Wednesday 25 February 2009

Play a Game of Odd One Out with Dokdo Is Ours

One of these video clips does not belong with the others.

Can you guess which one?

Number one:


Number two:


Number three:


Number four:



If you said number four, because the announcers in that clip alone were speaking Korean, you were correct!

By the way: Just for fun:

HT to brian and cracked

Monday 23 February 2009

Mongolian Man Startled To Learn Four of Five "Boys Before Flowers" Leads Are Male

Chumuun Borjigin, a Mongolian horse-trainer and animal-trapper, was startled to learn that four of the five leads in the Korean drama "Boys Before Flowers" were actually male. Mr. Borjigin, pictured here,
knew his wife was a fan of the show, which she watched on the TV he traded for a hundred animal pelts.

"She loves the show: she watches every episode, and even stays up late if she knows it will be replayed in the evening. One day, she made me sit down and watch it, and I thought it was like that other show, Sex and the City, we watched once, where a bunch of skinny, pale women do stupid things, like spending time in smelly cities, complaining about their lives, and spending money on shoes that would be useless when running from a wild boar. My wife liked this Korean show, I think it was called, The Boys are Prettier than Flowers, but I thought it needed more horseback riding. And not the kind on Sex and the City."

Mr. Borjigin was startled, though, to discover that only one of the principal actors is female. "I was guessing three, maybe four of them were...those city people all look the same to me. You can imagine my surprise when I found out that only the poor one was female."

The love-connections in the show also confused Mr. Borjigin. "But now that I know which ones are boys and which ones are girls, it might be easier to figure out."

So will he be paying attention, next time the show is on?

"Good god! I have to go and kill something with my bare hands every time I see an episode, to make sure it hasn't made me a woman accidentally. Kind of like that Snickers commercial."



So then, Dokdoisours clarified, "You'll be trying to avoid this show?"

"Does yak blood congeal in a bucket?"

Wednesday 18 February 2009

I just stabbed myself in the eye with a pencil. Also: Korean stars give up speaking English, lapse into gibberish instead.

And...Korea's top stars give up trying to speak English, and lapse into pure gibberish:





When asked to comment, Jang Dong-gun and Rain both first said "Malla booka fessita oogla gambola bimijifae!" and followed up, after further questioning with, "English is fu¢king hard."

Meanwhile, The Fairy Godmother is considering trying to break into K-pop.


Meanwhile, Korean Rap Star Mr. Typoon, or Missaong Tefaong (as he pronounces it), has also given up speaking any language at all, and has invented his own dialact, named Kongeboniglish






HT: Popseoul and Hub of Sparkle

Monday 16 February 2009

Michelle Wie Wears Short Skirt! From the Sports Chosun

by the Sports Chosun Staff

In an amazing day for Korean Women's Golf, The Sports Chosun got some upskirt photos of the sexy (and talented) Michelle Wie.

Korean article here: Sports Chosun

The extensive TNA archives held by the Chosun's staff of photographers is well known to the journalism industry: they are always ready to boldly snap the upskirt photo other journalistic corps do not dare to snap.

Though she didn't win the SBS Open, edged in the end by the less-attractive, but blonde Angela Stanford, the Chosun photographers were thrilled by Michelle Wie's second-place finish.

Something something, ladies' golf, whatever: we don't really care about how many strokes it took to win or lose, but speaking of strokes, look at these pictures!
I'll be in my office. Don't interrupt me for at least an hour.
Hold on...here's the best one. (these three photos actually from the Sports Chosun)
These aren't golfers...but they should be, damnit! As a journalist, and on behalf of all sports photographers, I demand it!


You stay classy, sports chosun!

Saturday 14 February 2009

No Women, 372 Chosun Ilbo Photographers Show Up on Opening Day of Jeju's Nude Beach (reporting on the future)

Report by Han Jungsoo, Chosun Ilbo Photographer

Man, this place fu¢king sucks. I'm too bummed to even write anything. I was hoping to have a great photo spread of busty Swedish models, but instead, all I got were four hundred pictures of sand and fifty-year old men with telephoto lenses.

Oh well, at least the boryung mud festival's coming soon. . . all those dirty foreign girls.

