Seoul Man
A Memoir of Cars, Culture, Crisis, and Unexpected Hilarity Inside a Korean Corporate Titan
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Narrated by:
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Frank Ahrens
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By:
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Frank Ahrens
About this listen
Recounting his three years in Korea, the highest-ranking non-Korean executive at Hyundai sheds light on a business culture very few Western journalists ever experience in this revealing, moving, and hilarious memoir.
When Frank Ahrens, a middle-aged bachelor and 18-year veteran at the Washington Post, fell in love with a diplomat, his life changed dramatically. Following his new bride to her first appointment in Seoul, South Korea, Frank traded the newsroom for a corporate suite, becoming director of global communications at Hyundai Motors. In a land whose population is 97 percent Korean, he was one of fewer than 10 non-Koreans in a company of 5,000 employees.
For the next three years, Frank traveled to auto shows and press conferences around the world, pitching Hyundai to former colleagues while trying to navigate cultural differences at home and at work. While his appreciation for absurdity enabled him to laugh his way through many awkward encounters, his job began to take a toll on his marriage and family. Eventually he became a vice president - the highest-ranking non-Korean in the history of Hyundai - but at an untenable price.
Filled with unique insights and told in his engaging, humorous voice, Seoul Man sheds light on a culture few Westerners know and is a delightfully funny and heartwarming adventure for anyone who has ever felt like a fish out of water - all of us.
©2016 Frank Ahrens (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Bitter Brew
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- By: William Knoedelseder
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The engrossing, often scandalous saga of one of the wealthiest, longest-lasting, and most colorful family dynasties in the history of American commerce—a cautionary tale about prosperity, profligacy, hubris, and the blessings and dark consequences of success. This engrossing, vivid narrative captures the Busch saga through five generations. At the same time, it weaves a broader story of American progress and decline over the past 150 years. It's a cautionary tale of prosperity, hubris, and loss.
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Couldn't stop listening...
- By Jeremy McGough on 11-09-12
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Bend, Not Break
- A Life in Two Worlds
- By: Ping Fu, MeiMei Fox
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Ping Fu knows what it’s like to be a child soldier, a factory worker, and a political prisoner. To be beaten and raped for the crime of being born into a well-educated family. To be deported with barely enough money for a plane ticket to a bewildering new land. To start all over, without family or friends, as a maid, waitress, and student. Ping Fu also knows what it’s like to be a pioneering software programmer, an innovator, a CEO, and Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year.
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A true account as good as any Horatio Alger story!
- By Roy B. Paschal on 01-14-13
By: Ping Fu, and others
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In-N-Out Burger
- A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules
- By: Stacy Perman
- Narrated by: Loren Lester
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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It's the untold story of the renegade burger chain that evokes a passionate following unlike any other. In fast-food corporate America, In-N-Out Burger stands apart. Begun in a tiny shack in the shadow of World War II, this family-owned chain has steadfastly refused to franchise or be sold. It is a testament to old-fashioned values and reminiscent of a simpler time when people, loyalty, and a freshly made, juicy hamburger meant something.
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Flowery Promo Piece
- By Melissa on 02-22-10
By: Stacy Perman
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Factory Girls
- From Village to City in a Changing China
- By: Leslie T. Chang
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America's shores remade our own country a century ago.
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Living in Shenzhen - and What A Disappointment
- By Abstraction on 03-01-10
By: Leslie T. Chang
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Country Driving
- A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China.
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Pass the white rice please
- By Nick on 02-18-10
By: Peter Hessler
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Boom, Bust, Exodus
- The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities
- By: Chad Broughton
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.
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A Story I thought I Knew
- By Meek84 on 07-08-18
By: Chad Broughton
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Working Together
- Why Great Partnerships Succeed
- By: Michael D. Eisner, Aaron R. Cohen
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson, Michael D. Eisner (introduction and epilogue)
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Dig deep and you will find the most compelling argument for working together: Happiness. In business there are always unique individual achievers, but pull down the veil and you'll often find someone alongside them. Michael Eisner does just that in Working Together. Using his own collaboration with Frank Wells at Disney as a launching point for examining other famously successful partnerships, Eisner offers us an intimate and deeply personal look at some of the most rewarding business partnerships.
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Interesting to see what all partners had in common
- By Amazon Customer on 06-01-13
By: Michael D. Eisner, and others
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The Politician
- An Insider's Account of John Edwards's Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal that Brought Him Down
- By: Andrew Young
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Like a nonfiction version of All the King's Men, The Politician offers a truly disturbing, even shocking, perspective on the risks taken and tactics employed by a man determined to rule the most powerful nation on earth.
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Politician Phony. A must listen!!!
- By Sherman on 02-09-10
By: Andrew Young
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Fins
- Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit
- By: William Knoedelseder
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook chronicles the birth and rise to greatness of the American auto industry through the life of Harley Earl, an eccentric six-foot-five, stuttering visionary who dropped out of college and went on to invent the profession of automobile styling, thereby revolutionized the way cars were made, marketed, and even imagined. Harleys Earl’s story qualifies as a bona fide American family saga. It began in the Michigan pine forest in the years after the Civil War, traveled across the Great Plains on the wheels of a covered wagon, and eventually settled in Hollywood, California.
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Great report of amazing history but could do without the WOKE lean..
- By joshua Shaw on 07-02-22
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The Girls of Atomic City
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Denise Kiernan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.
