#707: Live from South Korea — Steve Jang on Korea’s Exploding “Soft Power,” The Poverty-to-Power Playbook, K-Pop, “Han” Energy, Must-See Movies, Export Economies, and Much More

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4:55 My cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal metal skeleton. So Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. This episode is a bit of an anomaly, a bit of a highlight for me. It deviates from the usual format. I am interviewing a world class performer, in this case my good friend Steve Jang, who is one of those people one of those tech founders and entrepreneurs and investors.

5:32 who seems to be able to look around corners to see things before they go mainstream and he has an impeccable record, but in this particular sit down, we are in person In Seoul, South Korea. I had wanted to visit Korea for twenty plus years.

5:50 and had never pulled the trigger, finally did. I always wanted to go with a friend who could show me around and Steve Jang is such a person And Korea exceeded every expectation on every level. In every dimension.

6:07 It really blew my mind. And so I wanted to do an episode discussing All things Korea. So in this conversation, we talk about the K Wave that is the exploding soft power of Korea, which is not accidental, by the way. The poverty to power playbook, so to speak. How did they go from, I don't want to say a backwater, but a very handicapped, economically handicapped country to being an incredible export economy with a global presence, not just in entertainment, but in hardware, in all sorts of technology, et cetera. Number of concepts like Han, Must see movies, and much more. And before we dive into Steve's bio, I wanted to share His

6:49 Top must see Korean movies. So I'm just gonna list them out, give you some Scooby Snacks in the very beginning. Here we go. Old boy. Wailing, that's W A I L I N G so old boy, Wailing, the Handmaiden. Memories of murder Parasite, many of you will have seen this, and this comes up in the conversation.

7:08 Burning. Minadi? M-I-N-A-R-I Broker, which is from 2022, and Joint Security Area. All right, so who is Steve Jang? You can find him on Twitter at Steve Jang, J A N E. Gee. Steve is the founder and managing partner at Kindred Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund based in San Francisco. He is one of the founder now investor generation of VCs that arose out of the last technology cycle. And he and I have been advisors to a lot of the same companies, investing in a lot of the same companies. He is very, very good at what he does. Steve is one of the top one hundred venture capital investors in the world, according to the Forbes Midest list of top venture capital investors, and was ranked number 45 in 2023. He's also a Korean American.

7:54 A Giopo We'll explain what Gilbo is, who is deeply invested and involved in both the technological and cultural worlds in the US and Asia. He is often a bridge. Previously, Steve was an early advisor to and angel investor in Uber, and then an early stage investor in some names you might recognize, Coinbase. Postmates, Poshmark, Tonal, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Humane. the AI device platform that is getting a lot of buzz right now, in fact. He helped Uber, Coinbase, and Blue Bottle Coffee, among others, to expand into Korea and Japan. He is very familiar with both places. As an entrepreneur, Steve co-founded companies in the consumer internet, mobile and crypto space. And on top of all of that, in the film and music world, he is an executive producer.

8:38 His most recent film is Nam Jun Pike. Moon is the oldest TV, which tells the story of the greatest Korean artist and father of digital video art, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in twenty twenty three. His next film is a documentary about Vitalic Buterin. The creator of Ethereum.

8:57 You can find Steve on Twitter, as I mentioned, at Steve Jang. You can find Kindred Ventures at Kindredventures.com and you can find Steve on LinkedIn. at Steve Jang One. And now without further ado, thanks for your patience, folks. Please enjoy this very wide ranging conversation that I Loved.

9:15 Held live. In person. in Seoul, South Korea. So

9:24 Steve J. Nice to see you, sir. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Vatagnehmen.

9:31 Welcome to the T version. Mm. I'm thrilled to be here because I've wanted to visit Korea for twenty plus years. It's wild that you haven't been here yet.

9:43 I've been in the Seoul Airport multiple times en route to Japan. Doesn't count. Doesn't count. Doesn't count. And Then I was on a flight. As I often am.

9:55 And I watched a few things. I watched the movie Past Lives, which is Excellent movie. Strongly recommend. Amazing. And Then watch Since I was

10:07 Sort of getting it. Tapped for the Korea high after watching that movie. I went to a K pop documentary, which was also in the in flight menu. Very well done. And As soon as I got off the flight, I think that's when I text you and I was like, Steve, when are you taking me to Cree? And you're like, Actually I'm gonna be in Korea.

10:23 Yeah. And that is how. I pulled the trigger. Bought a ticket and We find ourselves here. And Seoul has exceeded and the Korean people and the Korean language.

10:33 on all levels have exceeded my expectations. And the question that kept popping into my mind is Why aren't more people coming here? Why aren't more people Talking about soul in the same way that people talk about Tokyo, for instance.

10:47 Why don't we just Maybe start there and we'll see where things go. It's really because of That K wave that you described. Mm. Has happened recently. Very recently.

10:56 I mean I think people have been fascinated By going to Japan. And going to on sends in Kyoto and Tokyo and Experiencing all that for Three, four decades now. Yeah.

11:07 It's become a favorite for People who love eastern culture. They love design, food. In Tokyo and Kyoto are are amazing, right? And then Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong have been on the map for a century.

11:19 Uh. Korea was a developing country. You have to remember that From Nive to Norty Five. It was

11:27 Annexed and Colonized by Japan. Right. And so It was a poor country. Mm-hmm.

11:33 It was in an oppressed state. So it wasn't a place that you would want to visit. Right. As an outsider. And then the Korean war happens.

11:42 And the country is destroyed. And split into two. Again, not something you want to visit. But it had the fastest rate of economic growth. of any country across three decades.

11:54 After that. And so what happened there is that It was an industrial country that was still Rough that was still trying to rebuild. And again, not a place that you would go for tourism.

12:05 Not a place that you would go to experience culture. But that really changed in the eighties. You started to see Korean movies. And music.

12:14 become something that was very unique and very Korean. And not Something that was sort of formulaic from another country. And so I think in the nineties is when K pop really started to become a thing. And Expand outward. And there was a diaspora happening of Korean immigrants going outward.

12:31 Especially to the US, but also for decades going into The Middle East? Because of industrial jobs. And the labor needs of those countries.

12:40 South America has one of the largest Korean diaspora populations. Go to Brazil, Chile. Columbia. There's a lot of Koreans in South America. And then in Europe. France and the UK or in Germany.

12:53 We're also landing spots. So All of this is happening. More recently in time. Yeah, the main actor or one of the main actors, Korean actors in Past lives.

13:03 Name is Two Tao. Yeah. Yeah.

13:08 And What do you call Koreans overseas? Dopo. What is it? Google.

13:15 It was kind of a I don't want to say a derogatory term that Koreans have for Koreans who left. But it had sort of a negative connotation. I remember It was a little bit of a negative connotation when I was in Korea in the eighties and nineties as a kid. And then now it's become like fully accepted.

13:31 It's an accepted and used and practical term, right? It's not something that It's considered negative anyway. So I'm gonna highlight something that you said, which is This Rate of growth. I've observed, for instance, in Seoul that

13:44 the taxis, the actual cars look like something out of Blade Runner in in many cases. They're very futuristic. This is a very futuristic town. And you put a post on Instagram with a video of this robot that was sort of being defended by this bodyguard from I guess the uh KTS or KBS rather. And It is very much a glimpse, I feel, into the future. of sorts when you visit Seoul, certain portions of Seoul.

14:12 In contrast, if you go to say Japan, the taxis look like they're many, many, and they are many, many decades old. If I compare my experience When I was, say, in Japan in nineteen ninety two.

14:27 To my experience in Japan now. my perception is,'cause I've been back many times. Not that much has changed. Certainly things have changed. But it's not dramatic.

14:37 How would you compare like the last Ten, twenty, thirty years. In Korea. And maybe technology penetration is one way to unpack this. But you were talking about, for instance, even

14:50 From socio economic perspective, like the Some of the poorest people will still have technological access that would trump most of what people experience in the US. There are definitely modern parts of what is happening here in the economy and the society, but

15:07 It's a city of Opposites. I see the modern parts that you see. But I think that There's also a dichotomy between the old and the decay.

15:16 as well as this very modern and very futuristic aspect. In one city in one country. It's a city in transition, it's a country in transition. We walked around neighborhoods where These were buildings that were

15:30 A hundred. Years old. And then We saw buildings that were recently put up with steel and glass and with giant LED screens.

15:39 this balance or this sort of conflict That you see out there. A function of something that

15:47 Didn't happen in Japan really. I think Japan rebuilt very quickly. After World War Two. And became modern very quickly. For Korea, it's really in the last couple of decades that this has happened.

15:58 Yeah. And it's happened in a way where Koreans are holding still onto the past. There are cafes that are beautiful cafes. that are built in bombed out shoe factories.

16:10 And it has so much character and history. It kinda reminds me of when I visit Berlin. That vintage classic. Architecture. Almost brutal. From that era.

16:20 And then Very modern. Progressive. concepts of architecture and culture coexisting together. And I see a lot of uh similarities between Berlin

16:30 And soul. More than I would see it in Let's say Hong Kong in Seoul. And in Tokyo it's Yeah, like you said, the taxi cabs are classic.

16:38 Yeah, it's a good Immaculate. They are a magic. In Korea, the taxi cabs are changing by the days. You know, it's this new Chande car, this Kia car. And they're very modern, but they're almost disposable at this point because they're cycling through a car very quickly.

16:54 And so there's this sort of rush. Or need to Constantly. Innovate and improve here. That

17:01 doesn't hold on to the classics very well. And so I actually like to see A lot of the old school classic things still thriving here. I hope it it doesn't go away because it's part of the history. It's what makes Koreans really interesting today because like all the K pop and the movies that you see.

17:18 They're all rooted in The past. Mm-hmm. And they're trying to do something new in the future. This Korean diaspora. Again.

17:26 We're called Gyopo. Has fan out. Globally. And we're always sort of In between.

17:32 Where Not fully American or British or French. Or Korean. American. We're Korean French. We're Korean British.

17:41 You're always uh hyphenated. And then when you're back here. It used to be that People could pick you up. They could pick you up by how you walked. Not even how you spoke.

17:51 But how you walked? and looked at people in your body language. Your hairstyle. How you dressed and they could pick you out as a foreigner.

17:59 Mm-hmm. Now it's become a lot more of a in and out revolving door of different influences and foreigners. So it's become a lot more modern. But still. There's a very much a Korean way.

18:12 And I think that's a good thing. What's become very interesting over watching Sort of the last thirty years of development has been this embrace. Of outside influences. Korea was called the Hermit Kingdom. I remember going to Korean school in Los Angeles when when I grew up. Every Saturday

18:29 When everyone else was watching cartoons or Playing soccer. I went to Korean school from eight AM to one PM. I went to Van Nuys High School.

18:38 Public school. And this Korean school Rented it from the LA unified school district. And We go there, we learn hung of we'd learn how to write and read.

18:49 And then you had a choice of an elective. Abacus. Calligraphy. Tak on the And the fan dance.

18:57 So I picked Tekwondo and I tried Avocus, I tried calligraphy, really enjoyed it. So the things that stuck for me were Tekwondo and calligraphy. This is my Saturday for Eight years. So

19:10 You're trying to preserve some of that learning and culture as you go out. Now imagine In Korea.

19:18 Historically In the shadow of China. And then more recently in the times of the twentieth century under military rule and annexation by Japan. For them. In that time period.

19:29 under Japanese rule. It was very harsh. Many Koreans were killed or Forced to move to Japan. To survive and make their way. Well part of it was They were not allowed to speak Korean.

19:41 They were not allowed to write in Korean. They were forced to take Japanese names. And so there was a whole diaspora that went to Japan. In the nineteenth century, but also largely in the twentieth century. So there are a lot of Koreans

19:56 Ethnic Koreans that live in Japan. But it's a love hate relationship today. that I see with Japan. Yeah. They're trading partners, they're their neighbors.

20:05 They're allies when it comes to outsiders. But there's a lot of historical beef. Between them. But there's a lot of Appreciation and love too, especially in the younger generation. Especially in the younger generation. I mean when I was In high school.

20:19 And moved from a public school to a private school and I had the chance to start studying Japanese. A number of my friends in high school were Korean. And pretty Korean Korean, like not Korean American. Like they had come to the US just to go to school and then they went back to Korea generally, or went to college and then went back to Korea. And The fact that

20:38 I didn't have the historical context. But the fact that I was studying Japanese really bothered. Some of my friends' parents. I remember like we would went on a drive and the fact that like I was so excited to be studying Japanese was not exciting.

20:52 Two. One of my friend's parents, they were also quite a bit older, but they had been their personal experience was just so different from mine. They have really like fresh memories. Super fresh of The annexation and the colonial rule.

21:07 So let me throw out a couple of things that stand out to me here. As super interesting facets in Korea. the demonstrations. Which maybe we'll get to. There's th that's something I don't see as much of in a place like

21:21 Japan's I would say. Almost certainly it's not something you see as much of in China. Yeah, you see demonstrations everywhere, but I've seen a lot of demonstrations here. They're also A lot of

21:32 Preachers with or at least a handful. Preachers with megaphones. So you have a is it predominantly Christian? Society here. It's I think

21:42 Other than the Philippines. Is the Only predominantly Christian Asian country. Okay, so that's point one, which is certainly true, like if you drive around

21:54 LA, right? A number of Korean churches, buses taking Koreans to church so like there's that component. I have heard Korea described and I have no education related to this, but I've heard Korea described as I was coming here and doing reading. has the most confusion.

22:10 Country. In East Asia. That's right. So maybe uh what does that mean for people who are like, What does that actually mean? It's sort of when you s talk about a a species of Animal that has Gone off to

22:21 cross the body of water and goes to a new continent or a new island. Yeah. And then everything changes on the origin continent. Right. And then somehow the strain of plant or this species of animal has continues to continue to play. It's a very unique thing now, right? And and because it hasn't been influenced from the outside. Like the origin point. And so Korea. receive the Confucian value system. filial piety, a strong, strong focus on

22:52 education and academics and scholarship. Which came from China. But China went through its changes in the twentieth century, right? cultural revolution and a lot of the classical Chinese concepts. were removed.

