(167) Park Tae-joon: fall of a great star in industrialization history
By Janet Shin
Park Tae-joon, founder of Korean steel giant POSCO and former prime minister, passed away on Tuesday at age 84. He was called “Steel King” and titled honorary chairman of POSCO for his contribution to make the company a world-class steelmaker. He was part of Korea’s economic success and played a leading role in it.
Since saju always reveals a crucial facet of one’s life, I read Park’s saju to see what formed his life. The relics of destiny shed their trace in our lives in various forms or energies. In order to see a core essence, we need to purify our minds and open our heart. The truth is only seen by the eyes of our spirit.
Before performing a reading, I usually conjecture what dominant elements or the major energy flow would be in one’s saju. Considering Park’s life path, metal and fire elements immediately ran across my mind. This is a very important process of studying saju and confirming your translation so that you can read others’ saju more explicitly.
Below is Park’s saju. For comparison, I also read the saju of Chung Ju-yung, the late founder of Hyundai Group and another icon of Korea’s economic miracle. He was a global leader who made Hyundai one of the world’s top shipbuilders.
There was a legendary story about how he accomplished Hyundai’s shipbuilding success. In the early 1970s, Korea needed foreign investment to build such large scale facilities such as a steel company and shipbuilding. Right after the bloody Korean War (1950-1953), the nation was not able to sustain itself without external financial support. After all the failure upon pleading Asian and American sources of funds, he paid a visit to the president of Barclays Bank in the United Kingdom. He solicited funds showing the picture of an empty plain in Ulsan. Of course he was refused at first because there was no reason for the U.K. bank to invest in a medium enterprise in a poor country. Then Chung took a 500 won bill out of his wallet and showed the picture of a turtle ship, printed on it. The turtle ship was built by Admiral Yi Sun-sin to fight the Japanese during their invasion in the 1500s. Chung explained that Korea has been very skilled in shipbuilding through its history. Believe it or not, he finally succeeded in securing a loan. There are a lot more realistic stories behind this success, but Korea has built its economic growth through these iconic trailblazers who made a miracle in a wild land.
Going back to saju, as I foresaw, Park was born with yang fire element. And then the energy of his birth month should be considered as primary energy since it provides an overall environment for one’s entire life. He was born in a month of metal, which served as a money star for his life. The money star is an element, smelted by a day master. There is enough wood energy to keep the fire burning and it is equipped well by earth energy to form a container of the furnace. Having no career star, which might imply political power, he has tried to keep away from politics.
Since we do not have his time pillar, we need some analogical interpretation to read a full life. Owing to his effort to protect POSCO from political pressure, he actually became prime minister in the early 1990s. However he had to undergo political persecution and live a four-year asylum. His participation in politics ended without success by the establishment of the Kim Young-sam administration.
Notwithstanding his great contribution as a leading a world-class steel maker, he died with neither his own house nor a share of his company. He lived at his daughter’s house and didn’t possess the wealth even to pay his hospital bills. His money star in his month branch clashed with the wood element in the year branch.
However, honor will still be credited to Park, by the name of POSCO and Pohang University of Science and Technology that he founded. Above all, his devotion to Korean economic growth will never be forgotten. The knowledge star in his day branch is still thriving to make him respectful.
He died of lung disease, which seemed to have been caused by asbestos that he was exposed too while working hard at industrial fields during his younger days. The metal element represents the lungs, when it comes to human organs.
On the other hand, Chung was born with yang metal energy in the month of water. On top of the fact that he has a water element in his month branch, he also has strong metal and wood pillars respectively. We may infer the metal and the water as the shipbuilding industry, but the metal stands for the vehicle industry and wood for money star as well as construction.
Chung was also a founder of Hyundai Motor Group and Construction.
To come up with these saju readings for the two legendary tycoons is not just a coincidence. Life’s secrets are coded behind the veil of saju.
Information: Are you interested in learning more about the ancient Chinese teaching about the “Four Pillars of Destiny?” For further information, visit Janet’s website at www.fourpillarskorea.com, contact her at 010-5414-7461 or email janetshin@hotmail.com.
The writer is the president of the Heavenly Garden, a saju research center in Korea, and the author of “Learning Four Pillars.”