ABSTRACT
Four or five days a week, by the beginning of 1994, the old man tended his farm on the Korean west coast at Sosan Bay. It was no ordinary farm, however, and he was no ordinary farmer. The farmer was Chung Ju Yung, Korea’s richest man, founder of the mighty Hyundai group, rival with Samsung for the title of Korea’s biggest chaebol. The farm was the culmination of a dream. For years, he had been saying he wanted to retire to this plot of land, 38 square miles reclaimed from the sea, that boasted some of the best rice grown anywhere on the Korean peninsula. Now, after the trauma of his presidential campaign, the humiliating trial and conviction for misappropriating millions from his companies to finance his politicking and the efforts by the government to break up his group, he tried to keep his peace — with himself, his family, his organization, even with the rulers he dared to challenge.
