‘I miss my mother’

Han-Woo Park

"I miss my mother," is the first reaction of Han-Woo Park, Executive Director and Chief Financial officer of Hyundai Motors India Limited, when quizzed about his stay in India.

The 50-year-old Korean is the man running the show at the Rs 3,372-crore Hyundai car manufacturing unit at Irungattukottai, some 35 km from Chennai, that employs about 11,000 people.

"I moved in here when Hyundai decided to set up a facility in Chennai. I was quite apprehensive about moving in first but now we are more of locals here," says the soft-spoken man who has been in India for about 5 years now. "India is my home now and my entire family is settled here. But it’s always a mixed feeling when you think about it that way," he adds philosophically.

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Chennai has been nice to him, he feels. Though the weather has not been too kind, the city’s cosmopolitan style has made 100 or so Koreans working in Hyundai feel at home. "We never felt alienated here. The city and its people have accepted us with open arms," says Park.

In fact, Park's wife prefers India to Korea as she gets more space and freedom here to move around. "In Korea, life is costly and I cannot afford to let her take to golf, the game she likes the most, everyday. But here, she is almost a regular in the cosmopolitan golf course and is thoroughly enjoying her time," says Park, who joins his wife at the club during weekends.

His children's education? Education in India is good and tough as in Korea, says Park. He feels that there is lot of academic pressure on children in the schools here, as in Korea. "Both my children studied here in the American School in Chennai. But now, one is in Texas and the other in a boarding school in Ooty."

What about the food? "Banana dosa and Naan are my favourite Indian dishes," replies Park with a twinkle in his eye. "Indian food is too hot for me though," he adds. But for the gourmet, Chennai has a lot of options with exclusive Korean restaurants dotted across the city.

That apart, the Hyundai factory here has an exclusive canteen serving Korean food. And as part of its greenery measures, the company also grows Korean vegetables and white Yorkshire pigs (their staple diet) within the campus.

Asked about the car that he likes the most, Park instantly replies that it's Hyundai Genesis, a premium sports sedan recently added to the Hyundai stable. "She is a beauty, but I will never be able to see her in India as its meant only for Europe and Western markets," he says with a tinge of sadness.

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