I guess this means the DPRK won’t be inviting Hines Ward for a visit

UPDATE 2: If you don’t like my translation, the KCNA has summarized the editorial in English.

UPDATE: I’ve done my best to translate the North Koreanese of the Rodong Shinmun editorial below for your reading enjoyment.

In case anyone was uncertain about how North Korea felt about multiracial Koreans and the gradual multiculturalization of South Korean society (and there’s no reason why you should be—see here and here), the Rodong Shinmun has kindly offered some commentary on the issue. Antti was nice enough to translate some of it, but if you read Korean, you want to read the whole thing.

Recently, in South Korea, a strange game pursuing the weakening of the fundamental character of our race and making society “multiethnic and multiracial” is unfolding.
Those responsible for this commotion are spreading confounding rumors like South Korea is a “multiracial area” mixed with the blood of Americans and several other races, how we must “overcome closed ethnic nationalism,” and we must embrace “the inclusiveness and openness of a multiethnic nation” like the United States.
The words themselves take a knife to the feeling of our people, but even more serious is that this anti-national theory of “multiethnic, multiracial society” has already gone beyond the stage of discussion. Already, they’ve decided that from 2009, content related to “multiracial, multiethnic culture” would be included in elementary, middle and high school textbooks that have until now stressed that Koreans are the “descendents of Dangun,” “of one blood line” and “one race,” and to change the terms “families of international marriage” and “families of foreign laborers” to “multicultural families.”
This is an outrage that makes it impossible to repress the rage of the people/race.
To start from the conclusion, the argument for “multiethnic, multiracial society” cried for by pro-American flunkeyists in South Korea is an unpardonable argument to obliterate the race by denying the homogeneity of the Korean race and to make an immigrant society out of South Korea, to make it a hodgepodge, to Americanize it.
The race (ethnic group) is a social unit of ethnic components formed historically and a community sharing the same fate, and said race exists because it has a character that distinguishes it from other races. Ethnic identity becomes an important weapon in personal and social development. Because of this, all races value their uniqueness and highlight their excellence, and by doing so give strength to awakening and unifying the components of the race. Today, with the wave of “globalization” inundating the world, nations have confronted it and insisted on their ethnic character and built walls to protect it; there is not one nation or race that has denied itself.
In a reality where domination and colonialism threatens the fates of weaker races, to deny the the uniqueness and excellence of our homogenous race is an act of treason preaching the spiritual disarmament of the race.
The pro-American traitors singing the arguments of “multiethnic, multiracial society” have not even a basic understanding of the race’s point of view or the historical development of society and are silly asses without even the slightest ethnic spirit.
Homogeneity, which no other race in the world has, is the pride of our race and becomes the source of the unity needed in the struggle for eternal development and prosperity. Because the homogeneity of the race is so precious, our people have sacrificed blood and lives to walk the long and difficult path of reunification, and now we are cultivating the June 15 era of reunification with all our patriotic fervor. If we cannot save the homogeneity of the race, we cannot protect the fate of either the race of the individual before American schemes for domination, nor can we block the schemes of the Japanese reactionaries to reinvade based on claims of sovereignty over the Dokdo islets. The anti-national character of the arguments for “multiethnic, multiracial society” is that it denies the race itself and entrusts the nation and race to the imperialists.
When people are calling for the entire people to unite their strength and reunify the Fatherland and raise up the majesty of the homogenous race, it’s a serious problem that there arguments to deny the race and obliterate the race have appeared in South Korea. Now is the era of independent unification to end 60 years of division between North and South and to establish the structural homogeneity of the race, and the trend of this age is “to handle things within the race” (uri minjok-ggiri). The argument for a “multiethnic, multiracial society” is a poison that weakens the basic ideology of this era and is anti-reunification logic. Anti-national arguments running counter to the direction of the people in South Korea is clearly the result of criminal schemes by pro-American groups, including the Grand National Party, and behind-the-scenes control by the United States to make the bloodlines of North and South different, block the June 15 era of reunification and make permanent the division of the Korean race.
The issue of mixed-race people being raised in South Korea is completely a product of U.S. military occupation of South Korea. How spiritless these fellows must be that not only do they not raise up the value of having the U.S. military withdraw to bring an end to this tragic reality, but instead are trying to make the problem part of society.
That arguments for a “multiethnic, multiracial society,” which make it impossible to repress ones racial shame and rage, are openly going around South Korea and there are moves to make them a reality shows how dangerous the criminal schemes of the United States to make the world unipolar are.
All sectors of the South Korean people must boldly reject the anti-national schemes of the flunkeyist traitors to toss aside our identity and racial character and even sully the bloodlines of our race and obliterate it. They must also raise up the values of putting the Korean race first and settling everything within our race and actively stand up in the patriotic struggle to protect the Korean race and bring about reunification.
Oh, and the Red Sox suck.

