I had an internship in Korea the summer before I graduated. I learned that even if I improved my Korean language ability, I would still be at a great disadvantage in Korea. I just don’t deal with “because I said so and I’m older than you” too well. Actually, I learned pretty quickly that if those words had to be said, I had already gone too far.

Working in Korea? I don’t think so unless I can clearly go as an expat with very well defined authority. Teaching English for below-market rates? Hmmm, I’m not a teacher and I can’t think of any reason why I should accept anything less than market rates. Oh, but I would be helping the motherland? I have a better idea. Let me invest in the country without any restrictions and then actually exercise my ownership rights. My money and my requirements for sufficient returns would do Korea more good than me teaching English ever would.

Before any of you get any ideas of me having great wealth, that last sentence was purely rhetorical.

Peter Chung’s email is legend all across the Korean American (as well as the larger “entry” level investment banking) financial services world. I don’t know Peter or anyone who knew him, but from the stories I heard, he was a Senior Analyst level guy at Carlyle whose email got forwarded so many times, it ultimately ended up in the inbox of his Managing Director within a few weeks. It was rumored that he took out his boss’s Porsche, used his boss’s penthouse (when the boss was away) and the Carlyle expense account to whore around in Kangnam. Once the MD got the email, Peter was immediately canned.

I call BS on his email. You know why? It says he’s only been there a week and a half. The Private Equity world is brutal, especially for an underling like Peter. Basically the Associates and MD’s send Analysts like Peter to do the grunt work that they don’t want to do, particularly overseas. How many women can you bed in 10 days on a PE Senior Analyst’s schedule? I’m betting you can’t do many.

Anyways, he was an idiot for writing an email that probably A) wasn’t true or B) a gross exaggeration or c) a product of a frat boy’s wet dreams. With a stunt like that in his background, I doubt Peter is in the PE or IB industry anymore…

May all business schools thank their lucky stars that job possibilities such as Peter’s (and perhaps WangKon’s) continue to drive enrolment.

Would the “good life” be this by any chance?

http://www.hereinreality.com/chung.htm

Peter Chung… wangja @sshole galor…