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mr_thehorse
Joined: 27 Aug 2013
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 Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 7:15 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| Also, is this in the mainstream Korean media? I haven't seen much in the Korean media about this. Just a bunch of twitter feeds. |
It might violate Korean libel law actually. She's vigorously attacking his reputation in a way directly related to his career. |
interesting. i wonder if there is a higher threshold for public figures as it is in the states. also, if she is a US citizen would there even be legal standing? |
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dairyairy
Joined: 17 May 2012
Location: South Korea
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 11:28 am Post subject: |
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http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2990005&cloc=joongangdaily|home|newslist1
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Koh Seung-duk refused to withdraw from his candidacy for superintendent of the Seoul education office yesterday in the face of his daughter’s allegation that he abandoned his two children from his first marriage.
In a press briefing yesterday, he raised suspicions that the whole situation might have been engineered as part of a smear campaign by relatives of his first wife and rival Moon Yong-lin’s campaign team.
“Knowing that candidate Moon is very well capable of waging a smear campaign, I can’t let him take control of Seoul’s education,” said Koh during a hastily arranged press conference yesterday.
Addressing his opponent, he added, “Please do not exploit my sad family history to win the election.”
The press briefing came when Koh, a former judge, came under fire after a woman who claimed to be Koh’s oldest daughter from his first marriage wrote an open letter “to the citizens of Seoul” on her Facebook page, saying that Koh is not qualified for the position because of his negligence in taking care of his own children.
“Seoul’s citizens deserve to know the truth about the person they may be choosing to represent and be in charge of Seoul’s education system: Seung Duk Koh never partook in the education of his own children,” said Candy Koh in her post Saturday.
Koh, 27, said her father has never contacted her or her younger brother “despite the existence of a telephone and Internet” since her mother took her and her brother to the United States when she was 11 years old. The two divorced in 2002.
The daughter went on to say that she decided to go public about Koh’s disregard of his own children because she felt compelled to “inform the citizens of Seoul” that her father “does not qualify for this position.”
“If the role of a superintendent of education is to look after the educational policies and systems of a city, Seung Duk Koh is a stranger to this role,” she wrote. “How can he act as the leader of education for a city when he is unwilling to teach his own flesh and blood?”
After reports of the post Saturday, Koh, who has maintained a lead in a number of popularity polls in the lead-up to the June 4 elections, acknowledged Candy Koh as his daughter and held a press conference yesterday to respond to the Facebook post.
Koh refuted his daughter’s claim that he never contacted or met his children.
“I met the children every few years when they came to Korea for a visit. I talked to my daughter on the phone or exchanged text messages. It may be possible that she didn’t feel it was quite enough [from me as a father]. But I want to correct misunderstandings that there had been no contact whatsoever between me and her.”
In a sign of his recognition that the unfolding situation had dealt considerable damage to his campaign with only three days to go before voting, Koh went into detail about his first marriage to explain his side of the story.
“As you all know, I was the second son-in-law of Park Tae-joon, a former chairman of Posco and a political and business heavyweight,” said the 57-year-old Koh. “I came from a modest family from the countryside. .?.?.?I should have known better the consequences of marrying into a chaebol family.”
Koh also raised suspicions that the Facebook post was part of a smear campaign by the relatives of his first wife and Moon’s campaign team to force him to abandon the race, claiming his ex-wife’s relatives and Moon have maintained a close relationship.
“I am having suspicions that my daughter’s post was made out of collusion between the late Park Tae-joon’s son and Moon’s campaign team,” said Koh.
Candy Koh dismissed her father’s press conference as “irrelevant” to the context of her Facebook letter in an email interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily.
“I do not think that any of the details he mentioned in the press statement regarding his personal life are relevant to the content of my letter or what should be important to voters in choosing the right candidate for an educational leader.”
She emphasized that her open letter was not part of any smear campaign and that she acted on her own solely to “inform Seoul’s citizens that the man never partook in the education of his own children, mentally or financially.”
BY kang jin-kyu [[email protected]]
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maximmm
Joined: 01 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 4:52 pm Post subject: |
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It does seem like a smear campaign of sorts. People do divorce at times - but as far as politics is concerned, there seems to be a consensus that a 'good' politician should be married and not having been divorced.
As things stand, we see family being brought into politics all the time.
In USA, if you want to be elected, you not only have to be married with children, but also be religious.
Welcome to the 1th century that we live in today - Korea and USA alike. |
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Unposter
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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Koh, from what I've been told, is famous because he has passed all the civil service tests as well as the Korean Bar, so he is famous for his ability to pass Korean style tests. He goes around giving speeches about how to educate and raise children.
He is also supposedly an ultra-conservative, who wants to "strengthen" Korean schools by bringing back traditional educational methods.
So, if that is what you want, Koh is your man. And, if that is not what you want, you may want to look else where.
