Bush Gets Lesson in Korean Geography

While the two Presidents were on their way to the 2nd floor of the Blue House for their meeting, LMB pointed out Dokdo on a map of Korea(photo below) and apparently said to Bush “This is Dokdo Island “.  The U.S President laughed and replied “I know Dokdo Island.”

Well at least it shows that LMB is doing something about the so called Dokdo issue.

Photo courtesy : Yonhap News

Yonhap News

55 Comments

  1. James your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 11:37 am | Permalink

    What’s with that guy in the background? Is he humping the map of Korea?

  2. aaronm your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 11:47 am | Permalink

    I wonder if he then proceeded to tell him about fantasy island Jeju, the Hawaii of Korea?

  3. ghost of tiny your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 11:53 am | Permalink

    I wonder if he then proceeded to tell him about fantasy island Jeju, the Hawaii of Korea?

    Did you know Koreans love BMW?

  4. century your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 12:12 pm | Permalink

    Their exchange sounds like something that needs to be included in a new English textbook for first graders.

  5. Crackus your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 12:39 pm | Permalink

    The scale of the rocks is interesting considering it would barely be a spot of paint if it were on the same scale as the rest of Korea.

  6. Siddhartha your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 12:49 pm | Permalink

    LOL
    now I would like to hear from hole’s usual Japanophiles on this exchange…they probably calling GW Bush idiot to begin with..sure he may be one but he sure knows his DOKDO!!

  7. Sonagi your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 1:04 pm | Permalink

    I didn’t see Ulleungdo on the map. Does it belong to Japan?

  8. Tripod your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 1:16 pm | Permalink

    I bet that was meant as an inside joke between two politicians.

  9. babotaengi your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 1:39 pm | Permalink

    Haha. Yeah. They were probably both having a laugh about it once the doors were closed.

    “Thanks for your help with the Dokdo misdirection.”

    “Haha. People really are the same all over the world, eh? God bless the media.”

  10. Rob your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 2:03 pm | Permalink

    That has to be Ulleungdo in the pic.

  11. Posted August 6, 2008 at 2:08 pm | Permalink

    More importantly, why is a strange man wearing lipstick pressing his cheek on the wall?

  12. Pawi's conscience your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 2:27 pm | Permalink

    Bush learned about Dokdo before he came?

    20,000 crazy cow girls in downtown will experience their heads exploding.

    The guy on the right humping the South China Sea looks like Rob Morrow from “Numb3rs”. Maybe he’s here to solve the murder of Park Wang-ja.

  13. judge judy your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 2:37 pm | Permalink

    What’s with that guy in the background? Is he humping the map of Korea?

    it looks like he’s trying to take a leak. very disturbing.

  14. Posted August 6, 2008 at 3:26 pm | Permalink

    Maybe the strange man works for the Korea Foundation, and at hearing President Bush declare that he knows all about Dokdo, just had to rub one out.

  15. gbevers your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 3:32 pm | Permalink

    It appears that the Korean island of Ulleungdo has completely disappeared from the map while the size of Dokdo has been greatly exaggerated.

    The map in the mural reminds me of Korean TV commercials that regularly advertise their products by using imaginary worlds. A Korean car commercial might show someone driving their car in some fanatasy setting while a construction companies might show people living in utopia cities or in palace-like apartments.

    In my opinion, Koreans need to get their heads out of the clouds.

  16. Inkevitch your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 4:01 pm | Permalink

    Just for fun, I once wrote “Dokdo belong to Korea” in a toilet stall. Three days later I came back to see “No it isn’t, gbevers.”

    The man is truly amazing.

  17. user-81 your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 4:14 pm | Permalink

    #16, I don’t believe you. There’s no way gbevers could write a comment that short. ;)

  18. Rob your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 5:15 pm | Permalink

    Dokdo is more than likely just out of the picture to the right.

  19. Rob your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 5:17 pm | Permalink

    And by the way, the guy on the right was trying to take a peak up the president’s daughter’s skirt as she walked up the stairs.

