Park Yong-gyu

Park Yong-gyu was studying in the United States when Korea sent its delegation to Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. He and Seo Byeong-gyu worked as locally recruited interpreters. Delegation leader Jeong Gyeong-won praised Park's English in his report to the king. Park subsequently joined the Washington legation and later served as a second secretary and Foreign Ministry translator. ¹

Park contributed directly to the American study of Korean culture. Stewart Culin, director of the University of Pennsylvania's archaeological museum, relied on his explanations of Korean games while preparing Korean Games, published in 1895. Culin had never visited East Asia; Park supplied the Korean descriptions orally, including names and rules. In his preface Culin identified his collaborator, spelled Pak Young Kiu, as the former exposition secretary and Korea's serving chargé d'affaires in Washington. Later scholarship matches that spelling to Park Yong-gyu, 朴鎔奎. ^{2, 1}

Park also helped Philip Jaisohn and his wife while they were living in Washington. After Jaisohn's medical practice struggled, the couple stayed in the legation's upper rooms for several months before returning to Korea in 1895. ³