by Gord Sellar & Dabang Band<\/p>\n
Verse:<\/strong> Chorus:<\/strong> verse 2:<\/strong> chorus<\/strong><\/p>\n sax solo<\/strong><\/p>\n verse 3:<\/strong> – Dabang Band, Product<\/em> (2004)<\/p>\n chorus<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the version of my poem (viewable here) which ended up on the Dabang Band album Product. To understand the song, it is necessary to know that in Korean pronunciation of English, there is no sound like the letter Z. Koreans therefore pronounce it as a “J” sound. On my arrival in Jeonju, I was constantly being asked whether I had visited the Jeonju Jew; the more I heard about the real Jeonju Zoo (the trunkless elephant was real), the more I preferred to imagine some Orthodox Jewish man in Jeonju whom I was supposed to visit instead. <\/p>\n The song was supposed to be titled “The Jeonju Jew” but in a fit of political correctness (not by me) it was changed to “The Jeonju Zoo.” (I have ignored this where I’ve posted the music online, but it all comes down to me.) It is not meant as a racist slur, as I imagine anyone who hears the song and understands the context would agree. <\/p>\n This song was recorded and often performed by the band I was in at the time, Dabang Band. You can hear the song here<\/a>, or see the original poem version here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Gord Sellar & Dabang Band Verse: people stopped me in the street to suggest to me this jeonbuk treat they say it to everyone who\u2019s new \u2014 you gotta visit the jeonju jew it took a while to penetrate the accent but i got it straight a few hours later then i knew they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-songs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xIep-1Z","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\npeople stopped me in the street
\nto suggest to me this jeonbuk treat
\nthey say it to everyone who\u2019s new \u2014
\nyou gotta visit the jeonju jew
\nit took a while to penetrate
\nthe accent but i got it straight
\na few hours later then i knew
\nthey meant not jew but jeonju zoo<\/p>\n
\nRinglets! Black hat!
\nHasidic shouts of oy!
\nTorah in hand in this unpromised land!<\/p>\n
\nan elephant without a trunk
\na balding obese chimpanzee
\ntwo tigers sulking in a funk
\nnothing much to see
\na wolf lacking a lower jaw
\na quadriplegic polar bear
\none featherless schitzoid macaw
\nyou\u2019re better off not going there<\/p>\n
\ncages, cages, row on row,
\npersisting in my overflow
\nno matter what you make me do,
\ndon\u2019t take me to the jeonju zoo
\ni\u2019d rather go to gyeongijeong
\nwhen I\u2019ve got nowt to do,
\nand wander through the crowd down there,
\nhunting the jeonju jew<\/p>\n
\n