LTW: Supersonic Son wins FIFA Puskas award for his stunning goal

Good morning & Merry X-Mas, 

S.Korean Son Heng-Min of Tetterham Hotspur won the 2020 FIFA Puskas Award for his fancy goal on Dec 17, 2019 against Burnley. Son picked up the ball on the edge of the Spur's penalty area, ran the entire length of 80meters for 12 seconds with 12 touches, ridiculing 6 Burnley defenders. You gotta see the video below as words cannot describe this "Sonsational" performance. 

The Puskas Award was established  in 2009 in honor of Hungarian Frenc Puskas who scored 512 goals in 528 matches in the 1960s to award the male or female, professional or amateur, who scored the most beautiful goal of the calendar year. Past winners include big names like Christina Ronaldo, Neymar, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and  Mohamed Salah. Son is doing well this season also, leading the EPL with 11 goals. 

  Another Korean soccer star as well known is Cha Bum-keun. He was a striker in Korean national team, served in the Air Force, began to play in German Bundes Liga late age of 26 in 1979, and scored 98 goals in BundesLiga until retirement in 1989. He was the Asian soccer player with most goals in European leagues until Son broke it this year.  Cha owes his success to his high school coach. Cha being a devout Christian, and a gentleman reluctant to make foul plays, the coach used to take Cha to a slaughterhouse, forcing him to cut the cows into pieces, to instill vicious character inside Cha.  Very likely my wife also got trained by Cha's coach, from the way she pushes me into Gucci and Prada shops.   

Regards,

H.S.

Please click  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SATljljXCY if you missed the above.

LTW: Owner of Samsung Group passes away

Good morning,


The richest man in Asia, Samsung CEO Lee Kun-hee faded away at 78 on Oct 25. Born in 1942, he was the third son of Lee Byung-chull who founded Samsung in 1938, and became the CEO of the company in 1987 following his father's death. Kun-hee is credited with transforming tiny Samsung with 10 trillion Won in sales ($8.3B) at the time he inherited the company, into now 400 trillion Won ($335B) mighty Samsung, the largest manufacturing company in Asia ahead of Toyota, representing 20.4% of whole S.Korean GDP in 2018. To instill a quality mind in employees’ heads, he had 150K defect cell phones torched . To have employees change their business attitude, he ordered his managers to “change everything except your wife and kids.” To support his nation to win the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, he toured the world to persuade many voting IOC members. Lee Kun-hee will be succeeded by his only son, Lee Jay-yong, 52, who has been leading Samsung since Kun-hee went into coma six years ago after myocardial infarction.

While Lee Kun-hee has been successful in new business ventures, he failed miserably in one area; the auto industry. Known car maniac whose hobby is to collect super cars, Lee announced a plan in 1995 to build Samsung Motors with 250K units per year capacity in Busan. The first model, Nissan Maxima based SM5 sedan, began to roll off the line in 1998. Bad luck as it coincided with Asian Crisis, forcing Lee to sell Samsung Motors to Renault at a fire sale price in 2000. Thank God. A Korean woman stopped short of stepping into the fashion industry despite her large collection of Louis Vuitton and Prada handbags. 

 

LTW: Korean Super mom under criticism over interference after son's AWOL

If to pick two celebrities with Choo as a family name, the first would be Choo Sin-soo in Texas Rangers who is doing O.K. with 5 HRs and 15 RBIs this season. The other would be Choo Mi-ae, the Justice Minister, who is in deep trouble over the suspicion she used her influence to cover his son's AWOL case. Choo's son serving as a KATUSA (Korean Augmentation to U.S. Army) had to return to his base after a sick leave on Jun 25, 2017, but failed to show up until the 9:00pm roll call. Panicked duty officer called Choo's son to arrive by 10:00pm or AWOL. The son replied he would, but did not come. Instead, a captain came to the duty officer, telling him not to report it as AWOL as Choo's son got a leave extension. The D.O blew the whistle in a TV interview lately that the "No AWOL" order was the behind the scene work of Choo who was the powerful chairwoman of the ruling party in 2017. Korean news media are reporting on Choo like what U.S. media did with O.J. Simpson. President Moon Jae-in is in a headache as Moon thinks no one can do better than Choo to reform the Prosecution Service the way he wants, while Moon's key pledge has been "Fairness with no privilege."



There are two well known AWOL cases in the U.S. Army in Korea. One was Sergeant Charles Jenkins who crossed DMZ to defect to North Korea in 1965. With hero's welcome in Pyongyang and marriage with an abducted Japanese woman, Jenkins worked as North Korea propaganda and English teacher until 2004 when he managed to escape to Japan with his wife after a deal between Japan and North Korea. The other was a KATUSA in the 80's. On Oct 9, 1983, North Korean agents detonated a bomb in Rangoon, then Burma, when President Chun Doo-hwan visited Aungsan National Cemetery. Chun barely escaped the bombing, but 17 of Chun's key cabinet members were killed. DEFCON 3 was issued around 2:00pm, ordering all military personnel to return to their post immediately. Oct 9 being a national holiday, the KATUSA thought DEFCON 3 was a joke , and kept doing what he was doing, mostly beer and soju with his civilian friends, returning to barracks around midnight. He was about to be reported as AWOL, and had to give 1,000 push-ups to his angry captain. He should have called his mommy for help.

