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

By: Will it Be as Cosmopolitan an Auschwitz? | The Marmot's Hole

Will it Be as Cosmopolitan an Auschwitz? | The Marmot's Hole — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:25:13 +0000

[...] 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 [...]

By: New York Philharmonic Comes and Goes, But All Remains the Same | The Marmot's Hole

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:22:25 +0000

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

By: robert neff

robert neff — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 16:32:45 +0000

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.

By: (MUST READ) North Korea: the inheritors of the Hirohito spirit? at The Marmot’s Hole

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 09:39:11 +0000

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

By: The Iceberg - Bustin’ Wood for Reunification?

The Iceberg - Bustin’ Wood for Reunification? — Sat, 27 May 2006 11:56:33 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: More racist tripe from North Korea at The Marmot’s Hole

More racist tripe from North Korea at The Marmot’s Hole — Thu, 18 May 2006 02:18:22 +0000

[...] 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.” [...]

By: Muninn » Race in Korea

Muninn » Race in Korea — Sun, 14 May 2006 05:31:14 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: The Korea Liberator » Nationalism Meets Socialism: North Korean Propaganda Extols Racial Purity

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 15:15:09 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: North Korea’s underground railroad at The Marmot’s Hole

North Korea’s underground railroad at The Marmot’s Hole — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 10:13:20 +0000

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

By: virtual wonderer

virtual wonderer — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 20:11:14 +0000

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.