I know I’m open-minded to a fault and will laugh at most anything, no matter how tasteless. I find Joe Wong funny. But this little parody spoof thingie from The Spoof named McMuttleys to Open New Franchise in LA Korea-town is highly cringeworthy. Just read this line, and this is pretty much the rest of the article.
While this might offend the sensibilities of narrow minded dog owners who love and care for their pets as if they were children, the average Korean looks at a dog as a walking sandwich. (emphasis added)
Seriously? You went there?
Hey, 1988 called. It wants its Korean jokes back.
I don’t know what bothers me more–a web site in 2010 making the Asian equivalent of a pickaninny with a watermelon joke, or the lame predictability of it. Or it’s a statement of how far with have to go with ignorance in my birth country.
Dog meat exists in Korea, but it’s fairly uncommon. And there’s a growing movement to do away with the practice. But historically and in modern times, China and southeast Asia eat much more dog than Korea, who unfortunately got slapped with the Koreans eat dog label around the time of the 1988 Olympics because it filled a great void in the western consciousness about what Koreans ate anyway.
We’ve been hoping that blogs like this would fill in that gap in people’s knowledge about what Korean cuisine is and isn’t. The Spoof didn’t get the memo.
[HT to reader]
That’s offensive. Everyone knows dogs are to be either steamed or turned into soup. Sandwiches? Hell no.
But in all seriousness, a crass and lazy joke. I have heard dog meat jokes that were way, way funnier.
Yeah, I think that’s what bugged me. People should work harder on their ethnic slurs.
The hypocrisy that coats this issue like rancid BBQ sauce is becoming an international embarrassment. At some future point, the whalers, the farmers killing Coho salmon, the seal clubbers, and all the other culinary criminals will have their own comic book, and will fight the veal connoisseurs, the truffle swine, and chocolate-covered bug eaters. it’s all a red sauce herring for the issue of how billions can sustainably eat protein, and not look like pigs. Sure, single out the canine killers! We’re all culprits!
If I held up a picture of a dog in class and asked kids to generate adjectives, one kid would invariably describe the dog as “delicious”.
It is a very Jay Leno joke, however.
Hey… I appreciate a good Korean eating dog joke every now and then too… but the Spoof article was very much unfunny on so many levels. The Spoof use to be so good too.
And w/Jay Leno. That’s an odd joke for him to make. He does live in Los Angeles country right? There are way too many Korean eating establishments in LA for him to be that ignorant…
And what Joseph said. For sure.
In my opinion, 보신탕 or 보양탕 restaurants are very common. But what do you mean by ‘common’ and what do I mean?
I live in Daegu and there are three of them within a 5 minute walk from my apartment. Not until learning the name of this kind of restaurant and then begin seeing the signs did I realize how common they are, even in Seoul where the cosmopolitan live.
But common and popular enough to say that Koreans think of every dog as a potential meal?
I see what you’re saying. While I think dog meat is common, I don’t believe Koreans look at their friend’s shitzu and start thinking about lunch.
Yeah, that’s more my point. Every now and then you’ll see a picture of ME eating some steamed dog meat. But other cultures eat dog more than Koreans. To still say that Koreans are just a bunch of dog eaters reeks of tired lazy racism in my mind.
Great. Now I’m in the mood for some steamed 개고기.
Dog-eating jokes aren’t off-limits, and I don’t want anyone to pretend that Koreans don’t eat dogs. The joke isn’t offensive because it makes fun of Koreans (and in the US these days you can’t make fun of anyone without three different groups coming after you, our “land of the free”). The joke is just lazy and lame, like 98% of the “comedy” nowadays anyway.
That’s one ugly website, though.
I had steamed dog meat back in the dark ol’ days before it was legally classified as livestock. Had food poisoning for 3 days. A truly horrible experience. Would never have it again.