“First,” he sniffed, “we don’t call ourselves ‘i-bankers,’ and, second, we outwork, outsmart, um, out-tough everyone else. We look for the kind of guys who wake up in the morning ready to bite the ass off a bear. That’s what we’re paid so handsomely for.” I fought off the vision of his Hermès tie dangling between the shaggy legs of a grizzly.
What motivates bankers, the single, crystal driver, is money; it defines them. Green, dough, moola, filthy lucre. The holy year-end bonus. But we never talk about money; it’s beneath us. We bring it up only when we have to.
The room goes quiet, a heavier hush than before.
The minister looks up and stares at the MD from Sterling.
“I mean, it’s a huge assignment,” the banker says, meekly. “It’ll require a globally coordinated team effort, from Credit to Corp Fin to Capital Markets to Fixed Income.”
“Gentlemen, I’ve just been summoned,” the minister says, “by the Blue House, I believe for a briefing on the current economic situation. But please know that the president will not take office for two months.” A pause. “By then, our country may have collapsed. For now, I’ll leave our fate in your capable hands.”
Everyone stands as he leaves the room.
Yoon takes his cue. “Be so kind as to settle in, gentlemen,” he says. “We are going to be all night.” With a flourish, he pulls out a black binder two inches thick. “Our latest economic indicators.” He slams another binder, even thicker, on the table. “Our financial sector statistics.”
Gandalf and the Monkey and several of the other senior bankers take this as their cue to go. “You don’t mind if we excuse ourselves,” Gandalf murmurs. “You’re in good hands with our—”
“Yes, I mind,” Yoon says, without looking up. “Please sit,” motioning with his hand.
The MDs are caught in limbo, up from their seats but not pushed off from the table. They float, then subside.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jack suppressing a grin.
Beyond him, I see a red EXIT sign over the door. There’s a red stick figure, looking to run, away somewhere.
A crisis, a remembrance, a destiny unspooling. I feel OK, I tell myself, despite the jet lag, and the heat, maybe even getting a second wind. I take a deep breath and hold it. An old habit from when I was growing up. When I stop breathing, the world drifts away, time stands still. I once went four minutes without exhaling. I saw somewhere that Jeju haenyuh, women sea divers, can hold their breath underwater for twelve minutes on a dive. I close my eyes, imagine I’m a little boy again seeing how long he can hold his breath.
3
May 1976
I am Korean. My name Dae Joon, mean Big Hero, and I come from Seoul, big city in my country. Family come to New Jersey in America because Father say America good for my education. Education important to Appa. America land of opportune, he say. Also land of brave, home of free. Also beautiful. I like sound, beauuutiful, except American don’t pronounce t. They say beauuuleeful. L or r not sure, not t.
When Umma, little sister Dongseng, and me arrive in New Jersey, Appa has apartment. Pretty, very American. American curtain and bed, we not sleep on floor. My bed has blanket, green with racing car, little sister red blanket with cartoon dog Appa say Snoopy. Like American home. But I sleep in room with sister because only two bedroom. She scared at night, big tree outside window move branch, like ghost. Say she want to go home. Umma say, “Shhhh, Ttal, we are home.”
People very different in new country. They look different, all different color hair, why so many different color? They talk different, never say sound t, all l and r. They even smell different. Umma say they smell like bbaddah, butter, or maybe cheese.
My first day at Eagle Stone Elementary School, Appa change my name because American cannot say Dae Joon. Don’t know why, so simple. My new name Shane. Appa like the American cowboy movie, and Shane famous American cowboy. He say I sound American, like cowboy. I like my real name, not American cowboy name.
I tell new classmate I am from Korea, and they don’t know. They say I look Chinee or Japanee. I tell them my country has Kim Il, pro wrestler world champion. They say who? I cannot know why they do not know Kim Il. Most fearsome wrestler, and from my country. He throw people easy and hit their head with his head to make their head bloody. They say does he know karate? Then they kick feet and they make noise, huyyaaa, whooeee. They look like crazy monkey, make loud noise. Different from classmate in my country.
