Seoul Man: A Memoir of Cars, Culture, Crisis, and Unexpected Hilarity Inside a Korean Corporate Titan by Frank Ahrens Page A

furniture hems, a wooden door frame, chair legs, and practically anything nonliving fell victim to Lily. Her diligence when it came to destruction was without equal. Were she loosed on the North Koreans today, the peninsula would be united under Seoul’s rule tomorrow. I began to think of Lily as a weaponized house pet. But I also soon could not think of our household without her.
    Lily rode around with us on base in our Hyundai, sitting or lying happily in the backseat. She became well known to the young Korean women who worked at the drive-through window at the Burger King. To the young ladies who worked there, Lily was beautiful and exotic—a Korean jindo gae owned by Americans. And maybe a signal that the waygookin were trying to fit into their new country.
    So it quickly came to pass that, two months after arriving in Seoul, Rebekah and I spent our first Christmas as a married couple on a U.S. military base in East Asia, 10,000 miles from our friends and family. We found a very good English-speaking, Bible-teaching church near the base that turned out to be the most multicultural place we frequented in Seoul: Americans were joined in worship with Koreans, Indians, Africans of many nations, and representatives of several other nationalities. If you survey Koreans, you’ll find about one-quarter identify as Christian, another one-quarter as Buddhist, and the rest as “none.” An ancient shamanistic tradition that focuses on luck still runs through the culture, as it does elsewhere in Asia. Many minimize its role in modern Korea, but not a few expectant mothers still consult fortune-tellers to determine “lucky” birth dates for their unborn children and schedule cesareans accordingly. I knew one young Korean man who, following two accidents as a small child, was taken by his father to a fortune-teller who gave the boy a new, “luckier” name.
    Rebekah and I sent a photo Christmas card of us and Lily posing in front of the fireplace in our home. You don’t have to look very closely to see that my smile has the hint of a struggle to it. It took all my effort to restrain Lily in one position for the one-sixtieth of a second required to take the photo.
    We hosted our first Christmas party at our house. We were able to buy a seven-foot live Christmas tree from the Boy Scout troop organized on the base, another nice reminder of home. In typical American style, we invited friends from different spheres of our lives. I invited my Korean team and a fellow Korean executive from Hyundai who had befriended me. Rebekah invited American and Korean embassy staff she worked with. We invited people from our church.
    We set out a serve-yourself buffet. Koreans call this a “standingparty” to differentiate it from a dinner party. The first sign I knew something was a bit off was when the senior Korean women on my team—professional, accomplished women—prepared a plate of food for the Korean executive in attendance. My team leader got him his drink. I was a little offended by it, especially the American feminist in me. I wanted to say, “You don’t have to serve him. This is a party. We’re not at work; everyone’s the same.” But I didn’t. Confucianism doesn’t take days off. Even if you’re not at work, your boss is still deserving of your service and respect.
    The second tip-off was that none of my team members brought spouses or dates. As far as they were concerned, this was a work party at an executive’s house.
    If it weren’t obvious by their actions, I came to understand that the Koreans were not comfortable at this kind of a party. Almost no one on my team mixed with any of the other guests.
    I turned to a more senior member of my team who, like Eduardo, patiently fielded my relentless and frustrated questions about his culture, and asked him what was going on. “Sir,” he said, “we don’t go to parties where we don’t know everyone.”
    I told him that an American party is considered a success if