Fecha de vencimiento y amortización de los valores

mudangs are once again the spiritual advisors for the common and not-so-common folk—some chaebol execs I’ve met never make a decision without consulting their preferred mudang. Some mudangs end up as mistresses for the rich and powerful; they’re very influential and can be useful contacts, as long as you don’t threaten their position.

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Take Yoo-jin Hong, for example. Plenty of people resent the inordinate influence the First Joygirl has over President Lee. They blame her for quite a few controversial decisions that have done nothing to calm public unrest.

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Voyeur

Mudangs call upon the gods, ancestors and Nature, har- nessing their spiritual power for the kut (ritual), in which they appease the spirits. A kut can be a humble affair or an awe- inspiring ceremony, including dances, music, storytelling and chants. The spirits possess the mudang’s body, enabling them to communicate with mortals. Staples of Korean shamanism include fortunetelling, charms (like coins) and geomancy. The latter is especially important when burying the dead—woe be unto whoever buries his ancestor in the wrong place.

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Believe it or not, Yeosu’s Naval Academy always hires a mudang for graduation day. She summons the spirit of Admiral Yi, an ancient Korean hero, who then publicly blesses the next cadre of officers. This year’s ceremony was a shock for everyone, when Yi refused to do so because of an unspecified offense.

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Jia

Cults

It was a national embarrassment when the Moonies turned out to be a front for bug spirits, but we seem to have forgotten the lesson. These days you can’t walk through Seoul without being harassed by some wacko.

One such group is the Virtual Utopians, a Matrix gang that believes the net is the be-all-and-end-all of metahumanity. They preach (yes, preach) that our problems can be solved if we all manage to get linked in an online thought gestalt (what- ever that is), so that we can understand each other.

So why bother with these crackpots at all, you ask? Well, for starters, they range from anarchist otaku to corporate sarari- men and everything in between, which means they can be a very good source of information or gear. Second, they can pay good money for the weirdest kind of runs. I’ve done a few jobs for them and don’t regret it (yet).

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The Utopians recruit heavily from the younger generations. A friend of mine joined them a few months ago at a videogame festival … I don’t know how to put it better, but she just isn’t the girl I knew before.

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Nam-Ok

Corporate Battlefield

Korea is an economic powerhouse, with much of its wealth concentrated in the foreign megas and the local chae- bols. It is also a hotspot for the conflict between the Pacific

Prosperity Group and the Japanacorps, as evidenced by Kwonsham Industries’ latest problems. The story is complex and dirty, but it boils down to Kwonsham getting cocky and trying to seize Shiawase’s Hephaestus Technologies. By the time the Japanese buried the hatchet, Kwonsham’s stock made for good toilet paper.

Shiawase was moving in for the kill when the government came to Kwonsham’s rescue. In an effort to stabilize Kwonsham’s finances, the Korean Agency for Economic Security has loaned billions of wons to CEO Kim Jae-kyung. Shiawase has threatened to take the matter to the Corporate Court, citing unlawful government interference or some drek like that.

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They might have a point. The KAES’ public goal is to secure Korea’s economic prosperity, which usually means helping the local chaebols and covertly messing with the Japanacorps. Wonder what President Lee got for helping Kwonsham?

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Keynesian Kid

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Who says it was Lee who gave the order?

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Tutu Tango

While the loan was good news for the PPG, the recent struggle between Eastern Tiger Corporation and Wuxing cer- tainly isn’t. See, Wuxing is keen on strengthening its industrial power base by taking over Hyundai’s assets, but ETC has long seen the latter as a fundamental step toward becoming a triple- A mega. Unless cooler heads prevail, there might be a civil war within the PPG.

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Wuxing has offered an economic olive branch through Jam- Bo Games and Wuxing Worldwide Shipping, but ETC ain’t buy- ing it. They want Hyundai and by God they’re going to have it.

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Miss Teja

Last year saw an internal shake-up in Yang-Su Enterprises, when Melissa Kwan ousted the previous management and became the most influential woman in Korea’s economy. Kwan has played a careful game since then, opting to strengthen Yang-Su’s position through new joint ventures with other PPG members rather than butting heads with the Japanese. Her only surprise move was taking over Hynix Semiconductor.

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No surprise at all. Hynix supplies chips to all major computer manufacturers in Asia and North America. If Kwan wanted a safe investment, she couldn’t have picked a better corp.

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Mr. Kim

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Kwan is a foreigner and a Catholic, which doesn’t make her terribly popular with the nationalists. On the other hand, she has a worldwide network of contacts from her Grand Tour years and a sharp, dragon-like mind for business.

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Muckraker

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Funny you say that.

