Everyone enjoys playing “where’s Waldo?” but how about the elusive North Korean soldier? Can you find the North Korean back-shooter in the picture?
Have a competition with your friends to see who can find him first. The winner gets to stick their head out the nearest window and yell “I’m alive!”
{ 59 comments… read them below or add one }
Truly tasteless – excellent!
Tasteless jokes are only worth it if they’re funny.
This blog is going downhill, and fast. Severely disappointing and disrespectful.
And that wasn’t funny.
Seriously bad taste R. Might’ve been funnier a week ago.
Would you please take down the picture?
You wouldn’t post a picture of US soldier , even if it is photoshoped, pointing a machine gun at back of playing Iraqi children for the fun. would you?
@#5
no, buy ohmynews would post a us soldier pointing a machine gun at the back of playing s. korean children.
Seriously, why on earth post this?
# 6,
Nah… it wouldn’t be ohmynews. It would be the Hankyoreh and it would be a picture of a rushing American M2 Bradley.
I for one find it funny. Sure in bad taste, but still funny to me. I have a dark mind.
However should the hole decide to do more photoshopping – maybe of the crazy mad cow gang – I see no harm in that.
juvenile and tasteless.
Great satire!
The photo is not supposed to be for amusement but to provoke thought.
Those that think it is supposed to be funny and are complaining because it is not tasty should go to some other site for funny pictures and gags and indulge yourselves.
While it might be offensive to a North Korean, they don’t have the right to use the internet, so I’m not concerned.
It might be a little too soon, but the message is important: Don’t go to North Korea for a vacation. They murder innocent people and blame the victim. Whether it was a mistake or to score political points, it was reprehensible.
Shooting that woman was about as just as shooting the kids in the picture for violating the “No Jumping” sign.
It’s not this website that’s going downhill, its the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea!
Um, no, it’s incredibly tasteless, it isn’t thought provoking, and it isn’t making a “statement” or whatever. This is supposed to be the premier Korean blog, and there’s stuff like this above the fold. You can make and publish that stuff on any number of Korea forums, but leave it off here.
How about changing the headline to something like, “No Running Around The Pool,” deleting the article text, and waiting until the resort re-opens. Then at least you can say it’s a reminder of whats wrong. At the moment, it’s just tasteless.
How about a photoshopped Abu Grahib photo with Brigitte Bardot smiling for a photo-op with Obama?
One more thing, I do appreciate the humor in the photo. But it’s bad timing…
How about 2 Korean girls with the trademark iPod earbuds dancing in the road whilst a tank comes up behind them? I call that one “iStudents.”
If you have to explain how it “works”, it doesn’t.
Personally, I like this photo. Is it of a real swimming pool in Kumgangsan? Some will like it, some people will not like it. Everyone should calm down. Although, what happens though if netizens see it?
Please make some more photos like this RElgin, you have a skill for it.
It worked for me.
@14 your message is right, but you left out one part: they’ll murder you and use YOUR money* to pay for the bullets with which they shoot you.
* and the rest of the money they’ll use to develop nuclear weapons to terrorize you, your countrymen, and other East Asian countries**.
** and neighbors of Syria*** (namely Israel).
***to whom the Norks are selling the nuclear weapons know-how that you, the 금강산 tourist-retard, financed.
I sincerely hope 2MB uses this as a reason to shut down tourism to Mt. Geumgang.
Oh, and the picture is incredibly insensitive, sorry.
I think the South Korean supply of feminine hygiene products have just been threatened, if not depleted! Marmot, you apologize to no one on this! I can not believe all of the pussies who have come out of the woodwork to cry! This is a piece of art! Rave On Marmot, Rave on!
Hilarious! ROTFL
very very very dark.
First reaction: putting the “OOoooooooohh” back in the “Hole”
Second reaction:
I still find it funny, and will keep an eye out for this new hardcore trigger happy waldo on the hole.
Don’t over-react people. Really, you people sound like those Muslims who went on a rampage after seeing that Mohammad caricature on the Danish news column.
Atleast this satire makes sense. Mohammed, after all, didn’t shoot an innocent tourist in the back!
When a couple of insignificant rocks in the Pacific Ocean (East Sea Sea of Japan) take headlines away from the MURDER of a South Korean woman, one can’t but help see the irony of a picture like this one. Save your ire.
then perhaps you can enlighten us as to what kind of thought you hope this provokes. as far as i can see it’s as juvenile, tasteless and thought-provoking as a helen keller joke.
I see it as less of a “joke” than a political cartoon. And I think it’s quite on topic.
The symbolism in this photo is a spot on commentary of the relationship between South and North Korea. The South represented by the children enjoying the hopefulness of a bright summer day(desire for reunification), oblivious to the real danger posed by its brother to the North.
