Thoughts on Korean Business by Don Southerton

  Chuseok , one of the most important Korean traditional holidays .   According to the Lunar calendar , the festivities begin on the 15th day of the 8th month of the full moon harvest.    Using the Gregorian calendar , Chuseok 2026 in South Korea KST , Chuseok falls on Friday, September 25, with the official public holiday extending from Thursday, September 24, through Saturday, September 26. This year, many residents will treat it as a four-day break through Sunday, September 27.   Like many agrarian cultures , Koreans once followed the lunar calendar; however, recently, they have shifted to the solar calendar in line with international practice.   While public holidays are based on the solar calendar, a few days are celebrated based on the lunar calendar.   In mass, and I mean a substantial part of the population, travels. For many, this can be back to their home villages. Over the holiday, they perform ancestral rituals at relatives’ graves and ...

The Books Currently drafting:  Connected , a book tracing technology as it moves from the vehicle to the factory floor and beyond. Ten chapters so far: connected vehicles, smart manufacturing, semiconductors , robotics , digital twins , energy and storage, shipbuilding, AI , smart cities, and biotech and biopharma , framed with personal observations from two decades in the industry. Full list of my books and details:  books.bridgingculture.com The Consulting Practice Bridging Culture Worldwide LLC advises on Korea-US business : Western brands entering the Korean market, Korean brands entering the US, and the corporate, cultural, and ownership dynamics that shape how those moves actually work. Over twenty years across automotive , technology, food and beverage, and other sectors. I offer a free initial Korea-US briefing. To request one, visit  www.bridgingculture.com Don Southerton

  One Year Later, Visa Gap     New reporting marking the first anniversary of the September 2025 immigration raid at the Hyundai-LG Energy Solution battery plant in Ellabell, Georgia , finds the underlying visa problem unresolved. The raid detained 475 workers, mostly South Korean nationals , in what was described as the largest single-site enforcement action in Homeland Security Investigations ' history. Korean nationals were released within eight days under a negotiated deal and returned home.   The episode remains a live risk factor as Seoul and Korean chaebols scale up the roughly $350 billion US investment pledge, since large buildouts depend on short-term technical labor that current visa categories do not clearly cover.   Korea Daily 's  anniversary retrospective drew on immigration lawyers, former diplomats, business professors, and consultants, including Don Southerton , to assess what changed and what did not. Southerton's read: the core failu...

  Labor Day 2026   The long weekend has me editing my newest manuscript, “ Connected ,” snacking at Whole Foods , organizing for the busy consulting week ahead, and reading  Romp!  by Heidi Island, PhD , a relative from my South Dakota Larsen side of the family.    Heidi blends scientific research with an engaging look at otters and the story they tell.    Check it out    https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593855035?lv

  Connected Series, Part 2 of 6  |  Smart Manufacturing and Logistics   Headline:  The car taught the industry how to build this architecture. The factory is now an application of the same lesson, and the supply chain is the same architecture one layer out.   This week, we are sharing Connected: A Case Study in Six Sections 1. Connected Vehicles 2. Smart Manufacturing and Logistics (today) 3. Semiconductors 4. Robotics 5. Digital Twins 6. Energy and Storage   The Setup A connected vehicle and a modern plant are the same architecture at different scales. Both are software-defined systems built from networked subsystems that sense, decide, act, and update. Read the mapping and the rest follows.   The Architecture: Subsystem Parallels   Electronic control units and domain controllers map to programmable logic controllers, edge controllers, and cell controllers. Both moved from many small distributed brains toward fewer consolidated ones. CAN bus...