Konglish and mayor
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By Oh Young-jin
Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon
Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon doesn’t need to speak perfect English nor do any residents in Seoul for that matter. However much emphasis may be placed on English education in school to score better in college entrance exams, it is a second language for most Koreans and proficiency is desired but not required.
However, as far as the city’s English slogan is concerned, it is a different matter. It is an invitation to the rest of the world so it should make sense in English, be clear in meaning and be attractive.
The newly selected one is not. “I.SEOUL.U” is, as pointed out in our editorial Friday, just a jumble of English letters, doesn’t make sense in English and is unclear in what message it intends to deliver. It doesn’t pass the above-mentioned minimum criteria.
It is quite obvious that the city had it wrong. By calling it a new brand, it put more emphasis on the design rather than the phrase, which should be called a slogan or catchphrase. A better order of work is to have a phrase selected and be graphically creative.
Without further repeating our assertions, the ongoing brouhaha raises questions about Mayor Park’s sense of globalism or the lack thereof and, by extension, the city’s future under his “parochial” leadership.
As reported by Ohmynews, an online news outlet, Park was first dismissive about criticism.
He was quoted as saying that everything could be 100 percent satisfactory and that the winner was selected by the method of crowd-sourcing so it couldn’t be dumped for a new slogan.
First, this response leads one to question whether Park thinks he is still the civic leader he was before he became mayor, at the vanguard of grass-roots movements. He is now well into his second term as the leader of the city with a population of 10 million and is often talked about as a potential candidate for the next presidential election.
It is basic knowledge that the administrator’s job is fix things even if it entails criticism and his popularity. Given the benefit of the doubt, the mayor showed signs that he blindly seeks to cater to the whims of people. Even worse, there appears to be ample ground to suspect that the city came up with the idea of crowd-sourcing in order to prevent it from undergoing the same gauntlet of criticisms following the selection of the “Hi, Seoul” slogan under the previous administration.
Perhaps on a more important note, the slogan controversy shows his lack of concern about how it appears to foreigners and raises questions about Park’s fitness as leader of the city whose priority is to find unique features of its own and distinguish itself from other megacities.
He couldn’t do more than read a column by The Korea Times columnist John Burton who first raised the issue or follow-up coverage in this paper. As a matter of fact, a city official was repeatedly called for inquiries. It is an open question whether Park received a report about the problem or the official covered it up.
Now, as a city official was quoted as saying, it will sound more familiar if used often enough. That is not the right way of dealing with this issue. It would be best for an independent team of experts including multiple native speakers to vet the new slogan on whether it is suitable or not.
If it is found unsuitable, the mayor should be courageous enough to start over and find a new slogan. For a new slogan, it is important to check what Seoulites like most about the city or how they like their city to be portrayed. The result should be used as guideline by which people are invited to make their submissions. Selecting a slogan is not a trivial matter because it is a message that influences how other people think about us. If a good one can’t be found, we could be better off without one.
Oh Young-jin is chief editorial writer of The Korea Times. He can be reached at foolsdie5@ktimes.com or foolsdie@gmail.com.