The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 44 | Number 5 | Article ID 3629 | Oct 31, 2011

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The True Origins of Pizza: Irony, the Internet and East AsianNationalisms　　ピッツァの真の起源−−イロニー、インターネット、東アジアの国家主義

Rumi Sakamoto, Stephen Epstein

The True Origins of Pizza: Irony, theI n t e r n e t a n d E a s t A s i a nNationalisms

Stephen Epstein and Rumi SakamotoOn September 30, 2011, an outfit namedGumshoePictures uploaded on YouTube a videoentitled “The True Origins of Pizza,” which, inthe format of a brief documentary (3:44),reminiscent of those seen on such stations asthe Discovery Channel, investigates anapparent historical puzzle: a series of speakers,f r om academics t o a b l ogger and arepresentative of the “Korean Culinary Center,”are interviewed and advance evidence thatpizza originated in Korea and had been “stolen”by Marco Polo, much as he had reputedlybrought back noodles from China to Italy asspaghetti. Before we engage in an analysis ofthis remarkable well-produced clip, let us firstencourage readers of The Asia-PacificJournal who have yet to see this video to watchit, unencumbered by any spoilers or theauthors’ own opinions. At this point, viewersconveniently have a choice of watchingmirrored versions: one in English, without thedistraction of text crossing the screen in frontof them; a version with Korean subtitles,u p l o a d e d o n O c t o b e r 4 , a l s o b yGumshoePictures; and a version with Japanesesubtit les, uploaded on October 12 by“CoreanCulture.” We embed all of them below,for reception of the clip has differed accordingto context, and readers may wish to examinethe comments on each separately: as ofOctober 28, the first had 451,000 views and aroughly 1,400 to 200 like to dislike ratio; the

second had slightly fewer views (356,000), buta strikingly different 1050 to 1,150 like todislike ratio; while the third had 63,000 views,and an 800 to 200 like to dislike ratio:

Link 1(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiLA6Bk_iv

s) | Link 2(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QizaFkegFc

Q) | Link 3(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6HG9XtBg

FY)

The First Buy One, Get One Free GarlicBread Promotion

Presumably, readers of the Asia-PacificJournal who have viewed the clips and readthus far will realize that what they havewitnessed is a clever and unusual ad campaignfor Korea’s Mr. Pizza chain in the form of aspoof, rather than a true assertion that pizzahad been pilfered from its rightful owners, theKorean people. Mr. Pizza, though perhaps littleknown outside South Korea (henceforth Korea),is in fact now the largest pizza chain in thenation and is increasingly emphasizingoverseas markets (China and the United States,in particular). The chain started out in 1990 asa franchise associate of the Japanese brand,Mr. Pizza, which was then seeking a partner inorder to expand its business into Korea. Japan’sMr. Pizza has since all but disappeared, and theKorean branch acquired the trademark of Mr.Pizza.1

This well-crafted piece of advertising deservescareful analysis, because the level of skill and

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irony that went into its making are noteworthyamong commercial ads anywhere, not least inKorea where it satirizes the potentially sacredcow of Korean nationalism and a local penchantto assert that occasionally surprising productsemanate in the first instance from Korea (e.g.Korea’s National Institute of BiologicalResources’ claim that the most popular type offir used for Christmas trees in the Westoriginated in Korea).2

While those who view the clip until its climacticrevelation of a Buddha statue with a pizza boxon its head will not mistake how firmly tonguehas been planted in cheek for its creation, thevideo starts off in a significantly more deadpanstyle and contains several small touches thatcan readily elude casual viewers or thoseunfamiliar with the larger context in which thisvideo originates, and thus we begin with adetailed reading of the ad in its entirety.

It opens with a People’s Republic of Chinaacademic speaking from an office at thefictitious “National University of Kwang-yang,”a Chinese vase clearly visible on the tablebehind him. Although the English voiceoverand the Korean subtitles do not captureliterally his statement that “Marco Polo tookour fatherland’s noodles and turned them intothe West’s ‘spaghetti,’” (the latter word givendisdainful emphasis by the use of handquotation marks), they certainly do convey anair of authority and dismissiveness: “If they cantake the spaghett i from the greatestcivilization, the Chinese people, they couldeasily have taken pizza from ‘those otherpeople.’” The rather disparaging refusal toname the Koreans in contrast to the great“central country” thus immediately places theclip within the context of heated internationaldisputes over history in East Asia, such as thecontentious debates between China and Koreaover the legacy of Koguryo/Gaogouli, discussedby Yonson Ahn and Robert Eng at the Asia-Pacific Journal.3 Quarrels about which nationhad the right to claim the earlier kingdom aspart of its own history drove not only fierce

scholarly debate but a significant deteriorationin relations between the two countries.

Likewise, the notion of cultural theft invokesKorea’s registration of the Gangneung DanojeFestival as a UNESCO Intangible CulturalHeritage, unique to Gangneung; Chineseauthorities had sought to have it co-registeredwith duanwujie, the Dragon Boat Festival,arguing that the Korean holiday, which is heldon the same day and is named with the sameChinese characters, derived from China. WhenKorea prevailed in convincing UNESCO thatthe Gangneung Danoje Festival was uniquelyKorean, the Chinese media grew more vocal inaccusations about Korean theft of Chinesecul ture, and recent years have seenincreasingly outrageous claims about theKorean origins of Chinese figures such asConfucius, Sun Yat-sen and Yao Ming, althoughit often remains unclear whether such claimsare advanced by Korean ultra-nationalists orChinese “trolls” seeking to stir up troubleonline.4

At this point the clip cuts to a shot of a Joseon-era Korean genre painting, in which a group ofpeople are gathered around a table eating alarge circular concoction, which, while likely tobe a traditional Korean form of savourypancake such asbindaeddeok, is treated as apizza. The shot is accompanied by a title thatreads “Disputed Origins” and the studied use ofthe t rad i t iona l Korean ins trument ,the gayageum gently parodies Westerndocumentaries’ evocation of an Oriental mood,with the corresponding Orientalist promise ofinsight into the mysteries of the East for itsaudience.