23:07 For something more modern and populist. Yeah. And so Korea is sort of the last bastion of this Confucian idealism in this way. And I think that's where you get a lot of this People talk about the Korean education system and academics and the pressures. There's a lot of, you know, downsides and trade offs.

23:25 For people and and that really comes from that. Like even growing up In LA. You know, I was born in Korea. We immigrated over to Los Angeles.

23:35 It was very much this very pedantic academic thing that was forced and you see Hugwins. Which are Korean Tutoring centers. Uh

23:45 You won't see this anywhere else. We have friends in different cities that have kids There's nothing like the Korean hug one, which is the Korean word for a tutor. Or a tutoring center, a tutoring school. When school is done.

23:58 You go to Another school. Also just to underscore when school is done. So I was listening to this interview with a Korean language teacher somewhere in Oxford, I think. And they asked her.

24:12 how she would describe the difference between school in say the UK and school in Korea. And she said, Oh, students in the UK are English is pretty rough. And she's like, they're so much happier. She said, They end school at three PM. She said in Korea, I ended school at ten PM. Yeah. And then I went to the I mean the the really intense Hagwan but the the cram school Which also exists Juku in in Japan, but it I seems more intense here, actually. It seems it's more intense here, because she was saying I would Come home from Mike. regular school, like nine ten. Then go to cram school, come home at one AM. And then just repeat.

24:47 That sounds very extreme. That was her vibe. That is extreme. Well, I mean even the Kypo. Korean diaspora the Korean Immigrants that move out. They create that.

24:58 In their landing city in Seattle, in San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta. Atlanta has one of the largest Korean American populations. New York is the second largest Korean American population, second to Los Angeles. But if you go to these cities, there's a whole network. Of businesses. And hug once.

25:20 Better owned and operated by Korean American immigrants and The churches are the landing point. Connect with your community.

25:28 So when you move over You may not have any friends or relatives. They would go to the church. They might not have even been very religious. But it was the immigrants sort of Ellis Island of that city meeting point to get connected to people that look like them and spoke like them and understood them.

25:45 That makes sense. But the Hug ones are a very particular Korean thing and I have a friend, Min Jin Lee, who's the author of Pachinco, which is an incredible book. I've heard great things from multiple people. I will admit this.

25:58 Wholeheartedly that. It's one of the few books where I just immediately am like In tears reading because it touches Not only the history of Korean people, but also Koreans who Moved out.

26:10 Move plunder. And it takes place in Japan. It's during The early twentieth century and it follows a generational story about a family. That's living in hardship in Japan.

26:22 My mother's side actually was Educated. And raised in Japan. No kidding. I did not know that. And so I have a different

26:32 view and experience with that. Korean Japanese. Relationship. Through history. All the

26:38 pictures, all the photos, the old we have old photos. In my parents' home. of my great grandfather and my great great grandfather. My dad's side, they're in very southern tip of Korea and they're wearing Very Korean. Yeah.

26:54 And you can tell it's eighteen hundreds Korea. And then My mother's side. It's wearing a three piece suit. With a fedora, a bowler hat, and a neatly trimmed mustache, and is clearly living in Japan. And they lived in Tokyo and Kyoto. And so I have a very sort of

27:11 Ambivalence. Complicated. thing. I love going to Tokyo. I have a lot of Japanese friends. I have Japanese startup portfolio founders and I love chatting with them. So for a younger generation of Koreans and Japanese There's great harmony and diversity in that. And people move back and forth between Seoul and Tokyo.

27:30 As easily as we move between like San Francisco and LA or New York and San Francisco. But it's interesting to see those influences. And I think When you look at the Things that you've seen.

27:42 Mm-hmm. In your deep understanding of Japanese culture and language. In Chinese culture and language. you will see that there are influences. You may not know the origin point, but you're like, that word sounds very similar.

27:54 Mm-hmm. But the where it diverges Is It's these unique phrases and words. A capture. part of the feeling or the psyche and the soul of those people that is really fascinating. Totally. And we were talking about this. So explain what Natsukashi

28:10 Okay. In Japanese language. Yeah. So Natsukoshi is uh Beautiful word. I love your pronunciation. Oh thank you. Thank you. Better than a lot of Nisei in in the US. Yes, and that's because you you'll run into this a lot in Japan and When someone comes across something that is nostalgic Which nostalgic is not a word that gets used much in the U S

28:35 But It's a literary word. Yeah, exactly. In the US you might say, Oh man, that brings back the memories or something like that, which is a little bit closer to Natsuka. It's also a little closer to saudad in Brazilian Portuguese. has a similar feeling to it. But Natsukashi, they'd be like, ahskashina, Natsukashi is Pleasant nostalgia when something brings back the memories. Positive. Positive.

29:03 Right. That word doesn't exist in Krange. Yes. So you need you need to say more. So

29:13 So we have things that revolve. In Korean language around suffering and pain. Sorrow. Regret. Sorrow, rage, oppression, angst. It's the way I describe to people who have been to Tokyo a lot and they ask, they go, Should I go to Seoul? I'm like, absolutely. It's so fun. It's so electric right now.

29:35 The ideas are new. They're embracing outside influences, you should go now. Cause you will miss it when it's fully dialed in, like unrecognizable Five or ten years from now. Right. It's just moving so quickly. I mean I come like three, four times a year.

29:51 And I don't feel the differences between each of those times, but I can look back and say, Oh Three, four years ago. These things did not exist. Even going on some of our walks in these neighborhoods that you hadn't been to in Yeah.

30:05 I mean I walked in that neighborhood that I took you to, Samsung Dong. Mm-hmm. I brought the blue bottle. brought one of the blue bottle coffee founders, and we had both invested in that company a long time ago. And they were interested to come to Japan and Korea. And so I met up with them in Japan, walked around different Tokyo neighborhoods with them. Came to soul, did the same.

30:24 They fell in love with that neighborhood'cause it had that Very like classic. Old school vintage. This is real Korea. Real soul. It's a beautiful walking area. Really nice. And you saw that there's Actually

30:39 Real painters out with their easel. Painting nature and streets and life. It's so fun to see that. But When you see that you'll think, Oh, it's just like Tokyo

30:50 Right, because it's very Quaint, it's very precise. It's very safe. Unbelievably clean. Also. But There are some butts.

30:58 Yeah. If you spend more than a few days here in Seoul, you'll realize that what you are looking at is a city that might on the outset look like you're walking into Tokyo, but is actually The other side.

31:11 Of the coin. They exist in the same Dimension. But it is a very different vibe. I think you were talking where were we talking this might have been after a little bit of soju, but it's like the bizarro like when I used to watch the Superman cartoons Like in the mornings before going to school or whatever, there was like bizarro Superman who was like looked just like Superman. Yeah.

31:33 But I was like, Wait a second, that's not Superman. Yeah, yeah. It's different. Yeah, it's like the in in Stranger Things they call it the upside down. Yeah, right. Yeah. So the Culture here is Less polite.

31:45 In the protocol. Definition of the word. Yeah. In Japan. It is very difficult for A Japanese person to say no very directly and bluntly to you. Very'cause it's very impolite for them to do that.

31:59 It's almost a dishonor for them to behave that way towards you. Yeah. So just side note for folks, if you ever have to ask a Japanese person to do anything. This could be at your hotel, whatever. If they scratch their head And they go And they breathe in like that. Where they go.

32:14 Thought it's just guys. If they say it's difficult, that means no. I mean it's impossible. Generally. If they start apologizing right away. Yeah. Then you know it's not gonna happen. Right. Yeah. Like the word yeah. Like where which gets translated literally into English and no, like you Almost never hear that word. Very rarely heard.

32:35 When I'm in Japan I have to Definitely Take on a a much more reserved and polite stance. More than I would in the US, more than I would even in Korea.

32:48 Because of that, and I respect that. In Korea, there's still a little bit of that. I'm smirking so hard because I'm thinking you're doing less Child's pose in the tea houses when you have a low back pain.

33:01 We went to this It's so cute, adorable tea houses just ah with this little like little courtyard in the middle. With the the manicure trees and and poor Steve's low low back was killing him and so he's stretching, but it's kind of in the hallway. And these two women just glitched so hard'cause They didn't know how to contend with it. But yeah, it's my fault. And because I'm still an American at heart. And so what we're talking about here is is is the other part of me, my my family's history. So I have to try, right? Yeah. Because it's that different. Totally. And so in Korea

33:40 They're much more likely to say no. They're much more likely to challenge you. Directly. Much more likely to say. Mr. Chairman, you need to class. Yeah. In a sarcastic way. Call me Mr. Chairman. You probably should go on a diet so your back doesn't hurt. Which is you know, I love my food. But I j I really didn't need to hear that from the well meaning Ajima with the uh Yakuza permane. So The experience that people will have is that

34:05 It's not as lonely as it might be. With being an expat. In Japan. My wife. Live ten years as an expat in Tokyo.

34:14 And when we were dating I'd visit her a lot. And before that I Would visit Tokyo La'cause I had an investor there. And we were working on something and so I was there Frequently for years.

34:27 And I got to understand a little bit. About the experiences of her and her expat friends. It's one part elevated because they're expats, they're foreigners, but one part Sort of.

34:39 They're not part of main society, right? And so In Korea? And especially in cities and you you have to make a distinction between the countryside in Korea, rural areas. And smaller.

34:49 Towns and then Seoul and Plus on the big cities. Very different experience. You may not enjoy living in a small town in Korea because it really is You know, still stuck in that sixties and seventies.

35:05 Environment. Both from a material aspect and utilities and just lifestyle. It's very modern in the cities. So there's A really harsh divide. To the point where everyone m wants to move to the big city. And so these smaller towns are emptying out.

35:21 And there's a big problem with that. There's some pluses to that, but there's some really strong minuses as well. Yeah, but the foreigners feel like it's easier to integrate here. Maybe integrates the wrong word, but they feel more welcome. I think it's still difficult to integrate in any of these cities, you're always gonna be the other

35:38 But I think that You can get more direct response. And That blunt energy of An actual response rather than a polite response.

35:48 Yeah, it's uh just for people who might be interested. So in Japan they've got this expression So I feel this in Japan too. Which is a real bummer for me because when I was fifteen Yeah, like your own. Oh man, I've studied so much Japanese and also just living in Japan when I was fifteen.

36:06 Fifte are kinda fifteen year olds. in most places, right? They're goofy. They're loud, they're fun, they're open minded. And I felt welcomed with open arms by and large by the kids around me. Because that kids are kinda kids and they're curious too and shameless. When I go back to Japan now.

36:25 I'm still very close with my host family. thirty years later or whatever, and still really close to my host family. And if they introduce me to their friends. Everything's great. But as an adult.

36:36 Going to Japan? There's a much stronger line. That I feel separates me as an other. It's very hard and there's an expression there's like Honne. And then Tata Mai. So Honne is like

36:47 I'm very Simplistically translating here, but it's like how you really feel and how you really are and then Tatema is like what you put. In front. Mm-hmm.

36:57 S. Mm-hmm. forward facing thing with someone else. And there's also something in Japanese called Paningyogi, which is like a stranger formality. Where and you're polite. But it's there's a wall.

37:08 Yeah. My experience just in a week, and like what do I know? But my experience here and you have to be careful if you're staying at a hotel. You can't be like, Oh, people are so friendly. It's like well if you're staying at a nice hotel, of course they're paid to be friendly. So you gotta get outside. But as I've been walking around, which we have been. We have been. Yeah. And People are friendly. My feeling is friendly. Maybe open's a better word. Like a bit more open. Yeah, they're more open. Direct. But it's direct, positive, direct. negative maybe. Like a

37:39 Yeah, I'm excited to be here. When I was in high school and I met my first Korean Koreans. Interaction.

37:51 This was in New Hampshire. That's right. At St. Paul's. Yeah. And Nicest guys. Until They flipped. Until that switch flipped and their eyes got really big. And the crage

38:05 Came on the scene. Which is not something you see as much in Japan. Like people get pissed everywhere. But a wise man once said to me. That you know, you go to Japan and and a lot of people get drunk. drinking culture, but they like it. They get drunk and then they tend to like people fall asleep like on the subway and so on.

38:22 You don't see a lot of fights. But Maybe that's different. In Korea. It's just a different vibe.

38:28 I think that might be part of the exports, right? There's K Beauty, K pop. K dramas and there's K Rage. I don't know. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront. There is a lot happening in the US and global economies right now. A lot.

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39:44 This was a paid endorsement by Wealthfront. I So I want to go back to Natsukashi. Okay, let's do it. That is a beautiful word. Mm-hmm. The beautiful meaning.

39:57 Incredible. Mm-hmm. When I first heard it. I think it was yeah, my wife who had lived in Japan for ten years, she had used it with a friend and she had explained it to me and I was like That's so idealistic and Just lovely, right? Mm-hmm

40:11 I was like. There's no such thing in Korean. The experience of the Korean pupil You know, it has not been An independent and whole country. Since

40:20 Nineteen oh five. It is divided since the Korean War. And there's a lot of pain and struggle. That happens with families divided by north and south. Side note, we'll put this in the show notes. You sent me some YouTube videos. Yeah. Which were old broadcasts of families being reunited.

40:35 That shit. I mean be uh not reunited. Reunited for Like an hour. An hour and then they're separated again. And I'm not Korean. I don't have the background, but just the

40:48 Holy shit, the the emotion and the facial expressions. I was tearing up just watching it's brutal. It's not relief of trauma. It's New trauma on top of longstanding trauma. Yeah. What we're talking about is you'll put it in the show notes, but

41:05 the North and South Korean governments had At certain times when they get along. They'll try to do some great like olive branch moves to reunite families. And they had the the T V station film it and they set up a whole area and they brought buses down. And

41:22 It turned out to be Not cathartic at all, but Reopening pain. One of the things I noticed was in the notes, I guess it was in text. on one of the YouTube videos that you sent me.

41:34 It indicated that initially this television special was supposed to be forty five minutes long. But there was such an outpour. There were like a hundred thousand plus people who came and stood in front of various government offices and stationed out trying to petition to be part of this program that ended up lasting. I don't think I'm getting this wrong. I think it was like a hundred plus days.