  20. Michael your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 5:28 pm | Permalink

    “I’m the decider. I done decided that there is Dokdo, okey-dokey? Now where’s the golf course, y’all?”

  21. cmm your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 6:06 pm | Permalink

    @19 and learned the hard way of the Korean female habit of drooping their bags low behind them when ascend the stairs ㅠㅠ

  22. bohemianinkorea your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 8:06 pm | Permalink

    My uncle Stone bender Bohemian was actually the first westerner to visit the Dok-do rock. He often told of how he sailed the wide pacific to come to the oasis and natural splendor of the bleak, desolate, isolated, often ignored, small, insignificant and overly contested rock that is Dok-do

  23. globalvillageidiot your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 9:34 pm | Permalink

    I’ve always liked how the weather maps on the news in Korea tend to magnify Dokdo expontentially. Seems as if the map in the Blue House is equally full of shit, assuming that it is supposed to Dokdo to the right.

    By the way sperwar, saw the motorcade this morning and there were Korean and American flags along the route.

  24. anjinsan your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 11:10 pm | Permalink

    Wouldn’t it be cool if Bush had a Solomon-esque streak and decided to resolve the stupid f’ing issue by taking a huge rock saw and cutting the Dokdo rock in half.
    Then Japan could have their side and eat makizushi and Korea could have their side and eat makizushi (whoops!!! I mean [wink-wink] “kimbap”).

    Either that or just give the f’ing thing to North Korea as a sign of brother/sisterhood between the Koreas; then Korea will unite and the US troops
    will be happy to leave and everyone in a united Korea can sit down together at the table and eat makizushi (damn, did it again!!!–sorry. . . I mean [wink-wink] “kimbap”)

  25. NewYorkTom your flag
    Posted August 6, 2008 at 11:19 pm | Permalink

    If they exagerrate the size of Dokdo and Ulleungdo disappears off the map, doesnt that process negate their purpose? Wouldnt Dokdo look like Ulleungdo to the untrained eye and make the new map look like the old one?

    Btw, the guy kissing the map is Steve, W’s personal cocaine mule wherever he goes. I think he must’ve taken a snort moments before.

  26. ghost of tiny your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 1:09 am | Permalink

    Korean loves cigar bar and trip to Hawaii.

  27. mizar5 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 1:12 am | Permalink

    Here’s a picture begging for a caption.

  28. mizar5 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 1:14 am | Permalink

    “In my opinion, Koreans need to get their heads out of the clouds.”

    and their hands off each others’ buts.

  29. Posted August 7, 2008 at 1:15 am | Permalink

    Here’s the full map. http://search.ytn.co.kr/ytn/mo.....2204354231

    Either Ulleungdo or Dok-do is not seen there and in my bare eyes the larger island looks like Ulleungdo. Attend to the position and shape.

    Hey, you must pay more attention to this part.

    http://s48672.tistory.com/attachment/hk50.swf

    “We discussed it.” of Bush’s and the prior remark of MB’s.

    The full video is here,
    http://search.ytn.co.kr/ytn/mo.....1126548172

    Related part is after 11:20 of the time bar.

  30. JK your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 3:03 am | Permalink

    @15: “In my opinion, Koreans need to get their heads out of the clouds.”

    Way to go with the negative generalizing remarks, Gbevers, about an entire country where you are choosing to live. And you wonder why you have problems relating with Koreans on a professional as well as personal basis….

    If you had just discussed the facts (or least the facts as YOU saw them) and left off the negative generalizing remarks about the entire Korean race, you would likely avoided many of the problems you have faced over the decades while living in the Land of the Morning Calm.

    But I already found out that you’ll never learn, no matter HOW many years go by…..

  31. mizar5 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 5:14 am | Permalink

    JK: “If you had just discussed the facts (or least the facts as YOU saw them) and left off the negative generalizing remarks about the entire Korean race, you would likely avoided many of the problems you have faced over the decades while living in the Land of the Morning Calm.”

