Park Cho-rong

She was a shy girl when she entered the entertainment industry, but as she gained experience she has opened up to become an extrovert and leader of her band.

She is the eldest member of her girl band and is considered a motherly figure. That is how she picked up the nickname Mama Rong. She has gained the respect of other members of Apink as well as the directors and producers.

Park Cho-rong was born into a middle class family on March 3, 1991 in Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea. She is the second child of three sisters who were brought up in Chungcheongbuk-do.

Her father was a master of Hapkido and owned an academy for training youth in martial arts. Due to the influence of her father she trained in Hapkido for eight years to earn a 3rd degree black belt.

Park started her schooling at Byungsul Kindergarten School and did her elementary and middle high school from Bukang School. She completed her high school from Choongbook High School. Besides martial arts, she also learnt dancing as a child.

She auditioned for JYP Entertainment at the age of 18, but she was eliminated in the final round. Park was determined to become an entertainer and did not get disheartened by her initial failure. Later she joined the South Korean record label Cube Entertainment as a trainee from where she launched her career in the entertainment world.

She made her debut on television with a minor role as Cho-rong in the South Korean romance drama serial ‘All My Love’ on MBC network in 2010. This was followed by a special appearance as Lee II-hwa in her younger days in the serial ‘Reply 1997’ that revolves around the lives of six friends from their carefree high school days to their present life.

She started her music career with the music video ‘Shock’ by the boy band ‘Beast’. She worked with a few other bands before her career took a boost in 2011 when she was announced as a lead member of the South Korean girl band ‘Apink’.

Prior to the release of their first single ‘Mollayo’, Park and her girl band participated in a pre-debut reality show titled ‘Apink News’ that was an ideal launch pad for their music.

Park is one of the main songwriters for ‘Apink’. She started writing songs for the group with the number ‘April 19th’ that marked the first anniversary of the band. She debuted as a member of the band on ‘Mnet’s M! Countdown’ and has sung their numbers ‘Mollayo’ and ‘Wishlist’ which are also part of their EP ‘Seven Spring of Apink’.

It did not take long for the band to become a sensation among Korean youth and Park Cho-rong to become an icon. Hit numbers written by her include ‘Wanna Be’, ‘Deja Vu’, ‘To Us’ and her latest number ‘Eyes’ for the album ‘Pink Up’ which was released in 2017.

Her television serials include ‘All My Love’ (2010), ‘Reply 1997’ (2012) and ‘Plus Nine Boys’ (2014).

She participated as a cast member on the reality show ‘One Night Food Trip’ (2017) on O’live & tvN network.

She has written the lyrics for the songs ‘April 19’ for the album ‘Une Annee’ (2012); ‘Love Story’ and ‘So Long’ for the album ‘Pink Blossom’(2014); ‘Wanna Be’ for the album ‘Pink Luv’ (2014); ‘Deja Vu’ for the album ‘Pink Memory’ (2015), ‘The Wave’ and ‘To Us’ for the album ‘Pink Revolution’ (2016); ‘Cliche’ for the album ‘Dear’ (2016) and ‘Eyes’ for the album ‘Pink Up’ (2017).