Park's Response

Renowned poet Park No-hae denied charges that he danced with hostesses at a bar while partying with a group of young lawmakers. Park, however, said that since the group acted in poor taste, he will accept punishment for his behavior.

Famous for his poem, "Morning of Labor," Park was recently interviewed over the phone by JoongAng Ilbo.

Q:How did you get to take part?
A:The meeting was to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Kwangju Uprising with Generation 386 politicians. We were planning to talk about reforms in politics and legislation.

Q:How did you end up at the establishment?
A:After I took part in celebrations on the eve of the Kwangju Uprising Memorial Day, we were led to a place to drink by our hosts at around 10 p.m. I didn't know my way around the place, so I just followed them in.

Q:There are rumors that you danced with one of the hostesses.
A:I can promise you that nothing like that happened. It's true that there were waiters and waitresses in the room bringing in drinks and food. But I didn't play around with any of the women.

Q:What was the atmosphere like?
A:A female activist who's younger than me was invited. I think this shows that the meeting wasn't a place to play with the hostesses.

Q:When did it all end?
A:The drinking ended after an hour or two. After midnight, the members went to a couple of rooms to debate, which ended past three.

Q:People are criticizing the morality of the meeting.
A:This was something totally unexpected. We all gathered because of a good cause. I'm worried that this might hurt the young politicians that were at the meeting.

Q:Can you tell us how you feel?
A:I feel a lot of responsibility for everything. I'll make sure that it doesn't happen again.

by Chang Se-jung