41:57 That I kept. Going. So first off, this is the last of the divided countries by Western capitalism and Eastern communism.

42:06 So Germany, they've sorted it out. Vietnam, they've sorted it out. At this point North Korea and South Korea is the last sort of evidence of the really like caustic divisive Cold War. Mm-hmm. And so there are families. It's not two different people.

42:22 Mm-hmm. Right. It's not by religion, which we see a lot of today, unfortunately. It's the same people. And the same families. That are split.

42:32 And Torn. Mm. So imagine if you have an opportunity to Be reunited. For an hour and then separate an hour.

42:43 So is that cathartic or is that actually more trauma? Yeah. And so I remember watching this as a child. I was In LA and my parents were watching it. LA had a big enough Korean American community where you had Korean TV. You had a channel. I remember watching it and my parents were like Broke down crying and

43:01 Yeah, for me it was like absorbing it as a child, but understanding it For the first time. Like that history and What that would feel like. And I think

43:11 That's like a very like strong Moving. Example of How like Korean people feel. In the last hundred and twenty years, they have not had their own whole country and people.

43:24 North and South. Mm-hmm. Before that, it was Korean War. Millions of Koreans died. In that war between

43:32 Russia and China. In the US. And the battleground was their country. Their homes. Their farmland.

43:39 They're cities. So The Number of people that died. In that war.

43:45 I don't think people really talk about it. There's something about like ten million Chinese soldiers came across and at some point or something like that. They're just numbers that people don't really think about. We talk about World War Two and we talk about Vietnam, but there's not much about the Korean War. So and then the Korean civilians and families. That died. Right before that, they were liberated. From Japanese role. Just

44:08 Like five years before that. And so five years before that They spent Forty years, nineteen oh five. Tune nineteen forty five.

44:17 under Japanese rule. And that was we've already talked about that. That was very oppressive. It was a forced assimilation and there were a lot of That's That occurred as part of that an impression. And there are a lot of movies, by the way. But

44:31 Detail this. You know what? This is I don't want to take us too off track because I know we're headed towards Han first. Yeah. But what are the main Storylines. That you see in movie and dramas. Because

44:45 This Say a fair bit. Yeah, this is this is what we're talking about, which is in language. And in stories. You get a sense for the people, maybe without even meeting.

44:58 In real life. a person from that culture and society. The tropes are the themes. The storylines that you hear in movies. One is about

45:09 North South Korea. There's literally rom comms about it. There's action thrillers about it, spy thrillers. There's historical film. Yeah.

45:21 Detailing in a biopic something that happened in the past. There's every kind of Genre? But applied towards the North South Korea. History and conflict.

45:32 Another one is The Class struggle. Mm. You've probably seen Parasite, which obviously won an Academy Award and was seen globally, but that is Director Bong, Bong Jin Ho.

45:45 is one of the greatest Korean directors of all time. A lot of his films are very intense. Psychological thrillers. A lot of them. You might look at it and say, Oh, this one's like a murder mystery. This one's a

45:59 A psychological thriller, this one is something else. But if you look at a lot of his movies It's about class struggle. Does that mean Put another way, sort of lack of upward mobility. It's about

46:11 The wealthy And the Entitled And their mistreatment. Of

46:18 The poorer working class. That art. Immobile. But also there's complexity. It's not just Good versus evil in that dichotomy.

46:27 Both sides. in those character sets or doing Weird, crazy off putting things to each other, right? And so that's why I think Korean movies are Are really like

46:39 Well embrace'cause they don't follow a formula. They're nuanced. It's like swimming in an ocean of gray. Yeah. It's like swimming in the human mind. Mm where there's nothing totally pure and it's not a Marvel movie. Right. And it's it's not a sort of like a uh it comes to a conclusion act one, act two, act three, and now I feel good. And actually. One of the things I would say consistently about Korean film is that

47:03 It's both And this is a conflict that can Exist together at the same time. It's both entertaining And

47:11 moving and inspiring. And you can also walk out feeling terrible. You can walk out feeling confused and Like you need to Go outside.

47:22 And Get a breath of fresh air. Sit down. If you're a smoker, you probably need a cigarette. If you're not a smoker, you probably need to take a walk and listen to some happy music. The intensity of Korean film.

47:34 Then is also balance with this polar opposite of these crazy rom coms. that are so sugary and saccharin but funny. And That's

47:45 Really creating culture, right? It's this crazy full of friction opposites. that you didn't think would coexist in one culture?'Cause I think people, Westerners, outsiders look at Japan and they say This is ideal culture. This is ideal society. This is utopia almost to a lot of Westerners.

48:03 Everything is clean, everyone is polite. Everything is in its right place. And they do things like take Italian pizza and actually make it better. Right. They take fried chicken. Oh my God. Steve is me eat so much fried chicken here. Dream fried chicken. It's the true KFC. Oh my God. The um so good.

48:21 Korean culture, I think when Westerners or outsiders come and and they actually experience it and they see it in movies and K pop and they come here and and what they see is something that's a lot more realistic and nuanced. Mm-hmm. Well, we went to have Fried chicken. But not Heavily breaded fried chicken.

48:42 Rather very lightly fried. And that's the original OG fried chicken. The OG fried chicken. We also had some ugly potatoes as written on the menu. Ugly potatoes. They're basically tater tots. And you mentioned to me that the Woman who's running the show that day. Very smart. Really had

48:59 her operator hat on, very calm. Most likely. Let's just say the daughter of the owner. Or somebody would hand it down. But she may end up working there for the rest of her life or working career.

49:11 And that's a lot of the stuff that's invisible. If you're only here for a brief time. This is the theme of so many movies, books. T V series.

49:23 It's the suffering. And the struggle to Move out of their condition. And that society and the upper crust of society.

49:33 Won't allow it. And this Tension is Yeah. in music, it's in movies, it's in literature, it's in TV shows, it's all around. And you might say, Oh no, it's around

49:44 Every country Sure it is. But it's really strong and consistent. in Korean movies and literature. Parasite is an example of that.

49:54 You look at Bong Jun Ho's all of his films. They're all very different. Some feel like a horror thriller, some feel like a psychothriller, another one feels almost like Comedic sci fi fantasy? Like the host. If you see his like original films like a giant monster. Moving around soul.

50:12 In killing people, but if you know, from a Western mindset, you're like, What is going on? This is almost silly. But it's actually if you look at everything that's happening. It's talking about class struggle. Mm-hmm. This is part of what Korea has been since the very beginning Of

50:27 Like its own sort of political Self governance. Post Korean War. Is The populism here, you saw that in the demonstrations.

50:37 It's a demonstration activist society and it's constantly battling with the fact that There are very large companies. Yeah. own so much of the economy. And your success

50:49 To raise a family and to have a nice apartment. And to put your kids in great schools and things like that all reside on whether or not you can get a job and keep it At this large company. Yeah. So they call them Chibbles.

51:03 Outside. The Employees of those. Jibbles will always call themselves conglomerates. So you gotta you gotta be careful, right? Yeah. And I mean this is I'm sure they're different, but reminiscent. Uh

51:15 Japan. Yeah, with like Sony Mitsubishi, et cetera. I think there's more control. Mm-hmm. of the economy from the conglomerates in Korea. I'll just sort of try to parrot back things that I think you've said to me and then you can fact check or expand and then we'll eventually get to on'cause I'm going to couple of things that struck me as super interesting. One is that These table, I guess the equivalent in Japanese would be Kids.

51:41 Yeah. Yeah. Companies, right. Aka conglomerate. That

51:47 Here they publicly traded, but they float a very small percentage of the shares. So they're kinda like the Mars company in the US in the sense that like they're privately held. Well not privately held, but they're They're still family. Mind blowing to think about. Yeah.

52:05 Secondly. That And we didn't cover this yet, but the broadband penetration and the Technological access here. is such in part, it seems like, because these

52:17 large conglomerates will coordinate with the government. Mm-hmm. To focus on Say one or two things for Five years, ten years, and they act in this concerted way. Which

52:29 would have to contribute to how Korea punches above its weight class, right? Because what's I mean, I don't know the population of Korea, but it's not a huge place. You know, it's Under fifty million people. It's nuts. I mean to think about. what Korea's done on the global stage and continues to do.

52:45 and will do with that population. It's kind of inc I mean, it is incredible. I I don't want to say the underbelly or the dark side, but it's it is really the trade off of having on one side a very optimistic and progressive Growth mindset for the

53:02 economy and society, which is pound for pound. Per capita. Probably the most innovative high growth in terms of GDP country. In the history of

53:12 the planet in the last fifty years. I mean, it is a leader in wireless technology, it is a leader in chip manufacturing, it's a leader in heavy industrials, steel. And it's also now. A leader in entertainment, media, fashion. beauty industry. So it's doing a lot, it's accomplishing a lot.

53:29 Great. The other side of that is that There's still a class divide. There's not a lot of upper mobility. And that's changing for sure. But it's still very much and you see this in the stories that are told.

53:42 These stories are told. And they're popular. Not because they don't exist. It's because that people Feel that.

53:49 They empathize with that. They feel that in their bones that this is their condition. In their life. So the populism here is different than in the US. The political spectrum actually is different. There's not a left versus right.

54:01 In the way that we think about it. in the US. Though the US is turning more into Korea style of politics. Well we'll leave it at that'cause I I don't like politics, but I am recognizing this, which is That The populism here. is about class struggle and about workers' rights and about

54:20 Having A little bit more of a flattening out. So that people have opportunities to be upwardly mobile. the thing that you're seeing today in film The thing that makes

54:30 Parasite become a global phenomenon and when Oscars is that story. It's a great film. Bong Jinho is a great storyteller and cinematographer. But it is the writing and the acting. You can take that story as different as it is. Mm.

54:46 It's a Korean family, two Korean families. Basically. fighting with each other for the entirety of the film in quiet and sometimes loud ways. But you empathize with both and you're critical of both.

55:00 There's not a good versus bad. There's no hero versus villain. And you take that out into The US, you take that out into Europe, you take that out into any country. It's universal. No, it's universal. And the writing is good.

55:15 And the cinematography is great. And What I did not realize is this K wave is not entirely an accident. It's not like people Just Through a bunch of things.

55:25 At random times. independently into the works and then Korea. landed on the global stage with entertainment. There seems to be a lot more to it than I would expect, though.

55:36 that many people listening to this, there's not really though a lot of people listening to this are probably if they're like, Oh Korea, they're listening to this because they saw a parasite. Or they're like, Why is K pop so big? What the hell happened in the last few years? What is going on? None of my friends speak Korean. Why are they listening? How can they listen to K what is going on? Why is Black Pink on Like all over the place. Why? Yeah, what is what the hell is going on? And Then you have also these

56:06 Streaming shows on Netflix, right? Yeah. Squid Game. You've got the I can't remember I can never remember the name. These jacked men and women just Physical one hundred. Physical one hundred, right? It's like American Gladiators, but elimination challenge with Koreans. It's amazing. So what is going on? When I watched this doc, I was like oh wait a minute. Behind the scenes there is a lot of very clever Strategy. Look at Squid Game. Mm-hmm.

56:30 Class struggle. Right. But in this Intense. Crazy.

56:37 Dystopian game makes hungry games look like Like a kid's show. It really does. I I remember watching Hungry Games. I hadn't seen it actually. Until very recently and I was like, Oh, this is kinda boring. Yeah.

56:50 Let me put it this way. If you were to take All of these stories. Mm-hmm. And you were to look at them as

56:58 These are commercial activities where you want the audience to engage with it and to pay for tickets, right? Mm-hmm. Where does it come from? Who is producing and paying for that? The money is coming the capital is coming from the devils. The conglomerates. Mm-hmm.

57:11 The production companies behind K pop, they're all publicly traded companies. Mm-hmm. The movie studios, the production companies, the labels They're all Huge businesses worth billions of dollars. It's also been a lot of government support, right? Yeah.

57:26 So Originally in the nineteen eighties. Venture capital? Which is the industry I'm in and you're familiar with too as an angel investor. In the US, venture capital is focused on technology.

57:37 Mm-hmm. Maybe biotech, but Mostly technology. Software. Venture Capital started out as a government Supported industry. Focused in not only on technology, but mainly on

57:49 Media. Entertainment. Movies. You're talking about in the US? No, or Korea, I think. And so K pop and Korean movies and all of this

57:59 It's not controlled by the government or supported by the government today directly. And oftentimes the sensors. are coming down on things and it's lightened up, but you used to not see like You know, people kissing in movies. The Korean sensors were pretty strong, just like the Japanese sensors. Yeah, the Japanese sensors are strong. Although anything goes in the comic books. Yeah.

58:20 Yeah we're talking about national broadcasts. National broadcast is different. The what you see as the K wave today, a lot of it came originally from the Korean venture capital industry, which was supported by the government and funded uh largely by the government. It was initially focused in on What we would call now today soft power. Now look, there's a Korean semiconductor chip industry and and a whole bunch of technology areas that are now excelling well. But that was not the main focus or the main success area.

58:51 For venture capital. So it's really interesting now. It's probably problematic for a lot of uh a lot of uh politicians to see a lot of this stuff depending upon what side of the spectrum you're on on the partisan side. But I think that that's what's has has resonated is that it feels like the most irreverent and authentic and weird, sometimes crazy But Really like raw. Powerful.

59:15 movies out there and T V series. And it's very different from any other formulaic Tropes that you see out there. Like sometimes.

59:25 Korean movies take twists and turns. We'll start out. Like a rom com and then it turns into a zombie thriller. Parasite did that. Then it ends up in like a political thriller mode and you're sort of confused. Like Old Boy is like the Probably the most famous movie before Parasite. And no one leaves watching that movie saying it was bad. You say it was intense and it was incredible, but you also say I felt sick to my stomach.

59:53 I think that's the value that Korean soft power starts to ring. So the movies are easier for me to wrap my head around. Then say K pop. Right.'Cause there's good music all over the world. And there are entertainers in boy bands and girl bands. In a lot of places.

