Monday, 6 October 2008

An open response to Party Pooper

Dear Mr. Party Pooper. . . I'm not sure how to address you, as we've never met. . . let's keep things formal.


It was with great joy that I saw your address to me on your Party Pooper site; it is plain that we are indeed both passionate proponents of Dokdo's Koreanness.  I am certain we see eye to eye, pheasant-head to pheasant-head, and bloody-stump to bloody-stump on this matter, and it is always a pleasure to meet a kindred spirit.

While this intrepid journalist is partially inclined to pick up the gauntlet you have thrown down, in listing your Dokdo-loving credentials, by pulling out a ruler, throwing my own Dokdo resume on the table, and measuring the length of our respective...resumes; however, it seems the island-grubbing Japanese's greatest trick has always been sowing discord among their enemies, and here, too, in the spirit of harmony, I will not list the number of Dokdo demonstrations I have attended (or the number of phone numbers I got whilst expressing myself so), I will not number the sum of flaming bags of dog and human feces I have thrown over the fence surrounding the Japanese embassy, or the number of tomatoes I have grown from seed to orb, in order to launch them at Japanese diplomats.  I will not tear off my cardigan, to reveal the "Do You Know (Dok-Do)?" t-shirt I always wear next to my heart.  Nor will I let you know where I hid the original drawings so well known online and in the Seoul Metropolitan Subway system, which I stole off the walls  in order to add them to the Dokdo Museum I intend on building, once I have trained a new event planner for the Dokdo Riders, and collected enough fingers, pheasant-heads, and desecrated Japanese flags.  Oh, the number of Korean schoolteachers I have motivated to care more about Dokdo through extreme duress is notable (mostly by the Korean Intelligence Agency).  In fact, I am the only non-Korean member of VANK!

The beautiful DokDo anthem rings through my apartment every morning, as I'm sure it does for you, and that stirring fourth verse especially, always fills my mind with images of salt-water, the taste of kimchi, and the sound of the Korean Coast Guard firing mortars at the Japanese Coast Guard:
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¼¼Á¾½Ç·Ï Áö¸®Áö ¿À½ÊÂÊ ¼Â°ÁÙ 
ÇÏ¿ÍÀÌ´Â ¹Ì±¹¶¥ ´ë¸¶µµ´Â ÀϺ»¶¥ 
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However, this does not need to be a contest of one-upmanship, which would doubtless end one heated day with a fan and a closed window deciding a final winner in our contest (for I, like you, always carry things through to the bitter end).  Instead, we ought to join forces, and stand shoulder to shoulder, clipping New York Times full-page ads, sending letters of encouragement to Kim Jang-Hoon, handing out flyers in downtown Seoul, getting screen captures of google ads, designing T-shirts, putting together amateurish YouTube videos, and giving incorrect directions to Japanese Tourists lost in Insa-dong, because fu¢k them!  Let me extend an olive branch, fifty new species of bacteria, and a seagull-feather of peace to you, a fellow Dokdovian: surely, the day will come when our united power will change the world culture, like a second Hallyu, and impress the whole world from America to Japan, and some of the dark-skinned people in between, that verily, Dokdo is Corean Land!

Mr./Ms. Poop, my brother/sister: I salute you!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hear you. Let's put aside our foolish pride (I sometimes rhyme unintentionally; it's a gift) and let the Cause go forward. A three fingered salute right back at ya.