    First of all, I doubt that. We’re talking about Korea, remember?

    Second, why bring the issue of race or Gerry’s personal interactions into this? That’s a little personal, unfounded and inappropriate, as well as a rather tenuous leap in logic, isn’t it?

    Third, what’s the harm in making a fairly obvious general observation. Isn’t this pretty general knowledge?

  32. JK your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 5:35 am | Permalink

    Mizar, please don’t encourage gbevers to continue his negative generalizations of the entire Korean peoples (on a repeated basis at that) so that when he has yet another contract not renewed in Korea that he blames it all on Korean nationalism again. Are you really trying to help him or hurt him?

  33. mizar5 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 5:48 am | Permalink

    JK:”Mizar, please don’t encourage gbevers to continue his negative generalizations of the entire Korean peoples (on a repeated basis at that) so that when he has yet another contract not renewed in Korea that he blames it all on Korean nationalism again. Are you really trying to help him or hurt him?”

    Rodger. He must be corrected.

  34. JK your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 6:35 am | Permalink

    Yeah, mizar, it’d be as bad as some Korean guy coming to the US proudly embracing the Korean flag while criticizing Americans constantly who writes post after post after post saying, “In my opinion, Americans need to get their heads out of the clouds.” Then imagine a Korean version of Mizar supporting this Korean version of Gbevers saying, “We’re talking about America, remember?” and “what’s the harm in making a fairly obvious [negative] general observation [about Americans]. Isn’t this pretty general knowledge?” I mean, why would the Korean mizar ENCOURAGE the Korean Gbevers?

    After one contract not being renewed because of this hypothetical Korean person’s constant negative generalizations of all Americans over the years(in this hypothetical example), I would think that ANYONE would tell him to shut it for fear of losing yet another job and certainly would not encourage it.

  35. mizar5 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 7:14 am | Permalink

    Apples to oranges comparison. Who would accuse Americans of having their heads in the clouds, anyway. We’re talking about a highly specific Korean trait.

    What they might say about Americans that they need to:
    - stop eating fatty foods
    - guzzling gas
    - farting incessantly
    - enabling Korean delusions.

    People like Lou Dobbs and Kurt Vonnegut say these things all the time, and have so far escaped the gas chamber..um, pardon, the JK gas machine.

    Koreans make much worse generalizations about Americans all the time, and they are often downright untrue, which is technically libelous. Kyopos in cyberspace say things that put this tame comment to shame. And they don’t care where they say it either. They say it in Korea and they say it stateside.

    As far as I can see Gerry has said something about a current Korean trait that is perfectly obvious to onlookers, which some Koreans apparently may have missed, although smart ones haven’t.

    Now, suppose Gerry had said instead that “Koreans are like frogs in a well.” Wouldn’t that be quite similar? But because it is a generally recognized self-criticism, you technically couldn’t fault him for telling the truth.

    So what’s the difference here? So far as I can tell the difference lies in the fact that we are talking about a trait that Korean people are largely in denial of - a denial of the general state of denial.

    But Gerry is a foreigner, so he’s not allowed to recognize or voice the truth. So the next time a Korean woman says that she demands to be treated as a princess or a Korean male asserts that Dokdo is one of the most significant international issues of the 21st century, or anybody says that Seoul is the most beautiful city in the world, Koreans are the best looking in the world, and there is irrefutable historical proof that Korea owns Dokdo, Gerry should simply nod and bite his tongue. Because honesty is just not the custom here.

  36. Acropolis7 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 8:04 am | Permalink

    KCNA, Pyongyang: Sycnhophant belligerent president of U.S. Bush flew into our homeland today in the south and brought Mad Cow infected staff members to ridicule the soveriegnty of the Korean people. Mad cow infected staff had eaten American downer cows before the visit and were brought with Bush to poison the people of the south. This provacation is beyond unforgivable and the Rodong Shimun urges the U.S. to withdraw from Korea it’s troops and mad cow infected Bush staff, concludes th article…

  37. Posted August 7, 2008 at 8:10 am | Permalink

    Acropolis… is that the KCNA or Hankyoreh?

