Actor Park Joong-hoon revealed his first meeting with his third-generation Zainichi Korean wife.
On the broadcast of Channel A 'Best Friends Tokyumentary - dining table for four' aired on the 3rd, actor Park Joong-hoon invited his close friends Heo Jae and Kim Min-joon to his home.
That day Park Joong-hoon mentioned the time when he suddenly went to study in the United States while actively working as a film actor. He explained, "Filming and being busy and being popular are good, but you don't live as you please from the moment you open your eyes to the moment you close them. You film, do interviews, go somewhere to shoot and come back. I thought, 'What if I live this vacant life and then die?' I wanted to think a bit and study English. Looking back now it was intellectual posturing, but I thought, 'Let's get a master's degree from New York University. It will look good,' so I went to study abroad."
He continued, "I got a master's degree (at New York University) and met my wife there. She means a lot to me in many ways," which drew attention. Park Kyung-rim asked, "Did you meet on the street?" and Park Joong-hoon recalled, "I went to a bar on the weekend. It was a Japanese-style hot bar. She used to work part-time as a bartender there once a week. That person looked similar to me. I liked her, so since we were in America I asked in English, 'Are you Korean?' and she said, 'I'm Korean.' When I asked, 'Do you speak Korean?' she said she couldn't. She was a third-generation Zainichi Korean so her first language was Japanese," as he remembered their first meeting.
He said, "I went for a few weeks but the dates didn't work out. That was that, but a month later I was sitting in the university cafe and she came in. We were both surprised. Our guard was lowered, the dates worked out, and we got married. I thought fate works like this," saying that upon learning they were attending the same school by chance, their relationship progressed rapidly.
Park Kyung-rim asked, "How did the formal meeting between the families go?" Park Joong-hoon said, "My parents spent their teens during the Japanese colonial period. They spoke Japanese well until they died. My wife and I were clumsy but spoke in English, and my parents and I spoke in Korean, so the four of us used three languages," and he added, "Now that we all use Korean it's fine, but before it was difficult. When we had to use only English, even if we argued we would look up words in a dictionary and say, 'This is the feeling,' and so on," expressing the hardships they faced.
Then many reacted, "(The fight) will end quickly," and Park Joong-hoon nodded and said, "We would end up laughing about it." Still, he bashfully said, "At our age, even talking about my wife is embarrassing," which brought laughter.
Meanwhile, Park Joong-hoon married his third-generation Zainichi Korean wife in 1994 and has one son and two daughters.
[Photo] Channel A
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