There’s a story out there which may or may not be an Urban Legend, and I’m wondering if anyone knows either way.
It’s been claimed that the TV show “Joanie Loves Chachi” was one of the top-rated American TV 
shows on Korean TV, and that I was popular because the names of the characters were Koreanised in such a way that the name of the character Chachi sounded more like 조지, the kiddie term for penis. Now, Chachi doesn’t sound like 조지 to me, but sometimes English gets transliterated into Hangeul in ways that mystify me, so I can’t be a hundred percent sure it’s not true. In any case, I’m wondering if you ever saw this show, or heard about it in the context of the title arousing curiosity about a girl who loves 조지. Truthfully, it sounds far-fetched but what I really would like is enough evidence to verify or falsify the rumor either way over on Snopes.com, an urban-legend-related site where people check to see if such a story is true or false.
Here’s the Snopes.com page on this subject. If you know anything, you can contact them yourself, of course, or you can contact me and I’ll pass on to them whatever I get.
Wow. I’m still trying to figure out how Joanie Loves Chachi could be the top-rated American television program *anywhere*.
Whoops, I think it said it was just the first episode, out of curiosity. But yeah, that in itself seems a little far-fetched.
Then again, my family really liked that show for some reason. *shrug*
I never heard about the show. It might be overrated that the show was very popular in Korea. Or I may be too young for watching it on AFKN. But I admit that chachi sounds like Korean slang for penis. Actually, it�s not 조지 but 자지. Damn, the website was so funny, and I can�t stop laughing.
That’s funny. When they talked about the US President on occasion, kids at hakwon way back when used to say something that sounded like, “조지 부시” (hence my misspelling) and then giggle like madmen, and the boys would point at their crotches.
The giggle because 조지 부시 comes from 좆, which is cruder than 자지. I haven’t seen the president of United States taunted in writing as 좆이 부시 (I could google up some examples though), even though 좆선 일보 for Chosun Ilbo is quite common.
Ah… gotcha, Antti. Except… would little kids be getting that? These were ten-year old kids, and they were repeating the word a lot and giggling, so I’m going to play naive and suspect my own hearing of the word was wrong, and that they were saying “자지” (dink) to their teacher, instead of “fuck”. :)
I learned that word, by the way, because someone taught me “욜라 맛있다!” as Jeonbuk dialect… when I asked where it came from, I was told it came from “좆나 맛있다.”
still laughing….