eyes above sun-darkened skin.

Scuffed dress shoes and sneakers peeking out from beneath graduation gowns.

The families seated behind them.

Mothers with tears welling up, fathers with their shoulders squared, a younger brother fiddling curiously with his big brother's cap.

Four years ago, most of these students hadn't properly understood what a university even was.

The majority had been raised by parents who couldn't read, kids for whom finishing high school alone had been an occasion for the whole family to celebrate.

Kids like that had stuck it out for four years.

Studying, sitting exams, staying up all night, writing theses.

And today they were sitting here.

With all of that in his heart, Yu-jin opened his mouth.

"Congratulations on your graduation."

The eyes beneath the caps turned toward Yu-jin.

"I don't intend to deliver a long speech today. I will say only one thing."

"......"

"You are the future of San Marcos."

Yu-jin spoke slowly, but with perfect clarity.

"That may sound like the sort of empty line people always trot out at graduation ceremonies. In another country, perhaps it would be."

Yu-jin paused a beat.

"But not in this country. In this country, you truly are the future."

Yu-jin took a step forward.

"Because there is no one else."

The graduates held their breath, as though afraid that even a cough might escape.

"Five years ago, this country had almost no university graduates. Engineers, doctors, teachers, lawyers, we were short of every one of them. Every single kind of person a nation needs to keep itself running was in short supply."

Yu-jin's voice carried into every corner of the campus.

"So we invested in education. We poured every ounce of capacity this country possessed into it. And the first result of that is you."

Yu-jin looked at the students.

"In a few years, this country's first nuclear power plant will come online. Korean engineers are slated to operate it at first, but we need people standing beside them to learn."

Yu-jin shifted his gaze.

"And some of you will go to work at the automobile plant rising on the outskirts of Libertad."

Even at this very moment, the steel frame of the die plant was climbing toward the sky.

"You will most likely have to forget what you learned in school and start over from the beginning. But grind away down at the bottom long enough and you will become a real engineer, one who can pass that knowledge on to those who come after you."

Yu-jin shook his head and went on.

"You are under no obligation to belong to an organization. Some of you will chase your own dreams, build up experience, and start businesses of your own. This country is in desperate need of that as well."

Yu-jin spoke firmly.

"San Marcos needs hundreds, thousands of companies right now. Companies that make parts, companies that move freight, companies that turn restaurants into franchises, and travel agencies to welcome tourists, too. You are the ones who have to build them."

Yu-jin looked out over all 487 of them.

"487."

Yu-jin said it evenly.

"To be perfectly honest, that is nowhere near enough."

Yu-jin spread both hands.

"People to run the nuclear plant, people to build cars, people to repair ships, people to lay the subway, people to teach our children, people to treat the sick, people to write our laws, people to found our companies. We are short of all of them. 487 will not do it. We need 4,870. We need 48,700."

Yu-jin raised his voice.

"But."

That one word rang out across the plaza.

"The seed that will produce those 4,870, those 48,700, is you."

Yu-jin pointed at the graduates.

"Each and every one of you, create ten more people of talent for San Marcos. Teach them, lead them, show them how. Then those ten can teach a hundred, and that hundred a thousand, and that thousand ten thousand."

Yu-jin took another step forward.

"Someone has to be the first. And as far as I am concerned, you are that first."

Yu-jin declared it clearly.

"Congratulations. And."

Yu-jin bowed his head toward the 487 in their caps.

"Thank you for overcoming a hard reality and growing up so splendidly."

For an instant, the entire plaza went still, as though everything in it had stopped.

And in the next instant.

Someone shouted.

"Viva el Presidente!"

It was a young man seated in the very front row of graduates.

That single cry was the spark.

"Viva el Presidente!"

"Viva el Presidente!"

Two became ten, ten became a hundred.

The graduates surged up out of their seats shouting, and cheers erupted from the family section as well.

Mothers cried out with tears streaming down their faces, and fathers roared.

Weeping spread through the capped graduates.

One person started crying, then the person beside him, then the person beside that one.

The whole campus was a sea of tears within moments.

They wept, and they shouted anyway.

"Viva el Presidente!"

Applause and cheers and sobbing all blended together and shook the entire campus.

Out on the street beyond the wall, passing citizens stopped in their tracks.

Wondering what on earth was happening, they looked in over the wall to find thousands of people crying.

Crying, and shouting toward one man.

The citizens took up the cry too.

Without the faintest idea what it was about.

Just because everyone else was shouting.

Because that was San Marcos.

The graduates present were each carving their own vow into their hearts.

'I'll stake my life on turning this country into the country His Excellency dreams of.'

'I'm going to repay the chance His Excellency gave me a hundred times over.'

'For His Excellency I'd give up anything. Even my own life.'

487 pairs of eyes shone toward the one man on the podium.

These people, who in all likelihood would one day become the elite of San Marcos, all hurled the same cry into the air of this plaza today.

"Viva el Presidente!"

Yu-jin's Dictatorship Power surged up another level.

*****

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