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| ▲ President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers congratulatory remarks during a ceremony marking the 17th World Korean Day at a hotel in Seoul on Oct. 5, 2023. (Yonhap) |
Yoon-overseas Koreans
Yoon vows to widen playing field for overseas Koreans
By Lee Haye-ah
SEOUL, Oct. 5 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk Yeol met Thursday with a group of Korean community leaders from around the world, saying he will pay closer attention to Koreans living overseas and strengthen global networks to widen the "playing field" for overseas Koreans.
Yoon made the remark during a ceremony marking the 17th World Korean Day, which brought together some 450 people, including 360 leaders of Korean communities around the world. The presidential office noted it was the first such ceremony since the launch of the Overseas Koreans Agency, a government agency tasked with better supporting overseas Koreans, in June.
"Your early overseas entry may have been difficult and insignificant at first, but with your hard work and effort, you wrote the history of immigration and the economic history of the great Koreans," he said during the ceremony held at a hotel in Seoul.
"Our government will thoroughly look after all Koreans around the world with the Overseas Koreans Agency at the center. While strengthening our global networks, we will widen the playing field where our businesses and people, and our 7.5 million overseas compatriots can gather their strengths and run," he said.
Yoon recalled the Koreans who worked in Hawaii's sugar cane fields and the miners and nurses sent to Germany in the 1960s to earn foreign currency for South Korea's economic development.
"Now the Republic of Korea has risen from the ruins of war and is aiming to become a global pivotal state that fulfills its responsibilities and role in the international community," he said. "We will contribute more and cooperate more with the international community so that our compatriots overseas can be proud of their homeland."
During the ceremony, five people were given government awards in recognition of their service to Koreans living overseas, including representatives of Korean communities in Vancouver, Canada, and Africa and the Middle East.
Actor Soji Arai, whose Korean name is Park Sohee, also gave remarks on his own experience of living as a third-generation Korean-Japanese, and living in the United States, while overcoming discrimination as an immigrant and holding on to his Korean identity.
Park starred in the American TV series "Pachinko," which is based on the 2017 novel by Min Jin Lee and follows the story of Korean immigrants living in Japan in the 20th century.
Yoon has held a series of events with overseas Koreans in recent days.
Last Friday, he hosted a luncheon for Korean victims of the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bombing, while on Wednesday, he hosted a luncheon for a group of former nurses and miners sent to Germany in the 1960s and 70s.
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