EBS ‘Seo Jang-hoon’s The Millionaire Next Door’
The ‘doctor millionaire’ Ha Chung-sik, who says a ‘top-five hospital in Korea’ is within sight, is still shown on a terrestrial broadcast wearing worn-out clothes and collecting slivers of soap. It also shares a movie-like love story of an obstetrician husband♥a pediatrician wife who married on their 100th arranged date.
Ha Chung-sik, who established a large general hospital with 1,008 beds, will reveal his penny-pinching daily life that even made Seo Jang-hoon throw up his hands, and the whereabouts of the resulting ‘41.1 billion won’.
On EBS ‘Seo Jang-hoon’s The Millionaire Next Door’, airing at 9:55 p.m. on the 3rd, the ‘doctor millionaire’ Ha Chung-sik appears, having started from a small obstetrics and gynecology clinic with four beds and built it into a large general hospital. After opening a four-bed OB-GYN clinic in 1994, Ha grew it into a large general hospital with 1,008 beds in 2021, writing a living success story in the medical field. The hospital he founded now boasts three basement levels and nine above-ground floors, with a staff of as many as 3,000. In addition, in 2025 he is moving ahead to purchase an additional 5,000-pyeong site to build a cancer specialty hospital. Once the project is completed, the total size will reach 70,000 pyeong, placing it among the top five hospitals in Korea by size.
However, there was an unexpected twist. The man who runs a hospital measuring tens of thousands of pyeong is in fact a ‘penny-pincher’ who leads an ultra-frugal life, wearing threadbare clothes and unable to throw away even a palm-sized sliver of soap, going so far as to tuck it inside his sock to use it. His office and home are filled with jackets whose collars have frayed after at least 20 years of wear, shirts with holes sewn up multiple times, and worn, shabby wallets, astonishing everyone. When it is revealed that he does not even use the XTube paid subscription service, not only Seo Jang-hoon and Jang Ye-won but even the production staff are abuzz.
In response, Ha shares his own philosophy that “If you endure, you can endure,” drawing admiration. Unable to watch any longer, Seo pleads, “Please, just buy something...,” adding laughs with his earnest(?) request. To such reactions, Ha says, “By saving like this, I spend money elsewhere,” piquing curiosity. And everyone is left speechless to learn that the amount comes to a staggering ‘41.1 billion won’. Ha’s beyond-imagination ‘penny-pincher moments’ and the astonishing whereabouts of the 41.1 billion won can be confirmed on the broadcast.
The broadcast also reveals the movie-like love story of the ‘36-years-married’ Ha couple. Hearing that Ha is an obstetrician and his wife is a pediatrician, Seo cannot hide his admiration, saying, “A dream team where the husband delivers babies and the wife treats them.”
Ha astonishes everyone by revealing that he met his current wife as if by fate on his 100th arranged date. “We first met on a Saturday, met again two days later on Monday, and I proposed,” he says, sharing the backstory of their lightning-fast marriage. Even in their 36th year of marriage, the two show unchanging affection, saying, “We are still crazy about each other,” and, by all accounts, they turned the scene rosy.
The special love story of the Ha couple, who have walked together as fellow doctors and life partners, and the real secret of success of the ‘doctor millionaire’ Ha Chung-sik, who dreams of building a hospital that ranks among the top five in Korea by size, will be revealed on Wednesday, June 3, at 9:55 p.m. on EBS ‘Seo Jang-hoon’s The Millionaire Next Door’.
