Emerging Market Links + The Week Ahead (Week of May 18-22, 2026)Chinese overseas M&A up, Koreans should all get an "AI bonus" says Presidential advisor, US drops Adani charges (after promising US investments), EM stock picks & the week ahead for emerging markets.May 22, 202621Share

I am back from a roughly 3 week holiday in Korea and this post clears out my inbox up until Monday; but without the usual Seeking Alpha, Bamboo Works, Smart Investor, etc links. This normally free Monday post will probably need to be on Tuesday of next week to get caught up on links to those sites…

I regret not having gone to Korea much sooner as Seoul and Busan turned out to be incredible cities to visit (I would even say that Seoul is far more interesting than Tokyo and in a much better natural setting; but nothing compares to Japan’s Kyoto) and even my parents commented from my pictures uploaded so far (with a week’s worth still to go) that Korea looks like the nicest place I have visited.

Although I skipped doing touristy DMZ organized tours, I ended up doing day long side trips on my own to the Garden of Morning Calm (easily one of the top gardens of the world that’s a few hours by public transit out of Seoul), Oedo Botania (a spectacular island botanical garden an hour bus ride and then a boat ride from Busan), the Sila Kingdom capital of Gyeongju (an hour north of Busan) and Suwon (Hwaseong Fortress south of Seoul) which were tiring (plus a 2 night detour to Jeonju, the home of Bibimbap and several hundred traditional Hanok houses/structures, on the way to Busan).

In addition (although the weather ranged from 40ish-90ish F degrees), this was a good time of the year to visit Korea as last weekend was the massive Lotus Lantern Festival procession/parade through Seoul while last Friday was the monthly Honor Guard Ceremony at The War Memorial of Korea and earlier in the month was the spring K-Royal Culture Festival with events at the various palaces in Seoul (they also hold one in autumn).

Otherwise, some takeaways covered in this post area presidential adviser saying South Koreans should all get an AI bonus (