As the video tells us, the documentary makers’story begins with a lone protester outside aBrooklyn pizzeria who is carrying a signinscribed with a photo of a bearded man with alarge red x drawn across his face, below whichis written what turns out to be the Korean word도둑 (doduk, “thief”). While the lone zealous

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protester is itself a familiar figure from Koreanpopular nationalism, for those in the knowthere is more humor to be gleaned: 도둑bears,at cursory glance, a more than superficialresemblance to the Korean word 독도 (dokdo),the Korean name for the Liancourt Rocks, apyramidal duo of islets surrounded bynumerous outcroppings, contested with Japan,who have claimed the territory for themselvesas Takeshima. As has also been widelydiscussed, the dispute over this smallarchipelago has inflamed much nationalisttension between Korea and Japan over the pastdecade.5

Moreover, the choice of Brooklyn as the site forthe protest is hardly accidental, for it alsoalludes to ads that members of the Korean-American community have taken out inthe New York Times6 proclaiming that “DokdoIsland is Korean territory,” and diaspora NewYork City dry cleaners who created plastic bagsfor clothing delivery inscribed with that veryannouncement, as also recorded by the NewYork Times:7

Even viewers unfamiliar with Korea and itsrecent international disputes, however, mightsuspect at this point that they are witnessing acomically understated piece of wit, for theportrait of Marco Polo itself is not drawnprecisely from any known depiction of therenowned explorer, but combines existingportrayals, it seems, with a send-up of the ZigZag man, an image associated with a popular

brand of cigarette rolling papers, used onoccasion for marijuana as well:

As the video goes on to tell us, the picture leadsthe documentary makers to “a websiteespous ing a l l sor t s o f theor ies andaccusations.” The attention to detail here andthe knowledge of nationalist Internet memes at

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0:38-0:41 borders on the astonishing. Theblog’s user name, visible in the top left-handcorner is AngryKor33 (i.e. Angry Korean 33),the 33 surely referencing the 33 nationalistsw h o f o r m e d t h e c o r e o f t h e M a r c h1st movement of 1919 and signed a declarationof Korea’s independence during the JapaneseOccupation. The background to the blog entriesis without doubt a shot from the 2002 WorldCup, with thousands of supporters of theKorean national team clad in garb showingtheir support for the Red Devils at a stadiumbehind an unfurled taegeukgi (the SouthKorean flag), similar to the image below:

The first blog entry, dated February 23, 2008,contains a map that gained currency on theInternet in Korea with its dream of a “Corea”that vastly extends its boundaries, even turningJapan into its colony, and has its origins in therather loopy web personality John Titor, aninternet poster who claimed to be a timetraveler from 2036, and wrote of a radicallyaltered future geopolitical landscape.8 Althoughthe full text of the entry is hard to make out onthe YouTube clip, one can see that our putativeblogger writes approvingly of how cool(meotjida) such territorial boundaries would be,and the video thus pokes fun at both the mostoutrageous recidivist claims, and eventualaspirations, of Korean nationalism. The spellingCorea itself references the allegation that theJapanese colonial powers changed theorthography so that Korea would come afterJapan in Western alphabetical order.9

The next entries, however, are easier to discernif one pauses the video. They satirizepassionate nationalism in hilariouslyexaggerated fashion: the February 12, 2008entry, for example, reads “Dokdo is ours!Dokdo is ours! Dokdo is ours! Shouting thesewords millions of times isn’t enough! Dokdo isours! Really, if our nation is weak, we’ll sufferall manner of harm. We must reclaim ourcultural treasures! Realize that pizza is ourstoo! Oh, so much to do!” As the computerscreen scrolls down to the blog entry forFebruary 6, 2008, we see a picture of one ofthe famous turtle boats supposedly designed byYi Sun-shin, a revered icon for his role as saviorof the nation in warding off the Hideyoshiinvasions of 1592. The entry reads: “Whatwould Admiral Yi Sun-shin think if he werealive today? Please forgive your shamefuldescendents who have been unable to protectpizza!! L If Admiral Yi Sun-shin had lived in theKoryo Dynasty, he would have ridden his turtleboat all the way to Italy, chased Marco Polodown, given him hell and brought pizza back!”

The filmmakers then tell us that they trackeddown the blog’s creator and main contributorto a suburb outside of Seoul and, in order toillustrate the journey, the viewer encounters ananimated sequence , typ ica l o f suchdocumentaries, of a plane crossing the PacificOcean to Korea past Japan and over the EastSea, a map to which we shall return. We nowmeet “Han Sang-jun, a history major dropoutand passionate conspiracy theorist” who isbursting with indignation: “I hate Marco Polo.He stole one of our national treasures.” Hisphrasing involves a humorous but hard tocapture mix of a respectful and pejorative termwhich the voiceover translates as “I hate MarcoPolo.” Although a reasonable rendering, hisKorean statement “Ibuni doduk nom ijiyo”might more literally, if awkwardly, betranslated as “this respected gentleman is athief bastard.” (A careful listening to theKorean under the voiceover suggests that theblogger uses the words “indigenous food”

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rather than “national treasure”). In hiscluttered room, we catch glimpses of theKorean flag, a poster that proclaims (inEnglish) “Dokdo is Korean territory” with YiSun-shin posed as in his statue on Seoul’scentral thoroughfare, several images of theItalian explorer with an “x” marked throughthem, and, in a self-parodic piece of productplacement, a stack of empty Mr. Pizza boxesbeside him. That Han himself is a historydropout appears to be a sly reference to theeconomics student dropout whose surprisinglyaccurate predictions of such events as theLehman Brothers collapse electrified the nationfor several months in 2008 and led him to betagged with the nickname Minerva.10

After the blogger comes a second dapperacademic, purported to be from the much morereal Koryeo (Korea) University, who announcesthat “pizza is indeed ours” (pija dangyeoni urigeojyo). The evidence, he notes, has largelybeen lost but “fortunately” new artifacts arecontinually being discovered, and we are thenshown a shot of archaeological remainsamusingly reconstructed to resemble pizza-related objects, such as the paddle forretrieving a pizza from an oven, set out as if ina museum display.11 One should note how welleach interviewed actor captures his or her

imagined counterpart, both in sartorial andlocutionary style: the next speaker “Young-HwaChoi” of the “Korean Culinary Center” wearseleganthanbok and uses a polite informal, morefeminine style than the academic, as she tellsus that throughout Asia various food productsresemble pizza, but the closer one gets to Jinju,the closer one approaches the “classic” pizza,depicted as what looks to be an American-stylepepperoni pizza.12 In another example ofattention to detail, the shots of the variouspizzas across Asia at 1:35 come with the smallnotation “Courtesy of Hang Jung UniversityPress” in the bottom left corner, providing themap with the false authority of a fictitiouspress. Italy, the speaker asserts, “owes us anapology.” Her statement is put forth gently butresonates with Korean demands for apologies,especially from its erstwhile colonizer, Japan,for its actions during the Occupation.13 At thispoint, in true Discovery Channel fashion, our“mockumentary” cuts away to a supposed vice-president of the Italian Culture Centre whoprovides a counterpoint and laughs away theclaims as no less absurd than if Korea were toarrogate for itself cappuccino or the Ferrari.

Next, in one of the clip’s most inspired strokesof marketing acumen, the voiceover asks “Thenis there anyone still in the region making pizzathe original way?” and introduces us to Woo-Hyun Jung, the “owner and CEO” of Mr. Pizza.Jung, indeed the genuine head of thecorporation, has recently been designated oneof the top businessmen in Korea for 2011,14 andhis refusal to take himself too seriously is notonly amply demonstrated in what follows, buton the Mr. Pizza website, where one of his titlesis given as CLO: Chief Love Officer.15 Thecamera first shows him standing with a warmsmile on his face, hand on chin. He thenbeckons his interviewers to a table, leavingvisible behind him a portrait of himself inexactly the same pose—in sunglasses. Jung tellsus that his father, grandfather and all of hisancestors made pizza and we see a successionof portraits of such ancestors posed in similar

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fashion, hand on chin, and all, apparently,photoshopping Jung’s features onto images thatdraw on Korean portraiture styles in accuratereverse chronological order.16

Jung cheerfully announces the pedigree ofpizza making in his family, all in a strongly, andperhaps deliberately, marked Korean accentthat causes pizza to be pronounced as “picha.” He then reasserts his claim to making “originalpizza” and denies ever having claimed to inventpizza. But when asked if the two are not in factone and the same, a wonderfully droll look ofconsternation passes his face before heperseveres: “we are original picha.”

