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President Moon Jae-in toasts with members of the Blue House press pool at a sit down at the Blue House on April 25. (Blue House pool photo)

President Moon Jae-in repeatedly expressed that after leaving office he “will not play a part in real politics” and “doesn’t want to live a life that draws special attention.” Moon added that “in the past, President Roh Moo-hyun would take time to greet [supporters] who came to visit him in the countryside once a day,” but that he wouldn’t follow in Roh’s footsteps.

The comments came during a farewell press conference at the Blue House presidential garden Monday afternoon, where the president shared his last thoughts as his term nears its end.

“I plan to leave the Blue House at 6 pm on May 9, right when my duties end,” Moon said, adding, “I will spend one night outside the Blue House, attend the inauguration ceremony for the incoming president, then get out of town on a KTX train.”

“Not spending my last night at the Blue House is not in the least bit inconvenient for me. Please refrain from portraying [my decision] as some kind of conflict between the outgoing and incoming administrations,” he continued, distancing himself from the view that he was vacating the Blue House in a rush due to President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s plan to open the Blue House to the public on May 10.

In terms of his plans after leaving office, Moon said, “I want to go where I want, dine out where I want, travel, and live normally — as a regular person and citizen.”

“If I do so, I will naturally be able to meet with members of the public as I come and go,” he said.

Moon also expressed his disappointment about the fact the “Blue House era” would be ending with his presidency.

He said, “If, by any chance, the end of the Blue House era is interpreted as a result of some negative assessment against our history and the history of the Blue House, I think that would be a significant distortion of our history and a negation of our achievements.”

He emphasized that though each president since Syngman Rhee had their merits and faults, “if we were to comprehensively evaluate our history so far, South Korea would be the most successful country since World War II,” making clear his concern that the Blue House would be thought of as a blot on South Korean history with the Yoon administration relocating the presidential office from the Blue House to the Ministry of National Defense compound in Seoul’s Yongsan District.

On the personal letters he recently exchanged with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Moon said, “Please consider them an effort to maintain the atmosphere of peace and dialogue on the Korean Peninsula up until the moment the incoming administration kicks off, so that it may continue on into the next administration.”

Moon refrained from commenting about former Justice Minister Cho Kuk. When asked whether he feels the same way as he did in January 2020, when he said he felt indebted to Cho during a New Year’s press conference, Moon said, “Sometimes, the people [and I] didn’t see eye to eye when it came to personnel matters. I feel sorry to the public in many ways, including how [the personnel choice] functioned as a burden during the election process.”

“It’s hard to talk about [the matter] more deeply right now at this occasion, and I would like to postpone the story to another time,” he added.

The last time Moon spoke to reporters at the Blue House presidential garden was in October 2019, roughly two and a half years ago. Though Moon tried to hold press meetings during the interval, he wasn’t able to do so due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moon poured glasses of makgeolli for Blue House correspondents on Monday, saying, “You are witnesses to the last moment of the Blue House era. The title ‘Chunchugwan correspondent’ may no longer be used as well,” referring to the Blue House’s press center.

Meanwhile, during an interview with former anchor Sohn Suk-hee televised on JTBC on the same day, Moon said regarding the minimum wage increase that took place early in his tenure, “In the long term, the distribution improved throughout the five years [of his presidency] up until 2022.” Still, he acknowledged that he “always feels sorry toward small business owners who went through much hardship.”

Concerning real estate prices that skyrocketed during his presidency, Moon said, “Real estate price increases were an international phenomenon. Not that that is an excuse, but [the matter] should be seen from an international perspective, and an appropriate evaluation would take into consideration structural reasons such as the plentiful liquidity during the COVID-19 pandemic that prompted speculative demand.”

By Lee Wan, staff reporter

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