Wednesday 11 February 2009

IMF Changes Economic Forecast For Korea on Strength of Kim Yuna's Gold Medal

by the guy who wrote this article: http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2900794

While they had originally forecast a shocking four percent economic contraction for Korea in 2009, due to worldwide economic downturns, and their adverse effects on export-based economies, the International Monetary Fund's panel of finance exports reconsidered their prediction of Korea's economic performance, after being "just that fu¢king impressed" by Yuna Kim's performance at the Four Continents' Championship Figure Skating competition in Vancouver last week.

IMF representative Jerry Park explained, "Just as Seri Park's golf wins singlehandedly turned Korea's economy around in 1997, we see no reason to believe that Yuna Kim's figure skating wins will not have the same effect on Korea's financial infrastructure in 2008. We are officially changing our prediction for Korea's economic performance this year from a four percent contraction to an eleventy-hundred million bazillion percent increase. YEAH, BABY! We also predict Koreans' average height will increase, widening the height gap between them and dirty Chinese or two-faced Japaness, we anticipate Park TaeHwan's dominance of swimming, now that Michael Phelps' career has been sabotaged by my friend Jang Kwang-ho's photoshop skills, and the spread of democracy throughout the third world, due to Miss Kim's figure skating skill."

"But Mr. Park," Dokdo Is Ours intrepidly asked, "Wasn't Korea's economic turnaround due to hard work from all its citizens, and a reorganization of many top-heavy and corrupt institutions?"

"You don't understand Korean culture. If you hate Yuna Kim so much, you should just go home. You should be thankful we let you stay here when it's obvious you only want to make money and chase our women and sell drugs to our children to make them gay."

"Nevermind," Dokdo Is Ours replied. "Go Yuna!"

The still-underage Yuna Kim has given Koreans burdened by worries about the economy something to cheer for.
In fact, said Kang Byuntae, the photographer responsible for the picture above, "Ever since Hyori turned thirty, the prospect of seeing more of Yuna Kim has given great hope to many of Korea's weary, dirty old men."

"You mean, see more of her on the front page, on the medal podium of various international competitions? On television in sports programming?"

"Oh, that too," Byuntae answered, "and if all that success leads to a spread in the Sports Chosun, so much the better."

Yuna Kim has not had an easy life: since a young age, she has battled a congenital defect wherein her limbs occasionally attach themselves to her body in the wrong places: this leg malfunction led to a disqualification in one early competition.

However, thanks to her dedicated mother's shouting rampages, the limb situation is almost completely under control; in her early childhood, Kim also struggled with the rare birth defect of having her head attached upside-down to her body.

Even this could not stop the indefatiguable Kim from achieving her mother's dream of success in international competiton.

The success of Yuna Kim, seen here with Randy Constan, of Pixyland.org/peterpan,has had another interesting side effect: by choosing Canadian Olympic silver-medalist Brian Orser as her coach, she has unintentionally done a great deal to mend the reputations of male English teachers in Korea, from Canada.

"Before Yuna Kim's success," said Juyeon Ok, a mother of three, "The only Canadian I could name offhand was Christopher Neill." Christopher Neill was the Canadian arrested in Thailand for sex crimes against Thai children; he had been teaching Korean children at a school in Gwangju. "However, now, when I hear the word Canada, I think of handsome Brian Orser spurring our national hero on to greater and greater success, and bringing pride and honor to Koreans everywhere, instead of only thinking of a dirty guy ogling Korean children. I have been much friendlier to the Canadian men teaching in my town since then."

Canadian Expat Patrick Rayburn also noticed this trend. "Ever since Brian Orser became a household name here, I've been more proud to wear my Canada flag baseball cap, and old men have been approaching me, asking, 'do you know Brian Orser?' and buying me drinks instead of throwing them in my face and calling my Korean female companions whores. The mothers now expect me to train their children into world champions, but they're also much friendlier."

World champions? Dokdo Is Ours incredulously repeated.

Patrick nodded his head. "Do you even know if there's a world speech contest championship?"