At this point the video, for those who just mightpossibly have been treating it seriously thusfar, plays its trump card: unbridled MontyPythonesque silliness. Realizing that the“conclusive evidence” will not be forthcomingfrom Jung, the filmmakers seek another avenuefor proof in Buddhism. One “Dr. Dong-Gil Park”of the “National Buddhism Association” leadsus to a piece of “undeniable evidence” fromGwanchok Temple in Buyeo, which has anunusually sculpted statue of the MireukBuddha, National Treasure No. 218, from theGoryeo dynasty, the period during which MarcoPolo would have been in Asia.17 Pointing to tworectangular objects atop the Buddha’s head, heasks a rhetorical question: what could that firstbox possibly be? The Buddhism scholar assertsin a deadpan voice that it could only be a pizzabox. To heighten the climactic effect andi m p a r t a u t h e n t i c i t y , t h ebackground gayageum music from elsewhere inthe video switches to the Korean flute,the taegeum, and music that evokes a vaguelyBuddhist atmosphere. The scholar then goes onto reveal his own theory: although for years

people have disputed the meaning of thesecond box, he believes that it represents thefirst “buy one, get one free garlic breadpromotion of the time.” We then return to therepresentative of the Korean Culinary Centerwho advances, seriously, as if documentationwere unnecessary, another remarkable claim:“Actually, we also invented garlic bread.” Thevideo ends in mock-dramatic fashion, as thedocumentary makers ponder whether pizzacould really have originated in Korea, and aneven more startling question: could it havecome with free garlic bread?

Anglophone and Korean Reactions

All well and good, and hopefully viewers of thiscreative piece of advertising will have had ashearty a laugh over it as the co-authors. Weinvite those who enjoyed it to view additionalclips uploaded by GumshoeProductions here(http://www.youtube.com/user/gumshoepictures#p/u), which add further humorous evidencefor pizza’s original Korean provenance fromsuch areas as linguistics. But what we hadoriginally regarded as simply a piece ofephemera, well worth sharing with friends andfellow Asian Studies afficionados, has turnedout to be a topic that merits the attention ofreaders as an important case study inunderstanding media f lows, internetnationalism and the contested nature ofreception in the Web 2.0 era. In what followswe try to unravel the various strands in thecomplex circulation and reactions to this videoacross the diverse fora in which it wound upbeing discussed. We admit freely that, as perthe notorious adage that began with PeterSteiner’s New Yorker cartoon, “on the Internetno one knows you are a dog,” and thus we arelimited in how much we can ascertain about thenational and ethnic identity, even when self-professed, of various commenters beyond whatcues exist in linguistic usage (itself a measurethat can be faked and will become increasinglyunreliable as tools such as Google Translateimprove).

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With that caveat in mind, however, let usconsider the discourse that developed aroundthis video in various contexts. First of all, animmediate question is who the commercial’smakers had in mind as primary targetaudience. As a production in English, albeitreleased almost simultaneously with Koreansubtitles, it would appear that the intendedaudience for this production includes both newconsumers in the US as Mr. Pizza expands itsoperations, and Korea’s more transnational andcosmopolitan consumers, whether expat orKorean citizens, most of whom, almost bydefinition, would possess high-level Englishskills. GumshoePictures has remained silent(presumably deliberately, in order to enhancethe effect of this piece as an underground,“cool” viral marketing campaign) about itsidentity amidst all the internet buzz, althoughclues may be unearthed within the video as tothe company behind it; if nothing else, it isclear that members of the production teamspent time in the US and Korea making thevideo.18

Let us, then, consider the comments more orless in the order of the clips' linguistic release.English-language comments on the ad werelargely highly favorable, at least initially.Several Koreanists, self-identified Koreans, andforeign expats in Korea reacted to the ad withdelight, seeing it as representing a significantmoment in Korean popular culture both for thetarget and style of its wit, and taking Korea’sability to poke fun at its nationalist foibles as asign of a country increasingly confident of itsglobal stature.19 The YouTube page itself, inkeeping with the medium, which encouragesvery brief replies, had several English responsewhich commended the makers of the video ontheir cleverness. But before long several lessflattering comments appeared, often from thosewho were apparently not native speakers ofEnglish, and who displayed concern at Koreannationalism being made the butt of a joke andt h e p o s s i b i l i t y f o r i t s h u m o r t o b emisunderstood.

A more detailed set of reactions came fromthose who took the trouble to go to theGumshoePictures Channel page on YouTubeinstead of merely leaving a short comment onthe video itself. Most comments in Englishwere positive, e.g. that of user “seconddeath(http://www.youtube.com/user/seconddeath)”who wrote, “I must say, this will go over a lot ofpeople’s heads, but wow it was brilliant,subversive, and utterly hilarious. Haven’tlaughed this hard since Old Spice Guycommercials. Hats off to you!” This user wasj o i n e d b y “ y o u b u s t u b u s(http://www.youtube.com/user/youbustubus)”:“Loved it. If created by Koreans then the mostimpressive example of self-deprecating humorI’ve ever seen. The indisputable claims forpizza’s Korean origins shed light on similarclaims of Korean origins.” Those who soughtout GumshoeProductions seemed to haveknowledge of the Korean context andappreciated the way the ad refused to takeitself seriously and further indicated that insharing it with Koreans, reactions werepositive. “Roughneckrhino,” for example,added: “I freaking love it! I’m a middle schoolteacher here in Korea and have shown it tomost of my classes and they love it too. Keep upthe great work. I hope to see more from youguys.” Of course, it is crucial to know preciselyhow this teacher contextualized it for hisstudents before screening the clip, for suchcontextualization can make a crucial difference,as adumbrated by a negative comment fromu s e r “ 1 t e p h a n i a(http://www.youtube.com/user/1tephania)”:

“Dear Mr. Pizza,Your commercial is dumb. Humouris too subtle to be caught by mostpeople, and when people do get it,it’s too weak to make them laugh.Your marketing campaign also hasthe potential to unleash someferocious nationalist sentimentsthat run high in East Asia and

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people originating from the region.So, in and all, a badly advised ideacreated by some dufus, who ismost likely to be of an Asianextraction.Sincerely,A potential customer”

And while one might disagree vehemently with“1tephania” that the humor is overly subtle andwhen caught too weak to evoke laughter (onewitty riposte that was given several thumbs upon the YouTube clip read: “Clever advert. Toobad it requires an IQ of over 20 to understand –they’ll lose customers because of that.”),“1tephania” was correct about its potential tounleash “ferocious nationalist sentiments,” aswe shall see below.

