Monster Island (actually a peninsula)*

Pearls of witticism from 'Bo the Blogger: Kushibo's Korea blog... Kushibo-e Kibun... Now with Less kimchi, more nunchi. Random thoughts and commentary (and indiscernibly opaque humor) about selected social, political, economic, and health-related issues of the day affecting "foreans," Koreans, Korea and East Asia, along with the US, especially Hawaii, Orange County and the rest of California, plus anything else that is deemed worthy of discussion. Forza Corea!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Sign of the times

I'm in a bubble tea shop in OC that is straight out of Seoul, though interestingly they had not heard boba-infused tea referred to as "bubble tea."

I thought that was a Seoul term, but I may have picked it up in Honolulu or Vancouver.

Anyhoo, I thought the bilingual sign was interesting, but what they really needed was a "Please, no alcohol-soaked, loud-talking, soccer-loving ajoshis still high as a kite after watching the World Cup" sign.

Just sayin'.

2 comments:

UnknownTuesday, July 13, 2010 10:46:00 AM
I've heard it called that ("Bubble Tea") here in Australia too. I first remember hearing the term around ten years ago, but my Seoulian wife whom I met just a few years ago wasn't familiar with the term before hearing it from me.

I suspect the term is a Taiwanese-English perversion in origin, and so may not have propagated to Korea.
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kushiboWednesday, July 14, 2010 2:20:00 PM
I think you may be right, and Wikipedia seems to support your theory.

But I'm almost certain that when the bubble tea fad erupted — about a third of the way through this just ended decade, when over the course of a few months these shops suddenly appeared on every street corner in places like Shinchon — I read "bubble tea" in English-language signs throughout Seoul and heard that used in Korean.
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九十五大怪獣란? 쿠시보의 몬스터 아일랜드란?

Pearls of witticism from 'Bo the Blogger: Kushibo's Korea blog... Kushibo-e Kibun...
Now with Less kimchi, more nunchi. Random thoughts and commentary (and indiscernibly opaque humor) about selected social, political, economic, and health-related issues of the day affecting "foreans" ("foreigners" in Korea be they kyopo or non-kyopo), Koreans, Korea and East Asia, along with the US, especially Hawaii, Orange County, and the rest of California, plus anything else that is deemed worthy of discussion. Forza Corea!

* Monster Island (actually a peninsula)

The name of this blog comes from a line in "Lisa on Ice," a beloved episode of The Simpsons, perhaps my all-time favorite television show (even though for several seasons there, it really did suck). Lisa is imagining being sworn in as president, but at the last minute, it is discovered that she failed P.E. (physical education) and she is thus "sentenced to a lifetime of horror" on Monster Island. "Don't worry," the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court confides in her, "It's just a name."

Fast forward to Lisa and other prisoners running in panic through a tropical jungle, chased by Godzilla-like creatures, including a monster turtle and a monster firefly.

"He said it was just a name!" Lisa screams to the man next to her. While he, too, runs for his life, the unidentified man calmly says, "What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a peninsula."

Anyway, I thought in some ways that punchline summed up modern-day Korea in a nutshell. For many people—foreigners and Koreans—the ups and downs and everyday travails of the Republic of Korea make it as precarious as a Monster Island would be (and with the DMZ being the only land border, it really is like an island). But it actually is a peninsula. Okay, it made sense in my head.

So as you can see, despite the hits I get from people looking for Japanese tentacle porn, it has nothing to do with anything salacious as that.