First Lady Kim Keon-hee cannot do anything without getting ripped by her critics. Has there ever been a first lady this demonized?:
First lady Kim Keon-hee is back under the microscope on Monday, this time for her charity work during President Yoon Suk-yeol’s visit to Cambodia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. She was photographed holding a boy suffering from a congenital heart disease, and some opposition politicians are claiming that she tried to imitate an image of “Roman Holiday” star Audrey Hepburn in war-torn Somalia back in 1992.
Korea Times
According to the presidential office, Kim, who is accompanying President Yoon Suk-yeol on his trip to Cambodia and Indonesia, visited the child’s home on Saturday.
Kim was supposed to meet the boy a day earlier when she visited Hebron Medical Center in Phnom Penh, a facility established in 2007 by a South Korean pediatrician, but the boy did not show up to the event due to his condition.
Kim decided to meet the boy instead of visiting Angkor Wat as part of an official program for first spouses that the Cambodian government had set up, the presidential office said.
“You can beat it, right? Get well and let’s meet in South Korea,” Kim was quoted by deputy presidential spokesperson Lee Jae-myoung as saying to the boy.
The photos of Kim holding the boy grabbed the attention of the Korean public.
Wearing a black short-sleeved polo-style shirt and white pants, Kim was holding the boy in her arms while staring into the distance. People online soon compared this photo with Hepburn’s photo taken during her visit to a UNICEF-assisted feeding center in Baidoa, Somalia, in 1992.
In the 1992 photo, Hepburn was wearing a dark polo-style shirt and light-colored chino pants, staring into the distance while holding a child in her arms. Online users and main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Rep. Kim Yong-min accused the Korean first lady of mimicking the British actress.
“If you want to emulate someone, try to emulate their spirit and sacrifices, not their pose or attire,” Kim wrote on Facebook. “Also, please start by abandoning the evil of using those who are suffering as ornaments.”
During a party meeting on Monday, DPK Rep. Jang Kyung-tae accused the presidential office of resorting to “poverty porn” and chided the first lady for committing a “diplomatic discourtesy” for ducking out of the official program for first spouses.
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