The whole team spent Sunday night at the home of Mr. Hahn, the Daegu Rotary District’s GSE chair.  Kate and Doug, running on fumes, stayed up late to participate in a memorial service marking the anniversary of the passing of Mr. Hahn’s mother.  Traditionally this would have been a vigil culminating in a ritual meal at dawn, but nowadays the ceremony is held at midnight and lasts about a half hour (after which the ritual meal is served).

 

Our first commitment of the day was a regular lunch meeting of the “Daegu” Rotary club.  This is the oldest club in the city, founded in 1968.  Afterwards the schedule got very busy.  We had tea with Thaddeus Cho, a Catholic priest who is the publisher of the Maiel Shinmun (daily) newspaper, which is run by the Catholic church and has the largest circulation in Daegu.

 

We were then pleasantly surprised by a warm and informative chat with leaders of the Hyundai Marine insurance company.  They are a division of Hyundai, which, like Samsung and LG, are into every kind of product imaginable, not just cars, electronics, and cellphones.  The picture above, while it features objects rather than people, captures the finesse and sincerity with which we were greeted.

Our final “working” stop of the day was Seomun Market, one of the true powerhouses of the Korean retail world.  It’s an open-air and enclosed facility featuring 30,000 shops and 60,000 shopkeepers, all in a space about the size of an American suburban mall.  Each shop tends to have its “regulars.”  While the model is extremely efficient, we were informed by the market’s chief executive (over a tiny bottle of “energy drink” that tasted like Pez) of the grand plan: to refurbish the entire market to give it a more modern feel, and add tourist attractions such as day spas.  If this is not done, he said, Daegu will continue to  lose customers to Seoul.