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| Catch the Comedy in Korea's English Craze |
| One TV show poking fun at Korean society is popular for its cathartic view of a national obsession |
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Kim Yu Min (internews)  |
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Published 2005-02-25 15:09 (KST) |
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South Korea is known more as a country of tears than of laughter. Every season, there has been at least one very popular soap opera, a tale of tragedy compelling people to go home by 10 p.m. to cry their eyes out.
But one comedy TV program is prompting even children to stay awake until 11 p.m. every Thursday. It is called "Ut-Chat-Sa," an acronym of the much longer Korean phrase, meaning "People Who Seek Laughter."
The ultimate goal, however, is not simply laughter. Ut-Chat-Sa features characters and stories from every corner of society. Both the performers and the audience play the game of "seeking" things "hidden" in the layers of our mind as well as within the social structure.
The show has a love story showing South Korea's habit of giving top priority to good looks. Another love story presents a Latino-style lothario, spreading his charms to women who are both attracted and repelled by him. Stories of macho Korean men are a must for a male audience -- just as romantic tales appeal to women -- young men doing their two years of mandatory military service, street toughs and a boxer and his coach in a gym.
 | |  Comedian Jung Chan Woo, left, plays an unconventional English teacher named "Michinso," or "Mad Cow," on the late-night Korean TV show "People Who Seek Laughter." | | | ©2005 SBS | | People laugh most heartily when they seek the biggest issue hidden in the deepest layer. This explains why "It Depends," a 10-minute English class, is the most popular story line. Everything we expect from a typical English class is met with a hilarious twist.
The teacher takes center stage like Mary Poppins but with several differences: Instead of Mary's typical teacher garb, he wears pajamas along with skates on his feet and a big fake sunflower on his head. He is unlike any teacher Koreans have ever seen. His name is Michinso, "Mad Cow."
He opens with his first sentence in Korean, "I hope that you do not take my interpretations of these English sentences as too shocking!" He shakes his head and right arm back and forth, glaring at the audience. As his sunflower dances and garish pajamas ripple, the audience laughs louder. He has five sentences for the audience, starting with "I wanna go to the zoo" and "OK! Let's go." The audience mimics the sentences, pronouncing each word carefully.
Michinso picks up similar Korean words matching pronunciations and adds outrageous meanings, making up bizarre stories. In this sketch, the teacher lifts from our shoulders the heavy burden of memorizing meanings of each word. We can just relax and watch how these English sounds are forged into Korean.
Take the simple phrase, "I wanna go." There is a Korean name that sounds similar to "I wan." "Go" sounds like a boorish way of saying "this" in Korean. Pronunciations of "to the zoo" sound like "open the bag" in Korean; thus the string of all these sounds reads in English, "Iwan! This. Open the bag."
When attaching Korean meanings to English sounds, the teacher's pronunciation is fully coated with a Korean accent that most Koreans would try to hide when speaking. He ardently explains each sentence. In the first sentence, a grandma asks a boy to open a bag of snacks and then says, "OK! Let's go." "OK" sounds like a female name in Korean, mispronounced, and "Let's go" sounds like "Take a photo of me" if you pronounced with a thick Korean accent. So the old woman wants to have a photo to remember the happy moment of having a snack!
The emcee tries to argue, exclaiming, "Nonsense!" However, the more people laugh, the firmer the teacher's stand becomes. The further the meaning of the sentence gets from a reasonable interpretation, the prouder the teacher becomes. "It depends," he says, echoing the sketch's title. "It is different every time."
The show provides a catharsis for Koreans who have had years of stress studying English for survival.
In Korea, English is one of the best weapons for advancement, socially and professionally. If we compare native speakers of English to sophisticated urbanites, Koreans are provincials with thick accents in rural mountain areas. Thus, many Koreans feel an urgent need to learn English, through which they gain an upper hand in getting jobs and being promoted.
Parents have been sending their kids to American schools, sacrificing a lot of money and enduring the break-up of family bonds. It was once a craze for some children to have to undergo operations on their palates, an ordeal that was believed to make it easier for them to speak English.
However, after watching this TV show, Koreans may realize that they do not have to be so stressed out over a foreign language. They are still trying to pronounce sentences properly, but this "Mad Cow" tosses them around, making the Korean language the leader and the foreign language a follower.
The audience comes away feeling at home with their own language, at least while the teacher's mispronunciation echoes in their mind. If Koreans can laugh more by alleviating the stress they receive from English, what about Korean accents? What about a small vocabulary? We can laugh heartily as long as we have our own language.
People will love this show as long as it pokes fun at the national obsessions with learning English, their loss of pride in their own Korean language, and elicits the laughter in this paradox.
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| Kim Yu Min is a graduate student of psychology at Yonsei University in Seoul. She has worked as a freelancer for The New York Times and The New Yorker, among other international publications. |
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©2005 OhmyNews
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