"I Thought It Was a Chinese Character Proficiency Test"... Controversy Over Apartment Representative's Acceptance Speech Filled With Chinese Characters

Acceptance Speech Filled with Chinese Characters and English Posted on Bulletin Board
Netizens Divided Over the Elected Representative's Message

Public opinion is divided over the acceptance speech of the newly elected representative chairman of an apartment complex in Seocho-gu, Seoul. On the 29th, a post titled "Controversy over the elected representative post at Bangbae-dong XXXX" was uploaded to the online community site BobaeDream. The author, identified as Mr. A, shared a photo and rhetorically asked, "Do I need to use a translator?" In the photo released by Mr. A, an anonymous resident presumed to be the newly elected building representative posted an acceptance speech on the apartment bulletin board, filled with Chinese characters and English.

Public opinion is divided over the acceptance speech of the newly elected representative chairman of an apartment complex in Seocho-gu, Seoul. On the 29th, an online community site, BobaeDream, posted a thread titled "Controversy over the elected representative post at Bangbae-dong Lotte Castle."
[Photo by Online Community 'BobaeDream']

The acceptance speech included pledges such as ensuring transparency in financial settlements, thorough management through outsourcing to professional management and security companies, prompt defect repairs, creating a smart and eco-friendly apartment, and improving resident convenience facilities.

Mr. A commented, "The newly elected building representative must be an educated person. There is even debate over whether a Joseonjok was elected as the representative." He added, "If you truly want to communicate, you should use simple language," and shared a meme from author Yoo Si-min, stating, "People who write in a complicated way are usually trying to deceive others." Some users even used mobile translation apps to convert the Chinese characters into Korean and shared the meanings.

Netizens who encountered the story responded with comments such as, "There is a 99% chance this person is an old-fashioned authoritarian," "I thought it was an international apartment," and "Is it really necessary to write an acceptance speech that everyone will see in such a difficult way?" On the other hand, some users remarked, "Official documents used to be written like this," "It's familiar to older people," "Chinese and Chinese characters are completely different," and "Somehow, writing the acceptance speech in classical Chinese makes it feel more trustworthy."

Illiteracy Rate at 1%, but Literacy Rate Below OECD Average

Literacy rate (文解率, literacy rate) or letter comprehension rate (文字解得率) refers to the proportion of people who can read and understand written characters. The antonym of literacy rate is illiteracy rate (文盲率, illiteracy rate).
[Photo by online community]

Previously, in February 2020, an episode of aired by the Educational Broadcasting System (EBS) reported that while the basic illiteracy rate among Korean students-meaning the inability to read and write letters-was close to 1%, the functional illiteracy rate, referring to those unable to comprehend and interpret sentences, reached as high as 75%. In other words, the 'literacy rate,' or the proportion of people who can read and understand what they read, was only 25%. The same was true for adults, according to the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) conducted by the OECD.

Literacy rate (文解率, literacy rate) or letter comprehension rate (文字解得率) refers to the proportion of people who can read and understand letters. The antonym of literacy rate is illiteracy rate (文盲率, illiteracy rate). In response to these shocking results, the government implemented various improvement measures, such as expanding lifelong education. However, there are still concerns that Korea's functional literacy rate remains far below the OECD average. Meanwhile, expressions found in official documents released by government ministries to the public show that difficult Chinese-derived terms are still widely used.

According to the "2020 Public Document Usage Survey" report, 43 government ministries used as many as 43 difficult Chinese-derived words per 1,000 words on average. This was even after applying only the list of simplified administrative terms recommended by the government and Seoul City. The report was a public language survey jointly conducted by UPI News and the Korean Society for Artificial Intelligence in Korean, analyzing major documents collected from 43 government ministries, agencies, and committees.

Among the 43 institutions, those that used many difficult Chinese-derived words, even when written in Hangul, were Saemangeum Development Agency, Multifunctional Administrative City Construction, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Those that used the fewest were the Ministry of Environment, National Human Rights Commission, and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Representative difficult Chinese-derived terms that hinder communication and were frequently used included "kaejin (expression), gaeso (establishment), gyeonji (viewpoint), goeri (gap), geumeogi (closed season), jeokgi (right time), sangsi (at all times), and tongsanghyeonan (current issues)."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.