Lee hits back at criticism that his overseas trips are pleasure junkets: “A pig sees only pigs”

[Financial News] President Lee Jae Myung bluntly pushed back against criticism that his overseas trips are so frequent they could look like tourism, saying, “In a pig’s eyes, only pigs may be visible.”
On the 31st, Lee shared on X a post by a user criticizing the view that presidential trips are tourism, and wrote this in response.
Lee wrote, “To people who think a presidential overseas trip means taking pictures and taking credit without doing any work or preparation, while leisurely enjoying drinking, shopping and sightseeing, even an overseas trip involving demanding advance preparations, long flights, a packed schedule of official duties with not even half a day free, and frequent IV drips and nosebleeds from the intense workload may look like a vacation—despite there being no tourism, shopping, drinking or revelry.”
Lee added, “The accompanying press corps, which experiences them firsthand, would know better about the schedules and workloads of former and current presidents’ overseas trips, and the resulting differences in their outcomes.”
He continued, “As the saying goes, Buddhas see only Buddhas and pigs see only pigs. People see only as much as they know, so I ask you to understand.”
The previous day, Wi Sung-lac, chief of the Office of National Security, met with reporters at the Chunchugwan Press Center and, citing attendance at multilateral meetings and bilateral diplomacy with major countries, said, “It is somewhat unfair to raise questions about there being too many in particular, or about why the first lady goes. It is the same whoever becomes president or whichever administration is in power.”
Meanwhile, Lee made an unannounced visit to North Gyeongsang Province that day. In a post on X titled “Weekend Tour,” he disclosed the visit, writing, “Greetings to the residents of North Gyeongsang Province, and to the people of Yeongyang and Cheongsong counties.” The visit had not been announced in advance.
In the post, Lee quoted part of the lyrics of “Song of the North Gyeongsang Residents,” saying, “A song I used to sing at the top of my lungs as a child, plodding along hand in hand with my friends on a newly built road—I still haven’t forgotten it.”
[email protected] Kim Kyung-soo Reporter