Samsung continues late chairman's legacy of charity, promoting Korean culture

Samsung's efforts to continue the legacy of its late chairman Lee Kun-hee to give back to Korean society and promote the country’s culture continues as the conglomerate greets the third anniversary of Lee's passing on Wednesday.

Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong attends the memorial ceremony of the third anniversary of his late father and former Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee's passing at a family burial ground in Suwon, Gyeonggi on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

Samsung's efforts to continue the legacy of its late chairman Lee Kun-hee to give back to Korean society and promote the country’s culture continues as the conglomerate greets the third anniversary of Lee's passing on Wednesday.

The memorial ceremony was a low-key event held at a family burial ground in Suwon, Gyeonggi, Wednesday morning. Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong flew back to Korea on his private jet early Wednesday morning from Saudi Arabia to participate in the event.

The late Lee's wife Hong Ra-hee and her offspring Lee Boo-jin, CEO of Hotel Shilla and Lee Seo-hyun, head of Samsung Welfare Foundation and her husband Kim Jae-youl, president of the International Skating Union and a member of the International Olympic Committee, participated the ceremony.

Following the late entrepreneur's beliefs that collecting and preserving cultural heritage is a duty of the times, Samsung has recently donated $2 million to New York's Metropolitan Museum to have a dedicated curator for Korean art. The art museum has been running a permanent exhibition of Korean art since 1998 with support from the late Lee.

The Seosusang sculpture donated to the government by the late Lee Kun-hee's family to support the restoration of Gwanghwamun. [YONHAP]

In August, the bereaved family donated Seosusang, a sculpture of an auspicious mythical animal, that had been kept in Samsung's Hoam Museum of Art, to the Korean government in its support for the restoration of Gwanghwamun which is now complete.

Previously, the Lee family donated some 23,000 pieces of art and cultural assets that Lee had collected throughout his life to public museums. The so-called Lee Kun-hee collection which is said to be worth over 2 trillion won garnered nearly 2 million visitors to museums and galleries across the country.

The collection is slated to go abroad soon. Some 250 pieces of the collection including the national treasure "Inwangjesaekdo" (Scene of Mount Inwang After Rain) will be taken to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. from 2025.

They will be exhibited in Chicago and London afterward.

Samsung is continuing with the late Lee's belief in "corporate responsibility to elevate the life quality and health of humanity."

In 2021, the bereaved family said it would make a 1 trillion won medical contribution to research of infectious diseases as well as children's diseases.

The late Lee has been keen on the well-being of children as he believed children are the hope of the future. In 1989, he established a welfare foundation to operate day care centers for children.

Seventy percent of the 1 trillion won donation would be spent on building Korea's first hospital dedicated to infectious diseases which is slated for completion in 2028. The remaining would be spent on curing children's diseases such as cancer and other rare diseases like Crohn's disease.

Some 17,000 children patients are expected to get help from Samsung over the next 10 years.

The coming Friday marks Lee Jae-yong's first anniversary as a chairman. The IT giant said it does not plan to hold any event for the occasion.

Photo of late Lee Kun-hee and his quotations are on display at a symposium held early this month at Samsung Electronics' Seocho office to commemorate third anniversary of Lee's passing. [YONHAP]

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]