1:00:07 Most people outside of Korea do not speak Korean. Well hey hey Like sometimes I'm in Hawaii or I'm in LA in a um Hispanic neighborhood and I will see posters. Of BTS. Up on the walls and

1:00:22 There's a whole blurning of uh As a group. Yeah. There's a whole group of younger people in the US. In Latin America, in Europe.

1:00:32 Mm-hmm. That are Following their favorite band, which is BTS or Black Paint. Oh, I get it. I'm just wondering And learning Korean language. I'm wondering how that happened. And is this like Beanie Babies? Okay, it's gonna like Burn. Twice as hot and flame out. Yeah.

1:00:47 Or is there sort of more to the story? I think it's here to stay and I think it's tied in with why anime, Japanese anime, is also very globally popular. Which is it feels like A fantasy world? That is an escape from their current world and that they can aspire to. So it's like you see in the hip hop community in the US, they love Naruto.

1:01:07 Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean Their hats, their shirts. You think about How many hip hop groups? What include things from like Chinese Kung Fu movies and there's always been this Wu Tang clan. There's always been this crossover of culture.

1:01:21 From Asia on that level. And it's been a little bit more like let's take the caricature of it or the themes of it and let's include it. But now it's become Part of like global pop culture. Mm-hmm. The K pop stuff is really interesting because they actually copied American.

1:01:37 Boy bands and girl bands. Yeah. Backstreet boys. But they just took it to the next level. The way like Japanese say, We're gonna do French food or Italian pizza. And we're just gonna take it to the next level. We're gonna take American automobile engineering culture and we're gonna we're gonna use like a a kaizen approach and make more reliable cars faster. Crazy story on that. I think it was Edward Deming.

1:01:59 something like scientific manufacturing, scientific management. This American efficiency social scientist who was basically ignored in the US was then embraced by Japan and led to like the Toyota way. Yeah. It's wild, but to your point, Japan and it seems like as you're describing it, Korea are really good at like taking something that's good and being like, Okay. We're gonna it's sort like spinal tap, right? Like when we really need a little extra and turn it to eleven.

1:02:26 That's a good way to put it. Turn it to a level. So on that front the Formula. Of the Pop band. Was taken.

1:02:35 And it was turned into A boot camp. Where there were auditions and you would be trained and you would learn how to dance, you would learn how to sing, you would be assigned a role as if you're In a military. Mm-hmm. And you're the

1:02:50 Rapper. You're the Lead singer. You're more of a dancer.

1:02:56 And so there's a whole formula and Institutionalization. Mm-hmm. That happened. Around pop culture. That Koreans really took on, right?

1:03:05 I'm connecting something that I've never connected before. Tell me if this is totally off base, but You're talking about class struggle and lack of upward mobility. Okay. If you go to the US, like how many people are aspiring to be in a boy or girl band?

1:03:19 Not many. Furthermore, there isn't really there's not much of a like a discovery mechanism or a talent development program for that. I mean, sure you can go to LA and and there are people who put these bands together. But in Korea you've got these

1:03:34 Like dance training studios where people pay money. Yeah. And basically create their own like American Idol vetting system. Yeah. And then the scouts can Pick from the Yeah. Curve of the crop, right?

1:03:47 If you take that and it's like an industrialization. Mm-hmm. of this very like Creative. Artistic culture.

1:03:55 That We revere the authenticity of that in the US, like The unknown. Musician that rises up and you love that, right? You love that authentic story.

1:04:06 In Korea, that's not really a thing. Because K pop is pop. Yeah. It's popular factor. Now it doesn't mean it's not good. It just means that they've been Put through boot camp.

1:04:15 They have coaches for every single aspect of what they are supposed to be doing as This Yeah. Everything's very controlled. Now Then you look at the Film industry, I think it's quite different.

1:04:31 Film industry. Is Much more about A real look. And a lot of things that are not.

1:04:38 Pristine and polished. In society. So you have K pop, which is Feels utopian. Sometimes a little plastic.

1:04:46 And then you have to have These films that are talking about North and South Korea. We're talking about. Colonial history between Japan and

1:04:54 Korea. And you're talking about class struggle internally in Korea. You're talking about The mental health issues you're talking about. all of these much darker and much more real and raw topics.

1:05:08 And so it's Odd that included in this picture of Korean soft power. Mm. Very polished and industrialized. Pop culture.

1:05:17 And then this very intense and Raw. Entertainment culture around movies. Yeah, you get the polar extremes. Just because I've teased it so much.

1:05:27 What is hard? Just like Natsukachi. Mm-hmm. Quite Japanese. Super Japanese. For Koreans. Han is probably the most talked about recent

1:05:37 Collective trait. Of Koreans that Koreans talk about but then now people outside are talking about. And what it Essentially boils down to is this idea of this collective suffering That the Korean people have through history.

1:05:54 And manifest In This sort of It's very complicated feeling of We are suffering and we

1:06:02 share that pain with each other. Is not always a negative. It can sometimes drive us to express ourselves. And strong ways. It can drive us to

1:06:16 Suffer together. Collectively. Mm-hmm. So collectivism is a very Asian Yeah. And independents.

1:06:24 It's something that we revere. In the US. That collectivism in Korea. Is Han.

1:06:31 And is it generally you mentioned suffering. There are a lot of different descriptions of this. I was doing a little bit of reading. It's really hard to explain in English, actually. It seems very hard. Is it A type of So sadness would be a component of that. Yeah.

1:06:45 And also Anger and anger. I was talking to David Chang from Momofuku, he's uh old friend, and he asked me about Travis Kelly, he had never met him. And he said, You knew him. He seems like he has a lot of Han. And I said, Yeah, he's intense. And it expresses in in a drive to succeed, right? And obviously we all know that story.

1:07:07 But For Koreans. Han can be. A drive to do Great things.

1:07:13 To bond together. To understand each other. To empathize. But it can also just be Like you said.

1:07:21 The anger and the the cage that you're talking about. Which Channeled correctly allows you to build an entire industry. Yeah. And succeed on a global level to create chips on the shoulder, make chips in the pocket. Pop culture phenomenons that when Grammys and that movies that win Oscars and

1:07:39 Light up the world to What's happening in this little country that used to be a poor developing country that was broken after Colonization and a war. Where does that come from? And so I think a lot of Koreans

1:07:53 Romantically we'll describe it as like We have this Han. Mm. Uh. drives us, but it's not perfect. It's not always positive. It can just result in chaos and destruction too. But it's this thing that feels very real. And I think that's what you're seeing in like Korean movies.

1:08:07 That's what you're seeing in industries, the positive energy that can come out of it, not just the negative energy. So it's very complicated. Yeah. But Jung Mm-hmm. And these are like very simple. Chinese characters. Yeah. I wonder what the I don't know the hunter for any of that. So Zhang is

1:08:23 Cheers. This connection. Or affection. This bond that you feel. Mm-hmm.

1:08:29 And so A lot of people will say That they don't have jung with someone. Or the person does not have jumps. This is a much more like bonding, affectionate

1:08:40 And it's a very simple word. But it means a lot. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jung is

1:08:45 Also a complicated thing too. It's hard to describe without using a lot of words. And adjectives and feelings and emotions in English. But when you say that In Korean, it's very simple. It means a thing that isn't translatable. Mm-hmm. And then if I already take

1:09:00 Two words that would describe. Korean people and again. I'm not Korean. I'm a free American, I'm guiltful. Mm-hmm.

1:09:08 Someone inside, but someone outside. And so I can compare it to how we are in America or other countries. And Han and Jung? But pretty much cover.

1:09:20 What what is Nunche? So Ninchi, I mean, you know Bobby Kim. Bobby Hunter. Yes. Yeah. You had him on the show. I did. A friend of mine as well. Great conversation. He really got it right, which is it's reading the room, but Nunche It's like noon is your eyes.

1:09:34 Yeah. And it's the ability to see What's really going on. Reading between the lines or Reading the room. And this is really important. This is not a like happy positive

1:09:48 thing. This is again a defensive, inquisitive, analytical Mm. Skill. Yeah. It's very critical. Yeah, critical. Yeah.

1:10:00 There are things that come up when you talk about People And you talk about your connection with them. And so

1:10:06 If I come in and kind of bluntly or obtusely I'm rude in a group. I walk into a dinner or a room. I change the topic uh really obtrusively. Yeah. Non ci otta. Right. He just like didn't read the room, just kinda came in like a bull in a shina shot, right? There there isn't.

1:10:27 And then um You know, with Han. That's something that I actually have not heard a lot of Koreans talk about it. Yeah.

1:10:36 I feel like a lot of Korean Americans in Kilpo talk about it. So it's an interesting thing. I think it's a more recent modern. Yeah. Definition and term. I don't think it's like an old classic Phrase or term. So my sense is anecdotally that it's something that's been a little bit created. Yeah. And then also with Jung, that's something that my parents talk about a lot.

1:10:59 Yeah. Chao. And my parents don't talk about Han. It's like Maybe the people that really feel it. Mm-hmm. Don't want to talk about it. Yeah, totally. And the people that want to find some reason or some rhyme to why they

1:11:13 feel a certain way or something is happening to them, th they'll create a concept. But I think it is very interesting to look at those Two Concepts. Han and Song.

1:11:23 Mm. And then that'll help you understand a lot. Increan society. It helps me a lot, actually. Yeah. I'll give you one one example. If you're a visitor to Korea. There's a host mentality. In Japanese called Motanashi.

1:11:37 Mm-hmm. Korean. There's a concept of you're my sonim. My guest. And it's very strong. Very similar to Japanese, right?

1:11:47 They want to exceed And treating you well. They want to give you food. They wanna take care of you. They wanna do that. They wanna create.

1:11:56 This concept of Jong. Not to create the concept, but to have Jong with you. That would be the ideal. Because Koreans.

1:12:04 Most Koreans, not all, maybe, but Koreans want to have that connection, that deep connection. They wanna drink with you. They wanna stay out late with you. They wanna wrestle with you. They wanna argue with you. They wanna put their arms around your shoulder and sing a song after like Downing some soju, right? They wanna feel that like real visceral connection with you. And people often I don't really enjoy it, but uh people often in business, even in technology, which is somewhat of a more cerebral industry. They want to go out late and have drinks.

1:12:36 Until five, six in the morning. And in the US we're like, Hey, this is just way too much, like this is bedtime. They want to do that to know that they have a bond with you. They want to create that. Somewhat like

1:12:48 Abruptly. Right. But you see that. Yeah, I'm trying to find the character for Ciao. It's really bothering me that I d Oh wait, wait.

1:12:58 Uh Jung is Jung is good. Jung is Positive. Jung is optimistic. Yeah, warm feeling of attachment. Yeah.

1:13:10 Not so much. Yeah, Tung, you see that character, the Chinese character in Pretty sure in concepts like sympathy, those types of sort of feeling, emotive. Concepts.

1:13:23 Empathy, sympathy. Affection. Bawns. In every movie. In every T V series.

1:13:31 They're moving in and out of Han and Zheng. In the narrative. In the storytelling. And That's I think if you were to whittle it down, if you had to really simplify and reduce it to something.

1:13:45 Very like At root level. I think it would be that Koreans are moving between Zheng and Han. In their storytelling, in their life.

1:13:55 Your business. Yeah. There's a moment with probably with your friends in high school. Where it's All happy and positive.

1:14:02 And Maybe after A critical moment. Or an emotional thing, or maybe if you guys are drinking beers at night as teenagers. We're flipped.

1:14:13 Yeah. Yeah, usually I could tell if the eyes got really big, I'd be like, Oh boy, here we go. Red. Yeah. Yeah. Red face, big eyes. I'm like, oh, oh, oh we're getting into Hulk. There's an energy bad. Energy frequency has changed. Yeah, so that I mean I wanted a yeah, that's that's well. Think about what I think about like how to whittle it down to Something basic. Before coming to Korea, trying to do a bit of reading. I didn't want to do too much reading.

1:14:42 People have asked me a lot. What did you expect? I'm like, I didn't expect anything. I c tried to come in as blank as possible. But I did a little bit of reading. I didn't want to come in completely ignorant. And it seems like the government Has Either earmarked or committed. Maybe already spent, who knows? Something like two hundred billion dollars. Maybe those are tax incentives. I've no idea. But two hundred billion dollars US.

1:15:06 for increasing Birth rate. Mm so what is the I guess status of Birth rate.

1:15:14 And Korea. In this case, South Korea and Why is it so low? Why would you explain that? So first off, developed countries

1:15:24 Around the world. have a relatively low birth rate, reproductive rate. Germany, Japan. Even right now, China. having that problem.

1:15:34 So there's that. But What I think is happening for you. Is that This class divide.

1:15:41 The economic Condition in Korea, is that The halves have a lot. And have not. It's hard for them to move up.

1:15:49 It is very expensive. It is a high cost of living in in Seoul. Maybe not in the countryside, but everyone wants to live in the city. To get an apartment? You know, in the US you put down maybe a month Two months maybe three months of deposit.

1:16:02 And then you We can get a pretty nice apartment if you have a job. In Korea, you have to put down a year or two Of your rent. Oh my god. As a deposit. And

1:16:11 What you get is Maybe a one bedroom? Apartment. in one of the these large concrete high rises that you see just stacked around soul. Mm-hmm.

1:16:23 And so to start a family is quite expensive. Yeah. So there's that cost of living to start a family. I don't know if you have an answer to this, but why so much deposit? Why a year or two of deposit? The consumer credit culture Uh.

1:16:38 is not in good shape. It's never been in good shape in in Korea. As long as I've been like aware. We had to take a pause earlier'cause I got a phone call from the hotel. It was like you've exceeded your incidentals. Can you come down and make your deposit? I'm like, You have my credit card. They don't trust you. The way this w the way this works is I charge stuff and then I pay at the end and they're like, No, you have to come down and put down a further deposit. I'm like, Okay. All right, fine. So, I think it's a Nineteen ninety seven, ninety eight. Yeah.

1:17:12 Because of Thailand and Japan went down, Korea went down, right? Mm-hmm. And this is a good example actually of Hun. And Chang. Together. Yeah.

1:17:22 I'm trying to make connect dots here, right? To simplify it for the the audience. But There was a austerity program. Mm-hmm. Korean government. Went out through media and said.

