What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?
I started my journey as a sportsperson 20 years ago and I’m 25 years old this year. The very first sport I encountered was Taekwondo.
Taekwondo is the national sports of Korea. I am not really sure it’s a national sports in North Korea either but definitely yes for South Korea.
Continuing my Taekwondo career until 2nd year of High school (16-17 yo) and I kept getting lost my interest in Taekwondo so I decided to quit it. It was very tough time to get used to the “Changed life – no sports anymore”. I played Taekwondo for over 10 years as an elite sport athlete so I thought I don’t know what should I do in future. That thought dominated me and spent hostile time to everyone which was very immature and stupid because I was young. At that time, Korea Cricket Association was looking for young players for the next Asian Games and my PE teacher recommended me to play cricket, I said yes. That’s how I started playing cricket.
I am still working as an athlete for 20 years so it wasn’t easy to imagine a different life if I don’t play any kind of sport. According to my hobbies, I can think about Cafe owner, sports pub owner or firefighter. My childhood dream was firefighter but I couldn’t make it because my high school exam scores weren’t good enough to enrol related university unfortunately. Even I really like to bake some bread, pastry or make brunch things. Also I love to drink! I know people recognise Korean people are alcoholic, I can’t accept but I really do love to drinks any kind of drinks.
Nowadays I’m struggling with make my after retirement but I can re-think about what I like to do, what I really want to do and what was my interests. Writing this article was absolutely helpful to my future career.
Have you thought about your alternative career paths?
Instagram @serichang49
Seri does Cricket in Korea 