Monday 2 February 2009

Korean Tourism Organization Offers Tenure to Sociologist After His Article in the Korea Times Calls Korea "Unique"

In a surprise move, the Korean Tourism Organization offered Jon Huer tenure "at any Korean university he chooses" after publishing an article in the Korean Times' opinion page titled, "Why is Korea So Strange"

University of Maryland University College Sociology professor Huer's article draws a picture of Korea that exactly fits the goals and purposes of The Korean Tourism Organization, to present Korea as a unique and special, with traits and characteristics different from other places. He describes Korea's geography and language as the source of unique "Korean thinking"

He asks, "Why is Korea so strange and weird, contrary to what's on the surface? As a sociologist who has lived and taught in Korea for over a decade and as one who believes in rational explanations for all social phenomena, I am going to offer two explanations: geography and language."

KTO public relations manager Han Jeong-seok reports, "Mr. Huer's description of the uniqueness of Korean geography and language are a thrilling academic validation of things we have been trying to explain to foreigners for years: Mr. Han threw a sheaf of six-hundred pages onto the desk where Dokdo Is Ours was interviewing him: they were six hundred pages of promotional materials, beautifully designed, and printed in Korean. "Look how hard we've been trying to explain Korea to foreigners! None of this has made a fly-turd's difference."

"Mr. Han," Dokdo Is Ours commented, "These promotional materials are all in Korean."

"So what? It took thousands of hours to make them!"

"Most foreigners don't speak or read Korean, sir."

"Why shouldn't they learn? If they tried, they'd read that Korean is the greatest language in the world."

"I don't think that's how tourist promotion works, Mr. Han."

"You should learn more about Korea! Why do you hate our culture? If you don't want to learn more about Korea, you should go home!"

"Is that the KTO's official position?"

"Spend money here first."

According to Dr. Huer,

As for geography, if you take Europe as the starting point and expand your horizon in both directions, east and west, the Korean Peninsula is seen at the very edge of the world.

If Alexander the Great had pushed on toward the ``farthest point of the world," as he had originally wished, he would have stopped in Korea. Of all the nations he encountered on his eastward progress, the cluster of the tiny kingdoms now called Korea would have been at the very edge of the known world.

Indeed, Korea is virtually the remotest tip of the known world to Americans and Europeans. Korea's social structure, food, clothing, manners of living, language and other aspects of life are some of the ``strangest" the Western world has known about. Even Nepal, as remote as it seems from the Western sphere of things, is more familiar than Korea to the rest of the world. No wonder Korea's internationally-recognized moniker is the ``Hermit Kingdom."

. . .The expressiveness of the Korean language and the variations and shades of meaning it is capable of producing is mind-boggling to most Westerners. Even the commonest verb, like ``to eat" or ``to live," when combined as a compound verb ``to eat and live," is so loaded with emotions and feelings that only native Koreans can comprehend and communicate them among themselves.
In a brief phone interview, Dokdo Is Ours asked Mr. Huer, "Isn't Japan farther from the world known to Americans and Europeans? I mean, it's farther from the west than Korea. Shouldn't JAPAN be considere the remotest place from the West?"

"You should understand Korea more, man!" Mr. Huer screeched, "If you don't try to learn more about Korea, you should go home! It's hub dynamic unique well-being ubiquitous special sparkling I love you cutey fu¢k Japan!" He slammed the phone down, before Dokdo Is Ours could ask another question. Upon phoning again, Mr. Huer said, "I can't talk: my hand is pretty sticky after jerking off an entire culture," and hung up again.

When asked about the Korean Tourism Organization's offer of tenure to Dr. Huer, Konkuk University president Kim Hong-ju expressed misgivings. "This is an unconventional offer, to be sure. It's true SNU put a foreign professor on their tenure track, and we're jealous as hell, but for a professor to receive tenure at our school, they would have to go through the normal process of application, tenure-track application, and publication... to have a tourism organization offer a professor tenure on our school's behalf, on the basis of one article, -- we probably wouldn't accept that professor, and hope some other university did."

Numerous other university presidents and deans said the same, but asked not to be named.

If no university is willing to take Huer, the Korean Tourism Organization would be embarrassed, but they say there are positions "writing pamphlets and other promotional materials" open for a scholar who sees Korea the way Mr. Huer does, right at home in the KTO.

"And is this how you want Korea to be seen by the world, Mr. Han?" Dokdo Is Ours asked the Korea Tourism Organization p.r. manager.
Trapped by such immutable aspects of history and culture, Korea will remain strange and incomprehensible to the rest of the world for a long time to come.
Mr. Han shrugged his shoulders.

"Nothing else has worked."

ht