I like food in this country. Umma take Dongseng and me to supermarket, not just market, where there is so much food. I like word super—Superman, Super Bowl, supermarket. Super-duper! America also land of plenty. So much of everything. I like ice cream most. Cold window in supermarket has many ice cream in the vanilla, strawberry, chocolate. Breyers chocolate my best. No ice cream back home. Umma say ice cream good because milk in it, and milk good for you, make you tall, like American. So soft and melting slow on my tongue, rolling around, cold then cool then gone. I can eat ice cream every day. Why eat rice? Ice cream breakfast, ice cream lunch, ice cream dinner. Maybe vanilla in breakfast, strawberry lunch, and my best chocolate in dinner. Beauuuleeful.
In first days, my English talking not so good. I don’t like opening mouth to speak at the school. Don’t understand what smiling American teacher say. But Ms. Viden she nice, put her head down close to my head when she speak to me. She has gold hair, and she smell like the fake flower. Reading class I stay quiet. But math so easy. Numbers talk to me. Teacher ask me to divide 1920 by 16, I tell her from my head 120, then she ask me square root of 14,400, and I say 120 again, and she put me in seventh-grade math class next day.
Appa tell me learn English by reading book out loud. Why get the English tutor? he say. You read, you learn. So I read, every book loud. Sister enjoy me reading book. Dick and Jane went up the hill to fetch a pail of honey. Humpty Dumpty fell off truck. Umma go over vocabulary with me, make sure I learn fifty word a day she put on small index card with date at top. Airplane, apple, automobile, autumn. Chair, door, kitchen, television, also called TV. Why telephone not called TP? And why W called double u, not double v? Strange language, but I like sound.
First week at Eagle Stone, in recess Don Krieger call me Chink. First time I hear chink. Other kids laughing. I want to ask what it mean, chink, but I cannot say question. So I turn away. But he follow me, say, “Chicken Chink, Chicken Chink, quoak, quoak.” He pump elbow up and down, then he push me. I give him roundhouse kick to stomach, just like in tae kwon do class. He make noise like pfffffff, both leg bend, and he fall to ground, thud. He cry, loud. Kids laugh at him now. I think I should laugh, too, but I feel sad inside. Ms. Viden come then and take me away before somebody see tear on my face.
She put arm on my shoulder and say, “You have to be strong. You’re in America now.”
*
In day, Umma cook food and sing old Korean song “Arirang” and some other sad song I know but don’t know name. In night before sleeping, she tell me and Dongseng many old Korean folk story. So we don’t forget our homeland, she say. She tell story about tiger, turtle, fox, and sometimes ghost. Dongseng not like tale of ghost. Sometime after the ghost story she cannot sleep.
My best is about boy who love story so much he collect many good story in small cloth pouch he carry at his belt. Every good story he hear he pack in pouch and close it up. Soon his pouch so full it about to bust, but he tie it even tighter so none of story get out. He go everywhere with story bag. People start noticing many strange sound coming out of pouch.
One day nosy grown-up man snatch pouch from boy and open it. Hundred garden snake hiss and crawl out from bag. Snake scare everyone and all crawl away. Boy is so sad because all his story leave him, after all that collecting and keeping.
Umma tell us that’s why story meant not keep yourself but hear and tell other people. She say story are to share.
4
December 31, 1997
“What we are facing is not an economic
crisis,” Director Suh is saying. “It is a liquidity problem.”
Suh is disheveled, in a way that announces he’s got more important things on his mind than attire. He speaks nearly perfect, clipped English, honed while earning his PhD at the University of Illinois. He’s the head of the international finance bureau and team-jang of the Financial Crisis Project Task Force Team, a multiagency task force, “PTFT” to the Koreans.
We’re on the sixth floor of the MoEP, known fondly as “the Mop,” in Gwacheon, a half hour outside of Seoul. Slabs of drab gray cinder blocks on the outside, paint peeling on the walls inside, linoleum floors, a few patches curling up at the edges; every table and chair aluminum. The lights are fluorescent, one occasionally sizzling, on, off, on.