    I couldn’t tell the difference…

  38. Posted August 7, 2008 at 8:11 am | Permalink

    Mizar…

    Serious question… were you adopted by white people as a baby? Serious question.

  39. Acropolis7 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 8:19 am | Permalink

    Although I made that up entirely, judging from the photo, I can not blame North Korea if they were to produce a similar editorial. That photo is screaming for some mad cow criticism. I can;t stop laughing when I see it.

  40. Posted August 7, 2008 at 8:57 am | Permalink

    Caption:

    “President Bush pointed to a part of the wall paper that was peeling and said it was Dokdo… President Lee could hardly contain his amusement and hid his laughter as best as he could…”

  41. gbevers your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 9:13 am | Permalink

    After seeing a bigger picture of the map in the Blue House, the island appears to be Ulleungdo, not Dokdo. Apparently, Koreans want to claim that the larger of the three neighboring islands shown to the south of Ulleungdo is Dokdo, but then they would be ignoring Ulleungdo’s largest neighboring island of Jukdo (竹島 - 죽도) and the distance to Dokdo.

  42. Mizar5 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 9:14 am | Permalink

    WangKon: “Mizar, Serious question… were you adopted by white people as a baby? Serious question.”

    I am the adopted white son of black sharecroppers. But I left home to work at a gas station.

    While working there I encountered some crazed gunman who took pot shots at me although he kept missing and hit oil cans in the station window and a nearby vending machine filled with soda cans. All I could say was, “there’s something wrong with these cans! He HATES these CANS!”

    Even so, I managed to fix the slippery glasses of a customer there by adding a handle and a nose brake and he agreed to share the profits of my invention, the “Opti-Grab” with me 50/50.

    The lunatic chased me to a traveling carnival where I hid in one of the trucks and ended up getting a job with SJM Fiesta Shows as a weight guesser. While employed there, I met a daredevil biker woman named Patti and then a lady named Marie who knocked her out cold, but Marie left me because of my financial instability.

    Anyways, when the Opti-Grab started selling big, I located her and we got married and hired a live-in butler and chambermaid despite the fact that we were still living in a small apartment. With my next check I bought an extravagant mansion but did not stay rich for long, though, as some guy started a class action lawsuit against me claiming the invention has made him cross-eyed (ten million other people had the same complaint.) I was forced to refund $1.09 to every Opti-Grab customer which bankrupted me.

    Depressed, I left in my robe and shorts with the only things I needed to survive: my TV remote, paddle ball game, matches, and a few other items. I then traded all of these for a thermos and began living on the street. My family, who carefully invested the small sums of money I had sent them picked me up off the street, and Marie and I moved back with them in a bigger house, which was the same old shanty built in a larger scale, complete with a ten foot tall front door, and we now live there happily ever after.

  43. Tripod your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 9:18 am | Permalink

    One of my friends likes to say, “What can’t Koreans be less like Americans and more like Europeans?”…and he’s American.

  44. Tripod your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 9:19 am | Permalink

    Correction…Why, not what.

  45. user-81 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 9:36 am | Permalink

    Mizar5 (#42) admits he’s a jerk. ;)

  46. Posted August 7, 2008 at 10:39 am | Permalink

    Mizar @42,

    that sounds like the rejected script for Big Fish.

    Love that movie.

  47. Posted August 7, 2008 at 10:44 am | Permalink

    The Korean — It’s the story for Steve Martin’s classic The Jerk. I think you might be a little young to have seen it in theaters, plus as an American comedy it might not have been released in Korea when you were a kid. Highly recommended, though.

    I had it real bad for Bernadette Peters. As did Steve Martin.

