Now that I have your attention, I'd like to share some giggles with you from a Korean children's book I'm reading. My Korean is probably on the level of a 1st or 2nd grader, thus the children's' books.
This one caught my eye because well, it's Oprah! Heck, anytime I see a Korean book with black people on it, I pick it up to see what's going down! The Why? series is super popular at the moment so I thought this one would be a good place to start my Korean reading.
While many of the illustrations in this book aren't anything close to accurate, some of them are pretty cute and whimsical, and others are well, just ridiculously wrong. In defense of the illustrator, EVERYBODY in this book got the whitewash. Some people just got it more than others! With that out of the way, let's start with
the Cute Stuff:
If you enlarge this image, you will see that our friend Oprah, the poor blackwhite Latina Mississippi child is chatting with her jarred cockroach friends. They, like all good-natured animated creatures, are talking back. Well, not particularly good-natured. They call her strange then asked to be let out.
Little high-yella Oprah wants to be let out too. She looks out the window into the distance and prays to God for a better life. Am I the only one who feels a song coming on?! This scene has Disney written all over it! LOL
On to the next...
Later in life, Oprah finds her self in the awkward position of being the only black person at an all-white school. (I can TOTALLY relate.) It is made slightly more awkward by the fact that all the cool white kids want to be her friend. And are willing to stretch her arms beyond their appropriate human capacity to make that happen!!! (The sound that makes is apparently something like, "keuuuuung!")
I appreciate that Oprah's dad only got the medium level whitewash but more importantly, how magical they made him seem. Look at that background! Vernon and his wife Thelma are so amazing, they could be Korean! Don't worry high-yella Oprah, you're with good people now...
Gayle King somehow strangely looks very much like herself. I recognized her immediately!
Also, I would really like to know what Dr. Phil thinks about the curvature of his baldness. It's so.... vectorized!
the Funny
The fact that Tom Cruise's couchscapade made it in the book.
Fat Oprah. It's not funny because she's fat. It's funny because they made her eat a drumstick AND a piece of pizza at the same time. And that she's sweating for no reason. Which is probably why the second photo has her saying, "I have to change my life!" LOL
As for this one, as a dedicated fan of The Color Purple, I have no idea how anyone in their right mind drew this picture from the photo on the right! Only the words of dear Squeeky could express my confusion properly, "Harpo, who dis woman?!"
Oprah's confrontation with a black panther. How dare he pick a Puerto Rican out of the crowd to single out! Besides that, this someone has now introduced the term "oreo" to the entire Korean elementary school population. (See the asterisk.) AND, this guy seriously looks like an extra from The Boondocks. That is all.
the WRONG!
These are the illustrations that make me think the publishers don't know how to do an internet search! It does make me ask the question so elegantly posed by the book's title: WHY, PEOPLE? Why?! lol
Oprah's 1950's Mississippi elementary school class:
I dunno kids, but I think the missed that whole bit about the Civil Rights movement...
Next, meet Oprah and her college boyfriend Anthony Otey:
Oh wait! He wasn'ta blondewhite anything like this illustration! (And I seriously doubt Oprah studied with a sweatband either!) Maybe they got him mixed up with John Tesh?
As much as I've made fun of it, all-in-all, the book as been a nice read. Because of the wacky illustrations, I'm not sure how much (if any) creative license might have been taken with details of the biography, but it's interesting to read about someone I'm fairly familiar with in an unfamiliar way. Because English and Korean are so different, it definitely doesn't feel like a translation of a biography, as much as a retelling.
Anyways, hope you've enjoyed this super long post. Tomorrow's will be pretty basic.
0 comments:
Post a Comment