“It was the panokseons and Admiral Yi’s strategy of using cannon bombardment vs. Japanese close and boarding tactics that were decisive. Interestingly what Yi was doing was fairly new. Even Europe (battle of Lepanto) at that time still had the mindset that boarding and grapling (i.e. land battles at sea) was the preferred method.”

Seems more like something worthy of praise…but try to explain military strategy to the lay person and they’ll shrug. Not the best story when you want to create a national hero that will rally people behind the industrial drive.

The powerful foreigners were inspired at the great capitalist leader’s patriotism? Sounds too good to be true. It sounds like propaganda to me. Knowing that the Park government worked hard to promote Yi Sung-shin and the turtle ships, and now I hear the coin story, you have to wonder if it wasn’t all a calculated move to sell the idea of a Korean shipbuilding industry to the general population.

And the fact that the $50 million loan was secured with an export credit from Korea’s import-export bank was probably the deal clincher, not Chung flashing the coin, but hey, don’t let me rain on your national mythology parade.

Bingo! Nearly ALL foreign loans to Korea until the late ’80s were just that: loans to KOREA — sovereign or quasi-sovereign obligations guaranteed by the “full faith and credit” of the ROK, NOT by the creditworthiness of the nominal borrower, be it Hyundai, Lucky Goldstar, Samsung, et. al. (And even after explicit state guarantees of such loans began to diminish, there was a lingering perception that the govt would “do the right thing” if the shit hit the fan.) That’s one reason that the great wealth amassed by the controlling families amounts to theft — the real source of the original capital was the Korean taxpayer — and the controversies over the attempt by the original kleptocrats to transfer that wealth to their even less deserving offspring (usually by contravening the laws designed to prevent or at least mitigate the injustice of it) is such a hot button issue in Korea.

You know how important chemistry is in business relationships right? What more amusing story is there but turtleships on 5,000 won notes proving that Koreans have an “innate” ship building ability over a pint?…

http://books.google.com/books?.....kE#PPA3,M1