SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – The family smartphones? An assortment of Samsung Galaxies. The flat-screen TV that illuminates the living room? A Samsung SUHD, with the brand name sparkling on the nameplate. The maker of the digital toilet seat? You guessed it: Samsung.
It’s difficult for people outside South Korea to fully grasp what Samsung, a truly global brand, means inside its home country, where it is far more than just another big company. It is seen variously as both a talisman and a millstone, as national savior and greedy business behemoth. Those diverse views only intensified Thursday when a court rejected prosecutors’ request to arrest Samsung heir and Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong in the corruption scandal surrounding impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
Samsung is inextricably woven into the psychological fabric of this small, proud country, where a reverence for wealth, power and prestige is linked to rapid economic growth after the Korean War, when authoritarian government policies favored big businesses.
A complex mix of admiration and resentment was on full display when Lee, held by authorities for more than 12 hours, was released Thursday after a court said there was not “enough justification for a (formal) arrest at this stage.”
Prosecutors said Lee gave 43 billion won ($36 million) in bribes to Park and Choi Soon-sil, her confidante, seeking support for a contentious merger.