I’m not above posting completely insensitive and classless material, but I have no idea what the message is supposed to be here, and as dogbert said, if you have to explain how it “works,” it doesn’t.
Of course, maybe I’m just a bit slow on the uptake.
The photo is not supposed to be for amusement but to provoke thought. Eh?
String that one together with your comment at the end of my KTO post (do tell me where YOU grabbed the itinerary from) and you have truly stooped to new lows. The only thing that provokes is heated resentment and a good hard swift kick right in the f*****g ass. Primitive behaviour. Find a cave to scribble your next post on – the audience may respond a little better.
Dear Gregory,
Regarding finding your “itinerary”, Go here: http://asiaenglish.visitkorea.or.kr/ena/HD/event/ena_20080704/popup.html
Look at the last item between 2:30pm — 4:30pm. This came from the “itinerary” link found at the URL you posted even.
You obviously did not find the back-shooter either.
I see. That itinerary was actually updated and since and several links weren’t working at the time. Thank you for finding it nonetheless.
As for the shooter – oh, I found him alright. But I must say the post doesn’t shine through as one of your best.
Christ on a crutch! It ain’t child porn.
Waldo’s the one with the goggles, right?
The PC whiners said: “Boo! Down with free speech! We only want to be spoon-fed prechewed PC commentary!” (I don’t mean Robert since he’s leaving it up on HIS site even though he doesn’t completely like it – please don’t ban me, grovel grovel, grovel…)
The satirical commentary the photo makes is obvious. I guess there a lot of 형광등s at The Hole today.
Here’s my interpretation, for any who care (all three of you): Hey South Koreans! Will it take a Nork soldier shooting vacationing children in their backs to get your attention?!
Greg, I really hope the “labor party headquarters” entry was not what it seemed to be, but then, little is what it appears to be.
If you don’t think this post was my best you just need to imagine how difficult it is to write about the unthinkable, when someone who could have been my aunt, my neighbor or even, my friend, is gone — shot in the back.
I thought long and hard about this woman the other day. She is like many of the other really nice people I meet so often. If I had met her, she would have probably told me about her family, her “yobo”, her favorite “jinjil-bang” or how she loved to hike in the mountains with her friends, but I will never know because she was shot in the back by someone who will stay hidden, hidden by those that know it was wrong, but then they knew that before she was murdered in cold blood.
You and all the others who find this little post “tasteless” go and look at this woman’s picture and watch the pictures from her funeral, look at her family. Are the people who did this defending their country? their honor? their family? did they need to shoot this woman, walking by the sea, watching the sunrise — not just shoot her in the back, like cowards, and then tell the world that it was someone else’s fault she died, because she loved the sunrise.
Yet, some only complain about “taste” . . .
#36 is exactly right.
If this was an accident, the cartoon might be tasteless. But this was not accident.
It was a horrible act of aggression, by a wicked regime. They (NK) are the only ones who should take offense, and who cares what they think.
It makes me so angry to think that NK demanded an apology.
The thought of it is so ridiculous that one can only laugh at the barbarity of the North Koreans.
The perpetrators have proven themselves to be inhuman, yet they will go unpunished.
The worst part is the lack of public outcry. So many, even here in the South, who rush to blame her, the victim.
Sometimes humor is a good cure for anger, and this cartoon is an example. It helped me cope.
Thanks!
Listen, maybe my temper got the better of me, but seriously Mr. Elgin, do not try deviate from the issue at hand – the joke defeats the purpose entirely if it needs to be explained to such great lengths. In fact, if you are so up in arms, why make light of it at all? That photo really fails to resonate warmly with me. It truly does nothing but spark resentment. I frankly see it as crude to make light of an issue that is, at the moment, ripping through a nation that has had to suffer at the expense of its neighbour for many years.
The Bohemian and I were kickin this around I of course was tell him that this was politically not correct when he stood back and said to me ” when is the murdering of someone who could be our mother PC?” When I tried to point out the political and cultural differences between east and west he simply said ” in self defense in any court in the world one has to prove there was no other recourse.”
Thinking about that and the whole more important Dok-do issue I have to say…if the picture offends then how much more should the actual happening offend.
Gilbert Gottfried was castigated 2 weeks after 9/11 and many people told him it was too soon to make jokes…he responded with ‘The Aristocrats.’
36. Nice speech for your POV. I don’t disagree. My personal thoughts on “explanation” differ from the rest. I may have said this particular pic was in bad taste (I never said tasteless) and ill-timed but that doesn’t detract from the humor. My gf (Korean) laughed her ass off upon seeing it before saying something like, “that’s exactly why I wouldn’t go there.” So I guess you got her in the gut and she hasn’t even got a black sense of humor like me so that surprised me.