1:17:33 We need Every Citizen. The country to take their personal jewellery. And

1:17:40 contributed to the national cause. the IMF austerity program that was laid upon them to get bailed out, essentially. And people Donated their jewelry.

1:17:52 They melted it down. For the sake of the greater good, the common collective good. It's so wild just to think about how poorly that would go down in the US. Would not go down at all. No, of course not. Like We can't even do that with guns, right? It's like there's no sense of gun control. Imagine now, take all of your valuable gold for the country and melt it down. But the other side of that is that

1:18:15 There is a speculative gambling culture. in investments in real estate. And stock spawns. Real estate. That

1:18:24 In Korea that People were taking out credit cards at like thirty percent. Interest rates. And buying consumer goods.

1:18:35 Uh. Still happening today. Hm. The Korean consumer luxury market Is the per capita highest market?

1:18:43 On the planet. Really? That's why you see all of these European luxury brands, every single mall they have Huge stores. Luxury brands have been focused in on marketing to Koreans.

1:18:57 For now. Five, ten years. There's this consumer goods culture here. This consumerism, materialism that is problematic.

1:19:07 'Cause it's a lot of it is on borrowed Borrowed money. And so In the nineties they had this problem. The subprime.

1:19:14 Credit. market for consumers. They even stopped Derivatives trading. In Korea because of it, because people were getting so upside down. on their investment speculation.

1:19:26 There is a speculative Almost gambling problem. In investments. It got to the point where The left wing government

1:19:34 that was in power in the last administration. During COVID. A lot of wealthy people were buying properties. And they limited people from buying more than one Second property.

1:19:46 So that you can buy a third. Can you imagine that in the US? Again, something that would never happen in the US. So there is this sense of like You know one, there's a class divide. And it's very expensive.

1:19:59 It's a high cost of living to start a family. And it's also very hard to move up that. So why even go there? My other theory on this is that Not only is it expensive, but

1:20:10 Social values are changing. Women have largely been unable to enter in the professional Workplace. But that is changing.

1:20:20 And that's a good thing. they can go work at a company and rise up and become an executive. So Careers are now Not just service employee careers, but

1:20:32 Actual executive careers, company careers, corporate careers in these conglomerates. Are now possible. And so As that shifts. To be more balanced and fair.

1:20:43 There's less. Young couples. Getting married early and having babies. So I think there's

1:20:49 Two things there. That I would I'll see and I see that among like extended family members Friends. It is a very expensive proposition. Because

1:20:58 You want them in the best schools. You're gonna put them in The baseball hug one? You're gonna put them in the swimming hug one, the math hug one, the piano lessons. Like all of that. From

1:21:10 Three PM All the way to nine PM. Yeah. So you were spending A lot of money per year.

1:21:18 For each child Because you want them to have the very best. Mm-hmm. And in Korea, the competitiveness around this is incredible. Yeah. If you're not putting them in the hug one.

1:21:28 Who are you as a parent? And that's incredible pressure. And That's incredible, like absorbent cost for someone who is not upwardly mobile, does not have an opportunity to have stock in a company and have it exit like we love in Silicon Valley. We put out stock options and equity as like the carrot.

1:21:46 of entrepreneurship and risk. They don't have that here. And it's changing. There are more and more startups. There are unicorns that are coming out of Korea. Coupang, Toss. There's a lot of consumer marketplaces and fin tech companies. It's becoming sort of a Silicon Valley of Korea. And it's exceeding the speed in in Japan. It's not quite what China is. China's very, very uh advanced and forward there. But Korea's finally be having a startup culture where risk is appreciated.

1:22:15 And admired and rewarded in some cases. But Outside of that. It is very expensive and is very difficult. And A lot of young couples.

1:22:26 May not want to get married right away. They may want to make their way in their career. So I think it is a problem. I mean, we all know the economics around population decline. Mm-hmm. That hurts GDP. It correlates. It's causal too, but at least it correlates. We can agree on that.

1:22:42 So I think it is a real problem. I don't know how it's solved. Not that I've thought a lot about it or a someone's asked me to solve it. Can you imagine a small country like this shrinking? Yeah. And what that does again to all these things. So and a lot of people w want to move out. They want to go. So

1:22:59 My family and everyone else's family everyone who moved to the US I would say Ninety nine percent of them moved for a better life. To go to America and to be able to live a better life and provide just a higher quality education and lifestyle for their families. Because it was hard in Korea

1:23:18 In the sixties, seventies. Even eighties. So If people are moving out. To find that upper mobility.

1:23:26 Uh Do better for their families. And then here you're somewhat still confined. That's a tough thing. And there's one last thing that is really challenging about Korea. It's there's a civil service examination.

1:23:39 That you take. to get into that score. really decides whether or not you get into a top university. I see that's the equivalent of an entrance exam. But it's more than that. It's like

1:23:50 You could not do all the S C, but you have a good GPA. Yeah. You interview well. Then you have all these tiers of Junior college, four year college.

1:24:00 Ivy League, you have a lot of options, liberal arts colleges, whatever the whatever you're looking for. Here. You're either in a top college or you're not. And if you do not go to college, it is Highly unlikely that you will have

1:24:15 ability to provide for a family, a large family, well in a healthy way. You're definitely not going to all these huglins and things like that. Mm-hmm. So

1:24:25 You're right in saying that K pop and K pop is like US is like pro sports. You know, that's the way it's the side route out.

1:24:35 And I think K pop and movies and entertainment and gaming Esports is huge here. You saw as they were setting up League of Legends uh stages downstairs. Yeah. Enormous. I mean there it's just It's like an entire. Playing field full of people down there.

1:24:53 Engaging with League of Legends. And those P C bungs, right? There was a guy with a huge sword shirtless and it was snowing. That is dedication. Let's switch gears to A little bit more about Like what's happening in Soft Power.

1:25:10 Let's do it. What was your take on All of this. Entertainment media The beauty industry.

1:25:17 This K wave. What was your opinion of it before coming here? I've been paying very close attention to it for the last few years because I'm always Curious. To distinguish between trends and fads. Right, I brought up beanie babies, not to throw beanie babies under the bus, but

1:25:35 There are certain things. That become fashionable because maybe a handful of celebrities are using X fill in the blank, like Ug Boots has been had many lives. It's like a Phoenix or I can certainly list many, many different things. But

1:25:54 How do you distinguish between that and not to get too finance, but like a secular tailwind with some type of trend. That is Inevitable, right? Like penetration of Broadband and smartphones. Yeah.

1:26:08 And Also trying to identify the flywheels at play or the elements that contribute to momentum. So for instance If you look at podcasting. And

1:26:21 For a lot of people who are have have not had the engagement that I've had for ten plus years now. Or No, it's not ten plus years, but as a listener, ten plus years, but as a producer as a producer of a podcast gonna be ten years next April. It seems like podcasts went from kind of nothing to everywhere.

1:26:39 is the perception for someone who's only engaging with it now, but they heard about podcasts. They're like, wow, how did it become that everyone is now on a podcast with a podcast, talking about podcasts? Seems like five years ago there was nothing. Well there was something five years ago, just like there was K-pop five years ago. But it suddenly seems like there's surround sound stereo where it's on magazine covers and it's online everywhere and there's news and your friends are talking about it and there are documentaries. And sometimes that comes together as an emergent property of a bunch of unrelated events, but sometimes there's orchestration and architecture behind it.

1:27:16 Or there's an example of a standout success. So for instance, in the case of podcasting serial. What's that? became a phenomenon. It was the show. that everybody had to listen to and it gripped maybe not the entire nation, but kind of the

1:27:33 New York. Literati. crowd and since the New York literati run the mastheads of these huge media outlets. It gave the impression of serial being huge, which it was. It was huge, yeah. And people were like, Podcast, how do I even listen to a podcast?

1:27:48 It introduced people to the medium. Exactly. It introduced people to the medium, it introduced them to platforms. And Looking at this explosion of Korean media. I'm like, okay, where did this start? What set the snowball?

1:28:03 In motion. And I haven't figured it out. I have not. Although certainly Parasite was a huge That was huge, but I'm like, that can't be I feel like that's the result of some preceding things that I have missed. Yes. Right. But I just I haven't.

1:28:17 known how to dissect it, so I'm like, okay. Well, let me keep an eye on things. And then I see Squid game, okay. So Squid Game Squid Game, Squid Games. I always mess up if it's singular or plural, but anyway, you see that explode and I'm like, Okay. That's interesting. Based on that success, I would imagine Netflix, because this seems to be what Netflix does, to be like, let us double down. On

1:28:42 Whatever this is. Algorithmically, what makes this show Yeah. Big part of it's Korea. It changed Netflix. Yeah. Their whole international strategy was

1:28:53 A good strategy. It was very unique to them. No one else was doing Hulu, Disney. They're not Focusing on international Netflix is the only one. When they launched in Korea and Japan.

1:29:03 I was like, great. It'll bring up subscriber numbers. Yeah. But then when it hit in Korea.

1:29:11 Mm-hmm. They increase the budgets many times over because They saw that it was not only the Korean market That loved This programming.

1:29:21 But it was the global markets. It was the content, the films and the T V shows coming out of the market and that they could Distribute. All across the planet. I must look at the Netflix

1:29:32 They were sort of carrying the pollen. Of Korean culture. Mm-hmm. This pop culture, this media culture, the entertainment. And they Excellered it.

1:29:42 To a level where It probably felt like a sudden overnight thing. But you're absolutely right. It's not only emergent, but it was emergent over the course of several decades. Right. And so it's immersion over the course of several days and then there are these accelerants, right? Like Covet almost certainly was an accelerant. You people at home watching Netflix looking for something to bond over. And boom, around the same time, you've got

1:30:05 a bunch of this Korean stuff coming in that's very high quality, really compelling. And it's new. Also different different like what what is this, right? Like Americans reading subtitles? And even though I've never really been involved with film A little bit of television. I'm very interested to see

1:30:26 which dominoes tip over a lot of other dominoes, right? And how the macroeconomic stuff factors into it in geopolitics, but it's more the economic side. So for instance, seeing how Film production has changed, both in terms of funding for films, but also main protagonists in the US, where Almost I'm not gonna say without exception, but if you look at a lot of the blockbusters, whether it's the Mission Impossible movies or Marvel movies, it's like they always want to have

1:30:57 a Chinese at least one Chinese main character. Why? Because it is Very important. that you get the Chinese market. Super important financially. Right. And it almost feels like Just jammed in there though. Oh, it's totally jammed in there. It's like what? Okay.

1:31:17 Victorian like a biopic and then it's a Chinese guy. It's totally just like shoehorned in a lot of the time. Yeah. But part of the reason I paid so much attention to Korea is that Korea's small. Yeah. Right? So it's like an export game. The US is not looking for like total addressable market in Korea. It's the opposite, which is a lot harder.

1:31:37 to pull off as a smaller player. And I've been tracking it. I've also been Impressed, very impressed. And this does not get I don't think this gets enough air time. So hopefully this podcast will make people Explore a bit like Korean design.

1:31:55 Mm-hmm. And aesthetic. Mm-hmm. Is super sharp. And the best book design I wanna be fair, there are a couple of really good ones in terms of publishers who have published my books in foreign languages.

1:32:09 The Korean publisher, maybe publishers for my books have done an exceptional job with book design. And As you know and as we've been discussing, education important, right? Literacy. very high. Voracious readers in Korea. Also true with Germany. It's disproportionately

1:32:29 the case where like you look at how my books have performed in Germany. And it outperforms the UK plus Australia plus like almost everywhere outside of the US because the culture itself values education and reading, but to your Question about Korea, like K pop, I mean pop music in general, especially boy bands, girl bands, is not really my jam. Mm-hmm. But as a study, it's interesting for me because I feel like

1:32:54 It could be anything. I read a book on Ryanair ages ago, because I was like, okay, how did Ryanair suddenly seemingly become ubiquitous? How did this happen? 'Cause if I can study that and I can study what's happening with K pop and then Korean entertainment. Maybe there's something I can learn. That will allow me to as an investor predict this.

1:33:15 earlier, right, where you have converging trends that are coming. For instance, like Shopify, we were talking about Shopify earlier today. That was the as far as I know, the first advisor to Shopify when they had like ten employees and is is like if you just looked at the tech trends If you were able to bet on the right team in e commerce And setting up that kind of back end plumbing for websites to be able to sell things. It's like This is a trend that is going to continue. Doesn't seem to be any.

1:33:41 reasonable. possibility they could be interrupted. outside of like nuclear holocaust. So Let's find the right team. And that maybe in retrospect seems obvious, but so do a lot of great companies. But if you can kinda see where things are converging, Uber, right in our case would be another example of that.

1:34:01 Where it's like, Okay, let's not look at And this parallels to Korea where it's like in the beginning and you remember this. I mean how many hundreds of people said no to Uber, right? Uber ended up on like an angel list early days and like people are like, what this is ridiculous. This is for the black cars for the one percenters in San Francisco's boo, lamb, tech bro, blah, blah, blah. And a lot of the Professional investors who said no, said no because they were like, Well, let's look at the

1:34:27 Total addressable market for people who are going to use black cars. Look at what percentage. Uber can Yeah. Manage to secure. And it's like, no, it's not the right way to look at it. It would be like looking at at parasite. And these various T V shows and being like all right, well what's the population of Korea?

1:34:43 Oh it's declining. Well, what percentage of Koreans can you get to watch this? And it's like no no no. You can expand the market. Right. Right. So I know I'm meandering a bit all over the place, but so one is like a predictive mechanism. Like all right, well, can I see things That

1:34:58 Two, three, five years from now are going to be obvious. But I'll just like see it earlier because I've learned to look for the Precursors. And then secondly, because I write, because I have podcasts. Coming up on my tenth anniversary.

1:35:12 And I'm using that as an opportunity to think about what's next for me. And generally after five to ten years of doing something, it gets really crowded, if I pick it correctly. The game gets harder. oftentimes I end up enjoying it less even though I'm still enjoying the podcast. And I'm like all right. What's next for me?

