Park Jae-ok

Park Jae-ok
Born	(1937-11-24)November 24, 1937 Gumi, Keishōhoku-dō, Korea, Empire of Japan
Died	July 8, 2020(2020-07-08) (aged 82) Seoul, South Korea
Parents	Park Chung Hee (father) Kim Ho-nam [ko] (mother)
Relatives	Park Geun-hye (half-sister)

Park Jae-ok (Korean: 박재옥; Hanja: 朴在玉; November 24, 1937 – July 8, 2020) was the first child of South Korean president Park Chung Hee and his first wife, Kim Ho-nam [ko].

Park had a strained relationship with her father. Her father had been both absent and distant to her and her mother, and eventually surprised them both with a divorce request in 1950. She and her mother were made to leave the household, and Park left her mother at age fourteen and moved between places. Her father later made an attempt to repair the relationship, but the two did not get along even until his death.^[1] Her mother married a different man, and spent much of the rest of her life in a Buddhist temple.

Unlike her half-siblings, especially President Park Geun-hye, Park Jae-ok was rarely in the public spotlight in South Korea. She married Han Byeong-gi [ko], who worked as a diplomat abroad for many years. Her father was assassinated in 1979. She later expressed regret that she did not accept her father's apologies during his lifetime.