This year’s Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) will once again find former President Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife Kim Keon-hee spending the holiday not at home, but behind prison walls.
According to judicial and correctional sources on October 6, correctional authorities have decided not to provide special Chuseok meals to inmates this year, citing budget constraints. Instead, prisoners will be granted limited outdoor exercise time.
Yoon, currently held at the Seoul Detention Center, will have his exercise day on October 7, while Kim, confined at the Seoul Southern Detention Center, will have hers the following day, October 8.
A Second Holiday Behind Bars
For Yoon, this marks his second major holiday in detention, following the Lunar New Year earlier this year. Because public holidays prohibit legal visits, his only in-person meeting with family took place on October 4.
The holiday menu offers a stark reminder of confinement.
At the Seoul Detention Center, Yoon’s Chuseok breakfast consists of a mini cheese bun, a boiled egg, mixed nuts, and soy milk.
Lunch includes udon soup with fried tofu, braised pork ribs, seasoned chili peppers, and kimchi, while dinner offers radish soup with beef, braised saury with kimchi, dried seaweed with sauce, and a fermented milk drink.
Kim’s meals at the Seoul Southern Detention Center are similar in austerity:
Breakfast brings tofu kimchi soup, pickled vegetables, stir-fried seaweed flakes, and young radish kimchi.
Lunch is fermented soybean paste stew, fried egg, mixed seasoned greens, and radish salad, followed by spicy beef soup, japchae noodles, braised young radish in soybean paste, and napa kimchi for dinner.
Budget Cuts Come Back to Haunt the Former President
The Ministry of Justice confirmed that special holiday meals for inmates have been suspended since this year, citing a budget reduction implemented during Yoon’s own presidency.
Ironically, Yoon is now personally experiencing the result of his own fiscal restraint.
“If budget levels are restored in the future, special meals may resume,” a correctional official stated.
Despite the lack of special Chuseok fare, the Seoul Detention Center distributed rice cakes (baekseolgi) donated by volunteers on October 2. The Seoul Southern Detention Center provided each inmate with an apple, a banana, and a rice cake. On October 9 (Hangul Day), both centers plan to provide an additional ₩1,700 (≈$1.20) special meal—cake slices at Seoul Detention Center and traditional Korean sweets (yugwa) at Seoul Southern.
A Holiday Routine Behind Bars
During the Chuseok holiday week (October 3–9), inmates are permitted to watch live television broadcasts from KBS1, MBC, SBS, and EBS1 between 9:15 a.m. and 9:00 p.m.
EBS1’s holiday film lineup includes “Back to the Future II” on October 6, “Les Misérables” on October 7, and “In the Mood for Love” on October 8 — a cinematic schedule that may provide some escape, if only for a few hours, from the reality of confinement.
For the former president and first lady, this Chuseok brings no banquet, no family gatherings, and no televised addresses — only the quiet hum of prison life, and perhaps, the irony of being governed by the very system they once commanded.
No comments:
Post a Comment