LOVE STORY OF 76 YEARS
Married for 76 years, Korean couple know the recipe for longevity
Yeo Choon Sung, who turns 100 on Saturday, and his 96-year-old wife, Park Yong Jung, were born in Korea and moved to Montreal in 1991. Yeo credits a love of garlic and gardening for his longevity. Bill Brownstein spoke with the longstanding couple
Yeo Choon Sung can converse in Korean and Japanese and can write and read Chinese, but he can’t speak or write either French or English. Regardless, Yeo is a man of very few words.
It wasn’t Yeo’s communicative skills that first caught the attention of Audette Lavoie, who lives in the same Upper Lachine Rd. HLM (subsidized housing) apartment complex as Yeo and his wife Park Yong Jung. It was his precision handiwork and stunning design skills in the garden.
Since moving to this residence, Yeo has taken numerous prizes from the L’Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal’s Club Fleurs et Jardins — in which he is the oldest member.
So Lavoie was determined to learn more about the diminutive and seemingly mysterious Yeo. She was able to communicate with him using the time-honoured system of sign language, and was gradually able to put together the pieces of his life.
Born in Korea, Yeo and Park moved to Montreal in 1991. A daughter, one of their six children, had come here earlier. Yeo ran a taxi company in Seoul with a fleet of 36 cabs, but the business failed and he became despondent, thus precipitating the move.
Lavoie was also able to discover that Yeo had been, and still was, a talented musician, equally proficient on piano, accordion and guitar. Plus, his garden designs in Seoul won many awards. He used to own two homes in Seoul, and transformed one into a massive greenhouse with elaborate gardens.
Yeo also won praise for his painstaking calligraphy on an array of ornaments.
“I just fell in love with Yeo and his wife,” says Lavoie, a talented artist in her own right. “So I adopted them as my parents. He calls me the Front Lady — because I live at the front of the building and he is a few apartments behind on the same floor,”
As a dutiful “stepdaughter,” Lavoie plans to pay tribute to Yeo by arranging a party on Saturday in their HLM’s reception room to celebrate his 100th birthday. She will be mounting a mini exhibition of photos of Yeo and his gardens and calligraphy.
“At first, I was so surprised to learn he was that old, but now I understand the reason why,” Lavoie says while holding court with the couple in their apartment. “It’s because he is still so active and so vibrant. His mind is as sharp as ever, too. He continues to make entries into his diary every day.”
Park, 96, forever flashing a beatific smile, is a little less agile, and attributes their longevity to their 76-year marriage.
“He credits a diet of kimchee and garlic for keeping him going,” Lavoie says. “And he’s always on the move. He walks every day to the bank or grocery store. And when the snow goes, he’s back to work in the garden.”
Alas, his gardening days here have come to an end. It is with much sadness that Lavoie announces the couple will be going back to Korea next week to live.
“I’m just a little nervous, because it’s such a long trip,” Lavoie says. “Then again, their health is surprisingly good.”
To say the least. He may be turning 100, but he isn’t on any medication — unless kimchee counts. He doesn’t even wear glasses.
“At his last checkup, the doctor told him his blood pressure was a little high and that he could prescribe him something,” Lavoie relates.
But Yeo balked, suggesting if he made it this far without pills, he wasn’t going to change his ways. Besides, Lavoie suspects the spike in his blood pressure may have been due to the fact a pear tree he lovingly planted and nurtured in the area had been unceremoniously chopped down during construction near an adjacent school.
“That really hurt him,” Lavoie says. “He took such pride in that tree.”
Yeo bristles when Lavoie brings up the subject of the tree in sign language.
“He is so strong in spirit — it will take more than a tree to bring him down,” Lavoie says. “The more I learn about him, the more I think he is a genius. It seems like there’s nothing he can’t do.
“Every day, he has a purpose in life. He goes to bed at night and thinks about what he’s going to do the next day. He won’t spend his days in front of a television. I think that has a lot to do with him making it to 100. That and the roasted garlic every day, and maybe just a little soju (a distilled blend of water and ethanol), which is the national Korean drink,” says the grinning Lavoie.
After a little prompting, Park breaks out into song, crooning a traditional Korean folk tune.
“You just have to look at them to see how much they adore one another,” Lavoie says.
“The minute that is lost, you have a problem. You just can’t underestimate the love between them for keeping them so young at heart.”
Lavoie acknowledges that life for her won’t be the same without the couple. She is planning a trip to Korea to hook up with them.
“I’m sure I will find Yeo arranging another beautiful garden, and probably planting another pear tree, too.”