In addition to comments left on the YouTubesite itself, the clip was discussed in over 100posts at the Marmot’s Hole, the most widelyread English-language blog on Korea, but onewhose notorious comments section is oftenfilled with vitriol, some of it racist (link(http://www.rjkoehler.com/2011/10/11/pizza-is-originally-korean/#comments)). Commentersthere were generally impressed with the ad buta debate developed, largely carried forthbetween two transnational Koreans (“Yuna”and “The Korean”, the latter of whom operateshis own well-known blog, Ask a Korean), aboutsatire in Korea, and whether the nation had theability to mock itself collectively or its satirecould only be directed at the Other (includinginternal Others, such as one’s politicalopponents). As “Nambangui horangi” (one ofthis piece’s co-authors) argued in the Marmot’sHole comment section, following “Yuna,” forthe first minute it is easy to be taken in by thead’s matter-of-fact seriousness and to relate itto zealous expressions of Korean nationalism.What is unusual, though, in addition to thesending up of usually taboo targets, is the modeof the clip’s satire as, at least initially, itinvolves the use of very understated dry irony

that relies on the shared knowledge of being inon a joke, which is not a usual mode of comedyin Korea.20 On this latter point “The Korean”agreed, but noted, fairly enough, that justbecause Monty Python-style humor is largelyalien to Korea, it hardly means that its peopleare a humorless lot and incapable of self-satireeven if certain topics, such as nationalism havegenerally been off-limits. Similar, brieferdiscussions occurred on James Turnbull’s blogT h e G r a n d N a r r a t i v e a n d M a t tVanVolkenburg’s Gusts of Popular Feeling.

Although comments in Korean on both theEnglish and Korean-subtitled versions of theclip on YouTube included those who frettedthat foreigners might take the ad seriously(“What if an Italian sees this and thinks we’rereally trying to claim pizza as our own?”), thead also garnered a significant number ofpositive responses in Korean. A frequently usedadjective from Korean-language commenters tod e s c r i b e t h e c l i p h a sbeen chamshinhada (original; innovative), andmany Korean users have added the localemoticon ㅋㅋㅋ, which indicates a chortlingreaction to the video. Certainly, though, thosewho went to the GumshoeProductions page towrite in Korean did generally, though notuniformly, oppose the ad. They eitherexpressed concern about the airing of dirtylaundry, as it were, or were unwilling to acceptself-satire as a proper mode of discourse in thissituation. Below are translated samples:

“ W L K r e p(http://www.youtube.com/user/WLKrep)”: I don’t know what youwere hoping to achieve with thisvideo, but thanks to you, theRepublic of Korea has acquired theshameful image of a country thatdistorts history.

“1godqhrgkek”: Please don’t makeads with this sort of subject matteragain. Even if you were intending

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to be original and to do it well, thisis an improper, unpleasant topic.Please, it would have been bettern o t t o a t t a c h a n E n g l i s htitle….Wouldn’t it be okay just tochange everything to Korean?Koreans are not intrinsicallymasochistic; they’ve been througha lot in relation to origin debates,and of course you can say youmade the ad with fake, humorouscontent, but because it feels likethe Koreans who appear here seemto have the same point of view asKorea-haters, it’s really distasteful.Somehow it seems like an ad thatJapanese Korea-haters will reallylike.

“ b o x s t o r y(http://www.youtube.com/user/boxstory)”: 스팸으로 신고Earningmoney while sucking the marrowfrom the nat ion…You are aheartless human being. What doesvermin mean? An idiosyncrasy ofYouTube is that few viewers watcha video to the end, and all the moreso if the video clip is irritating. Youare stupid, and greedy to boot.This isn’t bravery; it’s trash. Youlack understanding of originalityand are like a fattened pig thatcan’t feel a prod even from adecent-sized jab. Original? Take alook at the comments attached tothe video. Is this innovative?H u m a n s w h o a r e f i l t h yvermin—they’re talking about you.There are people with power andmoney, but no talent. You.

“ k a g o o n 0 7 0 9(http://www.youtube.com/user/kagoon0709)”: This is totally originalha ha ha. And you people whocan’t take it as a joke, lighten up.

It’s really fun. And the video ishigh quality as well.

Two larger Korean news outlets, the KookminIlbo and the Chosun Ilbo, hardly known fortheir progressive leanings (the Kookmin Ilbo ischurch-owned, while the Chosun Ilbo isperhaps the most notoriously conservative ofKorea’s major newspapers) covered the ad andmonitored the response that it received.21 Botharticles essentially offered summaries of theclip and pointed out its clearly comic intent, butthe Kookmin I lbo piece asserted (notnecessarily correctly at the time of itspublication) that the majority of Korean viewerreactions left on YouTube grimaced at the ad.The comments left in response to the articlesthemselves in these venues, however, werecertainly consistently negative. The opinion ontheKookmin Ilbo that received the most“recommendations” was a typo-ridden,unpunctuated rant from “100Grape,” whoseflavor we attempt to capture below in our ownrendering:

What's going on here isn't thatpeople around the world are goingto treat this is a joke because theydon't think of pizza as Korean butthat people around the world aregoing to th ink Koreans areridiculous your disgracing thenation especially since treating thisr i d i c u l o u s n o n s e n s e a n dt h e H w a n d a n G o g i 2 2 a s aconspiracy theory on the samesc reen w i th Dokdo makesconsidering pizza Korean in thesame category as consideringDokdo Korean really this is treasonto the Korean race

The one attempt to inject an opposing voiceand argue for simply treating the ad as a comicp iece (a lbe i t d i smiss ing i t s c r i t i cs

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as hanshimhada, or “pathetic”) by user “JeongHyo-rim” was met entirely with “dislikes.” Thecomment section in theKookmin Ilbo thus offersevidence of how discussion in a given venuecan be both determined by its larger discursiveculture and directed, if not outright hijacked,by the most strident voices.

Japanese Reactions

For the first few days of the video’s circulationon YouTube, comments remained essentiallyconfined to those with at least some commandof English and Korean. Within a few days,however, the video leaped into the Japaneseblogosphere. A Japanese-subtitled versionoriginal ly was uploaded on Nikonikodouga (“Smiley Videos,” a Japanese equivalentto YouTube) on October 9 by “ponta,”23 andthen placed on YouTube on October 12, by“CoreanCulture.” Meanwhile, overnight onOctober 12, the Korean-subtitled version added30,000 hits, but went from carrying a 6 to 1 liketo dislike ratio to evening out at 400 apiece,presumably as a result of having been signalledon 2-channeru, Japan’s largest Internet forumand a hotbed of xenophobic nationalism andanti-Korean sentiment. In the additional traffic,many readers of the Japanese-version chose toregister their displeasure.24 CoreanCulture’sYouTube profile shows that the user self-identifies as a 28-year-old Japanese, who joinedYouTube on October 12, suggesting that he orshe did so specifically to make the Japanese-subtitled version available. The name, however,presents a conundrum: was the poster a proudKorean(-Japanese?) who felt that by making itavailable with Japanese subtitles on YouTubeits humorous intent would become clear forthose whose English might not have been ableto cope with the clip’s subtle humor, or anationalistic Japanese who chose the namesarcastically?

