Comment by bane
13 years ago
I had heard about conglomerates of course. But my first visit to South Korea, the totality of it blew my mind -- the cyberpunk future of company-nations coming out of Asia was real.
I remember that between getting off of the plane and going to bed, I had ridden in at least 2 Samsung built vehicles (a bus and a taxi -- dunno about the subway), shopped in a Samsung owned store, made some phone calls on a Samsung phone, got into a Samsung built apartment building and taken a Samsung elevator up to an apartment filled with Samsung appliances where I went to sleep watching news on a Samsung TV.
Later, on the same trip I experienced a very similar conglomerate built world in the form of LG and Daewoo, even getting a trip to a massive Daewoo ship building facility that cranked out - to spec - everything from oil tankers to submarines.
Back in the early 90's I bought a $30 VCR from some no-name foreign brand no one had ever heard of here in the US. 1/3 the price of the name brand stuff.
Then I went to Seoul and saw that same company brand on top of the largest skyscraper in the city - Daewoo.
Absolutely mind blowing.
I used to have Daewoo-branded home appliances (fridge, microwave) and my girlfriend at that time had a Daewoo car (branded as Chevrolet in some countries).