One of the more difficult parts of the day at my newspaper is working on the editorial cartoons. For one thing, Korean editorial cartoons tend to be somewhat more oblique than the cartoons in the West. They also can contain a lot of information that is difficult to convey quickly to a non-Korea expert. And language issues — puns, nuance, etc. — make getting a usable translation very difficult. And, to make things just that much harder, the cartoon tends to come to us late in the evening, when deadlines are rushing up loudly and madly like the edge of a waterfall.
Which leads me to the point of this post, today’s editorial cartoon in the Korea JoongAng Daily:
In the original cartoon, President Park says “대박” (Daebak), or “Jackpot!,” as it has been most commonly translated (including in our lead story).
In response, the DP Chairman Kim Han-gill says “소박 맞았다” (Sobak majassda). Sobak being the opposite of Daebak. The idea being, the president is bragging she’s a winner, while Kim complains he’s a loser (because President Park did not mention anything about appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the National Intelligence Service).
But how to express that in a cartoon? “I’m a winner” and “I’m a loser” is way too literal and dull. “Jackpot” is a fun word, but what would Kim say in response? I was toying with “I got jacked”, but that just wasn’t funny and too open to misinterpretation. In the end, we ran out of time and went with “I did it” and “You did me in,” in a vague attempt at parallelism.
Sadly, about two hours later, as I was relaxing at home, I finally thought of the right response for Mr. Kim.
President Park: “Jackpot!”
Kim: “Busted…”
Ah well. Better luck next time. Because in the bottomless well that is journalism, there is always a next time.
