do sun choi —Dante— was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1965. He arrived in Argentina during the dictatorship. He was 12 years old and settled with his family in Fuerte Apache. He entered through Paraguay, fleeing the post-war misery and for 7 years he lived as an illegal immigrant. Without knowing the language or the culture, he says that Raúl Alfonsín saved him from being deported. Alfonsín assumed the presidency on December 10, 1983 and the next day, Dante took the bus 2 in Liniers to the Casa Rosada to present a petition. When he arrived, the queue was endless: “I was demoralized, I imagined that it would be people who would come for reasons of missing persons.”
He thought no one was going to read his note, but there was an immediate response: “They told us to go to the director of immigration and we were the first family to receive the filing with the democratic government. It saved our lives,” he says. His resilient phoenix story is inspiring. From having empty pockets and climbing the up and down of the Argentine roller coaster, today he is the owner of Peabody, the home appliance company that bills 700 million pesos a month and produces 400,000 units a year. Without a doubt, Dante’s commercial profile is brilliant and the end of his film has a happy ending. But what did he do to become what he is? At the beginning, the whole family assembled bicycles for the Fiorenza factory. At the age of 19, he started working at Daewoo, the Korean multinational, as a translator of tender documents.
He devised it as a temporary job and stayed for 15 years, managing the company. In 1998, with little money, he started his own business; he had experience in the sale of electronic supplies and business contacts. But he was merged between 2001 and 2002. In 2003 he created Goldmund SA of home appliances; he only had a secretary and a cadet. But he helped her in 2004 to buy the Peabody brand, with which survived three recessions further. In September he received the Distinguished Immigrant diploma and, although excited, he wonders “Why did they give it to me? I have lived in Argentina for 45 years and I think I feel more attached to the country than someone born here”.
News: He has said that Argentina was recognized in Korea for its prosperity, that Buenos Aires was the Paris of South America. Didn’t they have news of the dictatorship, of the political situation in that year 1977?
Dante Choi: Of course. He was 11 years old in 1976 and dad was processing the visa that he was denied for Argentina. In a Korean newspaper he showed me the news of the fall of Isabelita Perón and said “we are going to this country.” In other words, we found out about the coup. And for many years he cursed his decision. We live in a FONAVI monoblock, the military kicked us out, we were undocumented. It was horrible for my parents, my little brother and me.
News: And how was your schooling? Did she go to college?
Choi: Very difficult. I was able to enter elementary school but not secondary school. I managed to enter the Urquiza de Flores School and after the first term they kicked me out for lack of documents. Since then I wandered from school to school as a listener. Then I did the CBC and entered the UBA, the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. I wanted to study philosophy. I studied 3 years. I had great teachers like Conrado Eggers Lan, Adolfo Carpio who had studied with Heiddeger! Listening to Eggers in his classes in Antigua was a luxury. Do not finish…
News: But he applies some of Plato’s thoughts to his business philosophy.
Choi: That photo on the wall is of the Frankfurt Opera, I took it. (She is framed and presides over her office). It was a building destroyed during the war. Inside is the fabulous concert hall and the headquarters of the Symphony Orchestra. On the front, she says: “The true, the beautiful, the good.” They are Platonic ideas that move me; They are the values I want for my company.
News: Appreciate the arts. What did his first trip to Florence mean, at 40?
Choi: I am in love with art, a music lover of classical music and opera, I must have more than 20 thousand longplays. From that trip I knew that the design would be what would give identity to my company. I introduced colors in the electrical appliances, I wanted them to be beautiful. Because he was telling me what is Peabody? An American brand, the name is English, the owner is a Korean immigrant and it is an Argentine company. An advertising agency told us that I had to tell my story to build an identity. For an immigrant it is difficult. He enters his new place in the world and must work out his social and cultural identity. And the same is true of companies. Our brand identity is Argentine design.
News: The multi-award winning eTermo, created by the young designer from Tandil Pedro Sainz, underwent development before going on the market.
Choi: We worked five years with the idea to take it to a commercial product. It was a difficult process. It had to heat up, not lose pressure, a special valve, proper paint, plug in. Each step forward was a step back by two. But we did it.
News: How did you come to implement the Peabody Award and what does it consist of?
Choi: Working at Daewo I learned that in Korea there are strong synergies between companies and universities. Technological and academic development go hand in hand. And it is a tradition. I told myself, I have to make these agreements and contests. The first was won by Pedro and we are preparing the bases for the second for 2023. We would like it to be biennial to learn about the potential of young people.
News: What things happen in the Peabody Cultural Space?
Choi: When we moved to this building, I thought about putting a cafeteria in that adjoining space, but I decided to associate the company with culture. We had an international photo exhibition, with notable juries. The idea is that the entire building is open and active. We want to hire a curator to have frequency of events.
Man Young-Choi was the father of Dante, born in the 1920s in North Korea, which was a Japanese colony. From a relatively wealthy family, however, the Japanese took him as a war slave when he turned 21 and then he was transferred to Hokkaido, an island north of Japan, where he worked for three years in a coal mine, from sunrise to sunset, although without seeing it. With the World War, Japan was destroyed and the fate of the Korean slaves would not be a priority. Man Young walked from Hokkaido to Fukuoka. There he took a boat and walked 3 thousand kilometers in six months to his town. But communism settled in Korea and with the agrarian reform they lost everything again. The Korean War broke out and he was sent to the front but escaped. Upon turning himself in, US soldiers put him in a concentration camp for two years. At the end of the war in 1953, he was given the choice of returning to the north or staying there. “He knew that if he came back they would shoot him as a deserter. And he stayed, knowing that he was leaving all his family behind. From my dad I inherited industriousness, discipline and being true to oneself. He never gave up, he is an example of resilience, ”says Dante.
News: Did he go back to South Korea?
Choi: Many times. Currently it is a hyper-developed society both technologically and socially and culturally. They are aware that their own actions have an impact on others and the actors try to improve society. The problem is that the improvements are the result of extreme competitiveness that arises from the very high educational level. But that pressure is enormous and makes it a difficult country to live in.. They have no regard for loosers who are not fit to compete. The country is in the hands of the 0.1 percent that is the competitive elite. The rest, the millions who do not arrive, are frustrated and sad.
News: That is why he formed an Argentine family and settled here.
Choi: Exactly. I have an architect daughter, Pilar (25) from my first marriage. And a son, Theo (4) with my current wife. The two mothers are Argentine. My life is here and this is my place in the world.
News: There are no recipes for success. At most a cocktail between talent, education, perseverance, context and luck. How is your cocktail?
Choi: The hostile context helped me, because adversity makes you grow stronger, it forces you to exercise your wits. I have seen self made men who achieved success but were loaded with resentment. It is like in Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, when in the last act the farm is sold to the grandson of the slave who had worked there and he cuts down all the cherry trees, a symbol of the suffering suffered by his family. I have seen people buy their cherry orchard and destroy it. I didn’t become that man because of my dad. He named me Do Sun. Do means path and Sun, goodness. Why, having suffered so much evil? Although he professed religion, it is not out of Christian goodness. This is the idea of absolute goodness, Platonic. If he had not believed in the existence of that kindness, he would not have named me that. This to me is one of his great teachings.
News: He said that as a result of his father’s story he has a permanent feeling of fear. Was he over it?
Choi: I’m not over it. We live seven years in fear of losing everything. And today the fear is Because this country forces me to continue without rest. I have to work to keep this company, the jobs. The Argentine context is difficult and uncertain and does not allow you to focus on improving the product or the service. Progress implies a process, times in the medium or long term. You don’t have to use shortcuts.
