'Presidential speeches nearly identical, except Moon's'

Elizabeth G. Kraft, a naturalized Korean who recently retired after working over four decades as an English editor at the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS), speaks during an interview with The Korea Times, at the office of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, a nonprofit organization where she has been secretary for several years, in central Seoul, Tuesday. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

Naturalized Korean honored for 40 years of service in gov't

By Park Jin-hai

Elizabeth G. Kraft, a naturalized Korean who worked as an English editor proofreading presidential speeches and served 10 different presidents, wonders why the language presidents use while in office is identical, despite their different speaking styles.

This caused her to do some soul-searching for a while. "If you took the Liberation Day speech from every president, took out the buzzwords and put them on the table, I don't think you could tell one from the other. All of them are very very similar," the 78-year-old said during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul, Tuesday.

Even former President Kim Dae-jung, known as an eloquent speaker, was no exception, she said. "I was surprised. I've always heard he was such a great speaker but his speeches weren't any different from anybody else's once he got to be president," said Kraft, making an exception of President Moon Jae-in's speeches. "Moon's speeches tend to have more poetic language in them. I heard his speechwriter is a poet and that explains a lot."

She later figured out that unlike leaders in Europe or America who try to sway public opinion in front of big crowds, when Korean presidents have to give a speech, it is to usually to fulfill a more ritualistic purpose. "I think the reason is that in America and Europe, when the president gives a speech, he is trying to influence public opinion and very often wants to be well-received in front of a big crowd. When a Korean president gives a speech, most of the time he is filling a ritual spot in a ceremony and they all say practically the same thing because they are fulfilling the same ritual, they are not really trying to influence public opinion."

Upon her retirement last Friday, Kraft received the Moran Medal, the second-highest Order of Civil Merit from the President of the Republic of Korea. The medal was conferred by the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, for her lifetime of service to the government.

Kraft, after graduating from college in the U.S., came to Korea in 1962 as a short-term missionary, when "ox-carts were on the street and Seoul was a small city." She returned to the land of her birth after three years of an "exciting" stay, then married a fellow Koreangraduate student in 1969 and returned to Korea in December 1976.

The following month, she began working for the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS).

She has been editing presidential speeches translated into English as well as other government documents.

Some of her achievements include editing an English version of the Constitution that was revised in 1987, and press releases for inter-Korean summits and reunions of families separated by the Korean War.

At the beginning of her career, editing was not easy because qualified translators were scarce, she says. "When I first started working at KOCIS, translators made word-by-word translations, which would look really ridiculous when I got them, but I was never able to edit them very well, because I couldn't quite figure out what these silly words were actually saying. But a translator would say those were the president's words and you can't fool around and change the president's words," she said.

"I asked the translator if the president sounds dumb in Korean, because it sounds dumb in English. I said to him he hasn't translated the president's words. If the president sounds intelligent, you have to translate his intelligence as well his words, I said."

Kraft says the most exciting time of her career was the first North-South family reunions when she along with all Koreans became very emotional.

She says Korea has come a long way, and politics here are always moving forward and changing.

"That is one of the characteristics of Koreans that they see the problems, figure out how to solve the problems and they go on to something else, while so many countries are stuck in one place. Many countries had dictators in the beginning whose main goal was to make themselves rich and the country never developed," she said, contrasting that to President Park Chung-hee, who is criticized for his dictatorship but she says made it possible for Korea to later democratize.

She has two daughters with her husband Lee Ha-woo, former secretary general of the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee. She has two granddaughters. She naturalized as a Korean citizen in 1981.

"I thought I was going to live here for the rest of my life and it doesn't make sense not to be a Korean," she said. "I'm really proud of being Korean, although I don't think anybody would recognize me as a Korean but me ― I think I'm Korean."