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Important story of this secret city
- By CBlox on 11-14-13
By: Denise Kiernan
What listeners say about Seoul Man
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Brian P
- 12-18-23
Read This Book
Captivating. This is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve consumed this year. Frank is an effective storyteller who expertly weaves together a combination of personal and professional anecdotes as he takes you through his life journey. Great story, even better messages, and forms an arc of which Vonnegut would be proud (albeit non-fiction). Well done!
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- James Biesty
- 05-19-17
Korean Culture Very Cool But Nothing Else
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
Only the part about Korean history and culture was cool but really nothing else.
Has Seoul Man turned you off from other books in this genre?
No
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Frank Ahrens?
Not sure
What else would you have wanted to know about Frank Ahrens’s life?
Nothing. Heard too much. Could of been summarized in a family Christmas letter.
Any additional comments?
First off you could see this author was a good reporter because when he wrote about Korean culture it was very interesting and you could see he did his homework. This part about his book I truly loved and now I want to read more about Korean history. This I thank him for. The rest I could of done without. All his personal life seemed uninteresting and superficial except for how he interacted with Koreans. Even that was a little disappointing with his unwillingness to immerse himself unto Korean culture but at least seemed honest due to it's superficial nature. He should of reserved his personal life for his family/friend Christmas Letters. Everyone I know who also read this felt his personal life was the most uninteresting part of the book. I suggest you fast forward through every one of these chapters. Before reading this book I thought Hyundai was a cool company that turned themselves around. The Elantra is still the best car my wife ever owned. My dad owns the Genesis, loves it and so I wanted to hear about the company in the book. However the author made this a shameless commercial for the company and therefore most of this was very hard to listen to. So if I ever read another book from Frank Ahrens I hope it's not autobiographical or about a company he's associated with. If he want's to write a book about Korean history and keep it just about that I'm in. Otherwise I'm out. Now, thanks to this book, I'm going to watch The Admiral and learn about a Korean Themistocles.
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- Sandra Dodd
- 08-24-19
Excellent set of stories
I loved the stories and insights. The author could have prepared himself better for the reading. It was tolerable, but a bit irritating, especially as he had used the phrase "off-syllable emphases" about problems with Korean-speakers' English speeches. Having an understanding of that problem, he shouldn't have demonstrated it.
I'm not sorry I listened, but I wish editors and recording engineers would be more willing to point problems out to readers.
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- Sean
- 09-27-16
Good anecdotes about working for a Korean corp
I finished this audiobook pretty quickly. It is read by the author, who reads it much better than a different narrator would. His voice is not annoying.
I have lived for a total of over a year in Korea, invest in Korean companies, and many of my friends work for Korean companies. Mr. Ahrens worked for one of the most buttoned-up and traditional large corporations, Hyundai Motor. It's a great outsider-insider's view of Hyundai Motor, and also sheds some interesting insights on the auto indsutry, corporate vs journalist life, expat life in East Asia, getting married for the 1st time as an older male, and experiences acclimatizing to a foreign corporate culture.
Great book and would not hesitate to recommend it. A nitpick is that a lot of the Korean words are mispronounced, but it's really not a big deal.
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1 person found this helpful
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- BunnyDee
- 01-03-17
Uneven
It was a struggle to finish this and I found his characterization of his wife being bored with staying home with her child, tone deaf and insulting to those of us who tried for years and could not have children and now cannot afford the insane price of adoption. She should thank God for the privileged life she has and her precious children. I wish there was more on Korean Culture.
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- Jim In Texas!
- 10-03-16
Must read for anyone working Korea!
I was a U.S. Air Force officer, in the early 90s I spent a year serving with the Korean Air Force on a Korean base, far from any U.S. installation.
This book really hit home! I wish I had read it before I went to Korea. Everything Frank says about throwing an 'America Bomb' into a Korean workplace rings 100% true.
I also agree that Korea is hard charging into a better future.
This is a must read for anyone doing business in Asia in general and Korea in particular.
And it's both funny and heartwarming.
Highly recommended.
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2 people found this helpful
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- SM
- 06-01-18
Pretty good
I enjoyed the story and related to it, having lived in both Seoul and Jakarta. It did get a bit preachy (we’re not all bible bangers) and when he complained about being away from his wife ad nauseam I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes. I lived this my whole childhood (through no choice of my own). It’s not that hard. Sort of soured me on an otherwise interesting and good book
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- Aaron Sanchez
- 02-11-19
Great Book!
Seoul Man is a fun and interesting summary of an American's overnight entry into South Korean business and national culture. I found the stories about the little things such as asking for someone at a table too pass the salt in Korea being considered rude versus the west where it would be impolite not to to be very interesting. The deep dive into Hyundai's journey to become a global equal in auto making to its foreign rivals interesting also. Ahrens' faith is also expressed in this book but not in a way that should turn any reader off; he simply uses his faith to describe his decision making process in regard to his family, overall attitude, and career choices. A very enlightening read.
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- Dominic
- 11-14-17
Only 50% of the book is about Korea
I do not recommend this book at all as half of the book is about the author's personal life, which has nothing at all to do with what people actually want to read about.
AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY
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- plau
- 09-03-16
Very Lite
Would you try another book from Frank Ahrens and/or Frank Ahrens?
Probably not
Would you ever listen to anything by Frank Ahrens again?
Probably not
What does Frank Ahrens bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The book is well read.
Any additional comments?
This book is pretty shallow and superficial. Very much an average American goes to Korea and learns some predictable and average lessons. I didn't really think it was as funny as the blurb advertised. On a few occasions the author's cultural tone deafness and incuriosity could be considered funny I guess but I was annoyed by that point. Not badly written just not insightful. The reader and audio quality were very good.
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