Ding Ddong - Korean poop karaoke cartoon

Ever notice how whenever Seoul Seeking peeks back out of retirement it's always to talk about ddong?

Well, my friend Gillian pointed me towards this blog about cake disasters and a post featuring a cake with *surprise* a frosting coil of ddong and a bunch of plastic flies.

In the comments, blogger Tom Terranova pointed out this link on the phonetic connection between "luck" and "poop" in Japanese. According to The Poop Report, the Japanese word for poop "unko" (also "unchi") shares the same "oon" sound as the (unrelated) word for luck.

The reader Diane's question related to a golden poop key-chain she saw at Narita airport. She, like myself and anyone else I've talked to about about the ddong phenom, described the Asian poop motif like a swirl of soft-serve ice cream.

Poop Report blogger bilgepump had a great bit of investigative poop journalism regarding the signature ddong shape:

"At the risk of getting too graphic, I really must address shape because everyone I spoke to brought it up. Diane, you described the Kin no Unko as looking 'disturbingly like soft ice cream,' while Fujii, its creator, expressed it as a 'nice tatsumaki-shape (tornado-shape).'"

While the shit storm vs. choco cone debate rages on, let's look at some more instances of Japan and poop.

This site has some cell phone key-chains with a good intro to the "unchi-kun" school of poop:

In Japan there are many stories about unchi and money. If you had a dream of unchi last night, you should go straight to a lottery box and try your luck. Especially golden unchi has a strong power to call big money. Other unchi-kuns have their own power. Please select one depend on your wish. They are funny and cute mascot. Don't they look lovely?

What gets me about this is the honorific "unchi-kun" which is mostly used by senior men refering to their juniors (like young friend or little brother) but can also be used by women to address men they are emotionally attached to, or to a male pet.


The little unchi-kun at the top is the same as the pink and green "banggut banggut" ddong toys that Paul gave me.

Even Salon.com ran a story back in 1999 about the Japanese interest in poop. This provides us with some key terminology:

maki guso - curly or curlicue poop

And the expression for when someone steps in dog poop:

"un ga tsuku," or "luck has stuck to you."

But this Korean karaoke flash cartoon absolutely eclipses everything I've ever dug up on this blog before on the topic of ddong:

Ddong coffee, Dongchimee, Doggy Poo the movie, or even the ddongchim flash game.

What the hell are they doing!? Ddong flossing?

Watch in amazement and sing along to the "ddong, ddong, d-d-d-d-dong!"

I'm still no closer to a bona fide explanation about WHY exactly poop is so popular in Japan and Korea. Some people have speculated that it goes back to Korea's poor agricultural days when family feces was saved to use as fertilizer, and so it was something valuable that kids would have to learn to muck about in. Maybe this in combination with the influence of the Japanese lucky language puns and both countries' penchant for making anything and everything into a cute-eyed toy or bauble? They all churn together in the bowels of socio/scatological progress and at the end of the day there's an unchi-kun in every home and the gods of digestion are smiling the kind of smile that could even make poop look like a friend...

샘샘

New Blog

Check out my new short story blog:

Fiction Stranger than Truth Stranger than Fiction

http://tis-strange.blogspot.com/

Annyong!
샘-샘 (Sam-Sam)

Zen Kimchi'd

I'm still a blip on the K-Blog radar!

Consider the ttongchim posts a public service announcement for the next group of expat teachers. Or next wave or next constant stream or whatever. It's like the new foreign legion I'm saying!

215 posts is a nice even number for a little while though...

Ttongchim Evil?

So in reporting my experience of what I knew as the "dung-chip" phenomenon during my year of teaching, it seems I made an error in pronunciation. It seems the actual act "똥침" is said more like "ttongchim" (d/tong-shim) so mostly the same.

Get this: the rough translation of the special attack is "dung needle."

There is a similar act in Japan known as Kancho. There's a great explanation here.

