Dong-sik Choi
Premium memorialLovingly known as “Director Choi”
19 January 1952 — 5 September 2022 · aged 70
Samsung chip engineer, weekend hiker and quiet father whose love arrived as dinner
Suwon, South Korea Born in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province Resting at Yongin Memorial Park, Gyeonggi ProvinceAbout Dong-sik
Choi Dong-sik believed that most problems, in a factory or in a family, were caused by dust. He spent his career in a cleanroom, where a single speck could ruin a wafer, and he brought the same quiet vigilance home, wiping the family's shoes by the door every night. Born in 1952 in the apple-growing town of Andong, he was the first in his village to get into Seoul National University, where he studied electrical engineering and survived on kimbap and a stubborn belief in homework.
He joined Samsung Electronics in 1978 and moved to the semiconductor division at Giheung just as Korea was racing to make its first memory chips. For thirty-four years he worked in process engineering, rising to director, often sleeping at the plant in the 1990s, when each new generation of DRAM arrived as a deadline. He rarely talked about it at home; his children learned what he did for a living from a newspaper article. After retiring in 2012 he took up the two passions he had postponed: hiking Bukhansan on Sundays with a thermos of barley tea, and baduk, which he played against his own son with maddening patience.
He was not a man who said 'I love you.' He said, 'Did you eat?' He cooked kimchi jjigae for the family every Saturday, drove four hours each way to Andong every month to see his mother, and kept his son's first published poem folded in his wallet, which he never mentioned until the day the collection came out. He and Kim Mi-sook were married for forty-three years. He died on 5 September 2022, a few days before Chuseok, aged seventy, in Samsung Medical Center, with his family beside him. He is survived by Mi-sook, his daughter Min-jung, a pharmacist, and his son Jae-won, a poet, who wrote the elegy read at his funeral.
“Did you eat? Then everything else can wait.”
- Faith
- Buddhist
- Place of birth
- Andong, North Gyeongsang Province
- Resting place
- Yongin Memorial Park, Gyeonggi Province
- Passed away
- 5 September 2022, Suwon
Funeral Service (Sam-il-jang)
Thursday, 8 September 2022 at 11:00 UTC
Add to calendarLife journey
B.S. in Electrical Engineering
Seoul National University1970 – 1974 · Seoul
First in his village to enter Seoul National University.
Process Engineer to Director, Semiconductor Division
Samsung Electronics1978 – 2012 · Giheung, Yongin
Thirty-four years in the cleanroom as Korea built its memory-chip industry.
Married Kim Mi-sook
1979 · Seoul
A marriage of forty-three years.
Commendation for Semiconductor Process Innovation
Government of the Republic of Korea2003 · Seoul
For improving wafer yield on a new memory line.
Volunteer cook, free meals for seniors
Suwon Senior Welfare Centre2013 – 2022 · Suwon
Cooked kimchi jjigae every Wednesday for more than a hundred elderly neighbours.
Tap an organisation to find others who studied or worked there.
Family & connections
Also remembered on Evermore
Dong-sik is survived by
- Kim Mi-sook· Spouse
- Choi Min-jung· Daughter
- Choi Jae-won· Son
- Choi Dong-gil· Brother
Tributes & memories
6 people have shared a memory of Dong-sik.
Knew Dong-sik? Share a memory with the family and everyone who loved them.
Sign in to write a tribute- DK
Cousin in Los Angeles
Uncle Dong-sik visited us in 1999 and fixed our dishwasher, our car and a very stubborn lawn mower. He refused payment and drank only barley tea. When I asked how he knew so much, he said, 'Dust. You learn to notice dust.'
- CJ
Son
My father never said 'I love you.' He said, 'Did you eat?' I understood only in his last week, when he asked it from his hospital bed, again and again. I answered every time, yes, I ate. I think it was the longest conversation we ever had.
- KJ
Seoul National University classmate
Fifty years ago we shared a one-room boarding house in Gwanak. He studied by the corridor lamp so that I could sleep. He never told me; I found out from the landlady. Old friend, rest well now. The lamp is off.
- LS
Neighbour in Suwon
He fixed our door lock at midnight in 2015, silently, then left a bag of persimmons hanging on the handle. We never knew how to thank him. I thank him now, with persimmons from our own tree, left at his door.
- HD
Hiking club friend
For ten years we climbed Bukhansan every Sunday. He never reached the summit first and never let anyone reach it last. At the top he poured barley tea from his thermos into everyone's cup, and was always the last one served. We will bring the thermos on our next climb.
- PS
Former colleague at Samsung Electronics, Giheung
In 1996 our line went down for thirty-one hours. Director Choi stayed, took off his jacket and cleaned the equipment beside us. He never mentioned it again. When we restarted he bowed to the whole shift. I have tried to manage like that ever since.
