I remember reading somewhere (most likely an ESL textbook that I was teaching from) about the how pizza differs from country to country, and how each country puts their own unique spin on pizza toppings. So I decided that I would do some sort of investigative reporting expose on some of the more unusual (from an America perspective) pizza toppings that I have seen here in Korea.
We kick things off with this advertisement I found taped to my door many moons ago. The pizza on top is not really that special…your standard issue, cheese crust heart attack pan pizza. I wish to bring the lower pizza to your attention. That’s right, “Chili Dog” pizza. And here I was thinking that America had the most heart attack inducing pizza toppings in the world. Hot dogs and hot chili sauce on a pizza. Where do I sign up?
Next up we have cute as hell 문근영 (Moon Geun-Young) in a television for Mister Pizza. This particular ad features Miss Moon playing the role of a reporter discussing Mister Pizza’s latest offering Shrimp Nude Pizza. The commercial itself shows that someone in the company (or at least the ad company that created the ad) realized the name of this pizza is slightly rediculous. The pizza itself is also fairly rediculous as it features cream cheese and shrimp as toppings.
Here we have a pizza menu (again taped to my door many moons ago) showing some of the more popular pizza toppings here in South Korea. In addition to things such as cheese and pepperoni there are offerings such as 마요감자 (mayo and potato), 가지 (eggplant), 콘 (corn), 포테이토 (”potato” actual steak fries), and 고구마 (sweet potato).
And last but certainly not least there was this advertisement (again taken off my front door long ago in a galaxy far, far away). While this ad does not offer up any other unusually pizza toppings, it does confirm that both potato and sweet potato are a common enough topping to be offered by several different delivery services. In addition, I personally like this menu due to the fact they each pizza was given it’s own cute mascot. Oh they are so cute!
As an entertainer, the most important thing is my smile. That’s why I reach for Apatite! With the secret of the octagons, Apatite really makes me smile brightly!!! So, if you’re looking for that smile that says, “I too am an entertainer,” reach for a tube of Apatite, now with even more secrets of the octagons!
The Secret of the Octagons?! Surprisingly this phrase actually appears on the opposite side of the tube in Korean (팔각형의 비밀), so if anyone in the dental field reads this, could you please explain what exactly the secret of the octagons is?
Bonus 漢字 note: 美白 (미백) means beautiful white…which kind of makes sense seeing as how this is a whitening toothpaste.
A few days back while walking home I came across this awesome sticker on a van. It reads, “CAUTION!! CHILDREN in this SUPER CAR We protect out children with Childseat!!”
It kind of lacks the simplicity of “Baby On Board” while maintaining all the stupidity of those warnings.
I do however give the owner of this vehicle his or her propers for actually having a car equipped with child seats. Most vehicles I see just have toddlers rocking out in the back seat (without even seatbelts on). So SUPER CAR owners, keep rocking out with that Childseat!!
♬ “I’m on my way….I’m on my way….HOME SWEET HOME!” ♬
That’s right ladies and gentle-ladies, this morning I picked up my airline ticket, and in approximately a month’s time I will be arriving in New York for some rowdiness and tourism.
Actually picking up the tickets was fairly uneventful, but on the way to the travel agent I saw a pair of outstanding t-shirts that made no sense for the people wearing them to be sporting.
The first shirt was being worn by your typical Korean college student. You know the type: skirt, high heels, t-shirt, carrying a book. Anyhow these girls consistantly wear shirts with fairly random English slogans, but this shirt was something special.
The front of the shirt had a picture of Donald Duck, but on the back were a series of pictures of Donald’s face with various drug names written above the face.
The shirt looked something like that, only with way more drugs illustrated. Did you know that cocaine makes you look like a cowboy? I would have thought it would make you look like an extra from Miami Vice.
Mere seconds after seeing this typical Korean college student with her pro-drug t-shirt, I came across the most ironic shirt ever, except the irony was more likely than not lost on all who witnessed it.
I noticed a gentleman in a pink shirt, a fairly common shirt color for the gents here in Korea. As he came closer I noticed the slogan scrawled across his chest: “DON’T SEND MY JOB TO MEXICO!”
Now this shirt is very bizarre for a number of reasons. First off I’m no expert on Korean economics, but I pretty sure Korean companies aren’t sending jobs to Mexico (South East Asia maybe, but not Mexico), so this guy is walking around with a shirt proclaiming his hatred for people sending his job to a country that does not recieve jobs from his country, but that is not even the most ironic part of it.
The real irony comes from the shirt itself. I learned awhile back that a lot of the seemingly random shirts here are surplus shirts ordered from overseas. So maybe your school is having a cross country run and wants to make up some shirts. They send them to a printing company in Korea. The company runs off some extra shirts and sells them in the country…hence kids is Korea walk around with “TOWN OF COLONIE SUMMER YOUTH LEAGUE BASKETBALL” t-shirts.
