What Swearing Can Teach Us

See, ever since I learned in French class that most of the worst swears in French involve curses on the church and holy things, I've sort of paid attention to the way you can learn something about a culture by what people talk about when they hit their thumbs with hammers. While France today is fiercely proud of being intentionally secular, the fact a lot of French curse words invoke God, hell, church-doors and such, gives an interesting clue to French heritage, and the development of the language.

Conversely, most of the English swears that are used most often, and considered most crass, involve body parts, and body functions. I'm not going to list them off here, but you know the ones. (Swears on the comment board for this page shall remain up only if they are discussed academically, rather than simply posted for the fun of writing potty mouth on the internet, thanks.) I think those very bawdy words provide an interesting clue to understanding the focus on things, and a tendency toward materialism evident in English speaking cultures.

I asked Girlfriendoseyo about this once -- Korean culture developed in a very different place and along very different lines than them western cultures, and asked her, not to rattle off all the Korean swear words she knew, and teach them to me, but to clue me into the general subject matter of Korean curses.

She said that most curses in Korean involve bringing someone down -- calling somebody a wiener-suckler (you know the word I mean) or an Oedipal-incest-practitioner (you know the word) is about as harsh as you can get in English, and crazy's pretty mild (maybe a 3 out of 10) but in Korean, the word crazy is an 8 out of 10 -- the simple word "crazy" in Korean is a bit English to calling somebody "totally batshit in-'f-word'ing-sane" in English. In Korean, Girlfriendoseyo told me that the most commonly used words bring a person's status low -- you're a dog, an idiot, you're a fool, you're dirty and low -- that's the general gist of most Korean curses.

(comic by xkcd.com)

"But Girlfriendoseyo," I interjected, "from what I know about Korea, and Korea's emphasis on filial piety and family obligation, wouldn't the worst swears in Korea involve insulting somebody's family? Wouldn't "your mother wears army boots" be more offensive to a Korean than "You sleep in a gutter"?

She flashed me a "oooh, careful, buddy!" face, and said, "Yeah. It would be. But if you insulted a Korean's family, it would be war between your families."

That's right. Family loyalty's so important here in Korea, that it's actually a taboo for swearing! I can't really think of ANY taboos in English swearing, though there are some topics, for example, cannibalism, that don't come up very often, simply because most cursers aren't creative enough -- but if a good creative curser tossed a reference in, nobody'd say "Whoa, man. That's too far." People would probably just shake their heads in wonder, impressed that Joe Crass managed to pull such a creative curse out of the air.

Swearing is a funny thing. Swear words are the most onomatopoeic words in almost every language -- that is, of all classes of language, they're the words whose sounds most perfectly match their meanings (other than real onomato- poeias, like "bang, crash, splat, boom"), and frankly, they're delightfully fun to say -- just forming the words with your mouth can be a good catharsis, because a good swear requires your whole face to say it. The Korean "worst word" (18 -- you know the one) requires your whole face to say it properly, as does the English "worst word" (the F-word) as well as the new "worst English word"s -- the ugliest racial slurs.

And you know, listening to a really good curser, is a kind of poetry of its own -- I'm told Trainspotting is a great movie to hear some good cursing, though I have to watch it again. My own two favourites are "South Park, Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" -- the movie that first gave me an appreciation for a good, colourful, blue streak -- and "Full Metal Jacket" -- the first half of which might never be topped, which goes so far over the top it's absolutely hilarious.

(uhh. . . swearing warning)


(Any others I'm missing?)

A telling contrast.

The main sports page from the International Herald Tribune:



The main Sports page from the Joongang Daily, a Korean local daily:

(p.s. in case you haven't heard of the two biggest stars in Major League Baseball, Baek and Park are Korean pitchers playing in the Major Leagues.)

Let's play a game of spot, and explain, the differences.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Apparently, he refuses to grab his ankles OR grovel like a dog, as if he didn't hold most of the cards. . . (headline)

From Reuters.


North Korea says can't negotiate with S.Korea's Lee

Mon Jul 7, 2008 3:31pm EDT
LONDON, July 7 (Reuters) - North Korea renewed its criticism of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday, accusing him of "rude behaviour" and saying he could not be negotiated with.

The North's official KCNA news agency quoted a spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF) reacting to an interview Lee had given to Japan's Kyodo News.

The North appears to have interpreted comments made by Lee to mean that the issue of the North's nuclear disarmament ought to be discussed at North-South summit talks, despite this problem being at the centre of international six-party talks.

The nuclear issue is not thought to have been previously discussed at bilateral meetings between the two Koreas in June 2000 and October 2007.

"It is absolutely intolerable to overturn the north-south declarations ... it is rude behaviour," KCNA quoted the unnamed CPRF spokesman.

"It is quite clear that it is impossible to sit at the negotiating table with such a man."
. . .
Writing by Matthew Jones)

© Thomson Reuters 2008

What a jerk! Forcing Kim Jong-il to face up to the realities of his situation, and the fact South Korea pretty much holds every card except the "I'm a crazy-ass motherf***er and you have NO idea what I might do next!" card.

Tragedy + Time = still tragedy. Korean War Prisoner Massacres finally coming to light

From the Chicago Tribune --

The truth about South Korean prisoner massacres during the Korean war is finally coming out.
(source: Mongdori newsfeed)

I feel sick.

Crappy Cameraphone's last day in the sun (and a game of spot the unintentional pun I discovered on proofreading, and decided to leave in)

Heck, let's make it into a contest.

