First lady resumes duties after 2-month hiatus

Kim Keon Hee appeared to have resumed her engagements as South Korea's first lady, albeit unofficially, for the first time in over two months.

Kim reportedly joined a lunch meeting with Netflix Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos and "Squid Game" star Lee Jung-jae, who had been received by President Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday at the presidential residence in Yongsan-gu, Seoul.

The initial statement from the presidential office about the meeting did not indicate that Kim was present. Instead, it said Sunday that Sung Tae-yoon, chief of staff for policy, was present at the meeting that touched upon the topic of a "cultural alliance between South Korea and the United States." The presidential office was not available for comment as of press time.

Kim also reportedly sent a letter recently to the bereaved family of a young police officer who drowned to death in 2020 during an operation to rescue a man who jumped off a bridge over the Han River.

Kim Kyung-yul, an emergency committee member of the ruling People Power Party, however, said Monday that it was regrettable that Kim's engagement had resumed "without the revival of either the first lady's office or the internal inspection team to look into the family affairs of the president," indicating that the first lady's affairs should be handled with transparency.

Committee member Kim earlier this month declared he would not run in the general election in April. He was formerly a liberal accountant who defected to the conservative party. His nomination by the party to vie for a seat in Mapo-gu's Eul constituency in Seoul, created an internal rift between the presidential office and the ruling party, as he urged the presidential office to open up over Yoon's stance concerning the first lady's recent scandal.

The first lady was last seen in public as she returned from Yoon's state visit to the Netherlands in mid-December. Since then, Kim has been mired in the "Dior bag scandal," which erupted after Kim was caught on hidden camera receiving a luxury pouch as a gift from a Korean American pastor in her private apartment in Seocho-gu, Seoul, which could be in violation of anti-graft rules.

In a televised interview on Feb. 7, Yoon called the scandal "a scheme deliberately arranged" to affect voter sentiment ahead of the general election, and defended his wife for having found it hard to "look coldly upon the visitor."

But the president appears to be still politically reeling from the fallout of the scandal.

Lee Jun-seok, chair of the New Reform Party and the now-estranged former People Power Party chair, said during a conference with senior journalists here on Monday that Yoon's "political assets will be greatly undermined" if the scandal is not viewed sternly by Yoon and his lieutenant, People Power Party interim leader Han Dong-hoon. Lee, however, added that a hidden camera being used to film the gift-giving could not be deemed justifiable.

Yoon's office on Wednesday revealed that the president had sought to visit Germany and Denmark this week, but had been forced to postpone the visit after "taking various factors into account." Should the plan have proceeded as planned, and should Kim have continued to keep herself out of the public eye, the visit would have been Yoon's first without Kim publicly accompanying him.