Here's a bit from the Korean Wikipedia entry! (somewhat translated via Google):

"Iran together into one index finger of both hands ttongchim seunhu, anus of another person with the aim of stabbing one of the children's fun. Chojunggogyosaengdeung primarily, the underage students are often among his age group enjoy the kind of a joke.

Usually done as a joke, or is not ttongchim evil, just like any business, you can be that much violence is in excess."

It goes on to describe (I think) the medical dangers of overzealous ttongchiming.

Be wary.

Wary like this family wasn't...

[Don't be ttongchim evil.]

Dethroning Dongchimee

It's been more than six months since I left Korea, but a discovery too incredible not to share has drawn me out of retirement.

I stumbled across this game today and it blew my mind.

Move over Dongchimee. [EDIT: or maybe not...]

Assume the role of your average dung-chipping Korean hero— hands permanently clasped in the (not dissimilar) prayer and/or dung-chipping stance— whose goal is to dung-chip a disembodied, starry-thong-wearing flushed pink buttocks into oblivion. Naturally you have to dodge the perfectly formed dung piles that fall down towards you (complete with buh-je-jic sound effects).

Sold?


This totemic dung-chip zealot will periodically fall from the top of the screen to "level-up" your dung-chipping finger shot from yellow to blue to red.

If you hold down your mouse, your dung-chip will power up in high octane anime fashion and your character will launch up the screen to deliver a true between-the-cheeks dung-chip to your diarrhetic adversary.

Like so:

똥침!!!!

------------------>

Be careful because each dung hit to the face will stun your character temporarily and if your energy bar disappears...

YOU LOSE!

...BUT! If you managed to dodge the dumps and dung-chip your score bar to the max then...


And in your victory screen it is revealed your opponent was none other than some poor mohawked slob who you dung-chipped till he wept.

Feels good to win...

[annyong.]

"Welcome home," said Nova Scotia.

"Thank you," I replied.
"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world."

She blushed a little.

Seoul Sought -or- So long, and thanks for all the kimchi

I leave Korea tomorrow, homeward bound for Halifax via Toronto and a brief back-flip through time, and thankfully no layover in the United States (no offense; airport hassles, you guys know the drill).

I've said most of what I wanted to say about Korea through this past year in posts. I have been trying to think of something conclusive to say about what I'll take with me from my time here— nursing bekseju, pondering Han, laughing with the most wonderfully spirited children I've ever gotten to know.

If anything, I've taken equal parts pride and humility from this year. Pride at where I come from, the values I now choose to see as Canadian, and the things that I realize make up my idea of home. But also the humility that comes from being a long-term guest in a country where life can be baffling, and you tend to feel like a creature of spectacle.

I am incredibly grateful for all the kindness and generosity people have shown me here, from my endlessly obliging hagwon boss, to the kind Paris Baguette proprietor Mr. Kim and his countless free pastries, to the friendly restaurant ajummas who would smile and flip an extra fried egg onto my bowl of bibimbap.

Today was my last day at the school, and I faced a barrage of little people hugging my legs and saying:

"Bye-bye Sam Teacher!"

"Thank you!"

"I love you!"

"Bye-eeeeeee! Goodbye!"

It was pretty sweet. I'm going to miss these little ones. Part of me wants to smuggle a few off in my suitcase and take them off somewhere green, and as far from a classroom as possible.

Thanks to all who read and were entertained by Seoul Seeking. Though this is my last post from Korea, feel free to check back every now and then and I'll post links to any new writing or blogging that's worth a spit.

***

And so it went that 25-year-old Sam-Sam shed both a Sam and a sticky-tacked-on extra Korean year as he climbed onto an airplane and began a long haul backwards in time, grateful for the memories and the new perspective on this mostly green and blue cosmic lump we all inhabit our own little nooks of.

Sometimes it helps to not be so exclusive with our choice of nooks.

Annyonghi kyeseyo, Korea.

(Goodbye.

Polite.

When leaving.)