OK, I added the last line on my own.

30 Comments

  1. Posted April 27, 2006 at 7:43 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for giving a note. It’d perhaps be a good idea to have it all translated, but I don’t have the time, and the DPR-Korean is something else than the Southern newspaper language. If someone’s interested in helping out, you can leave a snippet or two for example in the comments of my blog or even here, if Mr Marmot kindly allows.

  2. Posted April 27, 2006 at 10:22 pm | Permalink

    One wonders if NE Asia will resemble pre WWII Europe in a decade or so with the rise of extreme nationalism here and in China, not to mention Japan’s flirtations. Post-Kimjongilists looking for a new political motivation could create a potent nationalist political force in a reunified Korea.

  3. Posted April 27, 2006 at 11:19 pm | Permalink

    Marmot, why are you wasting your time on this nonsense! Yes, North Korea is a scary racist shithole, but don’t you realize there’s currently a Japanese rubber dinghy heading towards the Dokto Holy Land? Let’s get our priorities straight.

  4. virtual wonderer your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 12:30 am | Permalink

    Wow. This is trully a beautiful piece of translation. Kudos.

    People are gonna wonder if Negroponte gets reports from you directly.

    Are you at the point where you can think in Korean?

  5. Sonagi your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 3:50 am | Permalink

    Curzon,

    Your facetious humor is less subtle than Kushibo’s.

  6. Katz your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 6:33 am | Permalink

    If S. Korea changes its mentality, the more N. Korea will be unwilling to reunify. I hope foreigners here don’t try to defy that.

  7. Posted April 28, 2006 at 7:20 am | Permalink

    Well, if it’s in the Rodong, that would mean that the Sox rule all, right?

  8. Posted April 28, 2006 at 8:19 am | Permalink

    Katz, it’s always about the foreigners, isn’t it? What do the actions of less than 1% of the population have to do with reunification, especially given that the vast majority are here temporarily? Furthermore, why are you towing the URI party line that it’s all down to South Korea? Useful idiots making that argument allow the North to negotiate from a position of strength, always to the South’s detriment. Cometh the hour it will be contingent on the North to change as the South has a far superior system.

  9. Posted April 28, 2006 at 8:34 am | Permalink

    Wow. This is trully a beautiful piece of translation. Kudos.

    It seems Won Joon Choe disagrees. Personally, while I’ll admit it’s not pretty to read (translations of NK sources rarely are), I don’t think it’s an inaccurate translation, but as at least one person appears to believe it’s off, read the above with caveat that it may be off. Anyway, I’m always willing to accept corrections, and Antti seems to be working on his own translation, so you can compare. One thing I should point out, though, is I chose the word “race” for minjok, or at least most of the time. Obviously, this means something different from how English-speakers—or at least Americans—use the term. What made it worse is that there are times when the piece also uses the term injong (as in “multiracial society”), which does mean race as Americans use it (i.e., black, white, etc).  Could make things a bit confusing.

  10. Posted April 28, 2006 at 8:39 am | Permalink

    Sonagi: My humor is rooted in sarcasm. Kushibo’s sense of humor is stuck somewhere between ironic and satirical (he may not even understand the difference between the two). Subtlety is not the issue.

  11. dogbertt your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 9:53 am | Permalink

    Here’s what I do not understand about Koreans’ insistence that they are “one race”:

    If I look at a well-known website that contains voluminous detail regarding the history of Korean surnames (http://www.rootsinfo.co.kr/), I can look at the surname 곽, for example, and learn that for at least one line of 곽 씨s, the forebear was originally from Song China, and emigrated/became naturalized (귀화) to Chosun in 1133 A.D.