1:35:31 In which case, maybe there are techniques, maybe there are things I can look for. Levers I can pull. That would allow me to also build momentum on a micro level. that I've seen at the macro level, say with this Korean entertainment stuff. So I've been paying a lot of attention, but I'll be honest, I don't know how to pay proper attention because I don't think the way to pay proper attention is to read the mainstream

1:35:56 US media coverage of the K Wave. I don't think that's the right way to do it. No, absolutely not. Right. I'll give a shout out to some books that have been very helpful. There's a great Outfit to is a publishing company called Talk to Me in Korean. I've got Talk to Me in Korean level one. I've got real life Korean conversations for beginners. I'm hoping to improve my Korean enough that eventually at some point I could actually do some Korean language reading on this stuff or listening. I will say. In the week that we've been here.

1:36:26 I was really honestly surprised. Uh Not only your ability to read Korean. Angles.

1:36:34 Wherever we went. But to also Deliver it. Anunciate it in the right way. And so

1:36:41 I was kinda surprised. I mean, we've been friends for a long time and I've seen you speak Japanese and Mandarin. But I was really surprised because I knew you've never been here and never studied any Korean language. And I remember I asked you, I said, How long have you been studying? and you're like, Two days. So Even as a longtime friend, I was very surprised.

1:36:59 So that's a skill. That It's not only about Finding a great method or applying yourself. But the fact that you would insist to order by yourself and you would have a conversation with someone. Yeah. There's a f a part of like

1:37:13 Throwing yourself into the mix to be able to do that. So question back to you on that. I admire that. That's amazing. Thank you. Like I've had to do that in Beijing and Shanghai with Mandarin. Because I look Asian I can pass a little bit more.

1:37:30 When I'm speaking, you know, I'm like You know, I said, right? And so and then I'll get a little bit of a pass, right? But yeah. You're a white guy. Yeah. And you're coming in here confident. Yeah. learn a lot of Asian languages and you're fluent into Tell me about what you are doing.

1:37:49 When you were learning. Like how do you think about The material. Mm-hmm. And how do you think about your method?

1:37:57 On both those, because I think that's really interesting. I I I've never seen someone do this with creein this fast. And I've had a lot of people Try. So I wanna give a a heartfelt high five and thank you to the Korean people first, because I will say Part of the reason I've been so Excited to do it. And then I'll get into the method and what I'm doing.

1:38:17 Is People here are so supportive of it and they're surprised. And the positive feedback is great. So it's not like France. It's not like France. I mean there are some great people in France, but they're less supportive. In Japan. They're very supportive, right? Like if you can introduce yourself to like Oh, so you know, Oh Joseph, Joseph But I wasn't sure what to expect here.

1:38:39 And It gives me an i the impression. And I don't know if this is accurate, but it gives me the impression that a lot of foreigners just don't try here because people are like, Oh Like if I order sparkling water and create and they're just like oh wow yeah. So the the approach that I've taken

1:38:55 And part of the challenge in learning any language is you don't know which textbooks or sources are going to be good. Now there are tools and full disclosure, like I I invested in them very in their series A, but like Duolingo. has become this incredible resource worldwide. So I did use some Duolingo. I Then

1:39:14 supplemented that, I wanted to look at methods that I had applied to previous languages. And there are a few methods that off the shelf other people Can use and then I have my own. Kind of eclectic. Freestyle approach that I

1:39:31 There is a method called the Michelle Thomas Method, M I C H E L. Thomas method and Michelle Thomas way back in the day, I think he taught languages to Barbara Streisand and all these celebrities. He was, if I'm remembering correctly, he was either born in Switzerland or Germany. He was in the military, I believe he was Jewish. taught himself a million different languages.

1:39:53 And I think he was in intelligence for a good period of time. And What I like about his method is that it is for most people the opposite of what they experienced in school. That is Very

1:40:06 unpleasant for most people who are subjected to it. Most people who study language at school, they're like First of all, I'm never gonna use what they're teaching me. Second of all, they're trying to get me to read Tables of conjugations. It's so foreign, not just in the language, but just in the format.

1:40:23 That A it's unpleasant. B people don't retain anything. A lot of people who are, say, American listening to this will have In school been required to study multiple years of Spanish and nonetheless they basically Don't speak Spanish, right? They can ask where the bathroom is.

1:40:38 Or say good day. That's about it. Michelle Thomas asks you to take no notes whatsoever. It is purely Auditory. Interesting. If you listen to the method. No reading.

1:40:50 No reading. Okay. Zero reading. Okay. There are some shortcomings. Associated with that. Which is why I've added other things. But with the Michelle Thomas I started I Read this cartoon, which is How to Learn to Read Korean in Fifteen Minutes, which is really well done, and I'll put this in the Really well done. I'll put this in the show notes.

1:41:09 Then I watched a couple of YouTube Videos. on how to read Korean. And

1:41:17 Just to get the reading up to speed again. In this particular case, it's not true for Chinese it's Certainly gonna be harder for something like Arabic. Greek, you can do it pretty easily. Cyrillic, so Russian, you could also learn to read and sound out in about an hour. Once you have that, your goal is to get to the point where you can absorb things ambiently by walking around and seeing menus and so on on a trip like this. But with the Michelle Thomas method.

1:41:42 It's similar to what some people will be familiar with as the Pimsler method, where It introduces vocabulary. And then it basically functions almost like Anki. There's an app called Anki, which means rote memorization in Japanese, funny enough. Or I think it was Super Memo way back in the day. Where is it? Some type of

1:42:01 I wanna say it was like an algorithmically driven spaced repetition system. So when you're just about to forget A word. It prompts you to recall it. And it's very effective at helping you to retain this material.

1:42:15 Because it'll introduce something like Concurreu. Like to study. And then they won't use it for like thirty minutes and then it'll be like I am going to study.

1:42:26 Korean today. And so you're using it in a different way, but the using it in a different context, but taking the same word that you're just not to forget. Yeah. And then it Pops it back up to the top. in your short term memory. And so you'd say on Concurreu.

1:42:43 And Then Later on it'll be like you already learned how to say I studied Korean today. How would you say I studied Korean? Yesterday. Hajiman.

1:42:54 I'm going to Work today. If I own. And then it'll be like all right, you learned how to say And I was very impressed with the way they did it. Michelle Thomas was like the Michael Jordan of language teaching. So I listened to his original recordings before he died for Spanish, German

1:43:12 Italian. Gantangerous as fuck, which I loved. Like he would get all pissed off at the students because the format is somebody is teaching to other students. Right. And they're live. Like the other students are screwing up and like sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. And you're the third student. So you have to try to answer But you answer before the other students and then the other students answer. And I listened to the Michelle Thomas original recordings and I was very skeptical that they could take his method.

1:43:42 And have another teacher. use it with students. But the way they did it in this Korean is they had an American guy who lived in Korea speaks Korean and then they had a native speaker. And it was the combination. And I thought they did a very nice job. The one critique I would have is that in the original recordings Michelle Thomas would say something like How do you say

1:44:03 I want to eat. Quiero comer in Spanish, right? And then I go Boop and there'd be a beep, and that meant you're supposed to reply. There's a space. And then it would go back to the recording and the other two students would answer. With the Korean, you have to hit pause a million times.

1:44:19 Because if you just hear the other students repeat, you're training your recognition, but not your production. So I was using the Michelle Thomas method and I only got through four or five of those before you arrived. And I knew I was gonna be able to do it. Doing less. Sit down studying. Yeah, yeah. Oh you really haven't had it any time.

1:44:37 I have an idea. So you're you're actually giving samples of correct grammar Korean right now. I'm still impressed because you haven't really had much time to do this. No, I haven't had much time, but I will say also what I've tried very hard to do. And this is a question I get a lot from folks. There are many people who are better at learning languages than I am, but Because it's not my full time thing. Like there's some people who are online and their brand is language learning. It's like okay, well, you better be better than I am and you you have the space to do that because it's your job. And that's not a swipe. Like there are some amazing people out there who speak, you know, ten plus languages and and did it as adults. It's mind blowing. The only way that I can

1:45:16 maintain my other languages. is if I tie them to the next language that I learn. So for instance I used Spanish. To then learn German by using one piece, the comic book. One piece has a gazillion volumes. So you can read it in Japanese. And then when I learned Spanish, I had the same volumes in Japanese and Spanish. So I'd try to read them in Spanish, the benefit being it's almost all dialogue. If I couldn't figure it out before I went to the dictionary, I would go back to the Japanese version. Panel for panel, it's the same thing. I'd be like, Oh, okay, okay.

1:45:50 And then I'm tying the Japanese to the Spanish. And then when I learn German a couple of months later, which I've totally forgotten, unfortunately. German's gone. So sorry about that, guys. It's too busy light, but I've forgotten it all. Then I used the Spanish one piece to learn the German. One Piece. This is a a Japanese manga comic book that

1:46:11 is legendary. It's the highest grossing franchise out of Japan, as far as Mongo, above Dragon Ball Z and all of those. And With the Korean. I knew reading was the key unlock. Reading was was number one. The second piece was that I had to tie it to something else I already knew, and I did that with Japanese and Mm-hmm. A lot of strong similarities. So for instance, even though they wouldn't

1:46:36 Admit it. No, exactly. This is where I have to be so careful because now I'm coming here and I'm saying I can know the history, but I'm like shit, I don't want to get I don't want to piss people off. Speak Japanese. Yeah, yeah, I very well. Yeah, you have a lot of

1:46:51 Tarot card reading places here, which I did not expect at all. And a lot of them say that they can also do the readings in Japanese. I've seen a number of signs. That's probably because of there are a lot of Japanese tourists. Oh, for sure. Yeah. A lot of Japanese women Mm-hmm. love coming for tour guided trips in Korea.

1:47:11 Going to the locations is In the storyline of Korean dramas and movies. It's like the uh Americans who go to Debrovnik or wherever to see the Game of Thrones places. Sector.

1:47:27 And it's not just Japanese. It's you know. other Asian groups and Europeans. Actually, here's a funny interesting fact. Someone from Navarre. Which is one of the big public internet companies here. Kind of like Yahoo or Google. Side note, if you think you're gonna use Google Maps here, you're not you're gonna have to use neighbor Macau Maps. So the super app thing is real here, by the way. What Elon wants to do with Twitter?

1:47:50 It's only been done really in We and maybe Latin America, right? Yeah. You you're talking like a WeChat type of thing. Yeah, you can do everything you want to have. Yeah. So Someone from Neighbor. Told me in a meeting. Yeah. K pop is so big.

1:48:04 And All the different like the digital artwork and media and content and all the things that you can buy and consume around that type of artist. Like think about all the merch, digital merch. Said

1:48:18 France is actually a larger market than The domestic market. Wow. By dollars. And And I said, Are you sure? Do you mean

1:48:28 By some other metric, some other I said no. By by gross dollars, we do better with all of the licensed partner content around K pop. Fans and artists. In France than we do in Korea. So that might be just

1:48:42 Their business around K pop? digital content. But It is interesting that Korea is Almost wholly across the board. To your point about Netflix, to your point about

1:48:55 What to learn. It is an export. society, it is an export economy. They are shipping things like steel. They're shipping things like chips. Yeah. Wireless smartphones. Mm-hmm.

1:49:09 They're now starting to ship a software. Marketplaces are moving out. And they're also. in that other side of soft power. They're exporting.

1:49:18 Movies. Books. T V series. Music. Fashion.

1:49:25 Beauty. Korean beauty products are Growing like wildfire. Not only in the US, where that's understandable because you have a diaspora Korean American group and Asian American, but Europe. Where

1:49:37 French and Swiss beauty. That's the stronghold of the Eurocentric beauty, concepts of beauty, Korean products are Becoming luxury products there. Next to the L VMH and the the caring group products, right? So

1:49:53 I think If there's anything to learn from That export mindset. I mean you mentioned about how You felt like the book

1:50:02 Publishing and the design. There's bakeries that are And this is really falling suit of what Japan did. over the last forty or fifty years. It was a contract.

1:50:14 Manufacturing economy. That became an original OEM design economy. They leveraged what they had learned and they did better. Like the story of Japanese whiskey. Yeah. Is incredible, right? They sent one guy

1:50:28 To go learn from the masters in Scotland. And he came back and started Sun Tori. Yeah. Right. It's wild. And I think a lot of that was learned. By

1:50:39 Koreans. And they started learning that in heavy industry. The main street in Kang Nam is called Te Rano. Okay, so just as quick footnote for people. So if you Remember the uh that's another breakthrough moment, kinda like serial.

1:50:52 Gang Dom style. that music video past a billion and people were like, What the hell is going on? Total breakthrough moment for Korean culture. Yeah. As an export. And Gang Num is a neighborhood. Yeah, Dungam is The most modern

1:51:08 District. In so It's the newest modern area of Office buildings. We went there the other day. A lot of LED walls and fancy stores, things like that. It's the newshole. Korea's shifted from

1:51:24 An economy of contract manufacturing. Samsung was a contract manufacturer for Japanese companies, electronics companies. As well as having all these other businesses in in the larger conglomerate. But in the beginning a lot of this was shipping, import, export. Heavy industry. Things like that. Mm-hmm.

1:51:41 And then they were contract manufacturers for Sony. Sony was originally a contract manufacturer for American consumer electronics companies. So th there was a transition. But there was a moment in Korean history where The export of labor. This skilled

1:51:58 Industrial labor was What helped you? Bring Revenue and country alliances to Korea.

1:52:05 Which was a very poor country at the time. So the main road In Kong now. It's called Teherano. Mm.

1:52:13 And the reason why it's called Teherano Is that Iran. Mm-hmm. In the seventies. In the sixties too.

1:52:24 Higher. A lot of Korean workforce. So does Saudi Arabia and other countries to come be The skilled labor. Huh.

1:52:33 In other countries, like Koreans were the minors. In Germany. They got exported there. to be the miners'cause no one in domestically wanted to be a minor'cause you had a high likelihood of death. emphysema. So The reason why it's called Teadan though is that it's in tribute.

1:52:50 to their friends in Iran. Who gave them all this economic uplift. Through labor. And revenue. And they named it after Tehran.