The Mop guys on the PTFT are easy to tell from the others. Unlike the bankers, they have neat parts in their hair, combed, not brushed, and they wear short-sleeve dress shirts and ties. Even in winter, no doubt due to the heater going full blast, they wear short sleeves. But, more, they have, in the tradition of sunbi, the air of true believers. A poster on the wall reads: OUR DUTY IS OUR HONOR.
“More accurately, a short-term liquidity problem,” he says. “Just get over this, uh, hump, and we shall be fine.”
When he’s sure he has everyone’s attention, Suh goes to the whiteboard, the kind on wheels, and proceeds to draft a presentation for investors on the current situation. Suh is known as a chil-bo ji-jae, one of those court scholars of old who could compose a poem in seven steps. He recites as he writes, using no notes.
“Slide number one: Korea’s GDP amount and year-on-year growth for the last twenty years, showing double-digit growth until 1997,” he says. “Slide number two: Export growth of more than 12 percent CAGR over this same period.”
He rolls up his sleeves. “Slide number three: Korea’s foreign commercial debt, standing at twenty-four-point-five billion dollars, or 8.2 percent of GDP. Slide number four: Percentage of foreign debt due to mature in less than one year: 85 percent short-term debt to GDP.”
Suh takes off his tie, tosses it on a chair.
“Slide number five: Principal plus interest due of fifteen billion dollars versus foreign reserves of five billion dollars.” He turns to us. “If our country is downgraded by Moody’s one more notch, we will face the shame of being the first industrialized nation to become a . . . below-investment-grade credit.”
“A sovereign junk credit,” Jun points out, shaking his head. He twirls his pen on his hand like a helicopter blade, the way all Korean-educated people do.
Suh is about to recite his next slide, but again the Monkey ahems his way onto the floor. The Monkey is one of the few single partners at Phipps, and sightings of him in West Village bars have made the rounds and gained him some renown as a maverick on Wall Street. “We need to roll over the twenty-five billion dollars of foreign commercial bank debt owed by the Korean banks,” he says, his voice even higher than usual. “The first thing we need to do is reschedule that debt.”
“We shall support it,” Suh says. “The government of our country is prepared to—”
At the back of the room, the door opens, and the crowd parts for a tall, overweight man in his midsixties, ruddy in his rumpled Brooks Brothers suit, trailed by a woman in her twenties. She’s the only woman in the room, and her blonde hair makes her stand out even more. I recognize Tom Brogan, formerly chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, now vice chairman of Phipps International, a made-up division to put on his business card. I’d heard Brogan was called in by Minister Choi, who knew him from their days working at the International Monetary Fund, for his sovereign bailout experience.
“Anybody here,” he booms—no greeting, no introduction—“ever been through a national debt crisis?”
Thirty faces with blank expressions, a few looking at one another. Jack rolls his eyes.
“Well, I have.”
“Here it comes,” says Jack, under his breath.
“As chairman of the New York Fed, I oversaw the Latin American bailout of the eighties. Let me tell y’all what we need to do.” Pause, for effect. “What we’re going to do is exchange the banks’ loans into government-guaranteed debt. A good ol’ debt exchange offer. Not just a rollover by the banks, but the Korean government stepping up with a full guarantee. The government prepared to do that?”
All eyes turn to Director Suh.
“I shall need to brief the minister,” Suh says. “If it is what is required—”
I look over his head at the TV monitor in the corner. News bulletin: North Korea has just launched a medium-range ballistic missile over the East Sea, known by non-Koreans as the Sea of Japan. The missile cannot reach the mainland United States, but Japan is well within its range.
Someone from Phipps says, “The international banks need to agree to the rollover if the government is willing to provide the—”
“We at Sterling were, of course, also involved in the Latin America bailout—”
“—view is that we should follow up the exchange offer immediately with an issuance of global sovereign bonds—”
“—new debt issued by the Government of Korea—”
“—critical to instill confidence in Korea in the international markets—”
“—shore up the depleted FX reserves—”
“—lest the markets turn their backs on the country and—”
“This latest act of provocation by the authoritarian Communist regime of Kim Jong Il is sure to—”
“Can we not issue through the Korea Industrial Development Bank?” Suh says. “They’re the well-known credit in the Yankee bond and Eurobond markets . . .”
