My wife and I went to Taco Bell in Seoul, which apparently is the only Taco Bell in Asia right now. Anyway, we brought home a hot sauce pack, mostly because they were a lot bigger and we thought it’d be neat.
If you are familiar with the US ones, the Korean ones were the same. They had a little message that(we assume) is some kind of joke or something.
It says:
6 x 3 = KOREAN
2 x 9 = MORE KOREAN
2 x 4 = ??
What is the joke? What do the Korean words say?
Nitpick: This is absolutely not true. I ate at Taco Bell in Bangalore last month.
So, how’s the food at Korean Taco Bell? The same? Different? More spicy? Less spicy? Do they have kimchee tacos?
Are you sure about that?
ETA: Oh, wait, you meant that the words are in Korean.
I see it as “building” and “Ana.”
I don’t know Korean, but what happens if you pronounce the “equations” in Korean? Could it be a pun of some type?
Or, possibly, do the English numbers sound vaguely Korean in a way that it could be interpreted as punnily saying something in Korean?
Yeah, you posted after my edit. I’ll run it by the girls at the Korean school, and see if they can get it. I think you’re right, in that it’s probably some kind play on the phonetics of either Korean or English.
I’m surprised it’s still called “Border Sauce.” Does the phrase “South of the border” have any meaning outside the US? I mean, do they understand what it means to us (WRT food anyways)?
The stuff in Korean under the white box reads “Taco Bell Mild Sauce” but written phonetically in Korean.
I imagine they mostly don’t pay attention to the bits in English.
They certainly have a border…
If it does have meaning anywhere else, I expect it would in Korea.
Ah, my bad. Here is where I read that.
Same. Nothing Korean that I saw at all.
Taco Bell- Run for the Border!
Um, no, I think I’ll stay here in Seoul, thx.
2 x 4 = Profit?
'cept I don’t think you can get burritos and chalupas from the sea.
All you get from the sea is fish tacos.
Okay, we figured out that this is just a play on the Korean-Chinese pronunciations of the numbers (to the left of the equals sign), put together with another word or sound (to the right of the equals sign) to make up new, arbitrary words.
The first line, when using the Chinese-Korean pronunciation system, (“yok” – 6, plus “sam” – 3) together with the “product,” which here is the Korean word for “building,” is how they call a famous building in Seoul–the so-called 63 Builidng (육삼 빌딩).
The second line: 2 (이) pronounced “ee” with 9 (구) pronounced (“gu”) followed by the product (=) “ana” … Put the three sounds together and it makes the Korean word for “iguana.”
So: Tall buildings and iguanas makes for wacky times at the Taco Bell in Seoul.
However, we can’t figure out the third line. Some word that begins as “isa-“ Maybe Cecil can crack it.
This is not very amusing, IMO, and really, and it’s not even clever. It’s kind of like those Lucky Beer bottle caps, with the rebuses on the inside.
Could be anything. I-sa in Korean means to move (as in, to move to another house). Apparently it’s a thing that the Korean Taco Bell does - print silly stuff on their hot sauce packets.
Well, you know, the best taco truck in L.A. is Korean: Kogi BBQ. (I think we had a thread about it here once.)
Maybe it’s better to bring Korea to the taco, than to bring the taco to Korea. But IANA philosopher or anything.
Taco Bell has humourous comments on their hot sauce packets in North America, as well.
Those wacky Koreans! Wait, we’ve been doing this for years. 