Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler DVD/CD collection site

>>I wonder how the Korean company 'LG' became so big in the US all of a sudden.

I can answer one of the mysteries. LG was huge as a company called "Goldstar" (actually Lucky Goldstar) -- what they didn't sell under their own brand they made for other people -- when the marketing folks decided that they needed a new name. LG became huge immediately, but the Goldstar group was 50+ different companies when I was working in Korea in the early 90s and I'm sure they have grown from there.

Interesting trivia -- in Taegu, one of the major industrial cities, most of the Goldstar employees eat at the "Hyundai" restaurant. Apparently Hyundai is Korean for "progress", although that isn't why the restaurant is so popular... beer and soju are cheap and the food is great.

There are a few big conglomerates, called "chaebols", in Korea. I thought there were more but I can't remember them all -- Hyundai, Samsung, Goldstar (now LG), Daewoo, and a couple of others. The only difference I remember is that Samsung had armed guards with M16s at all of their R&D centers and everyone else let you waltz in without ID.