[Opinion] President`s Son

Watching the first family, people used to wonder how happy Park Ji-man, the only son of the former president Park and first lady Yuk Young-soo, was back then. Park, now a 44-year-old middle-aged man, has recently been released after indicted for using drugs. It was the sixth time he went through a trial and got released for drug using charge. The latest release came after his elder sister Park Geun-hye, a lawmaker at the Grand National Party, asked the judge for leniency. They say once a person experience drugs, he or she is most likely to get hooked up with it. Then we might see him again caught and sent to prison for drug using.

▷Park has been avoiding any kind of media and people`s attention saying repeatedly he wants to be forgotten by everyone. Few know how he acts and think, therefore. According to some of his acquaintances, Park often say, ˝It is hard to get by as a not-so-special son of a very special father.˝ He must mean that he feels pressure from the way people see him – as a son of former president Park instead of just Park Ji-man. He sometimes speaks of his late father, ˝I don`t think everyone agrees with me, but I am certain that he loved his country and tried to work for this country.˝ He says that one thing he can`t understand about what his father did was prohibiting people from having long hair.

▷Despite the pressure he felt, he was able to become a businessman mostly thanks to those indebted to late Park. He is now running a company manufacturing computer devices using oxide boards provided by POSCO. The firm is even listed on the Kosdaq market. For what he is today, he owes a lot to Park Tae-joon, former honorary chairman of POSCO, and Kim Woo-joong, former chairman of Daewoo Group. It is said that former president Jun has also given him a helping hand.

▷The death of former president Park marked the end of the one chapter of history. For little Park, however, it was pain too harsh to bear. His mother was shot and killed by a North Korean operator sent to the south and his father later was assassinated by his own man. Park recently met some women he wanted to marry, but could not get settled due to vehement opposition from families of the women, which broken his heart. Those who know him say that he is not an addict, but has a taste for drugs. Whatever the reason is, we just hope Park will get over the drug-using habit this time and hurt no more hearts of those people who loved his father.

Hwang Ho-taek, Editorial Writer, hthwang@donga.com