So what this dude’s t-shirt was really saying was “Don’t send my job to Mexico, but it’s perfectly fine to have t-shirts made in Korea.” Oh I also find it hard to believe some Detroit assembly line worker would be sporting a bright pink t-shirt as means of supporting America.
This morning during my pre-work, stare at random crap on TV while I use the internet time, I came across a odd Korean music video. The song itself was nothing spectacular, some random Korean techno-pop brought to us by 신지 of Korean techno-pop group Koyote fame, but some of the images displayed in the video were pretty bizarre.
I’m not sure what the video is for, it kind of looks like some soundtrack work for some cartoon, but that’s not the issue here. The biggest question to arise out of this video is what “yogurting” is. Seriously why is a noun being treated as a nominalized verb? It’s like, “Hey Wyatt can you come out to the club tonight?” “No sorry, I’m really busy tonight.” “With what?” “I’m busy yogurting.”
In my collection of books I have a phrase book targeting Koreans who want to learn English. There are some decent expressions in the book for both Koreans learning English, as well as English speakers learning Korean, but it is obvious that the author did not consult a native speaker at all, as there are several mistakes, and countless oddly phrased expressions, anyone familar with English would have noticed immediately. So as a service to 박선화 (the woman who assembled this book), I am going to point out, mock, and subsequently correct some of the more obvious mistake.
Original English: My sister get higher salary than I.
한국어: 제 여동생이 저보다 금료가 높아요.
Comments: For starters there is not subject-verb agreement in this sentence. It should be “gets” as opposed to “get.” Additionally in English to say “I get a salary” doesn’t make sense. “My sister makes more than I do,” or “My sister’s salary is higher than mine,” would be better.
Original English: Would you mind if I just call you a Duck?
한국어: 그냥 당신을 ‘덕 (오리)’ 이라고 불러도 괜찮겠어요?
Comments: The grammar in this sentence is fine, but I have no idea why this sentence is included. Why would you ask someone if you could call them “a Duck?” Sentences are broken down thematically and the other sentences grouped with this are things like “Can you do me a favor?” and “May I ask a favor of you?” So I really have no idea what this is all about.
Original English: He has a good hand in riding.
한국어: 그는 승마를 잘합니다.
Comments: Except for the fact that no one uses the expression, “has a good hand in…” this sentence is fine.
Original English: I’d like to see an affective movie.
한국어: 애장 영화를 보고 싶어요.
Comments: Affective movie? I’m pretty sure the author was going for “an affectionate movie,” which still is wrong. “Romantic movie” or “love Story” would have been better choices.
Original English: What was the movie you saw lately?
한국어: 최근에 본 영화는 무엇입니까?
Comments: The Korean question would have been better translated as “What’s the latest movie you have seen?”
Original English: I’m hungry for hotdog.
한국어: 핫도그 먹고 싶어요.
Comments: The Korean version has nothing to do with hunger, nor should the English version. This is one of those cases where the author is trying to be too complex, keep it simple people! The Korean is “I want to eat a hotdog,” the English should be the same thing.
Original English: Could I burn a cigarette?
한국어: 담배 한 대 태워도 될까요?
Comments: If “I’m hungry for hotdog,” suffered due to the author not being literal enough in the translation this one suffers from being too literal. It seems that the author was simply rocking a dictionary to look up words on this one. ‘태우다’ literally means to burn, in this case a cigarette (담배). The sentence however in English would be “Could I smoke a cigarette?” or “Could I light up?”
And here I chose to put an end to this madness, for now. There are countless more mistakes in that book, and that book is not unique at all. In Korea, there are countless text books, phrase books, and television shows that “teach English,” but many of these educational tools have not consulted any kind of native speakers, or if they did, consulted really ignorant ones.
Well if I were a cowboy, that’s kind of what I would have done yesterday. If you are a regular reader of my webpage, you know that the school I work at added an extra class to my schedule, which did not really please me. You also know the following day one of my bosses told me that they were heading back to America at the end of the year. Additionally you will know that because of these two factors, I am less than enthralled with my current job.
Yesterday the non-departing boss comes up to me and tells me, “As you know Kyung-bin (the other boss) is leaving after December, so we are going to hire a receptionist. What are your plans?” Without even hesitating I blurt out, “Well, I wanted to learn Korean, so I think I’m just going to get a part time job teaching kindergarten and go back to school.”
So I guess I’m going to work through either the end of February, March, or April, since my contract is weird I’m not sure the actual ending date of work, but that’s it. There’s an end in sight for this job…so I guess I should find out about becoming a student here.
And before I leave you I should present you with this most excellent copyright violation I’ve ever come across in my year and a half in Korea. Yesterday on my way to work I saw a lady with a bag proclaiming “Disney Donuts” in the Dukin Donuts font. So not only are they ripping of Dukin Donuts (which is a pretty popular thing to do here in Korea), but they are using the Disney name as well.
