Posts
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Decoding the Gap: Why We Constantly Misread Other Cultures’ Sounds, Gestures, and Intentions
“Look me in the eye” is a demand for respect in one of my countries and pure insolence in the other. Once you can see it, you’ll spot it in every meeting you sit in this week. You’re welcome in advance. Picture a street in Paris. Two toddlers, roughly the same age, catch sight of…
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Korean vs French Work Culture: Why “Yes” Means No in Both — Just Not at the Same Time
The launch that everybody approved Let me give you a real one. I’ve changed the names and the house; I’ve changed nothing else, because nothing else needs changing. I have watched this meeting on three continents and in four companies. The setup. A French beauty group — call it Lauvière. Paris headquarters. A new anti-ageing…
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From FOMO to FOL: Why South Korea Embraces AI While France Builds a Wall
I’m a Korean alien living in France. I’ve spent decades living and working in France, bridging two entirely different corporate realities. Right now, there is a fracture in how the world is handling artificial intelligence. It isn’t about regulation. It isn’t about the technology itself. It is about fear. Just two very different kinds of…
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Louis Vuitton vs Molly Tea: The $1.5 Million Flower and What It Says About Who Owns a Shape
I put the two pictures side by side on my screen and zoomed in. One is a four-petal flower on a €1,550 handbag. The other is a four-petal flower on a 15-yuan cup of Jasmine tea. About two dollars. Then I opened a third image. A rosewood pipa from the Tang dynasty, 1,300 years old,…
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Google in South Korea: The 20-Year Strategy That Cracked the World’s Hardest Market
Let’s speak about Google in South Korea. I spent thirty years operating inside the international boardrooms of luxury beauty giants. I know exactly what it looks like when Western executives point at a map of South Korea and assume their global dominance will simply translate. It never does. Walmart tried to export its American big-box…
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From National Gift to a $165 Million Loss: The Full Autopsy of Starbucks Korea’s “Tank Day” Crisis
I spent over thirty years inside the corporate machineries of luxury giants like L’Oréal and Coty Inc. I have watched executive committees bypass compliance to chase vanity metrics. I have seen international campaigns crash into local walls. But what happened to Starbucks Korea in the summer of 2026 is in a class of its own.…