‘250 Straws’ Delivered to Choo Mi-ae’s Office... Furious Lee Sang-min’s Stinging Rebuke

[Financial News] The fallout from Gyeonggi Province Governor Choo Mi-ae’s remark during a parliamentary audit that firefighting was a “fiscal straw” is spreading rapidly. Amid the death of a firefighter while battling a factory fire in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, the ruling camp’s leadership has stepped in to apologize on her behalf. But public anger continues, with a current-affairs satirist even sending 250 actual straws to the governor’s office in protest.
Current-affairs satire creator and comedian Lee Sang-min, 32, posted on his social media on the 17th that he was “sending straws to Governor Choo Mi-ae” and shared an online shopping receipt listing the governor’s office at the Gyeonggi Provincial Government as the delivery address. The order was for five bundles of 50 straws each, 250 in total.
Lee took aim, saying, “There is a Gyeonggi governor who says, ‘Firefighting is a fiscal straw.’ It’s a reality more laughably tragic and appalling than comedy,” and adding, “Even under a barrage of public criticism, the person involved refuses to apologize, while the party instead steps in to do so.” News later broke that Governor Choo had apologized while paying her respects at the firefighter’s funeral. Lee said he had “decided it was hard to regard it as a sincere apology, so I didn’t cancel the order,” and announced that the straws had been delivered to the provincial government on the afternoon of the 18th.
The controversy began on the 13th at the National Assembly’s Security and Public Administration Committee’s audit of Gyeonggi Province. While explaining that local governments continued to face an excessive burden from matching-budget contributions for personnel and project costs even after firefighting officials became national civil servants, Governor Choo said, “Firefighting seems like the biggest, most troublesome ‘fiscal straw.’”
Immediately after the remark, fire service unions issued a statement and strongly protested, saying, “Firefighters are not straws draining the public purse; they are the people’s last line of defense.” Making matters worse, the late Fire Lieutenant Kim Jin-seok died in the line of duty while battling a factory fire in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, on the 16th, and public criticism of Governor Choo intensified beyond control.
As the situation rapidly deteriorated, the Democratic Party of Korea’s leadership moved quickly to contain the damage. The party issued an official apology in a statement by its spokesperson, then party leader Kim Min-seok personally said, “On behalf of the party, I offer my deepest apologies to the firefighters and members of the public who were hurt by the remarks of a governor from our party,” and publicly called on Governor Choo to issue a contrite apology of her own.
After visiting the funeral home of Fire Lieutenant Kim, who died in the line of duty, and paying her respects on the 17th, Governor Choo said, “If my words were conveyed differently from what I intended, I offer my deep regret and sincerely apologize,” adding, “It was a mistake made while discussing structural fiscal problems, and I had absolutely no intention of disparaging anyone.” She also apologized repeatedly on social media.
The People Power Party, however, sharply criticized her, calling it “an arrogant apology that amounts to nothing more than a long-winded self-justification,” and saying, “The funeral home of a firefighter who died in the line of duty is not a public complaints office where a governor can plead that she has been wronged.”
As the ruling camp faces mounting pressure amid the confirmation-hearing process, political circles see the harsh metaphor used in policy criticism over local-government finances as having turned the issue into a political battle over the treatment of firefighters and public-service ethics more broadly.
[email protected] Moon Young-jin Reporter