By Janet Shin

For several weeks, much has been heard about the Korean-American violinist Eugene Park.

There are a lot of rumors surfacing about Park's relationship with his former managers, as well as video footage and pictures of Park looking mentally unstable and performing in settings that were not appropriate for his musical talent.

Park was born in New York, to Korean parents who were both doctors. His father, who has passed away, graduated from Seoul National University. Park began to play the violin at the age of 3, and entered the Julliard Pre-College at the age of eight. Park appeared at Lincoln Center at the age of 13.

He was awarded at various noted musical competitions including the Julliard competition, the Aspen Music School competition, the ISO competition and others. Park gained attention when he began performing in Korea in the late 1990s and released three albums from 1997 to 2006.

Park has performed alongside Michael Jackson at the ``Michael Jackson and Friends" benefit concert (1999) in Korea and also at the Korean National Presidential Inauguration for President Kim Dae-jung.

However he disappeared from the public eye several years ago, then came back with the news that he has been detained and abused by his former managers.

According to netizens, there were reports Park has been enslaved and forced to perform at small events. It has been alleged that Park was kidnapped by his former managers and the company also kept all of his fees.

What on earth happened to this gifted artist?

We may not know the full truth of all the facts, but we can find some hints by reading his saju.

Park was born Sep. 14,, 1975.


The first thing we notice from his saju is that he was born with the energy of yin water (gye), born in the month of yin metal (yu). He has lots of expression stars (talents) around the day master (water nourishes wood, so eul wood is an expression star for gye water). However, we can see there is a clash between yu (knowledge star, mother) of the month branch and myo (expression star) of the year branch.

He could have shown his talents (year pillar-eul myo) at an early age, but it clashes with myo metal in the month branch (metal chops wood).

When we review the branch clashes, we need to classify the branches in three categories, live places (in, sin, sa, hae), flourish places (ja, o, myo, yu) and repository places (jin, sul, chuk, mi). As there are clashes of in-sin and sa-hae from live places, ja-o and myo-yu from flourish places and jin-sul and chuk-mi from repository places, we will be able to classify the differences of the clash types in those places.

Branches from the live place are very active as they are the starting element of each trine. Branches from flourish place are very strong and solid as they are in the middle of each trine and they include pure energy. Branches from repository places are complicated as they include many different elements inside and their energy is to change from one to another.

In Park's saju, the myo-yu clash is basically very strong and both are hurt as this is a clash from the flourish place.

However, we have to consider one more thing before we simply judge them. We must look at what element is stronger in terms of a five element relationship and saju-placement. In analyzing the power of branches, we understand the month branch is the strongest and the basement of all other stems and branches.

So just by the myo-yu clash, myo is hurt by yu (as metal ax chops the wood) and yu is also hurt as it lessens its energy. Then, if myo is the month branch, both myo and yu are not hurt much due to balanced energy power. If yu is the month branch, it is myo that is damaged hugely.

Yu is a knowledge star for gye water, which also means the contract people usually sign.

In Park's saju, yu is the month branch, and we can tell how much the myo (his talent) was hurt. He was gye water and born in yu month, which means his saju is generally cold and lacking fire energy. For eul wood (flower), lacking sunshine is fatal for its growth. If his father (fire energy) had been alive, his life could have been much different.

We just hope that he can get the byeong fire element in his time pillar, so he is able to conquer the whirling tribulation around him.

The writer is the president of the Heavenly Garden, a saju research center in Korea. She is the author of Learning Four Pillars. She offers saju courses to all who are interested. For more information, visit her Web site (http://blog.naver.com/janet―shin) or e-mail janetshin@hotmail.com.