    To me, that indicates that this person was originally ethnically Chinese, not Korean, and that therefore his few hundred thousand descendants are not completely part of the “단일민족”, although obviously they are for all intents and purposes phenotypically identical to “pure Koreans”.

    How do Koreans reconcile this? Do many of them refuse to believe that this particular ancestor was Chinese? Or do they to this day look at people with the surname 곽 as not part of the “단일민족”, or is 900 years enough time for “mixed” people to become “pure Korean”?

    Help me out here.

  12. MrChips your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 10:59 am | Permalink

    dogbertt,

    It’s the elephant in the living that no one wants to talk about. The evidence of Korea’s “muttness” is pretty clear. It’s just that the amount of time between major migrations and “mixing” makes it possible for people to talk about one “congealed” race. 4,000 year history??! pooey! Try 1100…Koryo seems like a good place to start. After all, it witnessed the last great melding of Korean “tribes” with Chinese and Japanese and various and sundry SE Asian immigrants, not to mention linguistic transfusions that hold clear links to both Mongolian and Dravidian (yes from India, thats right folks!! Korean has Dravidian roots!!). It all comes together to form a rather colorful ethnic past; but, one-race is all about politics not truth and those two rarely mix…

  13. Posted April 28, 2006 at 12:00 pm | Permalink

    Thanks to both Antti and the Marmot for the translations. Given the fact that I have two half-Korean children, you might say — to use an Americanism — that I’ve got a dog in this fight.

    Jodi, at Asia Pages, wrote about the purebloodmyth in South Korea, and I followed up her post with a few of my own.

    With the increasing numbers of foreign marriages, we’re bound to see this issue debated more and more.

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

  14. Hugh your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 12:08 pm | Permalink

    Sieg Heil! Der Pure Blood! Der Hangook Volk! Goosestepping through Pyongyang! Waygooks Rauss! Rauss! Liquidate all the half-breed ubermensch! Heil King JongIl!

    Sigh…

    South Koreans have seemed to me very interested and concerned and about the outside world’s opinion and respect, but if they could only realize that this sort of blood-superiority-racism and howling-mad aggressive public drooling of North Korea results in a lowering of world opinions of Korea far more than they think the 88 Olympics, Michelle Wie or the like will ever raise it.

    On my last trip home my uncle, who is very much a person who barely pays attention to domestic politics let alone int’l, frowned when I started a story about living in Korea and asked “Yeah…what’s wrong with those people anyways? Always angry and threatening folks, making nuclear bombs..”. Of course I explained I lived in South Korea, but there you go.

    I wonder if any South Korean newspapers or politicians have commented on the fact that their northern neighbor has all but announced some hundred thousand (?) South Korean citizens, for example farmer’s children do not deserve to live? Considering the fact that for the last 50 years, once this northern neighbor decided anyone in it’s power did not deserve to live they were quite soon dead, I would think this would be a matter of comment and concern for any nation’s media and politicians. Does a defacto death threat against thousands of South Korean citizens merit the same reply as a threat to radar-map the ocean floor around Dokdo? Half the reply? Any reply?

  15. Hugh your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 12:09 pm | Permalink

    oops…should have been “untermensch”

  16. snow your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 1:01 pm | Permalink

    Funny thing is, we expats complain about the ridiculous nationalism of South Koreans and the Chinese, and yet the Norks are of the rabid, almost insane variety. Maybe it’s because we hope that some in South Korea will listen to reason, whereas we just hope that the nutbars who run the North end up dead.

  17. dogbertt your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 1:06 pm | Permalink

    Funny thing is, we expats complain about the ridiculous nationalism of South Koreans and the Chinese, and yet the Norks are of the rabid, almost insane variety. Maybe it’s because we hope that some in South Korea will listen to reason, whereas we just hope that the nutbars who run the North end up dead.

    The South is Korea’s ego, the North, it’s id.

  18. Posted April 28, 2006 at 1:25 pm | Permalink

    Robert, now that you’ve done the job I won’t try any more.
    And Won Joon Choe’s views are unreasonable; what does he expect from people using their own time?

