Chapter 110: That Time I Handed Out Investment Money in South America (4)

TL: Skye

Three days later.

The reception room of the Presidential Palace.

I sat on the couch with a cup of coffee, waiting.

“Your Excellency, Tesio Marques, the head of Caribbean Travel, is here.”

Isabella opened the door and a young man came in.

Sky-blue shirt, cotton slacks.

Neatly put together, but the nerves were impossible to miss.

I mean, his hands were shaking, if only a little.

“Tesio Marques. By Your Excellency’s grace, I recently graduated from the business administration department at San Marcos Comprehensive University... sir.”

“So that’s who you are. You were the student sitting right at the front on graduation day. Good to meet you.”

“I’m honored that you remember, Your Excellency!”

I gestured to the couch across from me, and Tesio lowered himself onto it carefully.

His back never once touched the cushion, though.

Perched right on the edge of the seat.

I snorted a laugh and said,

“You can sit back and relax. I called you in because I was curious who wrote a proposal this good, not to put you through a job interview.”

“Ah... yes, sir.”

Tesio leaned back against the couch, then peeled himself off it again.

The nerves clearly hadn’t worn off yet.

I spread his business plan out on the table.

“I read it. Good work.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“One thing I want to ask, though.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Which segment of the tourist market are you going after?”

Tesio thought for a moment, then answered.

“Most of the Koreans coming to San Marcos right now are independent travelers in their twenties and thirties. But I’ve set my target on the forty-and-over bracket, the middle-aged and older crowd.”

“Why?”

“Independent travel is hard for that group. The flight is long, they can’t speak the local language, and there’s no guide. But give them a package tour and they’ll move. I figured there are plenty of middle-aged people interested in a Caribbean beach who simply can’t come because the product doesn’t exist. That’s the gap I started the company to fill.”

Exactly what I’d been thinking.

“How do you plan to market it?”

“I’ve already sent emails to several Korean travel agencies proposing a partnership. In exchange for a one-year exclusive, they’ve agreed to handle the promotion.”

Inwardly, I was impressed.

He hadn’t just written a business plan. He was already executing it.

“Once the business is on its feet, how do you intend to grow it?”

“I plan to draw in tourists from the American side. Build up capital that way, and down the line...”

Tesio swallowed hard before he went on.

“I’d like to lease aircraft and start an airline.”

“Travel agency to airline, is it...”

The dream was bigger than I’d expected. I nodded.

“A Comprehensive University man, all right. You dream big.”

“...You flatter me, sir.”

Tesio seemed to loosen up a little.

I, on the other hand, was quietly floored.

‘Okay, this one I’m backing.’

I’d taken him for a kid who just wanted to run a travel agency. The scale he was working on was something else.

“Good. You have my support. Let’s have lunch together sometime.”

“It would be an honor, Your Excellency!”

I sent Tesio on his way, and the second man I met was Nicolas Herrera.

Straight-backed, sharp-eyed, every inch the reporter he’d been.

“Nicolas Herrera. I worked three years as a journalist at State Broadcasting.”

“Good to meet you.”

Nicolas sat down without ceremony.

Unlike Tesio, he settled his back comfortably against the couch.

The bearing of a man used to standing in front of people.

“So you want to found the first private news outlet in San Marcos?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And once it’s running, will you write articles criticizing the government?”

Nicolas’s shoulders stiffened, barely.

A silence passed, and then he spoke.

“I will write what the people need to know.”

“......”

“But not with the aim of tearing anyone down. Every article will be written and published on the basis of verified fact.”

“If you’d said you wouldn’t, I was going to give you an earful...”

“Sorry?”

Nicolas looked straight at me.

I nodded at the honesty of his answer.

“Criticize what deserves criticism. That’s what makes it a press. What kind of news outlet can’t even criticize?”

“...You mean that, sir?”

“Of course.”

For some reason, suspicion lingered in Nicolas’s eyes.

“It’s the only way officials like me can govern well, isn’t it?”

“......”

His voice came out thick with feeling.

