My friend Anna pops up from time to time. Sarah W. does fairly often, actually, as well as a few of my friends' parents (the moms more than the dads).
Most recently, I had two doozies, though.
Yes, dear readers. I spotted Christopher Walken's Korean clone jogging the track at my new school, and Doogie Howser's Korean doppleganger (Doogie Howjoh?) was walking between two buildings when I spotted him. It's moments like these I wish I could just tug my ear and have whatever's hitting my eyes save as a JPG file on a USB card tucked snugly in my . . . (heh heh heh) . . . but because taking pictures require me to pull my camera case out of my shoulder-bag, pull my camera out of the case, turn it on, wait for the flash to charge, THEN point and click. . . I don't get to have pictures like that. ('cos how are you going to explain that, anyway? Can anybody translate "Hi. You look like a white person I know. Can you stay here and wait for me to get out a camera so I can put a picture of you on the internet? I SWEAR I'm a perfectly normal person and you have nothing to worry about!" into Korean for me?)
Korean clones are even more fun than Konglish restaurant menus, because they are much less common, so spotting one is proportionally more entertaining and rewarding.
9 comments:
YES! The guy who does my eyeglasses is the spitting image of John Cusack. But Korean, of course. I tried to explain this to him several times (as a compliment, of course, since I was of an impressionable age during the 1980s) but I don't think he had the faintest clue who I was talking about. Need to bring a picture next time.
:) Heck yeah. I always get told I resemble a certain couple of curly-haired western stars. . . I say it's open season on Korean resemblances!
"앙녕하십니까? 외국 배우 (insert name here) 정말 달맜습니다! 사진 찍어면 됩니까? 제가 훨씬 제정신입니다 - 정말!" of course, you can leave off that last bit if you don't want to scare them witless . . .
darned, I got a visit from the typo fairy! er . . . consider it grammar and spelling practice for you to hunt down and exterminate the errors . . .?
Finally! I've asked so many people here if they've experienced this in Korea and they stare at me blankly.
When I was in Taiwan, I was so convinced that it was a 'friend' that had returned from vacation early, that I actually followed the guy on my scooter shouting his name... haha, poor dude was rather taken aback by a shouting white girl, waving and calling him over!!
gomushin girl, you are a goddess!
I happened to read the article;'You don't understand Korean culture on Korea Herald. and I visit your blog today randomly...and found this interesting post,,I gigled many times while I'm reading this post. because my boss looks just like korean version of 'Ed Harris.(starred in movies 'Copying Beethoven''Absolute power','The truman show')
Anyway, I just wanted to give more specific tip for asking some picture of the people you're going to bump into...."안녕하세요, 놀라지 마시고요, 외국배우 OOO씨 너무 닮았네요,,저 잠깐만 사진 좀 찍어도 될까요? 이상하게 생각하시지 마시고요. 전 지극히 정상입니다." I'm pretty sure it would work but still they will think you're not normal. haha!!!
Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy is a SciFi where people have nano technology in their brains. They can record what they see, hear and feel and even transfer it to other to view. Brilliant for showing which Korean look like someone you know, don't you think?
Maybe Korean scientists will work in that next.
Thanks, seon yeong!
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