While the more positive like to dislike ratio onthe Japanese-subtitled version leaves open theformer possibility, it is important to note that

the translation of the scene with blogger HanSang-jun in particular does contain significantdifferences from the English voiceover. Wherethe English states “the picture on his poster ledus to this website, a site espousing all sorts oftheories and accusations,” the subtitled versionreads “from this image, we arrived at thisanger-filled website.” Likewise, where theEnglish speaks of a “passionate conspiracytheorist who is the main contributor andblogger,” the Japanese subtitles might moreaccurately be rendered as “the blogger whodisclosed the facts and posted on this issue.”Since the Japanese subtitles elsewhere displaymore fidelity to the English,25 the abovediscrepancies stand out. It is not impossiblethat the subtitler chose to remove the pointthat the blogger is a conspiracy theorist andthat his accusations are potentially misguided,instead representing him as an angry Korean,disclosing “facts,” and thus contextualizingsuch images as the Dokdo poster, the WorldCup trophy replica on the CEO’s desk, and theusage of the term “East Sea” differently forJapanese viewers.

While impossible to determine the national orethnic identity of any given commenter,however, one may readily extract patternsamong Japanese-language posts on sites wherethis video was reproduced. As of October 28,the Japanese subtitled-version itself onYouTube had 275 comments, the majority ofwhich, unsurprisingly, are in Japanese. Hereone encounters those who seem to read thisclip non-ironically, as yet another example ofKorean cultural arrogance and insistence onthe Korean origin of non-Korean products, aswell as those who appear unsure whether tofind it funny or be offended. Still othersrecognize elements of parody but are quick toseize upon what they see as anti-Japanesepropaganda wrapped within a sugar-coated pill,especially in the video’s less consciousexpressions of a Korean world view at pointswhere a Korean would “naturally” expect aparticular representation, such as using an

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English map that contained the name “EastSea” rather than the “Sea of Japan.”26 UserSamuraiTogo went so far as to post his own clipwhich claims to uncover “The real Korean aimof ‘The True Origins of Pizza’ commercial”( l i n k(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6V2YwG8obA)): a subliminal campaign to woo the worldtowards accepting improper nomenclature forthe body of water between the two countries,by inserting the map at four separate points.

The placement of this video initially in Nikonikodouga may have also promoted a jingoisticviewing experience for its Japanese audience.Like 2-channeru, the site is known for itsnationalist affinities, and the clip is juxtaposedwith four “related videos,” all of them anti-Korean (i.e. “Koreans taking over the world”;“China’s rage over Korean cultural theft”;“Korean kids’ comics on the comfort women”;and “seriously crazy Koreans”), which wouldpredispose viewers to interpret the clip insimilar fashion. Several elements in the videocontribute to the potential for nationalisticreadings by Japanese viewers, for it evokes nota few negative local stereotypes of Koreans: azealous blogger; a placard-holding protestor;dogmatic insistence on the Korean origin ofobjects associated with foreign cultures. Thetwist here, of course, is that the clip is a spoofmade by the Korean pizza chain itself, andhumor arises in the recognition of caricature,but Japanese viewers without knowledge ofKorean would have no access to, say, theuproarious excesses of the blogger’s page, asdiscussed above. Nonetheless, several of thosewriting in Japanese made comments to theeffect that “I didn’t think Koreans could makefun of themselves.” Whether such self-parodywas seen as funny, however, depended on anindividual’s positionality: in addition to thosewho saw an attempt at dishing out subliminalpropaganda, some Japanese viewers read theclip, counter-intuitively and/or ingeniously, as asubversive attempt to make other Korean-origin stories into a “joke” and thereby alleviate

the accusation of dogmatic nationalism on thepart of Korea. Some, therefore, in readinghostility in the advertisement, responded withhostility in turn.

Such antagonistic comments are consistentwith those found on 2-channeru, whereparticipants regularly dispute theories on thepurported Korean provenance of Japanesecultural icons such as kendo, sushi and cherryblossoms. Such critique of “Korean origins” is awell-established sub-genre within Japan’sInternet anti-Korean discourse, and the videorapidly attracted the attention of Japanesenationalists. On the day the YouTube video withJapanese subtitles appeared, over 4,000comments were posted on 2-channeru’s “EastAsia News” board, one of the major venues foronline expressions of hostility toward Korea.While its readership may include lurkers whodo not necessarily agree with the consensus ofdiscourse but refrain from confronting it, thegeneral viewpoint has been that, though the admay have been an attempt at humor, the jokehad fallen flat because of the history ofdisputes over cultural origins, with which 2-channeru users are well familiar. In otherwords, the Japanese commentators read thisc l ip wi th in the “ loca l” context o f 2 -channeru antagonism toward Korea andbegrudge the irony. Interestingly, while thisline of argument is reproduced in comments onthe Japanese-subtitled YouTube clip, the hate-speech and more generalized racist critiquesfound on 2-channeru is tempered. Japanese-language comments left on the Korean-subtitled YouTube clip, on the other hand, havebeen much more racist, xenophobic andcontemptuous in tone (at times even cruderthan those found on 2-channeru itself), perhapsrepresenting those whose virulently anti-Korean sentiments embolden them to ventureinto “enemy” or global territory.

Indeed, one surmises that many YouTubecommenters arrived directly from 2-channeru,for they displayed familiarity with its discursive

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practices, sharing similar terminology,expressions and general language features.These include the use of mock Korean such asthe verbal ending “-nida,” the term “uri-ginal,”(from the Korean word uri or we, often used inthe Korean expression uri nara to refer to “ourcountry,” i.e. Korea) and the 2-channeru slangcoinages “warota” (the local equivalent of LOL)or “neta” (topics that are planted by trolls).On 2-channeru one can find suggestions madeto spread the link in order to show either“Korean cultural theft” or “a pathetic Koreanattempt at self-parody,” and some usersreported linking the YouTube video on overseaswebsites such as the English-language 4chan,an online community modeled after2-channeru,and an Italian site discussing the Soccer WorldCup.

Of course, some Japanese commenters wereimpressed by the sophisticated self-parody. Butmore saw the self-deprecation as bordering on“masochistic” on the part of its Korean makers(and “unfunny” as a result). In either case, oneshould note that many who post “nationalistic”comments on YouTube and 2-channeru inJapanese recognize the video’s farcical intent.However, knowledge that the clip is a well-made commercial by a Korean pizza chainbranching out into the United States does notstop them from reading it as problematic.Rather the video’s self-parody becomes anopportunity for well-rehearsed anti-Koreanmessages and feelings, and not a few postsfixated on the CEO’s pronunciation of “pizza”according to Korean phonology, which lacks a/z/, as “picha.” The accent, quite probably partof the comedy, i s taken by Japanesecommenters as a sign of Korean inability tospeak English properly, bestowing anotheropportunity to mock Korean parochialism andlack of self-awareness. So wrapped up are somecommenters in the idea of Korean cultural theftthat they even suggest, likely ignorant ofKorean music, that the video’s soundtrack hasbeen played on the koto andshakuhachi inorder to subliminally seduce its audience into

thinking that these Japanese instruments aswell originated in Korea.

