I am HORRIBLY EMBARRASSED for my country!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

[sup]No, it’s not about Bush![/sup]
So, OK, here’s the situation:

(Quick background, if you don’t already know: I’m a big whitey round-eyes from the US living in Seoul, S.Korea. I am engaged to a [brag]hot[/brag] Korean babe:))

Finacee and I were walking down the street last night, when she giggles (as she often sweetly does), points to a car and says “Chogi bwa! Kit ee-yey-yo!” Now, my Korean is not so good, but my tiny little brain churns this over for a moment, goes PING, and spits out this translation: “Lookey there! It’s ‘Kit’!”

‘Kit’ thinks I, sensing the opportunity to learn a new Korean word, What is this ‘Kit’ of which she speaks in such melodious, if somewhat amused, tones?

Before I can phrase the question “‘Kit’ ee muo-ya?” (What the f*** is ‘Kit’?), my eyes strayed to the car in question… and noticed a row of red LEDs flashing from side to side on the front bumper!

A sudden thought silently crept into my somewhat alcohol-sodden forebrain, and caused the neurons involved in reflecting on pride in my native country’s culture to blush: could she, product of Korean culture and education, possibly be referring to the “Kit” of the old, pathetic, Nightrider American television series??? Is it possible that she even knows who David Hasselhoff is??? :eek: :confused: :eek:!!!

Please, God… say it ain’t so!!
:devoutly praying smiley needed here:

“Honey… sweety… pole-star of my life… you before whom my pathetic existance had no meaning,” I said (or words to that effect), “What is this ‘Kit,’ that falls so gently from your sweet, eminently-kissable, lips?”

“You know, pa-bo (foolish one)… KIT! From Nightrider! Eeeesh (well, like, DUH!)!” she replied.

I was horrified! “Where did you see that?”

“On TV, byung-shin! (retard) Where else would you see a TV show?”

I gibbered… end of story.

With all of the, wait strike that… With some good content on American TV, they’re shipping NIGHTRIDER overseas??? And dubbing it into foreign languages!! WTF??? What’s next, BAYWATCH NIGHTS???

[sup]I’m so ashamed of my country![/sup]

2

This isn’t going to impress you, but it’s KITT – Knight Industries Two Thousand.

Yes, I loved that show as a kid.

3

Astro, thank you for 2 things

  1. Making me laugh

and
2. Adding the phrase Pa-bo to my vocabulary. I will not hesitate to use it at any oppertunity.

“No, Pa-bo, press CTRL-ALT-DEL together!”

ahh… my work day has just improved that much more…

4

<walks in at ungodly hour>

<reads incredibly funny thread>

<cracks up, slaps leg, rolls out of chair laughing>

<still giggling, posts reply>

thanks Astroboy; just what I needed :smiley:

5

Hell YES, Knight Rider is exported overseas. I grew up watching Knight Rider!

Classic stuff, albeit cheesy. And in the Netherlands, they don’t dub it, but use subtitles.

There’s nothing as hilarious as watching Knight Rider in dubbed-over German though. "Sei vorsichtig, Michael!"

Also, Baywatch Nights is on Dutch TV now. Have never seen it though, I stopped watching Baywatch when it turned into a 40 minute music video (that’s right, I used to watch because of the great stories :D).

"Gimme all you got, KITT!"

6

[sup]Oh my God!![/sup]

I’ve been checking out the Korean TV listings in the paper… you won’t believe the crap they’re showing that’s been imported from the US!!!

I have some old Korean-language newspapers (use 'em in class for various things, but never really looked at 'em as it takes quite a while for my native English speaking ass to decipher the Korean)… check it out: Baywatch!!! (no, no joke… it really was shown on Korean TV!), Renegade…!!!

OK, that’s all that I could find to bitch about… but I have learned, through interrogation (gratifying to learn that tickle-torture still works :)) of my fiancee, that Wonder Woman was shown here (OK, no arguments… helped boost me through puberty. No reason why it shouldn’t help others! ;)), The Six-Million Dollar Man, Sabrina, The Teenage Witch (no arguments with that, either… I kinda like this show! Let’s not explore the reasons…), and The Simpsons!!! (how does “Mmmmm, beer!” translate into Korean?).

Here I was, all smug and ready to educate the fiancee on American culture next week (we’re coming to the US for X-mas with my fambly), and suddenly I’m cut off at the knees! :mad:

Now what do I show/tell her?

Dammit!!

7

Do they have Alf in Korea? Fully 1/2 of German tv time is taken up with reruns of Alf, the rest are David Hasslehof projects and some guy singing in a beer hall.

Shit, Cubby, what did you think that was I’ve been calling you all these months? Heh, now I’m going to start calling you shumyunsiki and yomchay (I have no idea how to spell Korean). :wink:

8

Haven’t seen Alf here, yet… but I wouldn’t be surprised, after the shocks of the last couple of days…

tatertot (at the risk of turning this thread into a foreign language cursing lesson), what do *shumyunsiki and yomchay * mean? I know that “____seki” literally means “child of _____” as in “ship-seki” (child of a whore), or “kay-seki” (child of a dog… but MUCH worse that ‘son of a bitch’ in this culture)… but “yomchay”?? Five years here studying Korean, and I’ve never heard that one (those of you who have never studied Korean, please hold your criticism, those of you who HAVE studied Korean will understand! :))… what is it?