If you can spot the unintentional pun and name it first in the comments, you get to choose the topic for my next post. I reserve the right to veto topic suggestions that are beyond reasonable boundaries of privacy, length, and good taste (this is a blog, not a game of truth or dare, you know), but if there's something you'd like to know about Roboseyo, or Roboseyo's Korea. . . get out your fine-tooth.

Inwang mountain: the last mountain I climbed before buying a real digital camera.

Inwang mountain is the mountain just to the west of the blue house (where Korea's president lives).  There's a neighbourhood between them, but it's a very nice mountain.

This guy enjoyed the peak a lot.


The mountain looks down on a really charming little village that, due to lack of access, has remained a little less gentrified, commercialized, and uglified than the apartment-block mausoleums in other areas of Seoul.  Would you believe that a twenty-minute walk from this view, in the opposite direction, is Seoul's finance district, City Hall, and the epicenter of every protest?


I wound around the side of the mountain, on the north side of the six hundred year old wall that the old kings built to protect the palaces from raiders and invaders.  I'd just head uphill, and wind around to the next side street when I hit a dead end, and I stumbled into this sleepy little huttish area that could have been untouched since 1930 (judging from the people I saw living there, with no new neighbours since then, either).  How these little bastions survive without either turning into tourist-trap self-recreations or getting bought out by developers, I'll never know. . . but I'm glad they don't.

I picked my way through their tiered gardens (another OOoooold Korea method), and came upon this trail, which led up to the defensive wall.  Again, just to re-state: this scene was a 40 minute walk from Jongno Tower.  (50 if you go slow)
More layered houses, winding up the mountainside:

a view from a lookout point on one of the side-streets a little closer to the town-ish area (where lookouts were obscured by vegetation) -- some nice, rich-looking, gated-garden type houses were there as a buffer between the city and the little grandmother villa I walked through.  The views there were nice.
Inwangsan was great.  Here's the defensive wall; on the other side of it are a bunch of military defensive structures, lookout towers and stuff, as well as signs, "don't you effing dare enter" warnings, and certain directions you ought not point your camera.  But it's also pretty darn beautiful up there.

As you can see, despite the sleepy villa on the approach, we're just THAT close to the big-ass city.  (The mountain you can see in the distance with the blurry, crappy cameraphone tower white smudge on it, is actually Namsan, with Seoul Tower.)


Went back to the same place again this weekend, and took more pictures: the 능소화 (Google Translate says they're "Neungsohwa" flowers) were out in full colour today; they're one of girlfriendoseyo's favourite flowers, so we had a real nice walkabout.

Girlfriendoseyo likes gardens.

A little too much.  (She pretended to climb the wall as a joke; that gave me a good laugh, so she posed like this. . . she's not ACTUALLY Girlfriendoseyo the B&E artist. . . as far as I know.)


The fallen petals are also fantastic.





Girlfriendoseyo says these flowers' name means, in the original Chinese, "the flower that mocks the sun" -- that is, the flower so beautiful, it even taunts the heavens.


Maybe somebody else tried to climb this wall too many times.  A lot of barking dogs on this lane, and the most unfriendly wall I've seen south of the Demilitarized Zone and outside of the military bases.

This seems like a perfectly lovely fusion restaurant. . . until you pronounce the name like a Korean would, switching the "R" out for an "L".



Finally, at the bottom of Inwang Mountain, in Puk'ak Dong, there's a heavenly coffee shop.


It actually felt like being back in the Pacific Northwest, between the look, the smell (beans roasted on site) and the atmosphere.  The specialty hand-drip coffees were obscenely tasty, for a very reasonable price.

The place had some reputation, too: we actually had to wait for a table!




Other pics: the receptionists at my workplace are hilarious and charming.  I took a picture of them together that didn't turn out well, so I said "Sorry.  Bad picture.  One more time." and they both did that, because of the "One More Time" song I wrote about before, but can't justify posting as a clip a second time.  This is called the "ET Dance."

Finally (and these, in case you haven't noticed, were taken with the new, good camera). . . a bit of goofy Korea:


>Are you sure we're in the MEN's shirts' section?  (why Korean men wear pink shirts)
(Hooray for Bean Pole)

The store and the brand's name is FUBU, standing for "For Us, By Us" (citation) -- it was a company started by African-American entrepreneurs when they noticed that most urban clothing marketed toward African-Americans was made by white-owned companies.  The company has since become very successful.  Now, I must defer to other bloggers and experts on the topic of black culture without black people (for example, Korean rappers flashing gang signs and talking in weird mixes of Konglish and Ebonics -- Kebonics? Ebonglish?), but I realized the name FUBU is a bit of a misnomer in COEX mall in Seoul, because there just aren't enough people of African descent who shop at COEX, to keep this store in the black.  I suggest a name change: FKBU -- For Koreans By Us.
Here's a video featuring a Korean hip-hop stars, Crown J, at the end.  Brian thinks he's a poser and a douche; agree or disagree?  Discuss amongst yourselves.   Decide for yourself also whether something like hip-hop culture is such a liquid concept that it can be separated completely from the culture that created it, and still keep some kind of legitimacy, or whether it's been totally co-opted and exploited. . . along the way, you can listen to an awful English rap in this one, count how many other reference to American culture are. . . um, raped, and pick out which singers use pitch-correction, before Crown J throws down his badass gang signs at the end.


You can listen to this other Crown J track, for more information, and decide what you think about him.  All I'm gonna say is, I don't watch Korean MTV.


Interesting as cultural artifacts and examples of fusion culture. . . but not quite enough to a spot next to the pink shirts on my page.