Gang Woo-hyun, the protagonist of the 'Nami Island success story' that became a Hallyu shrine as the filming location of 'Winter Sonata,' reveals an extraordinary management philosophy along with the shocking remark "a salary of 100 won."
Today (17th) at 9:55 p.m. EBS Seo Jang-hoon's The Millionaire Next Door (hereinafter The Millionaire Next Door) visits viewers with its long-awaited first regular broadcast. Appearing with new face Jang Ye-won, Seo Jang-hoon said, "Usually we visit millionaires' homes, but today we're going to a country, not a house," raising expectations for the unusually chosen first-episode subject. The person Seo Jang-hoon described with reverence, saying "this is no ordinary person," is Gang Woo-hyun, who over 10 years built a "30,000-pyeong republic" on barren land in Jeju. To be precise, it is a vast virtual nation–style theme park.
But it turned out that the "Jeju 30,000-pyeong republic" was the second country he established, which shocked many. His first work was Nami Island, a romantic shrine still visited by lovers worldwide and considered one of Korea's representative tourist attractions. Nami Island has been listed in the "Top 100 Korean tourist attractions" for seven consecutive years and named a "Star of Korean Tourism" by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), making it a global hot spot. In particular, as the filming location of the drama Winter Sonata, which sparked the "Yonsama fever," it still attracts numerous overseas fans even more than 20 years after its broadcast.
In 2001 Gang Woo-hyun took over Nami Island, which officially had liabilities of 6 billion won and was effectively neglected. But a miracle happened. While he ran it, Nami Island transformed into a tourist destination visited by people from 122 countries and 3.3 million visitors. Annual sales surged by as much as 40-fold, achieving explosive growth. Behind all this success was a secret beyond imagination. Gang Woo-hyun confessed that Nami Island's blockbuster secret was "a salary of 100 won," shocking everyone. He recalled, "After a year I went to the bank to check and it showed 1,200 won." The secret of the Nami Island success legend tied to the "annual salary of 1,200 won" can be confirmed in Gang Woo-hyun's life story on the first regular episode of The Millionaire Next Door.
Meanwhile, in this episode the "2-trillion giant" Seo Jang-hoon reveals his "obsessive incentive instinct," prompting laughter. Seo Jang-hoon said, "I am very worldly," and insisted that Gang Woo-hyun's incentives "would be over a billion won even with a rough estimate." He went on to say, "I can't do without incentives even if I die," declaring himself an "incentive-obsessed person (a person crazy about incentives)," leaving the scene in uproar. How much might the unimaginably large incentives accepted by Gang Woo-hyun, a top 20th-century designer who completed the corporate identities of famous domestic brands such as Thumbs Up Bank and Gwacheon Land and who is the head of two republics, be? And what is the unexpected reason Seo Jang-hoon became the self-proclaimed "incentive-obsessed person"? All answers will be revealed in the first regular episode of Seo Jang-hoon's The Millionaire Next Door at 9:55 p.m. on the 17th.
[Photo] Seo Jang-hoon's The Millionaire Next Door
[OSEN]