“ One night, with the liquor flowing, the conversation turns to a favorite subject: the ajummas, the older women mocked for everything from their highly permed hair—I’m told this was originally supposed to save money on salon visits during the lean years of the 30’s and 40’s, when one perm cost two bags of rice—to their penchant for wearing sun visors to protect their aging skin. “I once found my flight back to Seoul at the Manila airport just by following those visors,” a BBC correspondent tells me. But tonight Charlie, who typically has many arch things to say about his country, surprises me. “Everything we have we owe to the ajummas,” he declares. The whole Korean economic miracle, he goes on to tell me, rests on these mothers waking up at five in the morning and shepherding their charges through kindergarten, the after-school classes, the Sunday schools, and all the way up to Seoul National or M.I.T. “In effect they’ve built this country,” he says. ”