Published : Dec. 10, 2014 - 21:04
It’s already the second week of December and the 50th week of 2014. The year of the Sewol ferry tragedy is waning, leaving in its wake the bottomless sorrows of the families, classmates and teachers of the 304 dead. But the nation is not in quiet condolence, passing the final weeks of a depressing year in a nasty political controversy.
Some dubbed it “the memogate” or “chirashigate” as it arose over a few
pages of internal documents prepared in and leaked from the Blue House, allegedly based on “chirashi,” meaning stock market leaflets. The presidential office determined the nature of the embarrassing contents of the document as “a mere collection of unfounded rumors.” President Park Geun-hye herself mentioned “chirashi,” whether aware or unaware that it is a Japanese word.
It is still taboo in this country for government officials or anyone of esteemed status to use Japanese words in formal speeches for obvious historical reasons. The only places where Japanese vocabulary is rather freely used are construction sites, billiard halls and Japanese-style restaurants. That President Park uttered this particular Japanese word reflected her desperation in denying the authenticity of the “information” in the leaked Blue House memo.
With the help of a friend who is well versed in Japanese, I learned that chirashi means two things. One is a short for “chirashi sushi,” a kind of quick meal serving raw fish on top of sushi rice in a bowl. Chirashi also means leaflets scattered in public places to inform people of certain forthcoming events or new commodities.
Last Sunday, we heard the president’s most candid revelation to date of how she feels about her job as the nation’s chief executive, in addition to her personal judgment of the contents of the document, titled “Activities of VIP’s Confidant Chung Yoon-hoi” produced by the office of bureaucratic discipline at the Blue House and exposed by the Segye Ilbo. She brushed aside its contents as a bunch of worthless, groundless rumors circulated in “chirashi” papers.
She specifically told a meeting with ruling party staffers that Chung ― her former personal secretary who the internal memo reported to be interfering in government appointments in collaboration with presidential secretaries ― “left my side long ago” and that Park Chi-man, her only younger brother, “has been kept away from the Blue House” since her inauguration. A contest of influence between the two is just inconceivable, the president was quoted as saying.
“My only life purpose is to help the nation to advance and the people to live happily; we have been given a chance and we should accomplish these tasks before we, you and me, leave this world sometime,” she reportedly said. Her rather emotional expression sounded somewhat consonant with her recent remarks that “my agonies will not end until I leave this world.”
We are sorry that our president, now in the pinnacle of her political career, does not seem to share the kind of happiness she strives to build in her fellow people. She asserted she has nothing to fear for no other reason than that she has no individual and personal goal in life. Koreans who have lived through these past several decades have genuinely had pity on the three children of Park Chung-hee and Yook Young-soo ― Geun-hye, Geun-ryoung and Chi-man ― when they lost their parents to assassins’ bullets in five years’ time.
The three orphaned siblings led very different courses over the following years, but people who respected and remained loyal to the leader of Korea’s miracle-making period continued to provide them with emotional and financial care. Geun-hye, the eldest, eventually joined politics, recruited by the conservative force that needed her symbolic power as Park Chung-hee’s daughter in their defense against rising progressives in the late 1990s.
Park Geun-hye’s absence of family life, even distanced from her younger brother and sister, served as an asset for the conservative party to give a certain element of purity to its generally corrupt image. During the next decade of leftist rule, Park managed to raise her stature as an opposition leader, but mysticism grew about her personal life as she allowed very little to be shown to the public. After a loss to Lee Myung-bak in the 2007 nomination race, she finally won in 2012 to enter the Blue House she left in 1979.
Having the first female president of the republic for nearly two years, we watch the master of the presidential mansion still live like the daughter of an assassinated president, a lonely individual even sequestered from the next of kin and insulated not only from the hustle and bustle of the 21st-century Korean life but from the many delights it offers. I do not think privacy is a concept applicable to the president, insofar as we would like to know whom she eats dinner with or whether she has it at all.
We see her change outfits every day, although in more or less the same style, but we do not know who designs them, one newspaper columnist noted. Whenever a ministerial nominee withdraws over scandalous personal deeds, blame goes to the president for her limited vision narrowed by her aides. Ghosts named Chung Yoon-hoi and the like lurk the walls of the Blue House and appear in media scoops such as the Segye Ilbo’s late last month.
President Park may not be afraid of anything in her pursuits of the kind life she chose, but many fear that the Blue House will move away from the people’s mind and heart over the next three years. A group of first-term Saenuri Party lawmakers made a short list of things that they want Park to practice in order to prevent the further drifting of her presidency. They asked her 1) to reveal the recommendation process for high-level appointments; 2) routinely meet with Cabinet ministers and senior secretaries face-to-face; 3) hold regular press conferences; and 4) regularly operate a consultation body of party, Cabinet and the Blue House.
There is one more thing. Lift the Blue House off-limits order to her relatives. Chi-man’s wife is reported to be pregnant with their third child. I believe nobody would complain if the president’s living quarter turned into a noisy place on some weekends with the presidential nephews raising hell there, as long as we trust her determination.
By Kim Myong-sik
Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. ― Ed.