    Hugh,
    My hasty search did not show any notices or response from the Southern media except for this from Daily NK. It’s been carried by Yonhap, so at least it’s been available. As you say, this really would have been a chance to have some “dialogue” with DPRK and at least refute the nonsense about this originating from the conservatives. But the progressives don’t have the guts, or then they are just showing that they don’t care.

  19. oranckay your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 1:29 pm | Permalink

    Won Joon Choe has done it again!

    The frustrating thing about translation is that there is always something you can take issue with, and the more faithful you are to poorly written originals the more it looks like you translated it poorly. There might have been a few things Marmot could have done to make the translation above more readable, but the fact of the matter is that all Rodong editorials sound like someone trying to spit out his rant all in one breath, with ten adjectives in front of the word “American” something that is not easy to do in English. It looks like Marmot was trying to be as faithful as he could to the original, because what people want with a translation of something like this is the feel and tone of the original. So unless Choe Won Joon can find a real error (and evernone makes mistakes, so it’s possible), if anything looks wrrong or awkward, that’s why.

    Obviously Mr. Choe has a different approach to conveying the truth of what people say…

    he totalitarian regime in Pyongyang is about as evil as they come, and much of its malice is directed at South Korea. North Korea has even threatened to turn Seoul into a nuclear “sea of fire.”

    North Korea never said anything about “nuclear,” and indeed in the same sentence the NK delegate who said that also said that “since Seoul is not very far” from where they were meeting it could be “turned into a sea of fire.” He never said “nuclear,” the implication that distance had anything to do with it would lead you to assume, if anything, that he wasn’t even _implying_ nuclear, the delegate himself was later canned by NK for that, and furthermore the SK delegates went out of their way to piss him off and make him lose his temper. So, “threatened to turn Seoul into a nuclear ’sea of fire.’” is perhaps an example of creative translation, suggesting that Mr. Choe just has a different philosophy about translation and communication, one which might not appreciate the occassional need to be excrutiatingly faithful to the original so as to convey to readers the exact tone and truth of what was said.

  20. Posted April 28, 2006 at 1:38 pm | Permalink

    That would indeed be “Untermensch” as well as “raus.” Anyway…

    As for the translation of “race” as opposed to “people” – it depends on context and I think Robert’s right on in translating that as “race.” Especially when they switch back and forth between “injong” (which is used to mean “race” in South Korean and is kind of steered away from even amongst people actively talking about race specifically in relation to the “Korean race”), it’s more than appropriate to translate it as such.

    That’s how it’s meant, and too often I hear certain Korean folks trying to backpedal out of embarrassment when they darn well know how the conversation is meant. When Koreans are talking about the historical achievements of “the minjok” and the greater sweep of history in a mostly non-relative way, I buy the “people” translation of minjok. However, when talking about the threat from other “races” and peoples, and how that is linked to “pure” blood and cultural unity/superiority, it’s “race,” man. You can’t backpedal from that and just say someone talking like that is speaking in a non-hierarchical, neutral tone.

    One other thing – what are your opinions about “우수하다.” Often, when I see it used, I really sense that the aspect of “superiority” overwhelms the part that may just mean “excellent” – but even if this might not be the case, can we get around the fact that a negatively comparative connotation is inherent in even a positive assessment of “excellence.” In the context of this Rodong Sinmun article, I really feel like they’re talking about not the “excellence” of the Korean “race” but rather the “superiority” of the Korean race.

    Here’s the part in question:

    “In a reality where domination and colonialism threatens the faces of weaker races, to deny the the uniqueness and excellence of our homogenous race…”

    Doesn’t that make more sense in a conversation talking about the “weaker races” that were dominated by the implied “stronger” ones? How is this different from the racialized nationalism espoused by Hitler and the Imperial Japan?

    That’s straight Nazi, yo.

  21. Posted April 28, 2006 at 1:41 pm | Permalink

    I don’t have a problem with people saying my translation sucks, especially if it does. In fact, if someone spots a shoddy translation, they have a responsibility to say so, lest I continue to disseminate wrong information. My only beef with Choe’s comment was that if you’re going to describe my translation as “blindingly awful,” it’d be nice if you told me how so.

