Scholar profile:Hyun Chul Park

	When Hyun Chul Park was born, his mother called him Hae Sung. The name means “Star in the Navy.” Although the meaning seemed okay for a boy, Hyun Chul thought the name sounded too much like a girl’s name. So when he was old enough, he asked his parents to change his name to sound more “manlike”.

“They accepted my asking and as a result, I have the current name Hyun Chul. My name has the meaning of someone who has a very good personality and is intelligent.”

As a boy, growing up in the country side, Hyun Chul liked one thing at the exclusion of nearly everything else—soccer. “Even though my mother would ask me to stop, I played all the time,” he said.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that Hyun Chul’s mother thought him a bit stubborn. “I always resisted,” he said. “Sometimes when I was scolded, I would lie in a small pond near our home and cry loudly. My parents thought something terrible had possessed me.”

Hyun Chul says he is not so stubborn anymore, but he still likes soccer. “Soccer is a good sport to learn the importance of team work,” he said. Hyun Chul’s son inherited this love of soccer and he showed it as an early age. “On his first birthday, my son wanted a soccer ball more than anything else. The night of his birthday, he slept with the soccer ball held tightly in his arms.”

There are many moments in life that define a person—some come in childhood, some in later life. For Hyun Chul, one of the most significant turning points in his life came when he was fulfilling his obligation in the army. After quitting the Korean Naval Academy, Hyun Chul joined the army and served with KATUSA— Korean Augmentation Troops to the United States Army. It was a special accomplishment for him because he had to pass a rigorous English test to join. After he was accepted by KATUSA, he served near the DMZ, where his duties were training and translation. For Hyun Chul Park, his 26 six months of military duty became a defining moment that changed his attitude and his life.

“For many Korean men, the army is the place where we grow up. Most Koreans change after the army.”

Hyun Chul says the army was a time to think about his future. It was a critical time in his growing up. “In the army, we think about ourselves, our families, our country and our futures,” he said.