South Korea President Lee’s appearance on reality TV show stirs controversies  

SEOUL - Political disputes persisted through the Chuseok holiday over President Lee Jae Myung and his wife Kim Hea Kyung’s recent appearance at JTBC’s cooking reality show, Please Take Care Of My Refrigerator.

Although the latest episode, aired on Oct 6, recorded a viewership rating of 8.9 per cent – the highest of any episode in the series – Mr Lee’s political opponents continued to accuse the liberal president of turning a blind eye to the “national disaster” stemming from the recent massive data centre blaze by pushing ahead with the variety show filming.

The Oct 6 episode had four Korean chefs compete to impress the presidential couple by creating or reinterpreting recipes featuring Korean home-grown ingredients.

Each chef presented a condensed chicken soup, samgyetang, topped with a fried chicken dumpling and scallion oil; four types of Korean snacks with pine nuts, also called jat; Korean rice cake mixed with dried radish leaves known as siragei; and fried scorched rice with siraegi toppings.

While the ruling bloc hailed Mr Lee’s appearance on the variety show – a first for a president – as a chance to promote the outstanding features of Korean recipes and ingredients to the world, the main opposition People Power Party blasted the liberal bloc for failing to cancel the “self-admiring” TV appearance after a data centre fire that led to partial paralysis of e-government services and the death of a civil servant.

The main opposition party also accused the liberal bloc of attempting to silence the opponents who raised questions about Mr Lee’s participation in the show.

Both sides have turned to legal measures against their opponents.

After the presidential office announced on Oct 2 that the episode of Mr Lee and Ms Kim was set to air on Oct 5, Representative Joo Jin-woo, a People Power Party lawmaker, raised suspicions on Oct 3 that the presidential couple filmed the episode while the nation was experiencing the fallout of the data centre fire.

Mr Joo also demanded that the presidential office reveal Mr Lee’s itinerary for the two days following Sept 26, the night the fire broke out, claiming that Mr Lee remained silent on the matter while filming at the TV studio.

Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung, in a statement on Oct 3, threatened to file a lawsuit against Mr Joo for spreading misinformation. She said Mr Lee was briefed about the situation over the data centre fire on Sept 26 and held meetings on Sept 28, and therefore did not remain silent.

Ms Kang, however, did not reveal when the filming took place.

Mr Joo hit back at Ms Kang’s claim, saying that he had evidence that the presidential couple filmed the show on Sept 28, which presidential spokesperson Kim Nam-joon conceded on Saturday while opening up about Mr Lee’s itinerary during the data centre crisis.

Mr Joo on Oct 6 countersued Ms Kang for defamation.

In the meantime, the presidential office requested that the airing date for the presidential couple’s episode be postponed to Oct 6, given the mourning period for the civil servant who died while handling the data centre fire case.

Also over the Chuseok holiday on Oct 5, Representative Jang Dong-hyeok, chair of the People Power Party, posted on Facebook that the liberal bloc’s claims regarding Mr Lee’s schedule after the fire were “a lie”.

Mr Jang was sued by Representative Kim Hyun-jung of the Democratic Party for defamation on Oct 7.

On Oct 9, Mr Jang said in a party meeting that the ruling bloc had “turned to (legal) threats, blackmail and incitement in order to conceal the truth”, adding that the bloc turned on him in the face of an unprecedented national digital crisis.

Mr Jang also criticised the Lee administration for its failure to reach a tariff deal with the US. “Please take care of the US tariffs, not a refrigerator,” Mr Jang said on Oct 9.

Also on Oct 9, representative Park Jie-won, a seasoned lawmaker of the Democratic Party, said in a radio interview that it was regrettable to see that the presidential office had not responded to the claims candidly, but added that Mr Lee’s TV appearance is not problematic given that its purpose was to promote Korean food. THE KOREA HERALD/ ASIA NEWS NETWORK