1:52:59 Well. And so that's why it's called Teherano. Hm. And If you look at like the history of Korea, it was We will export our men.

1:53:09 And our women as nurses and our men as Hard labor. In these industrial roles. And then it was shipping, then it was steel, and then they moved up. the pyramid in terms of becoming a service economy into

1:53:24 a manufacturing economy and then to a knowledge workers service economy. Right. And They started creating an original. Chip designs. Working on broadband. And being the leaders in broadband.

1:53:37 Both wireless and Fiber broadband. I was speaking with one of the leading wireless telcos. Here and they're not like ATT and Verizon back home. They're like the big tech companies that have software. And he was just telling me that

1:53:52 Singtel and other regional Wireless companies, mobile carriers in Asia often come to them to ask them about the newest technology. How they should approach. their own strategies around this. Around LTE.

1:54:04 Five G And now around AI. Mm-hmm. And so Wireless telecom companies here are building their own language models.

1:54:12 Yeah, that's it. Which you would never expect A T and T and Verizon to go compete with open AI. Yeah. And so There is this accelerated sense of We must achieve something. Tomorrow.

1:54:24 Because we're already behind. And that is a very Korean mentality. What we were talking about with Hanjong, I'm gonna try to bring this all together in a theory. In a grand theory. But this grand theory is also that Tomorrow is not guaranteed.

1:54:38 For South Koreans. There's a well understood. Tension with North Korea that At any moment. This could all be over.

1:54:48 I don't truly understand it'cause I'm an American. I live in California. But my parents, the older generation, they feel it, they talk about it. They obsess over it. If you look at newscasts, you look at books, you look at YouTube. This is like the hot topic. What to do about this? How do we reunify?

1:55:08 Or do we not? And I think because tomorrow's not guaranteed. They're living. In the moment.

1:55:14 To do exactly what they want as fast as possible with an impatience that expresses itself as so industrious, so productive. Look at them cranking out such a small country cranking out Films that are winning a Cannes Film Festival. The Palm Dor there, Oscar's here. You know largest the most successful artist, music artists in the world, most you know, high growth cosmetic beauty brands, largest mobile smartphone manufacturer other than Apple.

1:55:41 Why is this coming from the small country? My opinion on this and people can disagree and many many would. Is that They are Designed in their mindset.

1:55:52 And raised. But If you don't do it now. You may never have a chance to do it again later. And so they are living in the moment, knowing that seventeen miles away.

1:56:03 Or Millions of soldiers and artillery and missiles pointed at them. I'm glad you brought up the seventeen miles away,'cause in most people's mind at least I shouldn't say most. What a ridiculous statement. In my mind, and in the minds of certainly many of my friends. Seoul as this huge cosmopolitan city exists far away from North Korea. No, it is not far away.

1:56:26 It is right there. It's very close. Well frame it in terms that people can understand. It is closer than San Francisco is to San Jose.

1:56:35 Ha. That's twenty eight miles. Yeah. So substantially closer.

1:56:41 Yeah. And so this living in the moment or achieving for just tomorrow Mm-hmm. This impatience. Yeah. That to me is this Hun

1:56:51 That's looming in the background of everyone's mind. And this is angst about Upward mobility and being able to achieve and that pushes cranes out in the diaspora. to become gilpole because they can't do it here because the system won't allow it. It's kinetic.

1:57:06 And it's sometimes ugly and painful. But it's kinetic and it's the craziest thing. And when people come here Even me for me, like who understands this somewhat And I come in as a half insider, half outsider. I get this sense and it's very emotional for me actually. Like in the US I feel very stoic about all that's happening. I feel like

1:57:25 I was raised in that. But when I come back here, it's like I'm going into this other dimension where Everyone here is moving twice as fast. It's like the feeling like when you go to New York. The physical kinetic aspect. of what's happening there, you're like, Wow, LA people are so moving so slowly.

1:57:41 Physically moving slowly. Yeah. And in New York you're like You feel tired. After like a couple of days in Manhattan. You come to Korea. I think only New Yorkers

1:57:51 Can really understand. Living in soul.'Cause you have to move fast. It's kinetic. It is hyper kinetic. And I think people should visit, man. I really do. I think people should visit and learn some Korean. It's such a beautiful language.

1:58:06 The uh writing especially if you've only ever read Romanized alphabet. Mm-hmm. What a fun thing to stretch your brain and learn some Korean hunger because it's so as you said. Regular. Like once you have it.

1:58:20 You have it. It's not like English where you can have fish like ph is F I S H and then enough is O Of Phu phu same sound. O U G H. It's like oh my God, this language. It's a mess. It's a complete mess. And Create a super regular

1:58:35 And what I would say also about language just as an addendum to what we're talking about is If you learn 10 sentences. Anybody can learn 10 sentences. Anybody. Mm-hmm. It will

1:58:47 fundamentally change your experience in a country. Full stop. People will respond to you differently. You will also be a better guest in that country. And It's fun.

1:58:57 And you can learn ten sentences. It's not that hard. And there's gonna be stuff, for instance, I love sparkling water. I know every day I'm gonna ask for sparkling water. So it's like Tan is just there. Learn how to ask for sparkling water. And then like every time I get an omelet, it's like, Oh yeah, there's no salt and pepper. Why is there no salt and pepper in this country? And then I'm like, I know I'm gonna have to ask for at least salt. It's like learn how to say salt. And there are a couple of other Just fun tips for folks. Like you can come up with

1:59:23 A couple of because you're gonna be entertaining as a foreigner trying to learn a foreign language like Koreans. You to learn a couple of things that are like off menu. Like where's the bathroom is on menu? Like they would expect that's something you would learn. Well, asking for food, I mean So what's been your thought about Korean food so far? I mean you've had Korean food

1:59:42 Yeah. In the US or Yeah. Yeah. That version of it. So what do you think so far? Oh man, Korean food is incredible. I'll just give a couple just on the language thing, I'll wrap it up real fast, which is like learn a couple of phrases that are kind of funny. So for instance, in almost any language you can learn to say Something like long time no see, which by the way, in English is borrowed directly from Chinese.

2:00:02 Hou it yet. Long time no see. But you can you know, always put it on that like in Japanese or here, like Like use a really polite form and they're Oh, that was good. Oh thanks. And people are like, What? Like I'm like, I'm just kidding, it's not that long. And people get a good laugh out of it. So you can learn a couple of things like that, or like, you know, Chinese go. Like just like uh no rush, take it easy, like do it slowly. So learn a couple of things like that and you'll just have a better time. Korean food. Is fucking amazing. It's so good. It's so good. And I did have a funny experience, I'll be honest.

2:00:36 I have not had much cream barbecue, but I wanted to of course have cream barbecue. And went out to cream barbecue and there were a bunch of side dishes and I started like eating the salad because it looked like an appetizer. The guys were like, Uh, that's not an appetizer. It's a side dish that you eat when the beef comes out. I was like, Oh, okay, great. So the beef comes out. And Number one again. And it w it was Caldby? Have you?

2:01:02 Uh I'm not sure. Korean barbecue. Korean barbecue. Short rip. It wasn't short rib. It was it was different cuts. It wasn't short rib in this case, it wasn't Calbi. However. The meat comes out and I was like oh Because if you know in Japan it's like

2:01:14 If you have meat of rice. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, we're gonna eat rice with it. And they're like, Well No, you kinda have the rice like a dessert. And I was like, Huh. Okay. Never would have guessed that. So you have the rice at the end, at least we did. I'm two for two with this now. And had some what was it? It was like fermented soybean soup towards the end. But another aspect that I had never run into And this leads to a couple of open questions for me.

2:01:40 Is I think it was sesame oil. Yeah. And one of the guys with me was like, Yeah, we this is kind of our olive oil. Like we dipped the beef into the sesame oil, which I'd never done, and I was like, Okay. The sesame oil was sort of like a condiment, right? It was like how you how you dip bread. And so you eat this. It's basically just all meet all the time for a section. You have a little bit of kimchi, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

2:02:03 And What I loved was also in this particular case, and I think this is not true everywhere, but They were using Charcoal. Instead of just

2:02:14 Say uh some kind of And the heat was so high. The these thick cuts We're cooking pretty much completely within a handful of minutes.

2:02:28 In my experience with Korea versus Anywhere I've been in East Asia, even Central Asia. Is You guys use scissors a lot. Scissors for me. Scissors for cutting stuff. Yeah.

2:02:39 And uh by the way, uh Annoys my wife so much. I cook a lot of barbecue. Yeah, yeah. I'm a self professed grill master for my family. I'm all I have Meat scissors. Oh yeah and I'm constantly clipping. Yeah, why the hell would you use a knife? It makes so much sense. Have you seen the Korean meat scissors that have the bottle cap opener for beer?

2:03:01 Oh it's genius. That makes it makes all the sense in the world. Yeah. Yeah, it makes all the sense in the world. So Korean barbecue has been amazing. And I would say I was surprised and I shouldn't be, but I came in blank slate, right? I really didn't know what I was

2:03:17 Going to experience here, but if you go to where you took Me, for instance. People hear the word Hyundai. And they think car.

2:03:26 Yeah. Like low end car. Yeah. But if you go to the Hyundai department store, which is super luxe. Super deluxe. beautiful and trust me, I'm not a department store guy. But this is like the most beautiment store I've ever been in.

2:03:42 And The entire basement, which is like a city. is this food court, but food court is a bullshit for what this is. It is just This never ending sea of culinary delights of every variety.

2:03:57 And The ice cream, the Coissels, the pastries. Korea really knows how to do food. The food is spectacular.

2:04:10 And I think that that Is actually The most important part. Of Korean soft power. If we're talking about this as a export economy. Yeah.

2:04:20 It is the first thing that people loved, even before K pop. Food. That I've taken a cream barbecue for the first time that hasn't said I cannot believe I've never eaten this before. Yeah. This is incredible. I'll give you a funny story about Austin, your current city. Back in two thousand

2:04:40 And eleven. Mm-hmm. I was down there for south by southwest. My Snarf has just launched as a music. app startup and a friend from Food and Wine magazine asked me if I wanted to be a contestant In a barbecue sauce contest.

2:04:54 In Austin as part of South by South West. I said, Sure. I said, What do I need to do? Well, you need to go out and get your own materials at the grocery store and then We're gonna compete and we're gonna grow. Everyone's gonna be around there. There's gonna be a whole audience and it's gonna be an audience Participation. And vote. So I was like, I only know how to cook one type of barbecue, but you know.

2:05:13 I'll try. So I basically did a American barbecue recipe. And I took a cream barbecue recipe, which my mother taught me. And I knew like the back of my hand I could do that in my sleep. Yeah.

2:05:24 So I got soy sauce, got sesame oil. I got. Pears. I got like Bartlett Pears'cause they didn't have the Asian pears in Austin. Yeah. And then brown sugar, Coca Cola. Wow. Uh garlic.

2:05:36 Sesame seeds, everything. Mm-hmm. And I made a Korean barbecue. And then I put in like The tomatoes and I put in I got some molasses, put that in there.

2:05:47 And I made this whole big pot and put some onions in there too, just to give it a little bit more kick. And I put it in a pot. I didn't describe it to anyone. So I made a Korean barbecue. Marinade. In a Texas style and put in his big pot. And

2:06:02 I had a friend there, Michael Galpert, who was from New York at the time. He was watching me do this whole thing. Everyone else had done some sort of like Carolina barbecue or Memphis barbecue. And you'd go up and you'd take these Grilled chicken, drumsticks, and these baby back ribs that were unsauced and unseasoned, but grilled. And People would go try it. And everyone loved it.

2:06:24 My pot. The whole thing was like whose pot would get lower first. And everyone said, What's in that? And I said Soy sauce, sesame oil. Garlic, right? I said, I'm sorry I don't have any kimchi for you. But it would just it would just top it off. And so I I really feel like of all the soft power Mm-hmm. Thanks. Of all the exports, cultural exports.

2:06:46 Korean food is The most important one. Oh, incredible. Look. I will not be that overly proud. Korean, Korean American and say this is better than everyone else. I will say that Korean food is the best food on the planet.

2:07:01 I I I've tried everything. I love Japanese food. I love Mexican food. I love Italian food. French food, obviously in fine dining but um and you know, I think Korean food is the original Mm-hmm. Export other than the skilled labor. from the sixties and seventies. And

2:07:18 Whenever you see a Korean restaurant Mm-hmm. If you go there. This is like learning Korean when you go to Seoul when you visit Seoul. If you find a Korean restaurant in your town Mm-hmm.

2:07:27 Wherever you are. Go up to them and practice your trea. Yeah. Ask them. What would you eat?

2:07:34 Mm. You can speak English to them, it's fine. But say what would you eat? And say I heard that

2:07:40 Koreans have great stews. Do you have a stew? Mm-hmm. Sundubuchige. Mm-hmm. Seeker. And these stews. Korean food is comfort food.

2:07:50 Yeah. There are a lot of people trying to make upscale food and there are people like Corey Lee at Benu in San Francisco and David Chang at Mumufuku that have perfected a upscale version of Korean food? But cream food is comfort food. It's home cooking food. We had food the other day and I was saying Gotta eat the stuff that's like This is a poor country's food. Mm-hmm.

2:08:09 And that's the best stuff. The other stuff is great. So anyways. I wanted to give Kudos to the original

2:08:17 Korean export that everyone loves, which is Korean barbecue. Korean barbecue and Korean food. And uh The stews. I didn't expect it. to be broadsided about us to do is they're so Delicious. And

2:08:30 Fair warning. Can get pretty spicy. Korean food can get pretty spicy. Doesn't get murky. You can get murky. Like you don't unless you're Korean or unless you've looked at the recipe in the preparation, kinda don't know what's in there.

2:08:46 Marky and You can definitely earn points also just by Speaking a little bit of Korean. You can just say like Oh, due toil. You get a thousand points of credit.

2:09:00 From Any Korean. If you try to speak the language. They love it. It'll smooth all rough edges.

