South Korean President Visits Market and Eats, Uses Wife’s Used Chopsticks as Public Chopsticks

The South Korean Presidential Office recently released a clip showing President Lee Jae-myung feeding his wife Kim Hye-kyung at a market, along with a small incident that occurred.

Lee Jae-myung and his wife visited a traditional market in Seoul on the 17th. After feeding his wife, he tried to use the same pair of chopsticks to feed an accompanying lawmaker.

Kim Hye-kyung decisively blocked Lee Jae-myung's hand, so Lee had no choice but to put the food into his own mouth. Kim also pushed him a little and, with a tone of reproach yet resembling playful coquetry, said: "You can’t use already-used chopsticks, how could you do that?"

Lee Jae-myung retorted, “It’s fine as long as they don’t touch [the food].”

To this, Kim Hye-kyung told Lee Jae-myung: “(If it’s) just us two, it’s fine.”

Kim Hye-kyung was born in 1966 in a middle-class family in Seoul, as the eldest daughter. A graduate of the piano department of Sookmyung Women's University, she had the potential to become an outstanding pianist and went on to work as a piano teacher after graduation, a natural progression. At the time, she probably never imagined she would one day be so closely intertwined with politics. Kim had also planned to study further in Austria to further enhance her piano skills and blaze a trail in the field of music.

A turning point happened in 1990, just after Kim Hye-kyung graduated from university.

It was through an introduction that Kim met Lee Jae-myung, who was already a lawyer at the time. Lee fell in love with Kim at first sight, and recalling their first meeting, he once said on social media: “On my third match-making date I met my destined partner.”

But Kim’s first impression of Lee was not good: “He’s not good-looking, and looks old,” was her assessment. Nevertheless, Lee’s sincerity and persistence moved her.

During their fourth date, Lee boldly proposed to Kim. Instead of an engagement ring, he gave her the diaries he had kept since the age of thirteen as a token of their love. The diaries chronicled life’s hardships after finishing elementary school, being taken by his mother to the factory to work, his resentment at being ordered by his father to help sweep the market early each morning, and other tidbits from his life.

Through these words, Kim saw the warmth behind Lee’s perseverance, which prompted her to give up her ideal of studying piano in Austria and promise to marry Lee. After knowing each other for seven months, the two tied the knot in March 1991 and went on to have two sons.