Overall, one finds much cynicism in thepostings on 2-channeru, where taking thingsseriously is a major faux pas; the task forcommenters becomes how to respond in thewebsite’s lingua franca of irony, yet stillchallenge Korea and Koreans. In some casesthe use of “humor” arises from mock claims tobe Korean, and this typical 2-channeru mode isalso found on YouTube, where user “Mol9999”wrote, for example, “Stop criticizing our Picha!Here we are not talking about Pizza, but Picha!You have never savored our original Pichamade from dogs meat and shit and kimchi, DONOT make fun of our Picha!”27 For this reason(i.e. they “know” it’s a joke despite choosingnot to “get” it), the repeated reminder that “it’sjust a joke” has not slowed the barrage ofnationalistic abuse.

Clearly, however, as noted above, manyinternational commenters on YouTube have noawareness of the Japanese (or Korean) readingsand react with delight at the evident self-parody. For such users, what then becomesoffensive is not Korea’s “nationalistic”reference to Dokdo or the East Sea, butostensibly racist and humorless Japanesereactions, which are in turn met with irritationand hostility. Moreover, many ripostes in thisforum are likely to originate in Korea or othercountries in Asia with a nationalist axe to grindagainst Japan, as tipped off by slightly non-native usages in such remarks as: “JapaneseNationalists gone mad here. Seriously, theyhave to realize more stupid comments willmake them look bunch of idiots lol lol(“The45p”), or even “FUCK YOURSELFshameless japanese” (“db015077”).28 Theinternational nature of the video, with its basicAnglophone presentation, shifts the ground ofnationalistic competition to a global forum inwhich multiple voices compete for a hearing.Xenophobic comment metamorphoses intodiscussion of whether one is sophisticated

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enough to “get” the joke; such debate has beenmost evident on the English and Korean-subtitled versions on YouTube, where oneencounters numerous comments such as that ofuser “dogboybloo”:

Japanese people are incapable ofcomprehending sarcasm in acomplex advertising way, toosophisticated for their simpleminds. As I am reading these inanecomments, it’s pretty safe to saythere are a lot of idiots in thiswor ld . . . to ta l ly inept in anpersonality and lacking any sort ofsubstance or depth either. It’s thator they are some 20 year oldunemployed fa i lure that iscompensating that to write hateagainst korea on youtube Lol.

As the days have gone by, the tone ofdiscussion has deteriorated, expletives haveincreased, and an increasingly high proportionof comments have been removed or flagged.The YouTube “comment” section has turnedinto an unedifying battleground for competingnationalisms, with less and less discussion ofthe video itself and more about who is to beconsidered racist.

Decoding Ironic Humor in the GlobalContext

Irony can be a risky strategy in the absence ofobvious cues to tip it off, as anyone who hasever had an intended attempt at humor in e-mail misconstrued knows well. This factor liesin part behind the striking differences in thelike/dislike ratios of mirrored versions of thesame video. Moreover, when in-group discoursesuch as that of 2-channeru leaves its immediatecontext, we encounter strong reaction againsti t by those who don’t share the samesensibilities. Even the same internet site can,as a result of contingent circumstance and

circulation, develop different “cultures ofcommenting” on different mirrored webpages.We have made clear our own subject position inregard to this Mr. Pizza ad as New Zealand-based scholars who work on questions of EastAsian nationalisms and national identity in theWeb 2.0 era: we find it a stroke of genius. Manyacademic friends with whom we have shared ithave agreed. Yet, we also recognize that ourposition is merely one possible reaction andcan hardly be taken as authoritative. YouTubecommenters are regularly asking each other “Isthis a joke?” or “Should one find this funny?”Indeed, part of the humor is that for severalseconds, we too, on a first viewing, wereuncertain whether we were seeing anexpression of East Asian nationalistic debatesover product originsin extremis.

I n t h e c o n t i n u i n g a n o n y m i t y o fGumshoePictures and absence of commentaryfrom the commercial’s creators, it is impossibleto determine whether they anticipated thestrong reactions that the commercial mightspawn among either Korean or Japaneseviewers with nationalist sensibilities. Thevideo’s creators may well have assumed theirirony was so obvious in having the literally“crowning” piece of evidence be pizza andgarlic bread takeaway boxes on top of the headof a statue of a Mireuk Buddha that they wouldnot offend sensibilities in East Asia, any morethan they expected to offend Italians, all themore so in allowing the purported VP of theItalian Cultural Centre to dismiss the Koreanclaim out of hand. But, irony as a mode ofhumor also depends on shared knowledge andviewpoints between the producer of a text andhis or her audience. Where that mutualunderstanding is absent, the possibility formisinterpretation increases significantly. Whilesome Westerners dismissed the notion thatother East Asians might read this videonegatively because of its (seemingly) obviousself-deprecating humor, other Koreancommentators, as we have seen, took Mr. Pizzato task for the possibility that they might

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enflame tensions, and some Japanesecommentators indeed assumed an underlyingpropagandistic motive in the continuingJapanese-Korean online competition for softpower. In other words, positionality suppliesmany viewers with both too much and too littleinformation to enjoy the clip as simply light-hearted lampoon.

And to be sure, as we demonstrated above, asubstantial portion of the burlesque is onlyaccessible to those who can read Korean andhave familiarity with the context of nationalistdebates over historical and territorial issues inNortheast Asia. The humor is in fact at such alevel of subtlety that some of the cleverestjokes will be recognized only by those who arewilling to pause and savor the care that hasbeen put into skewering conspiracy theoristssuch as Han Sang-jun at 0:38-0:41. Thecomplexity of the text is further demonstratedby the variety of responses it has evoked in theinternational context. How, indeed, do viewersread Han Sang-jun? Japanese viewers of anti-Korean orientation notice a decidedly unfunnycharacter who confirms their worst prejudicesabout rabid Korean nationalism. For others,this “borderline joke” lies somewhere betweenthe overly sophisticated and the callous,leaning towards insensitivity. Koreannationalists, however, have just as readilyinterpreted the ad as slighting Korea’sterritorial claim to Dokdo, by bringing it downto the same level as the mock claims of pizza’strue origin. Western viewers for whom pizza isa quintessentially Italian product might simplyenjoy the absurdity of the video, but those whoview it within the subculture of East Asianonline nationalist debates may have differingresponses. Indeed, even the co-authors, one aKoreanist and the other a Japanese Studiesspecialist, discovered only late in workingtogether on this article that they had reacted toone sequence in very different ways: thedemand for an apology struck the Koreanist co-author as humorous but not sharply pointed ,whereas the Japanologist saw a serious Korean

female in traditional dress and immediatelylinked the scene, within a Japanese framework,to demands for apologies over the comfortwomen issue, which supplies the scene withsuch a potentially edgy subtext as to raisequestions of crassness.

