By Kim Heung-sook
Freelance Writer
Who has the longest tongue in the world? It’s Stephen Taylor whose tongue is 9.5 centimeters long. Among women, Annika Irmler holds the record tongue of 7 centimeters, my favorite source ``Wikipedia’’ says, quoting the ``Guinness Book of World Records.’’
Curiosity about tongues intensified as I read about the verbal exchanges among politicians, particularly President Roh Moo-hyun’s reaction to the National Election Commission’s decision on his comments on presidential candidates. I don’t know the length of their tongues, but I know one thing: when their tongues are busy, the nation becomes noisy.
No sophisticated metaphor or refined humor comes from their tongues, but an incessant flow of rabid expressions you can hear among market vendors who sell nothing from dawn to dusk. If there’s one profession that requires no good education, I would say it is politics in Korea. Once you enter the mud ground, you become one regardless of your education or upbringing. You just wag your tongue wildly.
I’m happy that I’m sober enough to stay away from the ephemeral contest and instead ponder on an enduring topic such as the tongue, one of the most important organs whose functions discern humans from other creatures.
We humans talk, swear, provoke, whistle and blow bubble gum with this bundle of muscles called the tongue. Butterflies drink nectar with their tongues, frogs catch prey with them. Dogs clean their fur with their tongues and control their body heat by sticking them out.
The best thing a human tongue can do, I think, is French kiss which fosters peace better than any election pledge or memorandum of understanding. Sexual contentment makes people happy and happy men detest wars. Happy men don’t add to noise of the world, though they sometimes whoop with exultation.
The late poet Ki Hyung-do confessed in his ``The Black Leaf in My Mouth” that he was ``dreadful of the black leaf.’’ He must have understood why the tongue is kept prisoner in the dark cavity of the mouth for good.
I’ve read somewhere that the tongue is responsible for 90 percent of the wrongs a person commits and that people die as a result of their tongues, while bears die for their galls. No wonder tongues are subject to various cancers and ailments.
My advice to tongue wagging politicians is simple: do whatever you want with your tongues. Pierce them or elongate them or whatever, but don’t wag them too much. Some of you eat the tongues of cows and some other animals as delicacies; some day a certain being or beings which are superior to your kind may find the noise from your tongues unbearable and begin to consume yours.
So, talk less and practice the way of using your tongue in cleaning or cooling yourself down as your dog does. Or learn to kiss the French way and kiss as often as possible if only your partner allows. You will soon realize that kissing brings the heart closer as quickly as remarks push them apart.
Confidential to my readers who noticed the absence of my column on June 8: Sorry, I made some argument in my writing and The KT didn’t want to print it. I’m not sulky at all. I feel lucky that it was the first time my article couldn’t be published since I began this column more than three years ago.
To those who need updates about my ``Ginko in the Pot,’’ printed in this column on Dec. 22, 2006: She is doing extremely well. She seems to have adopted the Korean spirit of ``ppalli ppalli.’’ She now stands 49 centimeters tall, compared to 23 centimeters last year-end.
To Dr. Song Min-su and other readers who expressed concern about the wellbeing of ``I’’ in my ``Letter to Stephen Hawking,’’ printed March 16, who lost her right arm in a traffic accident: Thank you for your concern. Though I wrote the piece in the first-person narrative, the ``I’’ is not me. It’s Ms. Chang Yunni who was kind enough to send me a thank you e-mail after reading the article from her hospital bed where she is bravely learning to cope with her condition.
Though the world is noisy with politicians, there are people and other creatures that are striving in silence to improve themselves. My dear readers, let’s join them!