Earlier, I had visited Seoul in 2004 but this visit was different. Our team of seven had a travel itinerary crisscrossing the country from West to South to East to West, giving us a rare opportunity to have a holistic insight of the Country and its People. We visited a resuscitated spring of the yore flowing through the middle of a city road, a 13^th century royal Palace standing majestically beside the Blue House – the official residence of the President of the Republic and a Museum which encapsulates the history and culture of 2000 years in about 2000 square yard of space. I could see the best of East and West in perfect harmony. The diligence of Koreans who have steadfastly refused to compromise their linguistic and cultural identity, was reflected everywhere.

 

A country with 70% land under mountainous terrain, surprisingly has beautiful roads, rail and air links that makes it possible to cover the whole country twice between sunrise to sunset by air and once at least by road. Interestingly, there were no roads in the country until early 20^th Century as people believed building roads is like extending invitation to the Japanese for invading Korea! Practically, the whole country was in ruins until 1960s, first under the Japanese invasion and then due to the fratricidal war between the North and South of the peninsula.

 

We were told, people used to starve in winter due to inadequate crops so much so that the most important festivals in Korea are associated with ‘rice growing’ and the most important tradition is preserving food in the form of ‘kimchi’. Today, the country is generating surplus food. The movement for achieving self-sufficiency in food was so intense that there was a national movement for exterminating rats from the Korean soil. School children were assigned homework of killing rats and bringing the tails next day to the school as a proof of dutifully completing the assignment! ‘Semauel’ movement was launched exhorting all to work together for wiping our poverty by practicing sacrifice. The movement is a triumph of human spirit over natural and historic adversities. So much hard work did a generation do, that, today the entire country is abuzz with great stories of their sacrifice. Koreans are proud to commit themselves and continue to look for greater challenges.

 

At Gwangyang, we visited POSCO integrated Steelworks and were told how the Plant site has been reclaimed from under the sea with years of hard work. The Plant is a logistics marvel-very difficult to visualize unless one sees it physically. Hundreds of kilometer of conveyor belts that we saw lining the road from port through plant was fully covered. The visual management was unique with automation evident everywhere. Everywhere we saw people on the shop floor fully geared for personal safety and on planned checking and maintenance duty. While the Gwangyang Plant facilities stand in straight line parallel to the sea shore, within a perfect rectangular shaped land, the Pohang Plant facilities line the U-shaped coast. Visiting the FINEX plant - resultant of one an half decades of research, was a humbling experience. It’s so huge that it’s difficult to see the contours of the furnace. It stands testimony to a never ending Korean quest for bettering the past best. Hats off to the indomitable spirit of POSCO innovators!

 

We visited the POSCO museum, and the most striking image of the Museum which I carry in my mind is that of a double storey tin building - ‘Rommel House’, named after the legendary German soldier General Rommel. From this ‘Rommel House’, the founder President Mr Tae Joon Park advocated a ‘can do’ spirit. He exhorted his fellow men to consider the project as a matter of national duty and said they should ‘turn right’ and lay down their lives by Yongil Bay in case of failure. We were told that not many pictures of the first tapping operation exist because the photographers joined in the euphoric celebrations forgetting their cameras!

 

POSCO has helped build two unique national treasures in Pohang City – the Pohang University of Science and Technology, commonly known as POSTECH and the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory. POSTECH is one of the top universities in Asia where selective international students are fully supported with scholarships and grants. The whole campus vibrates with learning energy.

 

Our brief meeting with the present CEO Mr Ku Taek Lee, the founder of the ‘POSCO Global way Vision’, was memorable. He epitomizes the Korean hospitality by personal practice. The success story of POSCO is scripted inside Rommel House, with the ‘turn right spirit’ at Yongil Bay in Pohang and repeated with the miracle of Gwangyang Bay by people who truly believed ‘impossible is achievable’ and ‘creativity is unlimited’. We learnt that for two decades, the employees of POSCO worked for pittance, kept learning and working harder without personal comfort for until the complete plan was achieved. The 39 founder-employees of POSCO had near Zero knowledge or experience of Steel making! Yet the miracles happened.