Meanwhile, little doubt exists that bringing Mr.Pizza to the attention of all through the magicof global dissemination of a viral clip onYouTube has brought its brand to the attentionof a wider international public, diminishingKorean national stature in the minds of some,while enhancing it in the minds of others. Somewho view the YouTube clips and then read thecomments may come away with concerns overlingering and malignant racism in Japan. Weare also well aware that in writing this articlewe may not only be further promoting the Mr.Pizza brand but implicating ourselves within alarger debate over reception. Publishing in awell-known and readily accessible venue suchas the Asia-Pacific Journal confers a possible airof authority upon our interpretation amongsome communities, while opening the door fornew combative dialogue with others. One of theco-authors has already been subjected to abuseon a widely read English-language blog thattakes a nationalistically pro-Japanese (orperhaps better put, unapologetically anti-Korean) viewpoint, as a result of an article shepublished here about the notorious Ken-Kanryu (the “Hate Korea Wave”) manga.29 Thecase suggests not only the extent to whichresearchers in the Web 2.0 era, particularlythose writing for an online journal, become partof the international circulation of discourse butalso the extent to which assumptions aboutidentity and background continue to informreactions about expressed viewpoints:

…people say and write stupidthings about other people andcultures all the time, owing to theirlimited perceptions, languageabilities, and contact with the

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natives. Sakamoto Rumi on theother hand should know better.Shame on you.30

If nothing else, the rapidity of contemporarymedia flows is allowing surprising globalconversations to take place with oftenunexpected results.

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, theother co-author wishes to point out that Mr.Pizza is indeed the favorite restaurant of hisfive-year-old daughter in the neighborhood theyinhabit when living in Korea. Nevertheless, heis in no way affiliated with Mr. Pizza and is not(yet) receiving any free garlic bread promotionsfrom them. Indeed he finds their tomato saucefar too sweet. But his respect for theircorporate brand has increased.

Stephen Epstein is Associate Professor and theDirector of the Asian Studies Programme at theVictoria University of Wellington in NewZealand. He has publ ished widely oncontemporary Korean society and literatureand has translated numerous works of Koreanand Indonesian fiction. Recent publicationsinclude "The Axis of Vaudeville: Images ofNorth Korea in South Korean Popular Culture"( T h e A s i a - P a c i f i c J o u r n a l , l i n k(https://apjjf.org/-Stephen-Epstein/3081)) andComplicated Currents: Media Flows, SoftPower and East Asia (co-edited with DanielBlack and Alison Tokita Monash UniversityPublications). His most recent novelt r a n s l a t i o n s a r e T h e L o n g R o a d(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1878282972/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) by Kim In-suk (MerwinAsia,2 0 1 0 ) a n d T e l e g r a m(http://www.amazon.com/dp/9798083946/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) by Putu Wijaya (LontarFoundation, 2011). He is currently working ona book tentatively titled Korea and itsNeighbors: Popular Media and NationalIdentity in the 21st Century.

Rumi Sakamoto is Senior Lecturer in theSchool of Asian Studies, the University ofAuckland, New Zealand, and a Japan Focusassociate. She is the coeditor with MatthewAllen of Popular Culture, Globalization andJ a p a n(http://www.amazon.com/dp/041544795X/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20).

See the following recent Asia-Pacif icJournal articles on related themes:

R u m i S a k a m o t o(https://apjjf.org/-Rumi-SAKAMOTO/3497),‘Koreans, Go Home!’ Internet Nationalism inContemporary Japan as a Digitally MediatedSubculture

R u m i S a k a m o t o(https://apjjf.org/-Rumi-SAKAMOTO/2632),“Will you go to war? Or will you stop beingJapanese?” Nationalism and History inKobayashi Yoshinori’sSensoron

Rumi Sakamoto and Mat thew A l l en(https://apjjf.org/-Mathew-Allen/2535), "Hating‘The Korean Wave'’’ Comic Books: A sign ofNew Nationalism in Japan?

Recommended citation: Stephen Epstein andRumi Sakamoto, 'The True Origins of Pizza:I rony , the In te rne t and Eas t As ianNationalisms,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9,Issue 44 No 5, October 31, 2011.

Notes

1 S e e h e r e(http://japanese.joins.com/article/172/119172.html?sectcode=&servcode=300§code=300) and h e r e(http://www.mrpizza.co.kr/companyinfo/overvie

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w.asp) for more on the company.

2 S e e t h i s l i n k(http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/12/117_57895.html). The original title ofthis article was in fact, ‘Christmas TreeOriginated From Korea.”

3 S e e h e r e ( / - Y o n s o n - A h n / 1 8 3 7 ;h t t p : / / j a p a n f o c u s . o r g / - Y o n s o n -A h n / 2 4 8 3 ) a n d h e r e(https://apjjf.org/-Yonson-Ahn/2631)). Seea l s o t h i s l i n k(https://apjjf .org/-Robert_Y_-Eng/3503).

4 For a sample of an online piece on theputative Korean origins of Sun Yat-sen, see thisl i n k(http://news.ifeng.com/society/2/200807/0731_344_686480.shtml). Matthias Schwartz offers anexcellent portrait of trolling culture in “TheTrolls Among Us,” from the New York TimesMagazine, August 3, 2008, availablehere(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?pagewanted=all).

5 For more on the dispute, see e.g. here( h t t p s : / / a p j j f . o r g / - M i c h a e l -W e i n s t e i n / 1 6 8 5 ) , h e r e( h t t p : / / w w w . j a p a n f o c u s . o r g / - M a r k -S e l d e n / 3 5 2 0 ) , a n d h e r e(https://apjjf.org/-lee-sang_tae/1728), as well asSean Fern (2005), “Tokdo or Takeshima? TheInternational Law of Territorial Acquisition inthe Japan-Korea Island Dispute,” StanfordJournal of East Asian Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 1:78-89; Kantoro Serita (2007), “The TakeshimaDispute: A Radical Proposal,” Japan Echo, Vol.34, No. 1: 32-46; Hong Nack Kim (2009) “TheU S a n d t h e T e r r i t o r i a l D i s p u t e o nDokdo/Takeshima between Japan and Korea,1945-1954,”International Journal of KoreanStudies, Vol. 8, No. 2: 92-127; and StephenEpstein (2010), “Distant Land, Neighbouring

Land: Japan in Contemporary South KoreanDiscourse” in Complicated Currents: MediaFlows, Soft Power and East Asia, ed. by DanielBlack, Stephen Epstein and Alison Tokita,Melbourne: Monash University ePress, pp.1.1-1.15. For the official Japanese position, seeMinistry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, ‘Outline ofT a k e s h i m a i s s u e ’ ( l i n k(http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/takeshima/position.html)), while the Koreangovernment’s official position may be found onthe Korea Cu l ture and In format ionS e r v i c e w e b s i t e(http://www.korea.net/detail.do?guid=28137).

6 ‘Do You Know?’ 9 July 2008 New York Times.