2:09:08 on anything that you're talking about with them if you try. If you at least it's just a word. Just a word or two, right? Thank you. I guess you so. It's like It is

2:09:20 If you want to say it's really good, or very good, you say Ah just much so. Ah Just um Chahu or Cham. Oh Cham is a good one. Or King Jang. King Jungy. Yeah, yeah, that's like. And when you

2:09:36 When you were eating. If you don't finish it. Yeah. That's a silent way of saying it wasn't good. I learned this the hard way.

2:09:44 Going to I flew this is of course this is what I do. I flew to LA then went to San Diego. 'Cause I wanted to train with a Korean archery coach. Because

2:09:56 There are couple of things I'll just mention in passing. Why? the sports that Koreans are particularly Cadê. Yeah, I mean for a long time, maybe even still.

2:10:07 Break dancing Koreans were many levels above everybody else. I mean they were by far the best in the world. Archery. By far the best in the world. Somebody can fact check this, but I think the women's archery gold medal has been taken by Koreans for

2:10:23 every Olympics since the Koreans started competing. It's like I actually know a lot about why that's the case on the archery side, because it's like systematized at every level of education and it's uh a very big deal. But I went out to he was like You and me. We're gonna have dinner. And that's not really the thing you say no to. So I'm like Of course we're gonna have dinner. So I go out to Korean barbecue.

2:10:46 And He ordered so much food. I mean I'm one seventy now. I used to be at my highest and I wasn't fat. Two twenty. Like I can eat. And

2:10:58 He buried me. In food. But then he said to me, like there I still had all this food in front of me and he's like Yeah, you can't leave that. You gotta you gotta eat that. Like, okay. Yeah, that's like he's like you keep he's like, Yeah, you can't leave rice. I mean take off your shoes. Bow Say the food is good.

2:11:19 Finish your plate and bowl. Yeah. And all is good. Everything's good. I wanted to talk a little bit about

2:11:27 The Big Damjune film. The Dem June B. So just talking a little bit about film. We were at Sundance together. In Utah. Park City. Great city.

2:11:36 Great place. Best time to go skiing or snowboarding. Is during Sundance. Because nobody's skiing there all the all the all the festival and then the locals don't want to get anywhere near the place. That's right. 'Cause it's mayhem. We uh premiered our documentary on just to be clear, our is not me and Steve's Oh no, sorry. The the collective We are ours, uh the the great director and team and including Steve Yoon.

2:12:02 actor but also executive producer on this film with me. And you came to that But I would love to hear s some of your thoughts on this because he is the most famous Korean artist. Well why don't you tell people the title? The title of the documentary. Yeah.

2:12:18 is Moon is the oldest TV. It's on Apple. And it'll be on Netflix probably by the time this podcast comes out. Which will be great. And

2:12:28 The quick background, the high level background is Namjian Pike. Or in Korean we would say Peknam Jun'cause we say the last name first. Phnom Jun. Is The most famous Korean artists of the twentieth century.

2:12:42 was the father of digital and video art. So whenever you see like T Vs all set up in an array like displays. Yeah. And um he did the T V Buddha, which is probably his most famous work with a camera. Constantly taking video on a catheter two of a sitting Buddha statue and the Buddha's looking at himself. And he coined the term information superhighway and Kind of predicted social media.

2:13:06 He is uh well regarded in the art world, but not really known outside, which is kind of interesting. So it's a film out of Passion for his story. And you got to see it. So I would love to hear kind of you coming in without knowing I I don't think you knew about him. Yeah, I knew very little. about him. I mean really just what you had told me.

2:13:24 And I really enjoyed The Window into

2:13:32 his personal story, his creative process, his insanity on some lead in the sense that he was highly experimental. Also This is true for so many artists. and innovators deeply Tortured might be too strong a word, but I went through some very difficult times.

2:13:52 had very little money at points. I remember the footage of his one of his apartments just caving in and like the water coming through the ceilings. And The difficulty in forging a path And experimenting when you're not getting a lot of applause. From

2:14:11 Any majority. Whatsoever. And How incredibly Trying that is.

2:14:20 Because it's one thing. Two The say an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley in a culture where The risk taker is lionized and

2:14:32 Even failure on some level on many levels is accepted. Where you'll be applauded for trying. versus what he was doing. Which is true, I think, for most people in most cultures and most times, which is really operating at the fringe with other people who are doing this.

2:14:51 Type of experimentation. Not just artists, but also technologists. And Taking the path less traveled really. really painful at times.

2:15:03 and in many instances not financially rewarding. So I was just impressed with his Tenacity and he's also just such a character. And I said this to you the other day, but one of my favorite one of my favorite lines was Nam Jim Pike spoke many languages, none of them well. Spoke a lot of languages, but they were all broken. He spoke Pikish. He spoke Pikish. And I found that so endearing. Real endearing guy. As well. Well his story is really interesting. He is one of those

2:15:36 Breakthrough moments. for Korean culture and society and that He was the only internationally known artist. In the seventies, eighties, nineties, and even into the two thousands, and then he passed away in that decade. He was the

2:15:52 ambassador or the representative as crazy as he might have seemed to everyone. Uh. That in the art world. He was Appreciated, admired, and followed for that.

2:16:05 And it's very uncorean for that time period. You have to remember that at that time period Korea was under essentially a dictatorial Administration. And to clarify for folks also, I mean, he was outside of he was in Germany, he was in the US, you know, he's part of the diaspora. Yeah, he was part of the diaspora.

2:16:24 If he had done what he was doing in Korea, he would have been censored. It was too weird. It was too out there. It was too Counter-political In all respects. And even when he visited, you saw that footage. He was nervous that he would not be able to leave Korea and that he would get locked up.

2:16:42 Yeah. When he visited much later. Right. But they embraced him. Which is really interesting because If he'd done all that here, he would have been shut down. But the fact that he did it on the world and became well known and did these live broadcasts that ended up looking like the future YouTube.

2:16:58 Variety show. I forgot about some of those. Oh my God. Yeah. In the show notes, you gotta put a link to this. Yeah, well there's there's a there's a a free streaming link, I think, somewhere. So it won't be about like a commercial thing. But he became such a popular figure in Korea despite doing that out there. And it was something that if he had done it here, it would have been panned, right? Yeah. And maybe censored, right? And I think that that is

2:17:26 Hun. He struggled with Mental health. Yeah. Big time. With

2:17:31 relationships. With his own art and his own identity and failure. And In a weird way, it's sort of a he represented the unexpected hero to a lot of artists. And thinkers.

2:17:45 Of the time. There was a thing in Korean music. Before K pop. There was Extremely

2:17:52 Underground small but amazing Jazz and rock scene. Especially Psych Rock. There was a band called High Five and High Six. What is that? I mean the best version of Inagata Davida.

2:18:05 is an obscure Korean psych rock band. What is psych rock? This is a genre that I'm not familiar with. Psych rock is psychedelic rock, right? Oh yeah, okay. And psychological rock. In the sixties and seventies when that was popular in the US. Yeah. Koreans were doing that. But here's the thing, government censors Mm-hmm.

2:18:26 Back then would shut down anything that looked Little suspects. Edgy and yeah. Counter to the counterculture. Yeah, represented counterculture at the time. So they would put out these album covers on the L Ps.

2:18:40 That looked like flowers and Blue sky and clouds and Just really Weird fluffy covers. But

2:18:50 The music inside was Serious. And it was it was trippy. It was intense. Yeah. And so Little House on the Prairie on the front and then Rommstein on the inside. Judge this book by its cover, please. Yeah because inside is some really like you know subversive stuff. Not only subversive, but

2:19:11 They were Dancing to this, enjoying this inside of small clubs and bars and apartments because this couldn't be a thing that you could do in a big concert hall. Mm-hmm. The government sensors are there, right? Yeah. So I wanna Call out that.

2:19:27 The diaspora is really important to a lot of what's happened too. So if you look a lot of K pop, a lot of K pop people. are coming back from the US. And coming back from other countries where they've learned something, another culture. And they're bringing it back. And they're adding to it here.

2:19:44 Yeah. So a lot of the dance groups I actually sponsored the first world B Boy Championships called R sixteen in Seoul in two thousand Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. Didn't know that. All the best b boy crews from around the world, France. It was all country based. It's like an Olympics. It's like France versus Japan, US versus Korea, right? And Everyone convened.

2:20:05 In soul. Mm. Outskirts the soul. It was government supported. Which is the craziest thing. And It was an incredible moment. But it was very clear that dance culture

2:20:17 Here, which is very strong today. Mm-hmm. Came from The cream copa. Yeah. That had come back. They brought it from New York. They brought it from LA and they brought it back.

2:20:29 Mm-hmm. And improved it. Yeah. And Cooking the same thing. Mm-hmm. sh uh chefs that have come back from the US or France or UK come back to soul.

2:20:40 So there's this export, but then there's also this Reverse. Immigration happening. Or they're coming back. So it's a really exciting time to be in Seoul. Startups are rising.

2:20:51 Mm-hmm. And that's now a new career option? There's still huge problems with North and South Korea, the tension and the geopolitical like fear. And anxiety that happens, but There's something.

2:21:03 really dynamic and it feels like We don't know how long this will last. Mm-hmm. Not just because of like the danger of geopolitical stuff, but also because of

2:21:15 Does it get dialed in like Tokyo, one day. Mm-hmm. And it becomes everything gets really locked in, defined just in terms of stasis. Yeah.

2:21:24 Yeah. And right now it feels really like Transitional. Yeah, I mean it feels to me, at least, and look. I've only been here five days, so what do I know? But I pay a lot of attention to first impressions and just it ha it has a very alive

2:21:41 feeling to it. It has Similar to The way that in a sense, like the way Austin feels right now, has like an adolescent growth feeling to it. There's a lot of

2:21:53 Energy. And there's a lot of velocity. Like there there's many things being built, many at least I'm speaking about Austin now, but like restaurants being open, companies being started, people moving companies there, lots of people moving there for the cultural stuff. It has a feeling of being pregnant with possibilities, which is the vibe that I get here. walking through these neighborhoods, I'm like, Okay, yeah, I bet if I come back here in three, five years, like Totally different. Seventy percent of these stores will have changed. I mean there'll be

2:22:21 A lot of differences. The director, Amanda Kim, of the documentary. The Dungeon Peck documentary. She lived in New York and she lives in Paris now. We did a premiere screening here and

2:22:35 So emotional. Even though she hasn't spent a lot of time in Korea. So emotional. To have been the director to present to Koreans.

2:22:44 This film about the Most important artist. Of all Korean people in the modern era. To present that back. And she said it was

2:22:53 Just uh Not only a mind blowing experience for her as a director, but as a Korean Kyopo. Coming back. To present that. And so this is something that I think a lot of, you know, any any of your listeners who are Korean American or

2:23:07 Asian American or even From India and Thinking about That reverse. Brain drain as they call it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the cycle. Like the cycling back.

2:23:17 The feedback loop. So important. Mm-hmm. The one thing We were eating Mandu. The other day. Mm-hmm.

2:23:23 Mandu. Is A Mongolian word. That's Mongolian word. Mm-hmm. China uses

2:23:28 Certain parts of China use Mandu. Create use Mandu. Turkey uses Mandu. Pakistan is Mandu. Food is the original.

2:23:36 Spice. Carried by Mongolians, Romans. It's the original. Cultural export. Yeah. Korean food.

2:23:47 Korean film. Cream beauty for all of this. Is The only thing that

2:23:54 We'll keep Korea. Alive. In perpetuity. This could all Be gone.

2:24:01 Mm. It's too small of a country. Too small of a population. On too tenuous of a peninsula. Literally in the

2:24:09 Geographic center of all the tension in the region. So that export that pollen. That is the existence, right? Yeah, totally. And so it's it's um

2:24:21 On the concept of No, whether it's What's happening right now with The technology industry here Arts.

2:24:29 Food, like all of that. It feels really like it's peaking. There's this K wave. Mm-hmm. Across all these things. And uh I can't think of a more exciting time to be here.

2:24:39 Mm. Literally right now. Yeah. And for the next Five, ten years. If I didn't have a family.

2:24:46 that's in schools and a fund that is headquartered in San Francisco. Mm-hmm. This would be the best place, definitely in Asia. Mm. It's like groaning and squeaking and screaming as bursting across. Yeah.

2:25:01 Yeah, I really encourage people to check it out and also To paint a picture. We're sitting in this hotel room looking out. Beautiful sunny day. Which is crazy'cause it was snowing earlier. You were saying as soon as you think you got it figured out, like Korean weather really fucks with you. It's all over the place, but it's this beautiful sunny day right now.

2:25:19 And uh there's this Gorgeous. Mountain range. Right. outside the window. And so it has this feeling

2:25:28 Of Reminds me in a sense of say uh Sol Lake City where you have the Wasatch and this beautiful range, which I also did not expect, and it totally changes the feeling in the city, knowing that you can look up, at least in this neighborhood. And see these mountains. It's a stunning city.

2:25:47 And Hopefully this puts it on the map for some people as a possibility for Visiting I will also say Huge difference. experientially for a native English speaker here.

2:25:59 Say compared to Japan. All due respect to Japan. I love Japan. I've spent a ton of time there. But the English level is higher here. So it's easier to get around. And interact. And make requests and solve problems and so on.

2:26:15 So that is also a huge benefit to the international community. Is I've just found it much easier. Two. Because my my Korean as hard as I might try in a handful of days. Still pretty limited. So I do need to to lean on the English. Anything else that we should have?

2:26:32 Wine to a close? Anything else you'd like to say before we Land the plane. I think we're good.

2:26:41 What do you think? I think we're good. I think we're good, man. And Thanks for having me. Oh so fun It's been a fun week. It's been a great week. Yeah, we've covered a lot with a short amount of time, but still some more to come. Yeah, we've got some more adventure to do. And to everybody listening.

2:26:57 As always. I'll put links to everything that we can poll from this conversation. Links to everything we discussed in the show notes at Tim Topblog slash podcast. And Also. As always.

2:27:12 Until next time, be just a bit nicer, a bit kinder than is necessary, not just to other people, but to yourself. And Come stop me though. Thanks for joining the listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel.

2:27:44 It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kinda like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading. albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmas, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests, and these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short. a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim dot blog slash. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

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