Andrew Lankov's been reading North Korean primary school maths textbooks:
``During the Fatherland Liberation War (North Korea’s official name for the Korean War) the brave uncles of Korean People’s Army killed 265 American imperialist bastards in the first battle. In the second battle they killed 70 more bastards than they had in the first battle. How many bastards did they kill in the second battle? How many American imperialist bastards did they kill all together?’
Circa 2003. Bet it was whole class teaching, with everybody facing the teacher.
Do they have questions about counting the vegetables in the market when it comes time to introduce the concept of negative numbers?
Posted by: CMcM | August 29, 2011 at 09:10 PM
Is the term rendered here as "bastard" a literal translation, or what does it mean in Korean?
Posted by: chris young | August 30, 2011 at 10:50 AM
It's this kind of teaching that gives Michael Gove a massive erection, isn't it?
Posted by: Tom | August 30, 2011 at 04:08 PM
That's a proper fuckload of bastards.
Posted by: Barry Freed | August 30, 2011 at 05:05 PM
"Wolf-like Bastards" no less.
AFAIK, hangul script is actually semi-alphabetic, but in a kind of Chinese derived format, so you can pack different signifiers into one "character", presumably including one for illegitimacy.
Posted by: jamie | August 30, 2011 at 05:11 PM