7 S e e t h i s l i n k(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/nyregion/21islands.html).

8 For more on this quirky figure, see this link(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor).

9 See, e.g., Barbara Demick, “Breaking theOccupation Spell: Some Koreans See Putdownin Letter Change in Name,” Los Angeles Times,September 18, 2003.

10 Park Dae-sung, or Minerva, was held indetention for three month for spreading falserumors by the nervous Lee Myung Bakgovernment in a notorious case of internetcensorship until he was finally acquitted. Formore, see Eric Fish, “Is Internet CensorshipCompat ib le wi th Democracy? LegalRestrictions of Online Speech in SouthKorea,” Asia Pacific Journal on Human Rightsa n d t h e L a w(http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mnp/aphu;jsessionid=1wj0egtntuq60.alice), Volume10, Number 2, 2009, pp. 43-96(54) andMattathias Schwartz, “The Troubles of Korea’s

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Influential Economic Pundit,” October 19,2 0 0 9 , l i n k(http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/mf_minerva/all/1).

11 Matt VanVolkenburg of the Gusts of PopularFeeling blog draws an astute connection herewith the way Korean archaeologists haveoccasionally put “square pegs into round holes”in order to reconstruct nationalist pasts (link(http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2011/10/true-origin-of-pizza.html)), as detailed in Hyung IlPai’s Constructing “Korean” Origins: A CriticalReview of Archaeology, Historiography, andRacial Myth in Korean State FormationT h e o r i e s . C a m b r i d g e , M a s s . , a n dLondon: Harvard East Asian Monographs(http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/Harvard_East_Asian_Monogra.html), 2000.

12 The appearance of a spokeswoman from the“Korean Culinary Center” calls to mind theincreasing attention to the role of food inexpressions of soft power in East Asia. SeeJames Farrer, (2010). “Eating the West andBeating the Rest: Culinary Occidentalism andUrban Soft Power in Asia’s Global Food Cities”in Globalization, Food and Social Identities inthe Asia Pacific Region, ed. James Farrer.Tokyo: Sophia University Institute ofComparative Culture, available from .

1 3 Cf. Alexis Dudden, (2008). TroubledApologies among Japan, Korea and the UnitedStates. New York: Colombia University Press.

1 4 L i n k(http://www.asiatoday.co.kr/news/view.asp?seq=471671).

1 5 L i n k(http://www.mrpizza.co.kr/companyinfo/overview.asp).

16 We thank Frank Hoffmann for the image andreferences to some of the other pieces ofartwork that seem to be drawn uponh u m o r o u s l y h e r e ( l i n k(http://cfile202.uf.daum.net/image/14635E06494 B 9 D E A A 0 1 2 7 E a n dhttp://www.subkorea.com/xe/?document_srl=489 7 5 ) ) a n d e l s e w h e r e i n t h e v i d e o(http://www.korean-arts.com/paintings/prints/lunch.htm).

1 7 L i n k(http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=799844).

18 As user Hamel, in a fine bit of internetsleuthing, pointed out on The Marmot’s Holethread, when the screen of the blog is shown onthe video, the URL bar is shown with theaddress http://www.addictmediafilms.com.Although the website does not currently exist,and according to Hamel’s Whois Lookup searchhas never been registered, he did discover acompany named Addict Media Films whose on-line resume lists one of its producers andassistant directors. The firm has an impressivelist whose clients include Samsung, HyundaiCard, McDonalds, Daum TV, and SK Telecom.The firm’s headquarters is located in Seoul, andthe producer and assistant director’s nameclearly suggests Korean origins or descent,albeit with degrees in film and televisionproduction from California. It remains unclearwhether they initially pitched the idea to Mr.Pizza or vice-versa, but there is little questionthat the producers of the ad are bothtremendously knowledgeable about the contextand think outs ide of the box of b l indnationalism.

19 We acknowledge here our gratitude toAndray Abrahamian, who first drew ourattention to the clip. It is worth remarking thatone co-author perhaps played a minor role as avector in the (admittedly inevitable) viral

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transmission by sending it on to contacts in theKorean blogosphere who posted it on theirblogs, at which point hit counts for the videobegan to rise rapidly.

20 Chae Man-shik’s Jisuk (“My Idiot Uncle”), forexample, engages in a similar form ofunderstated irony, but the object of his satire isKoreans who slavishly followed Japanesecustoms during the colonial period. Morerecently, some of the best local ironists (e.g.,early Bong Joon-ho films like “Memories ofMurder” and “Barking Dogs Don’t Bite”) usethis mode in a dark way, where the humorcomes from the blackness of the comedy,rather than the subtle nod and a wink that theMr. Pizza ad relies on for much of its length.

2 1 L i n k s 1(http://news.kukinews.com/article/view.asp?page=1&gCode=all&arcid=0005440751&code=411 9 1 1 1 1 ) a n d 2(http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/10/19/2011101901776.html?news_Head2).

22 The user appears to have assumed that themap depicting Korea as having extended intoChina comes not from John Titor’s imaginedfuture, but a bound volume of four historicalrecords, almost universally viewed as spurious,the Hwandan Gogi, that spoke of Korea’sextension in ancient times into the Chineseheartland.

23 Nikoniko douga, while similar to YouTube,has a unique function allowing viewers to postcomments at relevant points of the video clip.The site thus acts at least as much as socialnetwork as a video-sharing site.

24 For 2-channeru’s anti-Korean discourse, seeRumi Sakamoto and Matt Allen, “Hating ‘TheKorean Wave’ Comic Books: A Sign of New

N a t i o n a l i s m i n J a p a n ? ” ( l i n k(http://www.japanfocus.org/-Rumi-SAKAMOTO/2535)); Rumi Sakamoto, “‘Koreans, Go Home!’Internet Nationalism in Contemporary Japan asa Digitally Mediated Subculture” (link(http://www.japanfocus.org/-Rumi-SAKAMOTO/3497)).

25 One could quibble over additional minorpoints, such as rendering “the closer you get”as “the more one looks,” but these issues arisein virtually every translation.

26 International naming of this body of waterhas been a contentious issue between the twocountries; the Korean government insists on“East Sea,” while the Japanese governmentmaintains that the English name “Sea of Japan”i s c o r r e c t . S e e h e r e(http://www.mofat.go.kr/english/political/hotissu e s / e a s t s e a / i n d e x . j s p ) a n d h e r e(http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/maritime/japan/pamph0208.pdf) for each respective state’sofficial position.

27 This particular posting is in English, but theironical-racist stance expressed exemplifies atypical 2-channeru subject position.

28 The above is in no way meant to suggest thatthe site commentary is homogeneous. Onefinds, for example, comments defendingJapanese written in a mixture of English andKorean, criticizing ‘stupid Asians’ for notgetting the joke, or blaming “white men” for“stealing everything.”

29 Kenkankryū (“Hating the Korea Wave”), abest-sel l ing anti -Korean manga thatpopularized online hate-Korea discourse,devotes an entire episode to “Korean theft ofJapanese culture,” ranging from martial arts tocontemporary popular culture.

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30 Link (http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=775).