  48. NES your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 10:50 am | Permalink

    Mizar

    Ignoratio elenchi

    @31

    First of all, I doubt that. We’re talking about Korea, remember?

    argumentum ad hominem and
    (specifically) genetic fallacy

    Third, what’s the harm in making a fairly obvious general observation. Isn’t this pretty general knowledge?

    argumentum ad populum

    @35

    Who would accuse Americans of having their heads in the clouds, anyway. We’re talking about a highly specific Korean trait.

    argumentum ad hominem,
    argumentum ad populum, and
    genetic fallacy

    …and have so far escaped the gas chamber..um, pardon, the JK gas machine.

    argumentum ad hominem

    Koreans make much worse generalizations about Americans all the time…

    argumentum ad hominem (Tu quoque),
    argumentum ad populum, and
    genetic fallacy

    As far as I can see Gerry has said something about a current Korean trait that is perfectly obvious to onlookers, which some Koreans apparently may have missed, although smart ones haven’t.

    argumentum ad populum,
    argumentum ad hominem,
    argumentum ad consequentiam, and
    genetic fallacy

    Now, suppose Gerry had said instead that “Koreans are like frogs in a well.” Wouldn’t that be quite similar? But because it is a generally recognized self-criticism, you technically couldn’t fault him for telling the truth.

    argumentum ad populum,
    bare assertion fallacy,
    inappropriate generalization,
    appeal to tradition,
    thought-terminating cliché, and
    existential fallacy

    So what’s the difference here? So far as I can tell the difference lies in the fact that we are talking about a trait that Korean people are largely in denial of - a denial of the general state of denial.

    Bare assertion fallacy,
    petitio principii
    argumentum ad hominem, and
    genetic fallacy

    But Gerry is a foreigner, so he’s not allowed to recognize or voice the truth.

    Straw man argument

    Because honesty is just not the custom here.

    Bare assertion fallacy,
    argumentum ad hominem, and
    genetic fallacy

    *****

    gbevers’ posts:

    argumentum verbosium and
    argumentum ad nauseam

  49. Mizar5 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 12:47 pm | Permalink

    lol.

    A great send-off.

  50. NES your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 1:05 pm | Permalink

    @49 Mizar

    I’m glad you saw the humor in it, to which you deserve credit, although I wouldn’t have minded a more entertaining reaction out of you. I guess it would have taken too long to do the same for all of my posts, especially the Japanese ones! ;)

  51. Mizar5 your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 1:30 pm | Permalink

    Apologies for not returning the favor - just yet. I’ll take pointed ridicule over insipid ideological idiocy any day, and a gadfly over an apologist.

  52. JK your flag
    Posted August 7, 2008 at 10:56 pm | Permalink

    “Apologies for not returning the favor - just yet. I’ll take pointed ridicule over insipid ideological idiocy any day, and a gadfly over an apologist.”

    “Insipid ideological idiocy”? I simply recommended to Gbevers that he post his opinions on Dokdo in a manner that just discusses the facts and leave off his negative generalizations of the entire Korean peoples. After having one work contract in his home country (meaning Korea, since he’s been there for decades), I would think you would recommend this as well rather than encourage him to go through another ordeal of not having a work contract renewed because of continued negative generalizations. Somehow, you seem to be encouraging him to continue his ways….then when he either gets fired or doesn’t have his contract renewed again, you’re gonna somehow say he was justified to make his constant negative generalizations about all Koreans …under his own name. At least you, Mizar, are smart in that you hide behind an anonymous ID (or two).

  53. mizar5 your flag
    Posted August 8, 2008 at 1:46 am | Permalink

    Now, now, let’s not get defensive. You were not named in my post under any of your anonymous IDs.

  54. Sonagi your flag
    Posted August 8, 2008 at 2:48 am | Permalink

    I had it real bad for Bernadette Peters

    I hope you’re being facetious. The frizzy hair and squeaky voice ought to have a cold swimming pool effect on any man’s member.

  55. Posted August 8, 2008 at 3:26 am | Permalink

    Different strokes for different folks… I always thought she’d be freaky in bed and make strange chipmunk noises… ;)

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