Old political jokes

By Nam Sang-so

A dozen military generals were attending the People's Defense Commission in Pyongyang. “Your Excellency Comrade," said a general who is known as an honest man, still wearing a large army service cap. “We all know that Americans will win if we went to war with the devils. It's my humble opinion that it's time to change our strategy to a peaceful relationship with the United States."

“You coward general," said another general, “We should go to war by shooting one of our Daepodong missiles at Pearl Harbor. Look at Japan, which is rich now. The silly Americans would help develop our country like they did for Japan." “The general has a good point. It'd be the easiest way to extricate ourselves from the current difficulties," said another. Finally, the leader Kim opened his mouth; “I'd like to go to war, but I'm afraid of what will happen if we won."

Karl Marx was awakened by the noises coming from North Korea. He went to Pyongyang and asked the leader Kim, “What's wrong with you, haven't you overthrown the rich farmers yet?” “They all have joined the Communist Party," said Kim. “Did you send the all capitalist bourgeoisie into the hell?" “Oh, they all joined the Central Committee of the Communist Party."

Japan and North Korea have one thing in common; change of regime occurred from grandfather and granduncle to grandson in Japan and grandfather to son and onto grandson in the North, but no one complains about it. By the way, the hand down of political powers in other countries include: Cuba (brother to brother); the U.S. (father to son, and soon husband to wife); Thailand (brother to sister); and South Korea (father to daughter).

The Prime Minister of Japan said he won't visit Yasukuni Shrine this year in an effort to calm the protests from China and Korea. The next day, the PM's office received two confidential messages, one from Beijing and the other from Seoul: “Still, we wish you would."

A Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese and Korean had dinner. Drinking coffee after the dishes had been taken away, the Japanese figured what the bill would be. The Taiwanese calculated how much it would be if everyone went Dutch. The Chinese thought about how to thank everyone. The Korean was busy figuring how to let the Japanese pay the bill.

The White House announced a new plan for a moon probe. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe quickly called President Barack Obama and asked, “When would you like to dispatch our Self Defense Force to the moon?"

The reporters asked President George W. Bush at a press conference; “Do you have any evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq?" “Of course, there are receipts filed at our enterprises," said the president. The Secretary of State Colin Powell reported to the president, “I've good news and bad news. The good news is that we conquered Iraq." “What's the bad news?" “The country became ours." “I've more good and bad news," Powell continued. “The good news is that we discovered more WMDs and the bad news is that we found them not in Iraq but in North Korea."

President Bush sat at a bar in Washington. A man at his right ordered, “Jack Daniel, single." The man at the left said, “Johnny Walker, single." “And you, sir?" asked the bartender. “George Walker Bush, married." President Bush insisted on at every opportunity that in order to successfully achieve peace in the Middle East, Israelis and Palestinians should think and act like Christians.

The writer is a Japanese-English-Korean translator whose email address is sangsonam@gmail.com.