Press Releases 04~05

The Honorable Christopher R. Hill

August 12, 2004

Thank you very much. It’s a great pleasure to see you all here. Let me just say how absolutely delighted I am and my family is to be coming back to Korea. I’m traveling today with three women: my wife, Patty, and my daughters, Amelia, who goes to college in the United States and is here for a few weeks, and her sister, Clara, who many of you know is “made in Korea.”

Let me also say I am absolutely so proud to be the new U.S. Ambassador here. I know that I really have a lot of work to do. I look forward to working very hard here. The United States and Korea have had, I think, a very special relationship that has lasted over 50 years and I look forward to doing my part to see if I can build on that very special relationship. I also know that even though I was here for three years in the 1980s, one has to be a little careful about drawing on too much experience from so long ago. I’m very aware that, in fact, we’re dealing in many respects with a very different country. So, even though I’ll certainly draw on my experience from the 1980s, I think I also need to do an awful lot of listening to people to understand what has been going on lately.

So, I do look forward to meeting with the Korean press often to try to understand your views on things and try to eventually be able to explain my views on things. If you talk to some of your Polish contacts and Polish friends, you’ll know that I’m very open to hav ing a dialogue with you and really do ing all I can to understand what is going on here and all I can do t o make a contribution.

So, let me just say once again, thank you so much for the opportunity to see you all here. You know, I think as many of you may know, when you travel around the world with three women, you have an awful lot of suitcases that you’re going to have to carry into the house. So, I’m really going to have to get moving and start lifting suitcases.

Thank you very much.