We are constantly on the go, and the go in this case is Mr. Lee. Along with our second driver, Mr. Park, Mr. Lee pilots the minivan that takes us all over South Korea in search of some World Cup action.
I’ll never forget my first trip with Mr. Lee. It was to the French team training camp, which was “about 30 minutes” from our CNN Seoul bureau. Fifteen minutes into that trip, crawling through traffic, it became very clear that we would not be at our destination in about 30 minutes.
That was not acceptable to Mr. Lee. In the blink of an eye, he had grabbed a heretofore unseen red siren (above), placed it on top of the van like Starsky and Hutch, and proceded to warn anyone around of our intent on a heretofore unheard public-address system. It was puzzling, entertaining, and most certainly frightening.
While he was taking incredible chances with our lives, it was the greatest show on earth. Punctuated every few moments with a turn of the head back to us, shouting “news car, news car”, he squeezed the van in between taxis, trucks, and motorcycles, all the while tersely warning them to move aside. There are no “emergency” lanes in Korea, but there are lanes meant only for public buses, or as we learned, Mr. Lee with a red siren. We were there in 30 minutes.
Mr. Lee comforted us with the fact that police have added respect for “news cars," and as yet we’ve had no problems not exactly obeying the traffic laws of the common people.
One of the most befuddling aspects of the Korean driving experience is that you can rarely make a left turn of any caliber. This translates into seeing the place you want to go long before you actually get there. What must happen is you travel a good way in the direction you have no interest in going, make a U-turn, and reach your destination much later than you had hoped.
But if you want anyone making that daily turnaround, it’s Mr. Lee. We haven’t been late yet.
Till next time,
--Joe
World Sport supervising producer Joe McCurdy is providing a behind-the-scenes look at covering the World Cup.