                                

LTW: Korean Economy in Good Shape?

While the global economy has been tanking from the Corona crisis, S.Korean economy has been relatively hit softer. The latest OECD survey showed Korea's GDP will drop only 0.8% in 2020, the best among the 37 OECD nations with average forecasted to be negative 7.5%. The second best was Turkey with minus 4.8%. Hyundai also did fairly, making 590 billion Won($494M) operating profit in Q2 this year, while all other major car makers are bleeding red, thanks to strong sales of luxury brand Genesis models and no shutdown of Hyundai plants in Korea. Korean stock market was O.K too, climbing from a low of 1,439 at the time of Corona peak in March to 2,400 in the KOSPI index, the highest in the past 24 months. Economists contribute all of this to the proactive containment of Corona pandemic with no lockdown and expansionary fiscal policy to minimize damage to the economy.

Another business humming along are three Korean battery makers that enjoy increasing demand for electric vehicles worldwide. The stock price of LG Chemical, the world's No.1 battery maker with 25.5% market share, jumped 46% in one month, My wife bought 16 shares of LG Chemical on Aug 3 at 310, 000 Won($260),and it went up to 445,500 Won($370) on Aug 7. So confident in her new found financial prowess, my wife is soon to announce to Wall Street investors the price for dinner with her.

LTW: A Mayor's Suicide and Memorial Expenses

PARK Won-soon, the mayor of Seoul and the 2nd most influential person after President Moon Jae-in, took his own life on July 9 after a sexual harassment complaint by his ex-secretary was filed a day earlier. First elected mayor of Korea's capital in 2011 in a by-election, Park was reelected in 2014 and 2016, with two years left in his term. Park was also expected to run for presidency in 2022 for the current ruling Democratic Party of Korea. An irony is that long time civic activist Park gained his reputation after winning Korea's first sexual harassment case in 1998 as a lawyer for a female assistant professor , which led to Female Rights Activist of the Year award for Park. Another blck eye for the ruling party whose Mayor of Busan, Korea's 2nd largest city, resigned three months ago over sexual offense against his secretary, and whose Governor of Chungnam Province is currently serving in jail on sexual assaults against, again, his secretary. A controversy arose over an extravagant mortuary set up by the City of Seoul for use until the funeral on July 13 . "Why tax payer's money for sex offender? vs. "Why not for Park's 10 year dedication for Seoul ?"

 Seoul became the capital of Korea 626 years ago after a military coup in 1388 by General Lee Sung-gye who defied his king's order to attack the emerging Ming dynasty in China. Gen Lee changed the country name from Koryo to Chosun, and moved the capital from Kaesong, just above DMZ where Kim Jong-un recently blew up the N-S Liaison Office, to Seoul in 1394 because Lee valued the advantage of a big river around Seoul. Lee built his palace where it still stands in the center of Seoul. The name Chosun is still alive as North Korea calls its country Democratic Republic of Chosun People. Yep. North Korea is a democratic nation just like a mosquito is a bird.

Corona-19 virus hits South Korea hard

S.Korea suddenly turned into "Land of Morning Virus'. Since the first Corona 19 case on Jan 20, it took nearly a month to reach 51 cases until Feb 18. The cases then doubled in one day to 104, with the first death on Feb 19, and have been increasing exponentially with 3,150 cases and 17 fatalities as of Feb 29. Nearly 85% of the cases centered around Daegu, 323km(201mi) Southeast of Seoul, that have 5.4 million people with high concentration of large auto suppliers. No auto suppliers have been shutdown yet because of the virus, but Hyundai had to stop its No.2 plant in Ulsan that produce Santafe, Pallisade and Genesis G80 SUV because of one paint shop employee with virus. Over 71 countries have placed either total ban or some control of Koreans entering their countries. President Moon Jae-in is under fire for his premature Feb 13 "Corona will soon end" comment, and he and his wife's loud laughter in a lunch with Parasite team on Feb 21 despite the news of virus hike. Imagine George and Laura Bush were all in smiles at a gala dinner on Sep 11, 2001.

The WHO called the virus Corona, hopefully not to anger Mexican boozers, and medically termed it COVID-19. Had the WHO known S.Korea would become such a hotbed for the virus, it would have used 18, instead of 19. Use caution with 18 as its Korean pronunciation, "Shippal", sounds exactly the same as a Korean bad word with the intensity between "f**k' and "s**t ". No joke as a frustrated Korean newspaper actually put it Corona 18, whether by mistake or on purpose.