Park Se-ri is a world-famous Korean golfer who is currently the chairman of the Pak Se-ri Hope Foundation and the director of the women’s golf team at the Olympics. She gained much popularity as a national hero who conveyed hope and comfort to the people by winning various international golf competitions at a time when many people were disappointed by the IMF, the nation’s financial crisis, around 2000. After her retirement, she established the Park Se-ri Hope Foundation, a non-profit organization, to promote various projects related to fostering talented golf players and developing the sports industry. However, attention has been paid to the foundation’s father’s relationship with Park Se-ri as well as her father’s relationship with the woman. Park Se-ri’s father arbitrarily created and used stamps on the Saemangeum (Korea Reclamation Project Development Site) Project and Woseon Project for the international golf school and resort project. The Saemangeum project is a large-scale national project to develop a 409 km2 reclamation site in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, and develop the area into a global free trade hub since 1991. With the trust in the name of Park Se-ri, a large amount of money has already been invested, and it turned out that Park Se-ri’s father acted arbitrarily in the process of making a confirmation call from the Saemangeum Development Authority to the foundation. Why did the incident happen when Park Se-ri, her son, was suing her father?
The case where Park Se-ri sued her father shows the problems of Korean arts and sports education. Unlike the United States, where students must completely live and learn in school when they have arts and sports, in Korea, most of them give up their school life and focus only on arts and sports. They do not receive group life and character education that can be learned at school. Moreover, Korean parents with children who perform arts and sports are overly involved and interested in them. Parents sacrifice and devote their time and funds to their children who perform arts and sports. That’s why they try to payback their own sacrifices after their children’s success.
After Park Se-ri succeeded in golf, her father, who had sacrificed for Park Se-ri, tried to get a payback from Park Se-ri, and Park Se-ri sued her father. Park Se-ri said in a press conference on the 18th that even after Park Se-ri retired after her career, Park helped her father, who had sacrificed for her success, financially and took it for granted.
Can it be said that it is the relationship between parents and children to provide support and dedication to their children who perform arts and sports and to later receive compensation for their own sacrifice? It is a wrong relationship between parents and children. This is a part that needs to be corrected for the wrong relationship between children and parents who perform arts and sports in Korea.
SALLY LEE
US ASIA JOURNAL
