Following is copied except I have added conversion from the quoted NTD amounts to US$:
KTX May Succumb to Reverse Direction Seat Complaint
KTX seat occupation rate of May was disappointing 64%, just 4% increase from opening month of April. KR, Korea Railway came to believe that reverse-direction-seat is the major reason. KR at last admitted their mistake to put in 20% more seats (by having those fixed) but ended up losing much more passengers. KR is looking into a plan to replace the seats with huge budget of 3.6 billion NTD equivalent. (US$3,200,000) Furthermore, because of unique structure of KTX train, not allowing detachment of individual cars, they can work on only one train set per month. This means it will take 4 years to complete the job. At present, 404 seats per train (43% of 935 seats) are in reverse direction. One young lady sent her embarrassing trip experience to KR internet bulletin board. She was seated opposite to a young man, a stranger. After two hours of leg crouching (to avoid accidental knee-touch) and looking away, both of them had stiff neck and cramp legs upon arrival. This concern had been raised during the train order stage. Looks like several KR people, who had underestimated the concern at the time, have to worry about their rice bowl. (3-June-2004)

This appears to have occured because of the lack of understanding of one simple difference: In South Korea (and Japan, Taiwan, the USA, and quite a few other places) it is expected that you will be in a seat that is facing in the direction of travel. In France, England, and I understand most of the rest of Europe, train seats are fixed so that about half will be facing backwards on any given trip.

It appears that it never occured to the French, who basically sent the Koreans standard TGV train sets that Korean passengers expected to be facing the direction of travel. It appears that it equally never occured to the Koreans that anyone would consider it reasonable for long distance train passengers to be expected to ride facing backwards.

Even with this, the reaction appears to be a little extreme. Maybe Mr. Lee, Wonyoung
could explain a little why this is so. Maybe Mr. Goeff M. could add a few words as to why riding backwards is so acceptable in Europe.

Actually, this item is one of many little and not so little surprises that occur when moving between cultures. Each has their own set of unwritten norms that are so basic that they can lead to sometimes hilarious and sometimes highly embarassing mis-communications.