Research in Motion: Why I Took victorYmarketing Studio to Seoul and Shanghai | victorYmarketing Studio
Founder Victor Lee on why summer 2026 fieldwork in Seoul, Shanghai, and Yiwu wasn't a break from victorYmarketing Studio — it was the research the studio is built on.
09/03/2026
Written by Victor Lee, Founder & CEO at victorYmarekting Studio
Research in Motion
My out-of-office reply has been getting a lot of use this summer. It's also been wrong.
I'm writing the first part of this from Seoul. From June 2 through August 26, I was based in South Korea, with a stretch in China in the middle of it — Shanghai and Yiwu, July 14 to 18. Hybrid the whole way, on-site wherever it actually mattered.
People keep asking if this was a vacation. Not really. It was a different room to think in.
Why Leave the Room at All
There's a version of strategic thinking that only shows up when you're outside your usual inputs — different language, different pace, a market you're standing inside instead of reading about on a screen. That was the point of the summer: figuring out where victorYmarketing Studio goes next, where Under His Wing Studio goes next, and what the work with Chung Wha Sa Co., Ltd. | (주)청화사 could look like from inside the market, not from Boston.
Then China
Partway through came a first: my first business trip to China as founder of the studio. Shanghai, then Yiwu, working alongside Chung Wha Sa Co., Ltd.
This wasn't a few client calls squeezed around a trip — it was closer to the actual job. You can read about a market all you want. You don't understand how people really do business there until you're sitting across the table from them, watching how trust gets built and how much changes depending on who's in the room.
Shanghai and Yiwu aren't the same place wearing two names, either. Shanghai is a global commercial hub — polished, fast, international. Yiwu is the world's wholesale marketplace, running on completely different logic. Knowing that on paper is one thing. Watching it change how negotiations happen and how people communicate isn't something a report can hand you.
Why It Matters Here
The studio is built around cross-cultural communication between English and Korean markets. Direct, unfiltered exposure to how business works in China sharpens that same instinct. The founders and brands I work with are only getting more global — my read on how markets actually function has to keep up, or the strategy underneath it starts to lag.
If your brand is expanding across a market you've only studied from a distance, that gap is worth a conversation before it becomes a costly assumption. Get in touch — I'd like to hear where you're headed.
Next post: what this trip actually produced, and what changed back at the studio while I was gone.
Victor Lee is Founder & Lead Strategist of victorYmarketing Studio, a research-driven brand strategy and marketing studio based in Boston, MA, serving founders, startups, and cross-cultural and enterprise brands across English and Korean markets.
Written by Victor Lee
Copyright by victorYmarketing Studio