RR 16
[016] The Era of Ordinary People 1.
The celebration was held grandly.
It wasn’t merely to celebrate the election of a first-term assemblyman; it was teeming with people eager to make a good impression on Chairman Jin, the head of the group.
Upon arriving at the banquet hall, our family first greeted my aunt, Jin Seo-yoon, who was welcoming guests at the entrance with a bright smile.
“Sister. Congratulations. You’ve climbed another step.”
Despite my father’s pointed greeting, my aunt couldn’t hide her joy, her smile unwavering.
“There, there. Why are you always so cynical?”
She lightly tapped his back and winked.
“Go greet your brother-in-law. Behave, and if you feel uncomfortable, slip away quietly.”
“Becoming a National Assembly member’s wife has certainly broadened your generosity. Haha.”
Unlike my laughing father, my mother and older brother Sang-jun still looked tense.
“Congratulations, sister-in-law.”
“Hello.”
She was still smiling as she received greetings from my mother and my brother and me.
“Ah, Sang-jun’s mother. I have one favor to ask.”
“Yes. Please tell me.”
“A very important person from the party leadership has arrived, and I’d like you to personally greet him once.”
At this, my father’s eyebrows twitched.
“Sister, what are you talking about? You’re not suggesting she sells her smiles, are you?”
“Dear!”
My mother tugged on my father’s sleeve. She wanted to avoid unnecessary conflict, as she was always the one who suffered its consequences.
“Hey! He’s just a fan of Sang-jun’s mother. So, I’m just asking her to acknowledge him. What are you even saying?”
“Yes, sister-in-law. Don’t worry. I’ll go greet him separately.”
My mother, leaving my aunt’s outburst behind, quickly hooked her arm through my father’s and hurried into the banquet hall.
“Dear. Don’t get worked up over trifles. Do you know how anxious I get every time you do that?”
My father, who was hard to distinguish between a loving husband and a henpecked one, grinned and squeezed my mother’s arm tightly.
“Alright. Let’s do a quick round and then slip out.”
Perhaps because of my mother’s plea, my father continued to smile and greet people. Then he spotted the party’s protagonist, my uncle-in-law, and waved.
“Congratulations on your election, brother-in-law. How is it? Is being an assemblyman better than being a prosecutor? Haha.”
“Thanks, brother-in-law. Can I know yet? And I was demoted from chief prosecutor to first-term assemblyman. Now the road ahead is clearly a tough one. Haha.”
When Sang-jun and I greeted him, my uncle-in-law stroked our heads and gave a slight bow to my mother.
“Ah, the reason this area is so bright is because of my sister-in-law. How do you become more beautiful with age?”
“Congratulations, Uncle-in-law.”
I quickly noticed my uncle-in-law’s gaze sweeping over my mother’s entire body.
That creepy bastard.
I had decided to try and get closer to him, thinking he might be useful, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to feel any affection for this guy.
“Oh, by the way, brother-in-law. There’s someone I need to introduce you to for a moment. Please help.”
“I heard about it from my sister already. Who on earth is it that you’re being so careful about?”
“He’s the real power of the Sixth Republic.”
“What? How many days has the Sixth Republic been launched, and there’s already a real power player?”
“He’s President Roh Tae-woo’s right-hand man! He’s already been crowned the Crown Prince!”
He was exaggerating, but his voice was low.
“Sang-jun, Do-jun. You two eat something delicious and stay here for a bit.”
My uncle-in-law led my parents into a group of people a little distance away.
Hidden by the crowd, I couldn’t tell who it was. I pricked up my ears, trying to catch a name, but even that was impossible due to an interruption.
“Oh? Kang-jun hyung.”
At the familiar name, I turned and saw Jin Kang-jun, the son of the third son, now a middle school student, and his younger sister, Jin Young-kyung, standing there.
Jin Young-kyung was exactly one year older than me.
I smiled and raised my hand.
“Hi, noona.”
But the two didn’t return the greeting. Both of them must have remembered the broken leg they suffered because of me.
“Kang-jun hyung. Is your leg okay? I heard you were using crutches?”
I examined Jin Kang-jun’s leg with a subtle smirk.
At my appearance, Jin Kang-jun’s face turned scarlet, as if he was trembling with rage.
“The other leg needs to break too for balance… When would be a good time?”
My words were soft, but my gaze was not. I glared at him as if to devour him, and he couldn’t endure it for more than a few seconds, not only averting his gaze but also moving away from the spot.
As expected, he’s a coward. A rich kid who was pampered growing up couldn’t possibly have any guts.
“Do-jun. Why do you keep bothering Kang-jun hyung?”
As the two disappeared as if fleeing, Sang-jun hyung said, full of fear and tension.
“Hyung. Don’t be intimidated by that bastard. He can’t fight. He has no guts. From now on, you step on him too.”
Sang-jun hyung just blinked at my harsh words.
I’m thinking of him as my first ally, but… he’s weak-willed. Since he’s only in sixth grade, I guess I can wait a little longer.
After he enters middle school, I can rigorously train him, I suppose.
“Did you eat anything?”
My parents, who had finished greeting someone and returned, held our hands tightly.
“Since we’ve already shown our faces, how about we leave? There’s nothing suitable for kids to eat here anyway.”
“We should at least greet Father-in-law before we go.”
“We won’t see Father.”
“What?”
My mother tilted her head at my father’s enigmatic words.
“He’s probably having a secret conversation with politicians who came using this celebration as an excuse, you know? In the private suites of this hotel. Father isn’t attending this party. It’s obvious just by looking at how Mother (his wife) isn’t here.”
No matter what anyone said, the host of this banquet was the elected National Assembly member. The head of the group was merely the father-in-law, so he didn’t need to show his face at the banquet.