I disagree with everybody else who says if you gotta explain it, it defeats the purpose… if you look at my avatar, it’s the Candle Schoolgirl with the Crazy Cow… which I made into 20 posters or so with the words “사랑해 미친소” and stuck them up at various places on SNU campus a few weeks ago. What point did I have… or better, who cares?
Despite my negative posts, you got my kudos anyway. Now hopefully you’ll get linked by a blog and get Koreans talking about your tastelessness or something…
In a telling fashion, more people are complaining* about the woman being shot in the back on this blog than in the streets of Seoul.
* In a round-a-bout fashion.
deleted (offensive, off-topic)
deleted (offensive)
very nice… nice and dark…
i especially love the soldier’s puckered lips!
this site needs more humour like this.
gee, r. elgin, considering how you made light-hearted jokes about the chinese that died in the recent earthquake, i am surprised that one elderly lady’s death means so much to you on a personal level.
Tasteless? I’ve read alot of material here at the hole in my time and tasteful hasn’t seemed to be an all encompassing criteria for the genesis of a thread.
Is it offensive? I sure hope so. Apparently well trained North Korean soldiers hiding in a wooded area and shooting an old woman in the back who merely went to see the sun rise from a vantage her friend had recommended, and then nudging her with their boots, as if she were sub-human and they didn’t want to touch her with their bare skin, wasn’t offensive, at least not enough to elicit more than token outrage. It would be nice to know that there is something, something so ghastly or inhuman that North Korea could do that would raise the ire of this nation.
If this picture does that, gives us an indication that the North cannot do anything it wants, that there is a line that it cannot cross somewhere in its sociopathic behavior then it will have served its purpose.
Koreans are outraged but are not taking to the streets because this is an issue that professional protesters want to disappear. Dad, Mom, and the kids did enjoy candlelight picnics in front of Seoul Plaza, but the ordinary Cho is demoed out and isn’t going to be raising placards again for awhile. Even the Dokdo rallies in front of the Japanese embassy don’t seem to be drawing many participants.
So you’re saying that if this had happened five months ago people’d be a’swarmin? I have my doubts. I’m starting to agree with some who believe it’s not the crime or the victim but the perpetrator that matters.
Ah, what am I talking about? I just haven’t given the “Sunshine Policy” a chance. What we need is a sunshiney surge!
No. As I previously remarked, organizations that regularly use public demonstrations as a political tool would like the incident off the front pages as soon as possible.
Whether they’re from North or South doesn’t really matter, does it?
All
fourfive of them look like back shooters to me – there’s one young’in hiding behind the kindly camp counselor.A well-deserved plunge after they’ve done a commendable job clearing out the pool.
Crawl back under your rock. No such jokes were made by me. Considering how the PRC supports and helps manage their puppet ally, the DPRK, you don’t want to really talk about that, I suspect.
Try this instead.
#51: “No such jokes were made by me.”
Was it the other R. Elgin?
“Don’t mess with Buddha or else.”
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/05/12/merry-buddhamas-2/#comment-153312
“Everyone knows that CNN is anti-China and biased thus this makes me wonder if this really happened or not.”
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/05/13/major-earthquarke-hits-china/#comment-153389
Maybe those weren’t supposed to be jokes but just thought-provoking sentences ofnon-amusement, like this post.
Offensive? Off topic?
You know it was neither, you pitiful coward.
Dark but it worked.
In addition, it also allowed for a glimpse into the pussification of western culture.
Yes “user”, the first is a reference to Chinese bloggers at the time who were wondering if the earthquake and other natural disasters in China were divine judgment (which it is not, IMHO). The second one is a pretty cynical comment directed at the numerous Chinese trolls that took great pains to discredit any news from CNN as being biased and anti-Chinese, thus unbelievable.
Neither comment is directed at the victims of that earthquake.
So what’s your point? Do my posts offend *your* sensibilities then? Well please do not be amused, be disturbed by it.
“So what’s your point? Do my posts offend *your* sensibilities then?”
No. My point is that you did make smartass remarks and jokes, despite your denial.
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/05/13/major-earthquarke-hits-china/#comment-153398
If I had easily offended sensibilities I would never look at any of the Marmot’s Hole comments. My point? My point is that your attempts at humor are unfunny and show very poor judgement, and you backpedal when people knock you for it. But that’s okay. I’m completely unfunny, too.
@38
The rest of us shouldn’t have to miss out on good satire because of you being too stupid to get it.
@56
Your inability to understand sarcasm and cynicism isn’t his fault.
#57, insulting me doesn’t make Elgin funnier, cleverer, or more thought-provoking.
Its not like it is a picture of a Nork soldier shooting a tourist…
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