  22. Ray your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 4:28 pm | Permalink

    Is this site moving awfully slow for anyone else lately??

  23. Posted April 28, 2006 at 4:49 pm | Permalink

    Do you mean you’re having problems connecting to the site?

  24. Ray your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 5:39 pm | Permalink

    Sometimes, yeah. I have trouble refreshing the site or connecting when trying to view the comments, etc.

  25. Posted April 28, 2006 at 5:49 pm | Permalink

    I’ve also noticed that it takes a long time to reload the page.

  26. Posted April 28, 2006 at 6:53 pm | Permalink

    Lost and found in translation.

    The first sentence in the original:
    최근 남조선에서 우리 민족의 본질적특성을 거세하고 《다민족,다인종사회》화를 추구하는 괴이한 놀음이 벌어지고있다.

    KCNA:
    A strange farce to hamstring the essential characters of the Korean nation and seek for “multiracial society” is now being held in south Korea.

    Robert:
    Recently, in South Korea, a strange game pursuing the weakening of the fundamental character of our race and making society “multiethnic and multiracial” is unfolding.

    Antti:
    Recently bizarre pursuits for a ‘multinational, multiracial society’ are appearing in South Korea, weakening the basic characteristics of our nation.

    Mine sucks the most, but I got the best excuses.

  27. gbnhj your flag
    Posted April 28, 2006 at 8:11 pm | Permalink

    From the article (in translation): ‘Homogeneity, which no other race in the world has, is the pride of our race and becomes the source of the unity needed in the struggle for eternal development and prosperity.’

    That’s rich, because the more homegeneous of the two countries would definitely be North Korea, and who are they to counsel anyone on development and prosperity?

    BTW, thanks for the translation Robert - add my name to the folks who enjoyed reading something well done, and that obviously must have been a bit of a chore.

  28. pawikirogi your flag
    Posted April 29, 2006 at 3:43 am | Permalink

    know it’s off topic but dokto always puts the scummy expat in an ejaculatory state:

    ‘data from historical archives bear korea out. it can claim possesion since the time of shlla. japan’s claim is based on korea’s ‘giving’ dokto to japan when japan was in control of korea.’ mark sheldon cornell u

    who to believe? a whiney expat like gerry or a scholar from one of the most respected universities in the western world. man, this is a hard one!

  29. virtual wonderer your flag
    Posted April 29, 2006 at 5:11 am | Permalink

    I am somewhat surprised that some people would take issue with the translation. I thought it was pretty spot on. In fact, I thought it was “too” well done for someone to do it just out of the sheer joy of translating; and hence donning the tinfoil hat and thinking that Marmot is really a CIA operative. I jest, but I do think it was done well.

    The stuff I really was impressed with is how marmot chose to do this–>”“to handle things within the race” (uri minjok-ggiri).”

    After I read the original Korean, I thought about doing my own bit of translating. I thought about how I would translate “uri minjok-ggiri” which roughly would mean “our people together”, but still retain the exclusivity implied in the Korean.

    But my favorite was of course–>”silly asses.” People who read the translation might wonder if the DPRK hacks would really write stuff like that but tis true tis true. I wondered how I would translate that part. silly asses works well.

    although I sometimes wonder if the writing is in “north korean” and if it’s really inappropriate to read it like “south korean.” It’s as if I encountered a nation whose national language is in ebonics and all the official documents were coded that way.

    Another commentor mentioned how he might have considred saying “superior” instead of “excellent” for “oo soo han”. I also thought at first “superior” was the better choice of word, but now I think excellent is definitely better. “oo soo han” as a word, isn’t associated with fascism in Korean as “superior” is in English in this context. I thought that there was no point in bashing the reader’s head with the quiet obvious Mein Kampf references when the whole putrid piece stinks with it no matter how you translate it.