“Is that so? Then shall we go eat something delicious?”
My mother, with an incredibly bright expression, linked her arm through my father’s again.
At their radiant faces, Sang-jun hyung also jumped for joy.
“Dad! McDonald’s! Let’s go to McDonald’s!”
Damn it. I wanted to eat dim sum at Sunyang Hotel’s Chinese restaurant, but I was a step too late. Having a child as an older brother makes me want to scream every time something like this happens.
Starting from the 80s, chicken and hof (beer pub) establishments began to appear, and then KFC emerged in 1984. And McDonald’s, the epitome of fast food, opened its first branch in March of this year, across from Apgujeong Galleria Department Store.
Since there was only one in Seoul, it was difficult to access unless you lived in Apgujeong-dong.
Sang-jun, who had already tasted it a few times when the driver bought it for him, would sing its praises whenever he got the chance.
“Shall we?”
My father looked at my face for confirmation, and I forced a happy expression. After all, no child should dislike hamburgers and cola.
It was as we were subtly leaving the banquet hall, holding my parents’ hands.
Suddenly, a man blocked my father’s path and bowed slightly.
“The Chairman is looking for you.”
As the man’s gaze pointed at me, my father frowned.
“Do-jun?”
“Yes.”
“He’s really working the child too hard. Couldn’t you just say you couldn’t find him?”
“I apologize. There are too many eyes watching, so a false report would be difficult.”
The man bowed his head again.
“Father, it’s okay. I’ll be right back.”
“Ah, he said the conversation might be long. He said the Chairman would take you home… and that it’s fine for you to go back first.”
In essence, he was telling them to leave me behind and go back first.
Looking at my father’s expression, it seemed he was about to go give my grandfather a piece of his mind.
“Father. Go to McDonald’s and enjoy your meal with hyung. I’ll eat dinner here. I’ll ask Grandfather to buy me a handmade hamburger.”
As soon as I finished speaking, my father’s face became miserable, and I realized my mistake. He must have misunderstood.
From my perspective, getting closer to Chairman Jin was important, and eating hotel food was much better than a McDonald’s hamburger.
However, to my father, who didn’t know my true thoughts, it would appear as if I was reluctantly trying not to displease Chairman Jin for my parents’ sake, even though I disliked it.
This misunderstanding for now was unavoidable. I could clear it up once I shed my child persona.
I put on the brightest expression possible to alleviate my parents’ worries and turned away.
.
.
.
A Secret Meeting
The room the staff led me to was not the Royal Suite I had imagined. It was about the size of a standard room, a modest room with no bed. The 28th floor was definitely a royal floor, but could there be such a room?
On the large, round table, various dishes prepared for me stimulated my appetite temptingly.
“Eat dinner in this room and wait for a bit. The Chairman will call you after he takes care of some business.”
As the staff left, I quickly surveyed the room.
“Oh?”
I thought it was completely sealed off, but there was a slightly ajar sliding door on one side of the wall.
Peeking through the open crack, I saw it was indeed a Royal Suite.
Ah, this was an annex room attached to the suite.
Chairman Jin’s back was already visible, seated in a chair, conversing with someone hidden by his back.
First, I satisfied my hungry stomach.
I ate carefully to avoid making noise, and strained my ears to listen to the conversation in the next room.
“The era of the great ordinary people and the Northern Policy. Words that were even in His Excellency’s inauguration speech. He has tremendous resolve.”
“Yes. I was also deeply impressed.”
“The Northern Policy is about improving relations with communist countries. Especially the Soviet Union and China; he wants to establish diplomatic ties with these two countries.”
Who could it be?
From the content of the conversation, it was clearly someone very close to the president, but I had no way of knowing who.
In fact, this era was just a very old past for me, and all I remembered was the general flow of events.
“Naturally, Representative Park will carry out the groundwork.”
“That’s right. The first target is the Soviet Union.”
“The Soviet Union, you say…”
A brief silence followed. For the president’s confidant to tell such a plan to the head of a chaebol meant more than just giving information.
There would clearly be a demand, and it implied a quid pro quo.
“How can I assist you?”
“The Cold War era is over. Diplomacy today isn’t about ideology, it’s about economics. Maximizing mutual benefit, isn’t that the best diplomacy?”
“Even if we consider China, the Soviet Union is an economic powerhouse compared to us. From my perspective as a business executive, the Soviet Union is where I’d rather sell goods.”
Even at this time, the Soviet Union’s per capita GNP of $9,300 far surpassed South Korea’s mere $5,800. Of course, it would plummet to one-tenth of that in five years.
“His Excellency said to entrust everything to Chairman Jin of Sunyang. I’m merely conveying His Excellency’s intentions.”
He was throwing both a carrot and a stick at the same time.
Unconditionally cooperate with the government’s grand plan.
However, the method of cooperation would be left up to them.
What would my grandfather’s answer be here?
Everyone wants to avoid the stick and only pick the carrot, but that’s impossible. My ear moved even closer to the door.
“This… I don’t know what to say about such considerable consideration. Haha.”
Is he avoiding a direct answer? Or what?
“Our Sunyang, we’re just merchants from the marketplace, aren’t we? How could we presume to guess the grand plan of national affairs? We merely follow what Representative Park informs us.”
Oh?
Surrender, no way?
This couldn’t be happening, could it?
The “Sunyang ship” was already a vessel that couldn’t be overturned by government power.
If the number one chaebol knelt to the regime, the second and third chaebols would have no escape. Chaebols were a group ready to become powerful allies against any regime that threatened them.
The status of being the number one group in the business world was precisely that of the representative player for the chaebols.
A representative player wouldn’t easily forfeit, would they?
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