South Koreans revisiting Carly Fiorina's memoir on trips to Seoul

SEOUL, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Revelations about Carly Fiorina's past trips to Seoul have ignited fresh interest among South Koreans about the Republican presidential candidate.

Fiorina, 61, wrote a memoir, Tough Choices, published in 2006 in which she provided details about her time in South Korea as a director of an AT&T subsidiary in the early '90s. In one passage, Fiorina recalled being solicited about the gender of her server at a South Korean restaurant where the wait staff serves double-duty as entertainers and even intimate companions to South Korean businessmen, Yonhap reported.

During her trip, Fiorina wrote that a secretary at the South Korean company Lucky Goldstar, now LG Corp., discreetly asked her whether she would prefer a man, rather than a woman, to serve her drinks and food.

In reply, Fiorina said she did not need special treatment that set her apart from regular Korean businessmen and was served by a woman. That choice helped her as the evening wore on, as the woman server secretly disposed of Fiorina's untouched alcohol, South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported. Fiorina said that was the way she could "save face" before her all-male South Korean counterparts. Declining alcohol could be considered rude and would have spoiled the mood of the gathering.

In all, the servers helped Fiorina dispose of eight glasses of untouched whiskey into a wooden bowl, and later, the former Hewlett-Packard executive said she enjoyed an evening of lively singing.

Fiorina said the South Koreans taught her that engaging in bouts of drinking unprepared was not a good idea, and that the "drinking test" lesson of bygone days has stayed with her.

A spokesman at LG told Yonhap on Wednesday the personnel who hosted Fiorina more than two decades ago would be "difficult to locate," and that while Fiorina referred to her main South Korean counterpart as "president," it is possible the man she was referring to was the president of a former LG affiliate.