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Weaver

All the major Japanacorps have some presence in Korea, from Shiawase’s gigantic steel mills in Pyongyang to Sony Entertainment’s Matrix games division. They’ve sunk their claws far too deep to leave the country unharmed if they pull out, something they never forget to insinuate when meeting with President Lee.

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Sure, but if they ever leave, their bottom lines are going to be deep red for a long, long time.

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Chromed Accountant

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It’s not uncommon for the Japanese to hire foreign talent for operations in Korea, because many local runners and Jung- gae-in (fixers) refuse to work for them.

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Snow Tiger

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Renraku has a training center in Korea for its elite security forces. Most of these are females, metahumans or non- Japanese troopers, all folks who didn’t stand a chance of join- ing the Red Samurais. Keep that in mind when raiding Renraku’s local subsidiaries.

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Renraku Fox

North American corps have a smaller presence but enjoy a much warmer welcome. Ares has grown in influence at the expense of the Japanese, selling weapons at a loss to the Army to hook them up and win friends within the top brass. Federated-Boeing has long been active in Korea, supplying civilian airplanes to Asiana Airtech and ETC’s Korean Airlines as well as combat aircraft to the Air Force. As a matter of fact, most of the military’s contracts are handled by non-Japanese corps; right now, Ares and Yamatetsu are fighting over the Navy’s con- tract for ten new coastal warships.

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Ares’ Stuart-class corvettes are a little better and cheaper than Yamatetsu’s Potemkin-class boats, but supply logistics favor the latter. As usual, none of this matters as much as hav- ing the best deniable assets …

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Arctic White

The Fringe

If you’re thinking Seoulpa Rings-uber-alles, you’re in for a surprise—remember they started in Seattle, not Korea. What we do have are vast networks of small gangs known as Jo- poks. Though it might seem they’re independent from each other (an idea reinforced by their constant power struggles), the truth is that each Jo-pok rules a certain district within a pyramidal organization.

The two biggest factions are the Wonsan pirates and the Park Syndicate. The former rules Wonsan and has a death grip over maritime activities, while the latter is spread all over the south, challenging every Yakuza operation it can. “Halabeoji” Park has very good political connections—I heard his p-sec has President Lee’s phone number.

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Could it be because they’re distant cousins? Nah, impossible …

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Ki-Duk

When not fighting against each other, the Jo-poks like to make the Yaks’ lives utter hell. They’ve succeeded in breaking the Yamashita-gumi’s previous rule of Korea’s shadows, but the Yakuza is far from defeated. The group is probably the most open-minded syndicate in Korea, having embraced Koreans and the Awakened from day one. That didn’t win many friends in Japan, but it sure as hell gave them a solid position in Korea—despite Watada’s purges in Seattle, the Korean oyabuns remained loyal to Yamashita-san here.

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Come on traitor, say it once and for all …

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1919 Forever

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The fact that I’ve worked for Yamashita-san and I like cool tat- toos does not necessarily make me a Yakuza or traitor.

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Mugunghwa

PLACES TO GO, PEOPLE TO FRAG

Tourist visas are the easy way to get into Korea if you have a SIN. If you don’t, try entering through the Manchurian border or the scores of small islands dotting Korea’s coast. Whatever you do, avoid being noticed by patrols (that is, unless you want a live- fire exercise with the military).

Seoul-Incheon Megaplex

Korea’s capital is a sprawling megalopolis of 30 million inhabitants. The SIM features a huge number of attractions, from the NIS headquarters to the fashionable Myeong-dong district and the port of Incheon. Myeong-dong is where the vice is: corp suits relaxing at exclusive nightclubs, thrill-seeking rich teenagers, etc. Its cosmopolitan nature also attracts a good portion of the for- eign runners living in Seoul.

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Myeong-dong is fragging tough to crack or live in, with secu- rity cameras on every street and police watching for any sign of trouble that could scare away tourists. I’d rather live in Itaewon—it isn’t that flashy, but it’s quieter and half the resi- dents are foreigners.

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Johnny Hotel

Incheon concentrates maritime and aerial activity through its harbor and international airports, not to mention a good deal of manufacturing activity conveniently close to them. If you’re thinking of sabotaging a factory or stealing a prototype, you’ll probably end up there.

Seoul is also the center of the war between the Park Syndicate and the Yamashita-gumi. Lots of people end up floating in the Han River every week.

Pyongyang

Northern Korea is a Japanese stronghold. Post-war recon- struction was so expensive that the government had to loosen regulations and let Japanese corps step in. While the corps cer- tainly pumped a lot of money into the North’s economy, the locals have seen barely any of it.

Pyongyang is as dirty as Seoul is glitzy. The former com- munist capital is an industrial nightmare, heavily contaminated

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In document RURALPYME 2 FTPYME FONDO DE TITULIZACIÓN DE ACTIVOS (página 42-46)