korean poster art

Anyone here speak Korean? I managed to pick up some nice social-realist paintings while in the DPRK, and I’d like the text translated. I imagine the top one says something along the lines of “Our brave, ever-victorious bunnies will resist the US imperialist aggressors and their puppet army”.

22 Comments

  1. Your translation is exactly right!

  2. Absolutely right on the top one. The middle one is “Gay Mechanics Unite For A Better World” and the bottom one is “Wow! I’ve discovered how to make vodka from giant Rice Crispies”.

    ~Milady
    xxx
    PS: Glad to have you back. Cook something cool. Now.

  3. I’m afraid the top one says “Gladly our bunnies cry ‘take us to the laboratories, we are glad to give our lives to SCIENCE!'”

    Still, they wouldn’t fare any better with Pep.

  4. I can translate (very) roughly into romanized letters for you. Rabbits:

    Doh mangun ttoggi-rul keerucha!

    ttoggi means rabbit. Literally ‘tto’ is rabbit, ‘ki’ or ‘gi’ is meat…. my Korean was never that great and I can’t remember (never knew) what the other words are, but I can at least confirm that rabbits are mentioned. Oh and before the pedants arrive, my romanizing of Korean is not standard.

    Interestingly Tho in Vietnamese – kinda the same word(ish) as the Korean ‘tto’ but you add a tone of some sort – also means rabbit. I deduce from this that the Chinese, and maybe Japanese, word for rabbit would sound similar.

  5. Oh and there’s nothing about the yanks in any of them. Mi-guk means america, mi-guk-saram means American.

    Continuing the linguistic lesson a little further. Some scholars believe the term ‘gook’ – widely used as a disparaging term for Vietnamese soldiers during the American war – comes from the American soldiers experience in the Korean war.

    The soldiers arrived on the beaches of Korea and all the Korean kiddies came running to meet them shouting ‘Me-guk, me-gook’ etc. The yank soldiers thought they were speaking wank-English and that they were all called ‘gook’. Funny, but thick funny. They didn’t even know the Korean word for their own country…. Yikes.

  6. you’re right about the similarity of the word rabbit.

    also in chinese(mandarin) – america= mei guo

  7. I had one of the native speakers in the office here translate for me…

    (1) easy to translate: “Let’s raise more rabbits”

    (2) this one is a bit fuzzy, it translates essentially to: “Like ‘Lanam’ laborers, let’s have everything strength and technology by ourselves.”
    … the ‘Lanam’ part is confusing, we guessed it is a hangulized name of a place?

    (3) literally: “Potato Agriculture Innovation, go on strongly, Let’s do it”

  8. Thanks, bemocked. I’ve no idea what Lanam might be either, but as you say, it probably refers to a location.

  9. In case you don’t see comments from RSS I will post here too… I got these actually translated for you….

    1. “Let’s raise more rabbits.”

    2. “We have the power and technology to identify with the highest ranks!”
    (background says “Independent Technological Power”)

    3. “Lets all go out there and raise potatoes with the strength of agricultural science!”

    My favourite is #3. Sounds like a plan. Cheers. :)

  10. Woo. Thanks again, rich pizor’s GF.

  11. A couple of observations.

    To (1) – Why?! Is this some dastardly plot to shove mini nukes up their downy butts and point them in the general direction of the US of A? Or is it simply just an attempt to diversify the DRNK’s mutt-related diet?

    To (2) Directly under the wrench: those grey things *have* to be sex toys

    To (3) “Raising” potatoes conjures up an interesting mental picture. Spud Creches, anyone? Tatergartens?

    Whatever – nice to have you back in the UK, Fras’

  12. I reckon the reason for number 1 has its roots in recent history, say around 1996. Those rabbits are for the pot, or I’m a monkey’s glorious leader. That’ll probably account for number 3 as well. As for number 2, I suppose it just wouldn’t be a proper totalitarian state without rousing propaganda plastered all over the place.

  13. #1 could be a propaganda for heifers. I just so a documentary of heifers in China. who knows. Rabbit stew sounds good too.

  14. last One means ATACK Of the giant patatoes~

  15. Picture #1 caption, says “Eat wabbit, get me for free”!

  16. I used to have a Soviet Union propaganda poster on my wall (bought in Kiev in 1982), which translated as “Let us give our country bigger potatoes!” Your #3 brings this vividly back to mind.

  17. I love the exclamation marks on these posters!!!!!!

  18. Lubbish, the posters say the forrowing

    1) Ret us murtipry rike labbits and subtlact rike the brack Yankee dogs !!!

    2) The backglound: Ervis is in the buirding !!!

    The foreglound: The Gleat Reader is Ervis Plesry and The Dear Reader is Michaer Jackson !!!!

    3) The backglound: Juche cleated the potatoe bud !!!
    The foreglound: The Gleat Juche potatoe buds makes the leal Budweiser !!

  19. Better late than never. Number one: Go and multiply like rabbits! We need the manpower!

    Or am I just thick…

  20. Edit: *being thick… Sorry ghehehe

  21. Very, very nice work! Thak you.

  22. Thank you!

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