“...Hearing Your Excellency say that gives me a great deal of strength.”

“It’s just common sense.”

I took a sip of coffee and went on.

“That said, I do have one request.”

“......”

“Don’t take anyone’s side.”

“...Sir?”

“The moment a newspaper stands with one particular faction, it stops being press and becomes a propaganda sheet.”

Nicolas tilted his head.

From his expression, he hadn’t caught where I was going with it yet.

“Back home in Korea there are plenty of newspapers. Dozens of papers, dozens of broadcasters.”

“I envy that.”

“It’s nothing to envy.”

I smiled, and the smile was bitter.

“The Korean press has the numbers and a mountain of problems to go with them. Some papers back the conservative party, some back the progressive party. The same incident produces two articles that point in opposite directions.”

“From the same facts?”

“Yes. A policy comes out, and one paper writes that it’s the greatest policy in the nation’s history while the other writes that it’s the policy that will ruin the country. Same facts, interpretations a hundred and eighty degrees apart.”

Nicolas’s face said he couldn’t make sense of it.

“Is that even possible?”

“It is. There’s only one set of facts, but the frames are infinite. Depending on how you write the headline, which expert you quote, which numbers you emphasize, the same facts become an entirely different story.”

I broke off for a moment, then continued.

“In the end people only read the paper they already want to believe. Conservatives read the conservative papers, progressives read the progressive papers. And each side starts thinking of the other as the enemy.”

“......”

“The press stops pulling the people together and starts splitting them apart.”

Nicolas’s expression turned grave.

He’d been a reporter, so he seemed to understand the weight of what I was saying.

“I don’t want that happening in San Marcos.”

I looked at Nicolas.

“Libertad Daily is going to be this country’s first private press outlet. Which means you’re the one setting the standard for journalism here.”

“......”

“If the first paper is biased, the second and third will be biased too. One side takes shots, and the other side starts its own paper to shoot back. Once it begins like that, there’s no undoing it.”

Nicolas asked quietly,

“Then what kind of press does Your Excellency want?”

“A thoroughly neutral one. An outlet that takes nobody’s side, reports nothing but fact, and protects the public’s right to know. That’s what I want.”

I let it sit a beat before going on.

“The beginning is what matters most. If the standard isn’t set now, it can’t be put right later.”

Nicolas nodded, his face heavy.

“It probably won’t be easy.”

“......”

“Even so, this principle has to hold. No exceptions.”

Nicolas was silent for a long time.

Then he slowly opened his mouth.

“...Honestly, I came here today expecting to be told not to criticize the government.”

Nicolas laughed softly.

“Instead you tell me to criticize, and to stay neutral. It’s taken me aback.”

Nicolas straightened in his seat.

“You have my word. Libertad Daily will stand on no one’s side. I’ll build a paper that reports only fact and protects the public’s right to know.”

“I hope you’ll build a press that stays wide awake.”

“...Yes, sir.”

The third man, Alejandro Mora, carried a completely different air from the two before him.

His clothes were tidy, but there was no hiding the farm sun soaked into his hands and face.

Skin burned dark.

Cracked hands.

The mark of years spent in a cornfield.

And the moment that man walked into the office, he bent deep at the waist in a Korean-style bow.

“Alejandro Mora, sir. Formerly Trade Division Chief at the Ministry of Industry. At present... I’m at Tortilla Farm.”

“Have a seat.”

I didn’t open the business plan. I asked something else first.

“Why did you end up at the farm?”

I watched Alejandro’s shoulders go rigid at the question.

A silence passed, and then he spoke.

“...I received a failing score on the Competency Evaluation.”

“And the reason you failed?”

“There’s no excuse for it. I was negligent in my duties and I produced no results. I was occupying a chair, nothing more.”

He didn’t make excuses.

I picked the business plan up off the table.

“I’m curious why a man capable of putting together something like this never used that ability in all his years as a civil servant.”

“...The environment was different.”

“The environment?”

“To be honest with you, back then nobody told me to change. The salary came in, nobody got fired, and the day went by whether I did anything or not.”

