Sports Chosun has posted a couple of photos of a very young Son Dambi with really red lips under the title “손담비 어렸을때도 섹시미인?”, or “Son Dambi a Sexy Beauty As a Girl, too?” Once an English word enters the Korean language, Koreans are free to assimilate it as they see fit, but using 섹시 to describe a prepubescent kid is icky. The Naver search engine has blocked the word 섹시 as off-limits to minors.
Son Dambi Was a Sexy Kid
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This definitely crosses the line of acceptability.
I know that they like ‘em young in Asia, but to call a little kid “sexy” is just sick! This is definitely in the realm of pedophilia.
When a kid can’t play with a toy properly and behaves dangerously, then that toy needs to be taken away from them.
There are several English words that Koreans have shown the inability to properly use and I believe “sexy” to rival “f*ck” at the top of the list.
They need to be taken away!
This is probably what you call a 낚시성 기사 (fishing article?). Its sole purpose is to get people to automatically click on it, which putting ‘Son Dambi’ and ‘sexy’ in the title is sure to do. (Usually it’s unsubstantiated celeb gossip that’s used like this.) Nevertheless this is going too far. This reporter deserves a bullet in his head
Jewook
My theory is that they intersperse the 낚시기사 to provide comic relief to readers fed up with having to be faced with the usual crappiness of some of the korean dailies. Not sure if true, but as an example I think you’ll find more of those articles in chosunilbo as opposed to dongailbo, and for a good reason.
Or maybe they’re just looking for more clicks, as you say.
“Once an English word enters the Korean language, Koreans are free to assimilate it as they see fit”…
Just as any loan-word in any other language.
“…but using 섹시 to describe a prepubescent kid is icky.”
No doubt.
“The Naver search engine has blocked the word 섹시 as off-limits to minors. ”
What a joke. The internet doesn’t begin and end with a Naver search.
Hey lemme ask you a question Someguy. Can children in Korea access western porn sites without having to go through a ID filter like they usually have to for Korean porn sites? So for example, would they be able to access youporn.com without some sort of filter getting in their way?
#5,
I don’t know. You tell me. You seem to be the porn expert.
Oh, well, that was a serious question, cuz I thought you lived in Korea.
You can access porn sites outside of Korea just as you would from the U.S. They don’t have a national firewall in Korea like they do in fascist Australia.
Wow. That’s not good.
#7,
Sounded like a trap.
#8,
Yes, but, unfortunately, the Korean internet is heavily censored and access to it is mostly limited to adults who are South Korean citizens (through a process of registration that also encourages self-censorship).
This is incorrect. The Korea Internet Security Agency (KISA) does block certain foreign websites with “harmful” content, including some porn sites, of course, but also those with content that Hurts Their Pride™. Remember the Kim Son-il beheading video blocking, and the occasional redlining of typepad.com and blogs.com domains based on some objectionable blog posts.
However, KISA apparently has not enough staff competent with the English language and other foreign languages to be able to effectively trawl for and block harmful foreign sites. So it’s really hit or miss — mostly “miss” — when compared with the Australian content-blocking effort.
KISA (or whoever) also has blocked certain sites that were China-specific and deemed pejorative to China as well. There has been a lot more politically-motivated filtering than one would think that people do not know about unless they discover these things for themselves. IMHO, KISA is as useful as using a square-dance caller with Tourette’s syndrome — only they are not as amusing.
#11,
Would I be naive to hope that the lack of funding indicates that politicians are begrudgingly pandering to a certain xenophobic/conservative slice of the electorate by blocking these sites?
“KISA apparently has not enough staff competent with the English language and other foreign languages to be able to effectively trawl for and block harmful foreign sites.”
Really think that they operate the same way as the police do, i.e. let it be unless there is an actual complaint.
After all how competent do you have to be to search on google for the word “porn” and then check out all the hits.
Just tried JW’s example for instance “Youporn” comes up no problem at all, is clearly porn and is not blocked by kisa, unlike some pretty harmless ones that are blocked.
11)
I also remember how unsuccessful they were at trying to block it. Everyone who wanted to see it could.
4)
Quite true, but to most Koreans it is. Case in point, friend will ask me why I bother with an MP3 player when we can’t download songs anymore. I have to laugh. The last Korean P2P client I know of was “Pruna”, the developers ironically took a GPL emule client, changed the name, translated the buttons, slapped a cosmetic logon which required people to enter in usernames registered with their national IDs. (I say ironic because they didn’t release the source code with their product, despite it being a condition of the GPL license through which they obtained the source code. Thus they violated IP laws.)
The Korean government had them block the name of copyrighted material from the search field, and thus Koreans stopped using it. Nothing happened to the network, nothing happened to the content stored on it, If only they had just downloaded the normal emule client everything would have worked fine.
Of course South Korea will be party to the IP Treaty being negotiated with Obama, and it they agree to work to ban P2P networks altogether as is suspected, this will all be moot.
It does in my class, at least. I only need Naver to catch plagiarizers. No need AT ALL for checking Google, Yahoo, or other big search engines. The students simply don’t use them. (Makes it easy for me to catch them)
#15,
I know, I know. That only makes it funnier.
PS. P2P is only one of many methods used to trade files.
#16,
Just because they think it begins and ends with Naver doesn’t make it so, does it?
18 Somguy, my sonbae said its true so it must be!!
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