The Chinese wife of the Belgian ambassador to South Korea was misunderstood as a shoplifter while shopping in Seoul, and she was upset afterwards, slapping the shopkeeper to vent her anger when she demanded a statement. The incident caused public discontent in the area and turned into a diplomatic storm. The Belgian ambassador posted on social networks on Thursday (22) to apologize to the victim instead of his wife.
The incident happened at 2 p.m. on the 9th of this month, at a clothing store in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. The store said that a woman entered the store to look at clothes, tried on several pieces of clothing and then left without shopping. The shopkeeper noticed that the clothes she was wearing were similar to the clothes in the store and suspected that she had deliberately changed into the clothes in the store without paying for them.
The female clerk was worried about the language barrier, so she asked the woman in English to show the label of the clothes to confirm whether they belonged to the store; when she found that there was no theft, she apologized to the other party and returned to the store. But the victim then returned to the store, emotional and female shopkeeper theory, but also slapped the other side of the back of the head; shopkeeper facial swelling, and then called the police for help.
Police officers arrived at the scene and found that the assailant was Xiang Xueqiu, the wife of Belgian Ambassador Peter Lescouhier. She is 63 years old, born in China, and teaches taijiquan, according to the information. The local police were unable to prosecute because the doer was a family member of a diplomat, drawing the displeasure of the South Korean public.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry met with the deputy ambassador of the Belgian Embassy on Tuesday (20), and the South Korean side advised Sang Seol-qiu to cooperate with the police investigation and apologize for the incident. The embassy posted on social networks two days later that Rescuy deeply regretted the incident, stressing that the move by the lady was unacceptable under any circumstances, but declined to make further comments or be interviewed on the grounds that the investigation was ongoing.
The embassy revealed in the posting that Xiang Xueqiu was admitted to the hospital last week for a stroke and is still being treated, unable to accept the police investigation, hoping she will recover soon and cooperate with the police investigation, “so that this regrettable incident is finished as soon as possible”.
A large number of netizens left comments below the posting expressing their dissatisfaction, some did not accept the embassy’s practice of apologizing on their behalf, questioning why Xiang Xueqiu had the power to hit people but was unable to apologize. Others doubted the claim that she had a stroke and was hospitalized, saying she appeared to be in good health when she attacked, but needed to be hospitalized when police asked her to be investigated.
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