  30. robert neff your flag
    Posted October 16, 2006 at 1:32 am | Permalink

    I find all of this very fascinating - this purity of races. One of the American defectors in North Korea - Dresnok - who is still there and apparently ‘living in paradise’ is married to a half-Togonese (is that correct?) and half-Korean woman. They have one son together and he has two other children from a Romanian woman. I am still trying to find the article of North Korea’s super race (pure breeding - like Hitler’s perfect Nazi), but it seems to have been completely removed from the net.

    I am not sure how true this is - but my brother in the States just sent me email in which he claims that my city has begun emergency broadcast testing again (you know the testing of “this is only a test - in the event of an actual emergency you would be requested to turn to…..). I guess the people back home are taking this much more serious than we Expats in Korea.

10 Trackbacks

  1. By Foreign Dispatches on April 28, 2006 at 12:26 am

    North Korea, National Socialist State…

    For anyone who’s ever doubted just how little separates nazism from communism, here’s a little food for thought, courtesy of the DPRK. Below is a small excerpt of the long, tiresome, Hitleresque diatribe. Recently, in South Korea, a strange game…

  2. By DPRKKK at blog.matthewstinson.net on April 28, 2006 at 2:37 am

    [...] The Marmot’s Hole has a partial translation of a North Korean newspaper editorial condemning racial mixing in South Korea.  Change the words a little bit and it sounds like a white supremacist rant about a Jewish/Catholic/Mexican plot to dilute the “white race.”  A sampling, if you can stomach it: The pro-American traitors singing the arguments of “multiethnic, multiracial society” have not even a basic understanding of the race’s point of view or the historical development of society and are silly asses without even the slightest ethnic spirit. [...]

  3. [...] If you needed to see the Rodong Shinmun’s commentary on miscegenation put into practice, look no further. [...]

  4. [...] As one who takes the position that our problems with North Korea will only end with the inevitable destruction of its regime, it’s moments like this when I have to pause to thank the Korea Central News Agency for giving me gems like this one (ht to the Marmot): A strange farce to hamstring the essential characters of the Korean nation and seek for “multiracial society” is now being held in south Korea. In this regard Rodong Sinmun today runs a signed commentary, which censures the farce as an unpardonable bid to negate the homogeneity of the nation, make south Korea multiracial and Americanize it. To deny the peculiarity and advantages of the homogeneous nation now that dominationism and colonialism are posing a threat to the destiny of weak nations is a treacherous act of weakening the spirit of the nation, the commentary says, and goes on: The south Korean pro-American traitorous forces advocating the theory of “multiracial society” are riffraffs who have not an iota of national soul, to say nothing of the elementary understanding of the view on the nation and social and historic development. [...]

  5. By Muninn » Race in Korea on May 14, 2006 at 2:31 pm

    [...] In the aftermath of orals I have been trying to catch up on some blog reading and reading messages from H-Japan and the Korean Studies email lists. There was an interesting article in the North Korean press recently blasting the idea of a multiracial or multicultural Korea which got a lot of discussion online, including a post by Antti and a full translation of the article by Robert from the Marmot’s Hole. I was interested enough to make the Korean article my “assignment” for my one on one Korean reading class a few weeks ago. It was my first reading of a North Korean text and thus was interesting both for content and the language it used. [...]

  6. [...] Well, when the Rodong Shinmun is running pieces like this, I guess these kinds of incidents have to be expected (Korean version via the Seoul Shinmun here): The North’s delegation leader Maj. Gen. Kim Yong-chul started off an unfortunate thread by quipping, “Since the climate in the South is warmer, the farmers must be hard at work.” His South Korean counterpart Maj. Gen. Han Min-gu of the South replied, “The population of the farming communities is actually falling, and many bachelors from such areas marry women from Mongolia, Vietnam and the Philippines.” [...]

  7. [...] Huh?  Black or white?  I wasn’t aware that were black or white Koreans in the North.  Perhaps Mr. Jung was being just a bit too exuberant in his pie-in-the-sky calls for reunification, but if he were familiar with this or this he might reconsider his comments. [...]

  8. [...] Exhibit A [...]

  9. [...] Yes, cultural exchanges are OK… as long as they don’t involve bodily fluid exchanges. [...]

  10. [...] so North Korea might not be enthusiastic about sullying the bloodlines or letting a single drop of ink into the Hangang River, but they will turn Pyongyang into an [...]

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