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At last the long awaited sequel to Adventures in Korea [parts 1 and 2]. So much time has now passed since I gathered the notes for this piece that any similarity between what is described here and the truth is purely accidental.

Christopher W Linfoot; February 3rd 2000

We take up mere minutes after we left off last time. If you didn't read part one and part two, you may want to do so first...

3. Ship building (Is it worth it?) *

After the karaoke, Jeng shared our taxi back to the hotel and stood with us for a while in the lobby.

"So. Tomorrow… Tomorrow… Tomorrow…", he began.

Jeng frequently spoke these words while attempting to gather his thoughts, in much the same way as a politician, interviewed on the Today Programme, says "but, but, but" or "and, and, and" or "let me finish", in order to block his own receive channel and pre-empt anyone else's transmit channel.

I could not hear Jeng say "Tomorrow… Tomorrow… Tomorrow", without thinking of that soliloquy in the Scottish Play, which ends, "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

"So tomorrow… Tomorrow… Tomorrow… We meet here. Eight-o-clock. Go to helgi. Okpo. Yes."

And with that, he was gone.

The morning after, Jeng, Hong and a very sickly looking Moon arrived at our hotel in Moon's car. We were to be taken to the airport at Pusan and treated to a privilege reserved for only the most honoured western guests - a ride in the company helgi (helicopter).

Our hosts, either proud of the massively diversified nature of their business or otherwise trying to keep us occupied lest we ask any questions they were unprepared to answer, were bent on showing us the company ship yard.

I know what you're thinking. Any large company (which makes, say, white goods or automobiles or air conditioners) also make its own ships. Any large Korean company (or chaebol) anyway.

The company shipyard was on an island, called Okpo, located off the south coast of South Korea, a short helicopter flight away. Okpo was one of the few islands in that neck of the woods not under Japanese occupation and a suitably high profile use had been found for it, to pre-empt any Japanese claim to sovereignty.

Moon dropped us at the departure hall at Pusan airport and hastened away in his car, evidently relieved to be free to carry on with the morning's business - in his case, throwing up.

It was a cold, overcast and windy morning. We went inside.

Jeng left us waiting by a row of chairs in the departure hall and went off to find the man in charge of the helgi. He was gone for half an hour. He finally exploded back into view with a face like thunder and shouted unintelligibly at Hong, who translated for us.

The control tower had banned the helicopter flight as there was too much low cloud and wind - it was not safe to take off.

The adjudication was clearly unacceptable to Jeng who stormed outside and gazed, Canute like, at the sky - defying the weather to abate.

Presently, he pulled out a mobile telephone (banned in the airport, but technically he was outside it), punched in a number and continued the tirade latterly directed at Hong and the weather, now venting his fury at the luckless individual who had had the misfortune to answer his call.

We had been at the airport for an hour. It seemed unlikely that the ban on the helgi excursion would be lifted any time soon. Jeng returned, a fixed look of faintly manic calm having alighted on his face. I could imagine his mother saying to him "one of these days the north wind will blow and your face will stay like that". The north wind had scored a direct hit.

"We go to port. Come."

Jeng led us outside and thrust us into a taxi. There was apparently a sea port in Pusan which offered ferry crossings to Okpo at half hourly intervals. It took longer and was not as prestigious a mode of transport, but we would get to see the ships.

The taxi in which we were now sat (five of us including the driver, so it was quite snug) was a newish Daewoo Prince and, in common with so may new or nearly new Korean cars, was festooned with the sort of aftermarket gadgetry which must give Pininfarina nightmares.

Quite why so many Koreans believe they can improve on the styling decisions of the designers of their cars is unclear to me. True, in many cases the style could be improved by little more than a well aimed sledge hammer, but this is not the Korean way. Instead, Korean drivers buy strange little rows of rubber blocks, like a chocolate bar but the same colour as their cars, and fix them to the bumpers. This does not seem likely to prevent permanent damage to the bumpers in the event of a collision, but has the effect of making the car appear as if the collision has already taken place.

Inside, things were not much better. The French gave Europe those horrid seat covers made of wooden beads, variously alleged to offer full body massage to weary drivers, or to allow cool air to circulate on those sticky, summer days. The Koreans have adopted, en masse, an altogether less practical device with the same aims in mind. Korean seat covers are made of a sort of woven palm frond matting and are placed on, not attached to the seats. The seats, still usually made of vinyl in Korea, offer little in the way of friction to hold the seat covers in place. This makes cornering interesting for both the driver, who must contend with a highly mobile centre of gravity, and back seat passengers, who are forced into the sort of intimacy more usually the preserve of newly weds.

Our taxi had a further refinement, the omission of which as a standard, factory fitted item may have been because it was not legal in most markets where this model of car was sold.

Attached to the steering wheel at about two-o-clock was a large, polished wooden knob, which spun freely on a metal shaft through its centre. The result was less a steering wheel, more a windlass. However, despite the facility this provided to steer the car with one hand, presenting as it did a large and convenient surface for the application of either of the drivers' palms, the (completely able bodied) driver seemed entirely disinclined to touch either wheel or windlass and drove most of the way with his hands in his pockets.

Some of the most terrifying moments of my life have been spent in the back of taxis laid on for me by my Korean friends.

Often, the scene of these horrors has been the main road between Warsaw and Lublin in Poland, a single carriage way for most of its length and quite straight, but with many large undulations. A favourite trick of Polish taxi drivers is to begin an overtaking manoeuvre at the blindest spot of a blind summit or dip, to exceed the speed of the vehicle being overtaken by no more than two or three kph and to change into neutral gear halfway through the whole thing. I had previously thought this as challenging as a taxi ride could get.

After half an hour in the company of this taxi driver, my opinion of Polish taxi drivers was changed forever for the better.

We hurtled; we slid; we wove in and out of traffic moving at half our speed, our driver evidently steering by thought alone; I never saw him remove his hands from his pockets, or touch the windlass.

After the longest half-hour of my life, we pulled up in front of a building not dissimilar to the one where foot passengers embark and disembark at the ferry terminal in Dublin.

A long queue of taxis waited outside, many of their drivers having congregated in front of the terminal for a smoke. Apart from their presence, the whole place was eerily quiet.

We got out of the taxi and walked inside. The terminal was not a hive of activity. Once again, Jeng went to investigate, leaving the rest of us standing by a row of seats in the departure hall. He returned quite quickly.

His transformation to Canute this time was immediate and palpable. He rushed outside, lit up a cigarette, punched a number into his mobile telephone and stood for a long time, raging at the sky, the phone and the ferry terminal.

Again, Hong offered an explanation. The sea was too rough and the wind too strong. Ferries were not being allowed to leave port.

I joined Jeng outside, to see what progress he was making. He was contemplating a return trip to the airport to see if he could bribe, browbeat or blackmail someone in a position of authority to permit the helgi trip to proceed.

After further, fruitless negotiation, Jeng finally decided to submit to fate. Clearly the helgi trip was not to be and the ships would have to wait. It was still barely 10:30 and we were not due to return to Seoul until 18:00.

Culture seemed the obvious answer. Jeng announced a trip to a nearby monastery.

[Next time - an eventful trip to a monastery.]

Copyright notice. This piece is copyright © 1999-2004 by Christopher W Linfoot. All rights reserved.