Power Korean: Park Jaemin 박재민

Let me introduce another Korean friend I'm really proud of. If you currently live in Korea, you could have probably seen him on TV through commercials and some sitcoms. I never thought he appears on TV a lot because of his very friendly character. I mean, most "stars" tend to ignore people around or project an unreachable aura but Jaemin is very different. 

         He was born in US on the 30th of July, 1983 but his family came back to Korea after 5 years. His birthday is a month after mine but of different year. So I should call him hyeong (형)*   

Career 

     B-BOY and Hosting
         B-Boy is actually Jaemin's first love. He started this career when he was a high school student. Being fluent in Korean and English, he started hosting B-Boy shows making him one of the pioneers of B-Boy in Korea.  Until now, I think Jaemin is the only pro B-Boy host. After hosting for 7 to 8 years he got an offer from Mnet, a Korean local music channel, for a hosting career on one of company's shows, which was also a B-Boy show.  That was the start of his hosting career on TV.

     Television and Hosting
          His first appearance on TV was 2007 as the host of Mnet's B-Boy Hot Battle. Then he started hosting for MBC's sitcom called Section TV from 2010 to present. I've  seen his show many times and it's really impressive because he does not only interview local stars but also Hollywood's biggest of the biggest stars, hahaha, like Angelina Jolie, Cameron Diaz and more. Recently, just this year, 2011, he also got casted for the the show called Dream Team. Which is a sort of reality show. He also had minor appearances on different TV shows.

     Commercials

          The first time I saw Jaemin in a commercial I was really surprised. I was with my girlfriend at that time in a movie theater. We know how huge the screens are in a theater...so it was very overwhelming, literally, because of the size. lol. He actually has a lot of commercials. You could see him in one of Lee Min Ho's Cantata Coffee commercial. He also had commercials for KT, Aronamin C and more. 

      Bodybuilding

         Just one look at him and you'll know that he's a bodybuilder. He started when he was in college and for an undergraduate student, I think he had quite an extensive career in bodybuilding. He started joining competitions for Mr.SNU in 2006 where he won first runner up then in 2007 he bagged the title. He also joined competitions outside our school. He won 6th place for Mr.Seoul and 3rd for Mr. University both in 2008. In 2009, he also got invited to join Korea's Men's Health Cool Guy Contest where he won 4th place. Try to search his name on Google and you'll see his pictures when he joined the said contest.

Sports and becoming a Professor?

         For a person active in the entertainment industry, it may be hard to imagine Jaemin becoming a professor. Actually he's currently taking MA in Public Administration right after his BA in Physical Education and Business Administration both at Seoul National University. If he's not busy, which is very rare, haha, sometimes we eat samgyeopsal or just drink coffee inside or nearby school. Anyway, he told me that Korea has always been part of top 10 in Olympics even if it's not considered as "strong" as the other top 10 countries. So he sees a very big opportunity for Korea to excel in the field of sports. He hopes that his studies, both his BA and now MA, would help him draw some policies for the benefit of the sports industry in Korea. I also think the sports industry in Korea is growing so fast. It plays an important role in the country's image. It's not only for the sort of nationalistic fervor anymore it is becoming a big business and getting in, is getting more and more competitive. He told me that he already wanted to become a professor since he was younger, maybe because of his parents who are also professors.

I wanted to write more but I guess it's better to save it for part 2. haha. I hope you'll support him. 

You can check these links for more information about him

Follow him on twitter@snipatrol

LIKE his Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/JaySnipaPark

Hyeong or hyung (형)-  could literally be translated as "older brother" in English.  However, only males can use it as opposed to Oppa (오삐) which can only be used by females.