9

I don’t actually know what shumyunseki means. My mother told me it was a very, very bad word and I must never repeat it. :o I was kinda hoping you could tell me. :slight_smile:

As for yomchay, I probably am spelling it wrong, damn those Koreans and their foreign language! There really isn’t a good English word that directly correlates…the closest I can think would be Chutzpah (sp?). Except yomchay is more a sneaky kind of Chutzpah, if that makes sense?

10

tatertot… my fiancee (the Korean expert) is off on a skiing trip with her co-workers right now, won’t be back til tomorrow night… when she gets here, I’ll run this thread by her (providing that I remember to! :))… if she can enlighten us on “shumyunsiki and yomchay” I’ll post to this thread to let you know… I’m curious too!! I love dirty words in foreign languages!!

a quick guess on shumyunseki, which my fiancee will probably smack me for tomorrow… “yon” refers to woman, and as I said earlier, “seki” refers to ‘child of’… so MY guess is that “shumyunseki” probably means something like ‘child of a whore’…

I’ll try to remember to bring this up to the fiancee and see if she can/will tell me… :wink:

11

Oooh, I hope that’s not what it means! That’s what my mom calls my dad when she’s mad at him. :eek:

And yomchay is a great all purpose word. We need a word like that it English!

12

Man we get all that crap over here in the UK.

Its really good.

Renegade, Nightrider, Nightrider 2000 (not as good), Baywatch (nights)… you name it, i love it.

although i do miss the A-team

-Anthony (Pa-bo)

They killed the woman he loved…

13

OK, tatertot, I put the two BAD words into my Palm Pilot, and added an alarm for tomorrow to remind me… check back her tomorrow at about this time (maybe a little later) and I might have an answer for you (and ME! :))

14

Could you also mail me some of those chewy jelly candies with the rice paper wrapper that disolves in your mouth? I forgot what they are called but I like em. Also, I am out of dried anchovies. :slight_smile:

Hey, we might (big might) be going to Korea in the Spring. If so, wanna go out for kimchee?

15

not sure what the candies you are refering to are (I don’t have much of a sweet-tooth…), but I can look for them for ya!

If you Do come here, DEFINITELY let me know (dangrimble@hotmail.com) and we’ll go out for some Kim-chi and soju! Woo Hoo!!!

16

Hyundai Pony! Kim Il Sung! Seoul!

Well, I just wanted to let you know that I speak some Korean myself. Obviously.

17

Mmmm… they have those in China, too. They’re damn good. I had a big sack of them left over from Club Fair when I worked the Chinese club booth.

Mmmm…rice paper…

–John

18

Dammit! I will not rest until I get some of those candies…they come in a little box, and there is a tiny toy suprize in the box. You know, I wasn’t going to play the I’m sick card, but some of those candies would definately make me better sooner. :slight_smile:

Ooooh, and if you see any Little Bob Dog can coin banks, pick them up for me & I will pay you back. I -heart- Little Bob Dog.

19

IIRC, the original Baywatch was in fact an American co-production with a German company, and the show was created with the specific intention of syndicating it in Europe. Hasselhof is huge in Germany. Something to do with the name, perhaps.

20

Knight Ryder isn’t so bad. I’m Canadian. We have Celine Dion.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about living in Korea is comparing TV memories with my friends and co-workers… Mostly about the stuff we watched as kids, or kids shows that we watched as university students… It is somewhat comforting to know that both me and my Korean friends were warped by having watched “Galaxy Train 999” at an early age.

It’s a wonderful experience to hear the Sailor Moon theme song sung in three different languages simultaneously. Wonderful or traumatic. I’m sure those words must be the same in Chinese. And I’ve had long discussions regarding what kinds of substances the creators of “Barbapapa” had been imbibing.

There have been numerous cases where a Korean friend has described a North American TV show from the 70s or 80s, and I’ve had to try and guess what the show is. This game is especially fun when played with old scifi programs, when the Korean name of the show is completely unrelated to the English one, and where the translators may have taken some liberties with the storyline. Do you remember the show where they were in this spaceship, but it was like there were these doors to different places, and the old man was sick, and there was a robot who looked like a gas pump…?

As a side note, the title of Home Improvement in Korean is “Appa, muot haeyo?”, or “Father, what are you doing?”

Before coming here, I had seen exactly one Korean movie, that being “301, 302”. Most of the Koreans I know have seen exactly one Canadian movie, that being “The Cube”. Seeing either of these films would convince most people that the country it came from is really weird.

I was having a conversation about TV with two friends once- one American, one Korean, both female- and for some reason I was trying to explain the concept of the Canadian television series “He Shoots, He Scores!”. I got some strange looks that day.

I think I may have strayed somewhat from the original point of the discussion… Actually, I suspect that I’ve been raving like a madman for the past page and a half.

…somewhat more relevant to the original subject, some friends and I were talking about making a Korean Knight Rider parody, to be titled “T.I.C.O.”…

Incidentally, they do have Alf in Korea, it’s the favorite television show of one of my students. No idea what the bad word translates as; my Korean teacher has a nasty habit of teaching me swear words then refusing to tell me what they mean.