Wednesday, May 13, 2009

History Matters in Business

I was very fascinated with the end discussion we had today in class about how many Koreans dislike the Japanese. This is a very interesting subject for me because I sell hair scissors and my family and I do business with Koreans and Japanese. One of our main manufacturers, Mr. Kim, has a factory in South Korea and is Korean. He uses Japanese steel to make his scissors because Japanese steel produces better quality hair scissors. So he obviously works with Japanese companies, but I don’t know how much he dislikes Japan.

Anyway, I did a little article searching to see how business relations are with Japan and Korea. I came upon this article, which I found very interesting. I learned that South Korea, in 1999, was just barely lifting its ban on Japanese pop culture. And why does this ban exist? Because of Japan’s suppression of Korean culture from 1910 to 1945! I have come to realize that history is important to know when conducting business.

1 comment:

  1. Great find!
    I have a business that uses a factory in GuongZhou China, and it is interesting to see the historical ties to business relationships between their neighboring countries. One man I work with still insists that it is important for China to have a ruling brotherly hand in Korea. He even speaks proudly about how China has attempted to mediate between North Korea and the United States and between North Korea and Japan. Not a lot of resentment, but he definitely had a sense of superiority over those he talked about.

    You're absolutely right, it is so interesting how history plays a role in current business relations.

    ReplyDelete