Candy, his daughter, is an American citizen and her Korean must not be good enough for her to write in. She posted this on her facebook page and Liberal Korean newspapers who are against Koh picked it up. She said she did it because some of her friends now live in Seoul and she wanted them to know what kind of man her father is.
He may be one of those people who are do as I say not as I do crowd if one is to believe his daughter. |
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wanderkind
Joined: 01 Jan 2012
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Unposter wrote: |
Koh........
He is also supposedly an ultra-conservative, who wants to "strengthen" Korean schools by bringing back traditional educational methods.
......... |
Does that mean corporal punishment?
Aside from that I'm not sure what has changed in Korean schools. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 7:52 pm Post subject: |
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Suing your own daughter is pretty low.
As for what actually happened is hard to say. Older more traditionally minded Korean women have been known to take the kids and keep them as a pawn in divorce for either revenge or for demands of money. However, he should have been able to fight it in US Courts for custody and visitation rights anyhow, even if Korean courts are iffy on these things. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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| I always thought that one side keeping the kids, and the other side having little to do with them, was fairly normal in Korean divorces. Obviously for a kid growing up in the US, this would seem very wrong. But it's common in Korea - and many feel it's for the best. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 2:38 am Post subject: |
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| cabeza wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| It seems a little suspicious to me, just by looking at the name. 'Candy' as her name... How many American girls are really named 'Candy'? |
Female Asian immigrants often take on these ridiculous stripper names, because they have no reference or understanding of the cultural context of the place they move to.
Back home I taught many FOB students called Candy, Angel, Mercedes, Benz, Queenie, Crystal. As well as some whacky ones like Boeing, Donut and Ham. |
The names above aren't really that strange. I've known plenty of Americans named Candy and Crystal. And Angel and Mercedes, while not common, are not unheard of either. Mercedes Lackey anyone? Also Angel and Mercedes are very common in the Latin community.
Most Koreans American girls tend to have biblical names as the Korean American immigrant community is overwhelmingly Christian and often Evangelical.
Everyone knows an Esther, followed by Hannah and Christina. |
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Stan Rogers
Joined: 20 Aug 2010
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Milwaukiedave
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Location: Goseong
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 3:12 am Post subject: |
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| Weigookin74 wrote: |
Suing your own daughter is pretty low.
As for what actually happened is hard to say. Older more traditionally minded Korean women have been known to take the kids and keep them as a pawn in divorce for either revenge or for demands of money. However, he should have been able to fight it in US Courts for custody and visitation rights anyhow, even if Korean courts are iffy on these things. |
My guess is he'll still end up winning regardless of whether the story is true or not. If he does win he really wouldn't have much of a case. I think in the event he loses (which I find hard to believe he will) suing wouldn't help himself at all.
As to what went down in the divorce, we'll probably never know. I do wonder if he is remarried with other kids. That can cause quite a bit of resentment if you are the child from a first marriage. |
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andrewchon
Joined: 16 Nov 2008
Location: Back in Oz. Living in ISIS Aust.
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:09 pm Post subject: |
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This has the look of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: on the mother side. This sort of thing is so common these days we don't even notice it anymore. Mother the abuser and the daughter the co-dependent. Co-dependent can't fight the abuser so she lashes out against the person who can help her. Now she is a co-dependent turned abuser. We don't know anymore than her FB post and her dad's denial but the classic signs are there.  |
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FMPJ
Joined: 03 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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| I know some members of the family and from what I'm told, the girl's claims are legit. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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| FMPJ wrote: |
| I know some members of the family and from what I'm told, the girl's claims are legit. |
Which family?
Not defending the guy, but we all know there are different sides to these sort of things. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 10:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Milwaukiedave wrote: |
| Weigookin74 wrote: |
Suing your own daughter is pretty low.
As for what actually happened is hard to say. Older more traditionally minded Korean women have been known to take the kids and keep them as a pawn in divorce for either revenge or for demands of money. However, he should have been able to fight it in US Courts for custody and visitation rights anyhow, even if Korean courts are iffy on these things. |
My guess is he'll still end up winning regardless of whether the story is true or not. If he does win he really wouldn't have much of a case. I think in the event he loses (which I find hard to believe he will) suing wouldn't help himself at all.
As to what went down in the divorce, we'll probably never know. I do wonder if he is remarried with other kids. That can cause quite a bit of resentment if you are the child from a first marriage. |
He remarried but has no children. According to him, his second wife couldn't conceive and wanted to adopt, but his daughter opposed that and he complied with her wishes.
He says he now feels really bad about not adopting, especially because his current wife so wanted a child. |
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FMPJ
Joined: 03 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2014 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
Which family?
Not defending the guy, but we all know there are different sides to these sort of things. |
Sure. I know a cousin of Candy who is still a close part of the larger family (not estranged like Candy's nuclear family is). BTW, the family is extremely aristocratic--it includes the founder of POSCO, former Prime Minister, etc. |
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