A still shot of Secretary-General Kim Jong Il comes on the screen, the Dear Leader in all his smiling, sun-glassed, perm frizz glory. Then the obligatory grainy black-and-white image of his father, the Eternal Leader Kim Il Sung. The elder Kim is in his EL pose, smiling and waving in full military regalia, with a banner behind him declaring, VICTORIOUS FATHERLAND LIBERATION WAR and, in smaller letters below it, OVER THE AMERICAN IMPERIALIST AGGRESSORS.
In my schooldays in Korea, we were made to draw posters as part of regular anti-Communism campaigns. I drew one in Cray-Pas of the Eternal Leader of the North as a red devil, with horns, pointy mustache, and a wickedly long tail. It was selected to represent our school in a nationwide contest. I have the medal to prove it.
“It has to be a sovereign bond, not quasi-sovereign. Full faith and credit of the government—”
“—In fact, we hear the state bank KIDB is planning a Yankee bond as we—”
“—we strongly suggest you pull—”
I read somewhere that North Korea’s populace is down to food rations of one bowl of rice a day. Only soldiers in the People’s Army get two bowls of rice. People in the countryside are so deprived of nutrition they’re resorting to eating placenta left over from childbirths. For the protein and fats. Sometimes fried with onions, sometimes raw, placenta tartare. Maybe we should be doing a sovereign global bond offering for them, the starving people of North Korea. We could call it Placenta Bonds.
“This here offering needs to be large,” Brogan says, his broad chest puffing up with his words. “Enough to make an impact. To the tune of ten billion or so, US. To have a dad-gum impact.”
At mention of this number, everyone stops talking. A hush falls across the room; only the soft rattle of the heaters can be heard. I can almost see the tumblers turning in the bankers’ heads as the fees are calculated. At 1 percent, our take would be one hundred million dollars. The Monkey clamps his lips to stifle a grin.
Brogan goes on: “We’ll need to have our credit rating advisory team do a diligence session with the minister. We’ll also need to interview the president-elect—”
Suh looks pained. “Afraid impossible.” Arranging a meeting for your new boss to be grilled by foreign bankers is a career-shortening opportunity for a bureaucrat.
There are a few due-diligence questions I’d ask of the Dear
Leader. Do you know what placenta tastes like? How do you retain your Rubenesque figure? Just between us, would you really bomb your fellow Koreans?
“Y’all want to save the country or not?” Brogan says, his pink face turning red.
“Right now, Moody’s and S&P have you by the short hairs,” the Monkey says, helpfully. “You get downgraded, your interest rate goes up by up to four-to-five hundred basis points. If you can even place the bonds—”
“You either play ball or we can all go—”
Poor Director Suh. He’s overmatched. The old Wall Street tools of fear and intimidation at work. The banks always have more information than their clients. “Info asymmetry” is the term of art. And they’re not afraid to use it to their advantage. Whether the information is relevant, or even accurate, is beside the point.
“What about North Korea? We’ll need to assess the geopolitical risk on the Peninsula—”
We’re interrupted by uniformed female assistants bringing in doshirak. They appear quietly and place one boxed lunch in front of each banker. Each doshirak contains braised beef and is brimming with seasoned vegetables, and white rice and kimchi, of course. I think, it must also be lunchtime in Pyongyang.
Brogan scowls at the box in front of him. “Jesus H. Christ,” he growls. “How ’bout some REAL food?!”
The assistants stand stricken with terror, but Brogan’s blonde assistant gives them a reassuring nod as she scurries out the door in search of a McDonald’s.
The Sterling MD turns to a younger colleague, says under his breath, “Where the hell is Gandalf?”
Gandalf apparently doesn’t like to be present when Brogan is headlining a meeting. And vice versa. Every bigwig needs his space.
“What say we get started on drafting the preliminary prospectus?” the Monkey says. “Leading the way on the Red Herring will be our own DJ Lee.” He crooks a long, hairy finger in my direction. “He’s Korean, by the way.”
Offerings Page 2
