Comedienne makes a big boo-boo with Japanese ‘alphabet song’
Published: 23 Nov. 2011, 21:05
The song in the spotlight is “Dokdo is Our Land,” which is famous for its political message claiming Dokdo as Korean territory.
Cho used the melody of the song and added lyrics similar to the “alphabet song” for her book, “Cho Hye-ryun’s First Step in Japanese.” Cho is popular in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese.
Ilgan Sports reported that the comedienne was oblivious to the fact that the song would cause such controversy, despite the fact that Dokdo is claimed by both Korea and Japan.
Cho’s agency claimed that the song choice was initiated by the publisher and was used because it had a catchy melody that made it easy to introduce Japanese, but apologized, saying “we should have examined the issue closely and not gone ahead with the proposal. We acknowledge our fault and accept the criticism.”
The publisher Login also apologized in a statement yesterday, saying, that “after careful assessment, and in agreement with Cho’s agency, we’ve decided to scrap the song from the workbook.” Login also apologized to Cho for tarnishing her image.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.
Standards Board Policy (0/250자)