LAUGHING THROUGH HISTORY 31 'I'm the One Who Farted'
Courtesy of Robert Neff Collection
Editor’s note
“Laughing through History” is a column that explores the roots of Korean humor through the joke book “Kkalkkal Useum,” originally published in 1916.
A common subject in older Korean humor is women who fart. The humorous folk tale called “The Farting Daughter-in-Law” has been translated and retold many times: the gist is that a young girl who farts a lot gets married, then tries to hold her farts in order not to offend her in-laws, which makes her sick, and when she finally lets loose, the blast of flatus blows their whole house down. Luckily, there’s a happy ending.
This folk tale isn’t an isolated incident; farting women are a stock character in older Korean humor texts. I’ve never seen farting men used as objects of humor in the same way. It is possible that this is because men farting was considered normal, or because for men, farting wasn’t a humorous violation of social norms.
The joke I’m translating today features a woman in an important, formal social situation who accidentally lets a fart slip out. She tries to save face by blaming it on her son. I think the humor of the situation comes from seeing these two figures try so hard to follow social norms and maintain their dignity, and seeing them both fail.
The relationship between jokes and social norms goes in two directions. On the one hand, figures in jokes often violate social norms, which shows that they don’t have to be followed. At the same time, jokes reinforce awareness of social norms by drawing attention to situations in which they are violated and holding the norm-breakers up for ridicule. In seeing the child’s too-little-too-late attempt to make up for the faux pas, it’s easy for the reader to enjoy the sense that they could have handled the situation better.
'I’m the One Who Farted'
The parents of a couple which was to be married were meeting, when suddenly, the mother of the bride-to-be farted: “Poot!”
She felt embarrassed, so she jabbed her young son sitting next to her and said, “You brat! Why are you farting in front of your elders?”
The child replied, “You’re the one who farted, Mom. Why are you yelling at me?”
The mother of the bride felt even more embarrassed, so she took him outside and scolded him, “You brat! Don’t you have any sense? Even if I was the one who farted, you should have kept your mouth shut and let it seem like you did it.”
The child went back into the room and announced, “About that fart earlier … Actually, it was me.”
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 will give a lecture for Royal Asiatic Society Korea on early 20th-century Korean humor on Sept. 8. Visit raskb.com for more information.