fifty years. Mitsui, a zaibatsu, was the world’s largest private business
during World War II, employing 1 million non-Japanese Asians. Admired
for their immense wealth and national prestige, the zaibatsu were also
reproached for their power. They put politicians into office, set directions
for the nation, and profited immensely from World War II.
—
B.C.’S WORLD WOULD BE upended in August 1945, when American
bomber planes dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
forcing the once-mighty Japanese empire—its industry and population
already devastated by months of relentless Allied fire bombings—to
surrender. General MacArthur arrived in Tokyo and became the virtual
shogun, running the defeated kingdom and attempting to tear down the
zaibatsu. MacArthur attempted to institute a new order of American-style
capitalism and democracy.
“If this concentration of economic power is not torn down and
redistributed peacefully...there is no slightest doubt that its cleansing will
eventually occur through a bloodbath of revolutionary violence,” he wrote
to a congressman.
Six days after the Japanese surrender, American occupation troops
landed in Korea to enforce the Japanese emperor’s abandonment there.
B.C., as a provincial tycoon, began establishing relationships with the new
American military government. Using his father’s inheritance and his small
fortune from the grocery store and beer brewery, he bought up a local
university and a newspaper. He invited Korean managers from the
American military to his new business guild, called “Ulyuhoi,” a patriotic
name referring to Korea’s independence from Japan.
“We met every week to seriously discuss business philosophies and the
future of our country and society,” he wrote. “It was an opportunity to
deeply reflect about business and what it means to live as a human.”
In 1947 he relocated to the Korean capital, Seoul, setting out to build a
nationwide business. In February 1950 he visited downtrodden Tokyo,
where he had an epiphany while getting a haircut.
“Japan should have been completely despondent from their defeat in the
war, but [the barber] was calmly living on, following his lone generational
path,” he wrote. “I was impressed by his sharp work ethic.”