Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

Chapter 577: Building Bus Terminal (1) – Part 2

Gun-Ho and Jae-Sik Moon continued to talk in the car while heading to Antang City.

Gun-Ho asked, “Did they already find a construction company for the terminal?”

“I don’t think so. I was told that they will put the work on an open bid.”

“That’s what they say, which might be different from what they actually would do. Maybe the public bid is a pretense. Maybe they already have a construction company that they want to work with. When the joint venture eventually makes a contract with a construction company, you probably want to pay attention to that construction company’s president. He must be someone who is closely related to a high ranking officer in the municipal government.”

“Is it like that in Korea too?”

“I don’t know, but in Korea, the government always finds a construction company through Onbid if the work is for the government. So, that sort of practice in Korea shouldn’t be as prevalent as it is in China.”

“Man, you seem to know everything. It’s amazing.”

“Nah... I just keep my ears open all the time.”

The Audi that Gun-Ho was sitting in finally arrived at the old terminal building in Antang City. There were ten old buses parked in the terminal, and many people were sitting at the waiting area for their buses. Jae-Sik brought Gun-Ho to his office—the joint venture’s president’s office. It was located in a single floor building with a yard. When Gun-Ho got there, Ms. Eun-Hwa Jo ran toward Gun-Ho. She looked excited.

“G-jjong (President Goo)!”

“Oh, Ms. Eun-Hwa Jo! It’s really good to see you. How have you been?”

“I’m doing great. President Moon is very kind to me. I’m comfortable working with him.”

“Please take good care of President Moon. He is my friend.”

“Don’t worry about it. President Moon is doing very good.”

“Haha, really?”

When Vice President Chun Chang heard that Gun-Ho was here, he came out quickly from his office.

“Hey, President Goo!”

“Oh, Vice President Chun Chang!”

The two men had a handshake with a smile.

Vice President Chun Chang said, “We will have the contract signing ceremony tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock. Try to take a deep rest tonight, and please meet me here at 9:30 tomorrow.”

“No problem.”

“The contract will be signed by GH Logistics’ Chairman Gun-Ho Goo and Mr. Runsheng Yan who is the transportation company’s president in Antang City, Guizhou Province and also the chairman of the joint venture company.”

“Of course.”

“The director of the transportation department will attend the ceremony as well. He needs to be there to witness the conclusion of the contract on behalf of the government.”

“Sounds good.”

“And, we will have a press conference about the joint venture establishment between China and Korea at Plaza Hotel at 11 am the day after tomorrow.”

“Got it. You must have been very busy arranging all these events, Mr. Vice President.”

“Haha. Of course, this is my job.”

As a matter of fact, the vice president was having a hectic week in preparing the events. He had to send out invitations, take care of the banners that would be hung during the events, arrange the venues, and all. Since Jae-Sik was a foreigner in China, who wouldn’t be very helpful during the preparation even if he wanted to help, he was having a peaceful week. The vice president was the only one who was practically in charge of the event preparation.

When Gun-Ho noticed his swollen lip, he said, “Mr. Vice President, your lip is swollen. I can tell that you have been under a lot of stress lately in preparing the events.”

“Haha, this? It’s nothing. I’m perfectly good. Well, we have structured departments already. Why don’t you take a tour around the office building? Please allow me to show you around.”

Gun-Ho stopped by each department’s office with the joint venture’s vice president—Mr. Chun Chang, President Jae-Sik Moon, and his interpreter—Ms. Eun-Hwa Jo. The first department that they visited was the sales department.

“Hi, I’m the manager of the sales department.”

A man who looked like he was in his early 40s greeted Gun-Ho. He looked really smart.

“This man grew up in Nanchang City and graduated from transportation school. He had been working for the transportation company for 12 years before joining us at the joint venture.”

Gun-Ho then stopped by each department one by one, including the operations department, accounting department, cargo department, etc., and met with the workers there. The last department that he visited that day was the police station at the terminal.

The chief police officer there looked like a gangster in Gun-Ho’s eyes. Inside the police station, there were five or six public security officers working in their uniforms.

“How come the position of the chief police officer here is listed as a position below the terminal’s president?”

“The public security officers here are paid by the joint venture.”

“Oh, really? I thought that they would be paid by the Public Security Bureau.”

“That’s how it is in China. The terminal in China belongs to the government anyway. We have a different system from Korea.”

“Does that mean that President Moon could hire or fire the public security officers here?”

“Well... He can make a recommendation to the Public Security Bureau about it.”

Gun-Ho realized that two countries have indeed very different systems. Gun-Ho turned around and looked at Jae-Sik Moon and said, “You are now a powerful man, dude. All of the public security officers here are working in a lower position than you.”

“That’s not always a good thing though. We gotta pay them, right?”

Gun-Ho, Jae-Sik Moon, Vice President Chun Chang, and Eun-Hwa Jo came out to the station square. A lady with a tough look in a uniform was helping an old bus that was moving backward while blowing the whistle.

Vice President Chun Chang said while looking at the office building, “Behind that building, our new terminal will be built. And, next to it, we will have a terminal hotel. The hotel will be built with 12 floors, and we will adjust the size of the hotel as we figure out the estimated traffic for the new terminal.”

“Hmm.”

“We will select a construction company who will be building our terminal through a public bid, and we will do the construction supervision ourselves.”

“Hmm”

“The construction director will become the joint venture’s employee, and he will be placed under Mr. President Jae-Sik Moon.”

“You shouldn’t forget about changing the ownership of this land to the joint venture’s name.”

“Mr. Chairman Runsheng Yan is currently working on it. He had a meeting with the director of the transportation department yesterday. Since the Land Bureau is also a relevant party in this matter, he also met with the director of the Land Bureau as well. We are anticipating having it resolved soon.”

“How is Mr. Deputy Mayor doing these days?”

“Mr. Deputy Mayor Lixian Zhang, who came up with the idea of forming a joint venture for the project in the beginning, will not be at the contract signing ceremony tomorrow. However, he will be at the press conference and the party afterwards. I’m sure he will be so excited to see you, Mr. President Goo and welcome you here.”

“I’ve heard that you are doing soil tests right now.”

“This terminal is a public place for the Chinese people. We need a strong and safe building. We’ve requested the soil tests to Guizhou University. The people in their engineering college are working on it. As you probably already know, Guizhou University is the largest university in the south west area in China. It’s located in Guiyang City. They have over 30,000 students. We will proceed with civil engineering work based on their test result.”

Gun-Ho nodded his head while looking around the large station square.

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