Alejandro lifted his head.

“It took going to the farm before I understood how much of my life I’d spent doing nothing at all.”

“And do you think you’ve changed now, on your own?”

“I had to change to survive.”

A level voice.

But what it carried wasn’t light.

Change the environment, and the person changes with it.

‘This right here is what rehabilitation actually means.’

The point isn’t to punish. It’s to turn someone back into a person who can be put to use.

I felt a swell of pride at having built Tortilla Farm.

“Let’s move on to the business, then. Why did you settle on computers?”

“Because I judged it the business this nation and Your Excellency need most right now.”

“Oho. Is that so?”

He passed.

Nothing else needed saying.

“Run it well, and build me a company as big as Dell over in the States.”

“...I’ll give my life to it, Your Excellency!”

“Why your life... All right, all right. Just work hard, that’s all I ask.”

"Yes, Your Excellency!"

And with that, the three meetings were done.

***

A short while later.

Isabella came in carrying coffee.

Two iced americanos.

She set one down in front of Yu-jin and took the seat opposite him.

“How did the meetings go, Your Excellency?”

Yu-jin looked down at the three summary sheets of the business plans.

“I want these three businesses raised to State-designated projects.”

Isabella’s hand stopped.

“State-designated projects?”

“Yes.”

“If only these three out of 181 are designated as state projects, there may be complaints that it isn’t equitable.”

“Can’t be helped.”

Yu-jin gave the business plans a couple of taps with his finger.

“These are the businesses this country needs most at the moment.”

Yu-jin pointed to Caribbean Travel’s proposal.

“And we need a success story too.”

“A success story...”

“Investment went into 181 businesses, sure, but plenty of people are still standing back and watching. Plenty who couldn’t work up the nerve.”

Yu-jin took a sip of coffee as he spoke.

“So if a business that took government investment turns into a runaway success, won’t the thought that they could do it too start spreading?”

“That.. would certainly follow.”

Yu-jin looked at Isabella.

“Which is exactly why we have to make them succeed, even if it means mobilizing every single thing the state can offer.”

“Specifically, what level of support do you have in mind?”

“Unlimited.”

“...Unlimited?”

“Investment funds as needed, no ceiling. If they need an office, the Ministry of Construction builds it. If they need interpreters, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs assigns them. I’m thinking we provide every piece of human infrastructure they require.”

Yu-jin counted off on his fingers.

“Same goes for the personnel side. If they need guides trained, we link them with the Ministry of Education. If they need reporters developed, we connect them to the journalism and broadcasting department at the Comprehensive University. If they need computer engineers, I’m thinking we bring them in from Korea.”

Isabella had been taking notes; her pen stopped.

“Your Excellency, at that level it’s effectively support on the scale of a state-owned enterprise.”

“Half right. We did take fifty percent equity in exchange for the investment.”

Yu-jin nodded.

“But they aren’t fully state-owned. Management authority stays entirely with the CEO. The state is an investor and nothing more, and it won’t interfere in operations. In return, we take quarterly performance reports and we take them seriously. Fair enough?”

Isabella thought for a moment, then nodded.

“That’s reasonable.”

“And one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Have State Broadcasting promote these three businesses.”

Isabella’s eyes widened slightly.

“State Broadcasting?”

“Yes. Cover them on the news. San Marcos’s first private travel agency, first private newspaper, first computer factory. The people need to know. They need to know that private-sector industry has begun in earnest in this country.”

“Understood. I’ll issue instructions to the Ministry of Industry immediately.”

“Please do.”

Isabella bowed and turned to leave, then stopped.

“Your Excellency.”

“Yes?”

“Chef Paulo asked me to tell you that tonight’s dinner is dakbokkeumtang. Oh, and he said he’d have soju ready as well.” [TL: dakbokkeumtang is a spicy Korean braised chicken stew.]

“Then I’d better get down there right now. You’ll be eating with me, Chief?”

“Of course, Your Excellency.”

Yu-jin headed for the dining room with a spring in his step.

*****

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