South Korean ex-auto man on China's two decades of changes

A memoir by Song Hoon-chon, a former chief representative in China for South Korean automobile manufacturer Hyundai, was recently published in Chinese.

Beijing Jiyi, or 20 Years in Beijing, tells the many stories of change in this country in the past two decades from the author's perspective. Song is among the early South Korean expatriates who came to China ahead of diplomatic ties between the two nations established in August 1992.

He set up the representative office for Hyundai in Beijing and went about selling his company cars in the Chinese market for the next seven years. Much later during his stay, he opened Secret Garden, a Korean restaurant, also in Beijing.

"Since the book was published in South Korea, I have received many e-mails from readers saying it helped them learn about China," Song said at his book's launch in Beijing last month.

"I think the Chinese version will also help Chinese people better understand Koreans who live in China."

He ventured to add: "I bet it's more interesting than a Korean TV series."

The book starts with the automobile trade between South Korea and China.

When Song first came to China in 1992, he found while traveling from Tianjin airport to Beijing by road that there were very few cars running on the wide highway.

"Why build highways when there are no cars?"was his first impression of China.

At the time, China's automobile industry was nascent, with just 1 million cars on the road. But by 2014, the figure surged to more than 100 million.

Sometime into his stay, Song started to notice many Sonata cars on Beijing roads, but Hyundai hadn't been exporting the mid-sized cars to China back then.

After investigating he found out that the cars had been smuggled to China and were being sold on the black market.

Song thought that the sales of these cars, although illegal, showed the potential of China's auto market.

In the first half of the book, Song recounts his participation in early auto exhibitions in China in the 1990s, and negotiating with government officials on jointly building factories.

These chapters give his readers glimpses of reform in China's automobile market along with the course in which Hyundai's business developed here.

The Asian financial crisis of 1997 slowed down Hyundai's China march, and Song was asked by his headquarters to get back to Seoul in 1999.

But owing to personal reasons he resigned from the company back then.

The second half of the book includes his many business endeavors in China upon his return to Beijing in 1999, and his experiences of living in the fast-changing nation.

"When I go back home on occasions, it seems the only change there is an increase in the number of cafes. But Beijing turns a new face every few months," Song writes in his book.

Before opening Secret Garden, which has become a popular hangout for Korean businesspeople and foreign diplomats near the embassy area in Beijing, Song had tested other waters with limited success such as aluminum trade, importing kimchi and even raising cattle.

"The book records how Song deals with Chinese on different levels, establishes contacts and his thoughts on China," Dong Jianjun, vice-president, Sinotrans & CSC, a Chinese shipping company, writes in the book's recommendation.

Song's 20 years in China are captured in detail in the book.