Korea [Day 2]

Big work day today. Naturally, I slept for all of about 2 hours, but up for breakfast at 7am and ready for the off by 9. The hotel's breakfast lived up to the rest of the standard I'd seen so far: pretty poor. Very basic stuff including own brand cereals, some very, very insipid coffee (no milk) and nothing but scrambled eggs and processed french-fries for the hot food.
Interestingly, nobody seemed to understand what was happening for the first session of the day. It turned out to be a totally separate event run by KIET, something like a Chamber of Commerce. It was packed, literally standing room only. Interesting data about internationalization and about China in particular. Also some nice comments from the Korean Ministry saying that Carrefour is the only company that won't talk to them! Carrefour clearly has a major personality problem and deserves no sympathy whatsoever. The confirmation of these kinds of rumours no matter where I go makes it clear that Carrefour is not looking like a truly capable company for the long run. The appointment of the failed Marks & Spencer man as their new head is equally inspiring of very little confidence.
Korean French food for lunch--skipped the meat, naturally--and then on to the main event of the day. If it wasn't for a handful of students turning up, the session would have been attended by exactly 9 people, so I bit of a disaster to be blunt. The most interesting thing for me was upsetting the one Japanese member of the audience by saying Japan was "modernizing". He took exception to the term, but even greater exception when I suggested 'Westernizing' was more accurate (which of course it is!). He then made his own presentation in which he contrasted Ito-Yokado with "global retailers" as if IY & Aeon aren't global because they're Japanese. Yeah, right pal. It is an interesting comparison with Korea, which welcomes (at least on the surface) the open entry of overseas retailers into its market. Japan still thinks it can beat the world single handedly and is looking to put one over on everyone it deals with. "Japanese distribution is different!" he screams, and I totally concur, but that's missing the point. Yes, store operations and consumer expectations may be different, but the way to make money in retailing is the same in any advanced nation. Of course, once this is pointed out, Aeon and the other 'modern' Japanese retailers are immediately called "exceptions".
Anyway, the afternoon passed, and although a couple more people dropped out, the evening came with a long, slow, multi-course dinner at 'Korea House', a standard tourist destination restaurant used by international and local tourists. Again, meat thoroughly avoided along with any form of alcohol. This was followed by a pretty impressive show of dance & drums and things. Again, the amazing thing from my point of view was the contrast with similar Japanese events. The Korean show was fast and exciting, and the dancers actually smiled! In Japan, the couple of times I've been to similar things, it's been 'strictly traditional' and absolutely no smiling at all. Very boring in fact.