Josh over at One Free Korea criticizes Rep. Curt Weldon for a letter he wrote to the Washington Times’ Inside the Beltway slamming Defense Forum Foundation (DFF) president Suzanne Scholte for claims that North Korean diplomat Han Song-ryol threatened the life of a North Korean defector/activist in Washington.
Just to add my own two cents: While I certainly wasn’t present when Han issued his rather undiplomatic comment, the Korean press — and the Marmot as well — is assuming that Han said something like "???????" This expression is literally translated as, "Do you want to die?" but in actual usage, is something far from an actual death threat — on this point, I’m sure most of the Korean speakers reading this will agree. It’s something you say when your conversation partner has said something with which you strongly disagree — perhaps the best English translation would be, "Fuck off." Not what you’d expect from a senior diplomat, to be sure, and coming from a man representing a country that does have a history of rubbing out dissidents, one can understand the concern, but still, the linguists of this all need to be noted. Now, like I said, I could be wrong as to what was said: perhaps Han did make something of a more concrete threat. But my initial suspicion is that Han’s "threat" is a mistranslation — perhaps unintentional, perhaps not.
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Quite a few South Koreans told me a variation of “????” and prolly still regret it, since it appeared, as you mention, that their intentions weren’t lethal ? albeit still unfriendly ? and I don’t take death threats lightly.
However, in the case of a North Korean in an official position, I’d take such a threat a little more literally, since the Norks have quite a record of backing up their words with actions, when bodily harm is involved…
Once again, thank you for linking. I’ve responded in full over at my own blog.
Generally, I agree that in other contexts, those words mean what you say. But let’s focus on this context.
Here is the full quote from “Ambassador” Han, courtesy of the unnamed Korean lawyer who was present:
Han then replied:”You, bastard, you wanna die. Look at that son of a bitch (uttering those words).
He doesn’t want to be named, but he says that this is pretty close to an exact quote. Full context here. I just don’t see how Weldon’s story can hold water when compared to the statements of multiple credible eyewitnesses who are telling consistent stories.