Speech

What the young president Kennedy cried out at his Presidential inauguration ‘Ask not what country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country’ remain in the minds of the people all around the world

About 2 years ago, there was a terror attack at the Boston Marathon and the President Obama ran to the terror site and delivered a speech. His speech which he concluded it by saying ‘How great the threat may be, we will run again’ thrilled me despite it being broadcasted at late night due to the time difference 

The Presidential speeches that I have listened to while I was living in the United States were impressive

I have listened to the speech of President Ford at the celebration of the United States bicentennial at White House remember listening to the speech of the former Vice-President Rockefeller and shaking hands and sharing few words with him at the auditorium at Georgetown University. The speeches of Jimmy Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton have always been impressive   

Especially, Ronald Reagan who had a ‘second-class’ actor with a not very politician like image is still being admired for his speeches that are easy to understand and humorous but yet, do not miss the key points. It is known that Obama delivers more touching speeches when he puts aside the prepared script and gives impromptu speeches

The United States has a large landmass and a large population of 300 million with different personalities. When each president of the time delivers a speech with their own charm, I listened to them carefully and by doing so, I understood the identity of the country and set my life straight  

Politics, in the end, means language

Politicians are so called ‘workers and servants’ but after they are elected, their positions are considered high positions and their words represent the identity and the future of the country Therefore, presidential speeches to the people are important   

Each country has different concerns

The United States have concerns of people from different nations and have a moto of being the police of the world to protect the justice and to spread democracy as the world’s leader despite its short history whilst we as a small divided country at the end of East Asia has our own

There are concerns with the relationship between the North and the South, reunification, keeping good relationships with the big neighboring countries Japan and China and more broadly, with the big four countries around us

In a way, our words and speech are more impressive as we are a small country with a long history of suffering like a man with difficult childhood has more stories to impress.

How would one impress others without having had any pain and suffering while growing up? People change their minds when they are touched 

10 years ago, there was a serious national demonstration on the issue of Dokdo shortly after my mother has passed away. I did not do anything about it for a while but I started to think about the ‘peace mentality’ which my mother has hoped for, for the world without wars and conflict between countries and I have come think no ‘peace mentality’ would be required in the world full of peace and recommended to the president of Korea and those around him to talk about ‘peace mentality’ in the speech at the coming Korea-Japan summit. The president did not react to my recommendation so I have requested to send his speech writers to me. Three speech writers were sent to me and I explained them the necessity of ‘peace mentality’ for a few hours. They seemed confused so I said I will write the speech for the summit

I sent a book by poet HoYoun Son and a DVD copy of documentary without any letters, to the Japanese Prime Minister back then

A few days later, a number of correspondents in Japan ringed me and told me to watch the speech by former Prime Minister Koizumi. That day, I saw former Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro who has watched the copy of DVD and has read the book that I had sent him delivering the quality speech with ‘a line of poem of peace’ and the speech was live broadcasted and rebroadcasted hour after hour by NHK KBS    

I saw a photo of the President wearing a red jacket as if he was trying to share bright energy to the people of Korea in the New Year in the newspaper. After I have come back to Korea, I looked forward every time to presidential speeches and I was very disappointed  

Presidents, after 1 or 2 years of their term, become more fluent at delivering speeches but becoming fluent in delivering speeches are different from delivering speeches that impress the people, making them self-respected and building strong identity of the country

Watching the New Year’s press interview, I think that being good at speech-delivery requires not only clever thinking and clear delivery but also the sincerity inside the mind of the speaker which can be felt by the listeners although the speaker may not be the best speaker in the world  

I want to listen to a speech that remains in my mind 

           I miss a speech that would remain in my mind forever

           After I have returned to my home country

           leaving my youth across the Pacific Ocean

           Everytime the New Year comes back