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The ‘Dregs of Heaven’ – odd name for a person, don’t you think? Well, it happens to be the rough English translation of my Korean name and I’ll tell you the story why and how I came to get that name. But, first a little Korean lesson and some background info …

Korean names are typically three syllables long. Typically the first syllable is the Family name – or Surname – (such as Kim, Lee, Park, etc.) and the two remaining syllables are the individuals Given name (or first name, which is kinda ironic as its second but don’t worry about that!). There are, of course, exceptions such as rare family names consisting of two syllables and some individuals only possessing a one syllable given name but 98% of the time this holds true. Bear in mind, that there are only just over 100 family names circulating in South Korea and that the surnames Kim, Lee and Park themselves account for over 45% of the whole population.

Another facet of Korean names is that all family names are derived from a Hanja (Chinese character) base, each with a specific meaning or value. People are then also divided into regional family clans (much like Scottish clans) depending on the location of their family name – the largest group in Korea being the Gimhae Kim clan with over 3,700,000 descendants. Whereas most (over 90%) of given names are derived from a Hanja base, though it can be trendy to have ‘pure-Korean’ given names these days such as 단비 : Dan-bi (sweet rain), 이슬 :  I-seul (dew), 하늘 : Ha-neul (heaven); or even transliterised foreign given names, commonly Biblical names,  such as 샤론 – (Sha-ron) Sharon or 하늬 (Ha-nui) Honey. Apart from the rare examples of foreign names transliterated into Korean, all Korean given names have a specific meaning and often a lot of time and thought is taken into considering the name of a child, so much so that part of a fortune-teller’s trade is in calculating a suitable given name of a client’s child taking into account their birth date and numerous other factors.

So, with that little Korean cultural lesson over for the day, now let’s get onto my story …

Come 2004 and my return to Korea, the fair city of Gwangju to be precise, after a brief sojourn in Australia I was desperate to delve myself deep into Korea, its language and culture from the onset of my second stint in the ‘Land of the Morning Clam Calm’. One of my main hopes in this voyage of Korean discovery was to acquire a Korean name. Perhaps with a Korean name I could feel more belonging and feel more accepted in this alien culture – yes I was a naive fuck back then!

Anyways, I spoke to students about prospective names and happened to randomly meet a group of friendly young dudes and dudettes one night and spoke with them about a prospective Korean name. The most suitable name that came up from these discussions was 백지민 (Baek Ji-min) with 백 (白) Baek, being the family name and 지민 Ji-min (I can’t remember the Hanja form) being the given name. This was deemed suitable as Baek Ji-min sounded quite similar to Benjamin – my real first name.

Come 2006 and becoming quite bored of being told by Koreans that Ji-min was a girly or effeminate name and that only girls or poofters have it – or something of that like, I decided to venture on the quest for a new Korean name. To help in my Korean name acquisition was my former girlfriend’s father. He was – and still is no doubt – a strong, stoic, stocky and friendly 70 year-old descended from the Gaeseong Kim clan in North Korea. Whilst possessing the typically gruff and staid exterior of a Korean 아저씨 ‘ajusshi’ (married man), deep down he was a friendly,  considerate, wise and decent man who always accepted me despite being gasp, horror – a foreigner dating his daughter. I think maybe his personal history had something to do with his somewhat more enlightened approach to having a foreign devil date his daughter. He was born in pre-War (both Korean and WWII) Japanese-occupied Haeju, in North Korea. At the age of 10, I think just after WWII and Korea’s liberation from Japan, his immediate family decided to head south for a better life and not long after all shit hit the fan. He never said too much and I never asked him too much out of respect but I think he always, rightfully, considered himself very lucky and was quite accommodating towards Westerners as he viewed them and South Koreans for that matter as that much better than the alternatives he either grew up with or could have grown up with (that being Japanese and North Koreans).

He was a former Korean language high school teacher and a learned scholar, who took up the challenge of finding me a Korean name with relish. First cut was the surname Baek, meaning ‘white’, my reasoning for that surname was pointing at my skin colour but he deemed that may be viewed as arrogant by other Koreans .. ok, whatever … so he came up with the third most common surname Bak, more commonly seen as ‘Park’ : 박 (朴) – happens to also mean any of  ‘a tree’, ‘simple, unadorned’, or ‘sincere’.

He also wanted to have a name that sounded somewhat similar to my real first name, you know the one on the Birth Certificate and all, so he went for ‘Jae-min’ : 재민 (滓旻) as my given name, whereby the ‘Jae’ (재|滓) part means ‘sediment, lees’, or my favourite ‘dregs’!; and the ‘Min’ (민”旻) part means ‘heaven’ or ‘sky’.

So, there you have it, my Korean name -  Park Jae-min : 박재민 : 朴滓旻 – literally means ‘sincere dregs of heaven’. I still get a chuckle when I think of my Korean name, though I barely use it these days – not that it was ever official in any sense, or on any documents. As  you noticed earlier in this piece, I did mention that my name giver was my former girlfriend’s father. As such, he may at that time have thought that my Korean name meaning ‘sincere dregs of heaven’ was appropriate though I’m sure if you asked him now – I can’t he doesn’t talk to me no more! – I’ve sure he’d refer to me as ‘dregs of (something not quite as flattering)’!

Cheers!