A Korean gentleman and his son (son-in-law?) in the 1910s / Courtesy of Robert Neff Collection
“Bwahahahaha” is a weekly column that explores the roots of Korean humor through the joke book “Kkalkkal Useum,” originally published in 1916.
Some of the jokes I'm translating from “Kkalkkal Useum” were presumably funny to their original audience in 1916, but come off as odd or even off-putting to a contemporary reader in translation. The one I'm translating today, though, made me laugh out loud (OK, more like a snort). It was also one of the easiest to translate. I'm interested in considering why this joke in particular translates easily into English.
Like a lot of the jokes in “Kkalkkal Useum” the humor is based on a hierarchical relationship (between father-in-law and son-in-law). A lower-status figure unintentionally insulting the higher-status figure is a trope throughout the book. And as with many of the other jokes, the humor is verbal, depending on statements with multiple possible meanings. However, in this case the ambiguity lies not in wordplay or puns (which present obvious challenges in translation), but in pragmatics. That is, the confusion is over whether or not what the father-in-law says is covered by his order to “repeat after me.” Anyone who's played “Simon Says” with a child has covered the same linguistic turf.
The fact that this difference in intent doesn't change the phrasing of the statements makes the text less of a challenge for a translator. I also have a sense that insulting someone to their face, but under the cover of an excuse that purportedly makes it all right, is a familiar situation in English-language comedy of the wise guy, Steve Martin vein. This allows an English-language reader to see it and think — not necessarily correctly! — that they understand what's going on.
I'm not sure why these two men picked numerology of all things to talk about. But there aren't all that many things one can talk about with one's father-in-law, now are there?
“You're a Complete Idiot”
A father-in-law was teaching his son-in-law about numerology, but as hard as he tried, the younger man couldn't remember any of it. The father-in-law got angry and said, “Just repeat everything I say.”
He started with the beginning of the sexagenary cycle: “Gap-ja, eul-chuk. Now, repeat!”
The son-in-law said, “Gap-ja, eul-chuk. Now, repeat!”
The father-in-law said, “No, I was telling you to repeat it.”
The son-in-law said, “No, I was telling you to repeat it.”
The father-in-law smirked and said, “You're a complete idiot.”
The son-in-law said, “You're a complete idiot.”
G.S. Hand is a graduate of the Translation Academy at LTI Korea and winner of the Fiction Grand Prize of the 53rd Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards, and has a master's degree in Modern Korean Literature from Korea University. He lives in Seoul.