My 38th marathon was not altogether different from the previous four (one in Daegu, two in Seoul and one in Suwon). I am drastically undertrained, seldom varying from my pattern of two miles each morning. Back when I followed the rules and incorporated 10-, 12-, 14-, 16-, 18- and 20-mile runs, I was prepared to go 26.2 on race day. What I have done since moving to Korea sometimes feels like cheating. On the other hand, my results are not nearly so good. Put differently, you get what you pay for and I do not pay much.
On Sunday morning, March 18, 2012, along with 25,000 others I ran/walked the Seoul International Marathon in a time of 4:25:35—a far cry from what I used to do, even given the advancing years. The only thing that made this race unique was meeting a fellow Texan, Gary Corbitt. He was wearing a Dallas Half-Marathon T-shirt, and we had a pleasant mid-race chat that lasted a few minutes. I saw him and his friend, Larry (also from Texas), outside Jamsil Stadium after it was over. Both of them are members of the U.S. Army, stationed up the road at Uijeongbu.
I have no idea who won the race, but I would be willing to bet everything I own that it was a skinny guy from Kenya.
I had already informed two of my colleagues, Jae-Woong Yoon and Eung-Shik Park, that the marathon would be dedicated to them. Why these two gentlemen and not some of the others? A very good question. Jung-Il Bae, Kee-Young Kwak, Eun-Sil Choi, Hyun-Sil Choi, In-Jae Choi, Yun-Hee Yang and Seok-Hyun Cho are no less worthy. The two newcomers, Yong-Beom Kim and Dong-Ha Ryu, show promise as well. Maybe at a later time I will run a race in their honor and write about it. For now, the focus is on Yoon and Park.
Let's start with Yoon, who arrived at Hansung in 2006. He is a native of Seoul and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees (both in chemistry) at Seoul National University, and passed the patent bar on his first attempt. Park, on the other hand, got his B.S. at Konkuk University and a master’s in microbiology at SNU. He hails from Yongin and joined the firm in 2007. He, too, sailed over the patent bar with ease. Both Yoon and Park are about 40 years of age and are married; the former has two children and the latter one.
These guys made it through the Korean academic system—high school here is far tougher than what obtains back in the USA whereas college is, strangely enough, a bit easier—and impressed our boss, Kyu-Pal Choi, enough to be hired. The demands at Hansung are stiff. In my three-plus years here, I have seen several attorneys leave because they could not handle the work load. Both Yoon and Park have long since proven themselves as workhorses with amazing stamina. They come in early, stay late and are back on the fourth floor at the Halla Classic Building most Saturdays and, when necessary, on Sundays. I sometimes walk into their offices and see them surrounded by large stacks of files since they handle so many cases simultaneously. Both have administrative duties that I frankly do not understand.
By no means do I wish to paint them in two dimensions, as if they do nothing but work. In fact, Yoon and Park are fairly relaxed guys who can laugh and discuss issues ranging from baseball to politics to Korean history. I have seen both of them in party settings where the beer, makkoli and soju are flowing, and can attest to their ability to cut loose.
I admire them not only for performing sustained hard labor but for their sheer intelligence; chemistry and microbiology are not majors for intellectual weaklings. Not only are Yoon and Park are on top of their academic specialties, they know the Korean Patent Law almost word for word and can tell you about the tendencies of various examiners at the Korean Intellectual Property Office. As I see it, these are vastly different realms. Mastering one is hard and two is that much more so. Of course, to repeat, the same can be said of Bae, Kwak, et al.
It should be clear that I work around some very intelligent and accomplished people. Even the staffers are smart and do their jobs well. I will randomly name four of them: Hye-Ryung Jeong, Kyung-Hee Park, Jin-Sung Cho and He-Jeong Lim. Each and every one has my genuine respect. If there is a slacker in the bunch, I do not know who it is. Yoon, Park and all the other industrious Koreans at Hansung take their cue from So Jang Nim (Mr. Choi). If I salute our attorneys for becoming fully versant in two fields (their academic specialty and patent law), what may be said about a man who has done all that and has proven himself in the business world to boot?
While being the only foreigner in this company is sometimes stressful and alienating, I am proud to work here. All of my colleagues, including Yoon and Park, know I am kind of different.
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