House of the Rising Sun

Dog Shit An In-Depth Look Part 2

To be sure, dog shit is annoying and problematic in every country -- but is it really capable of depositing a huge, flaming bag of controversy on the entire world's doorstep?

Dateline Korea, June 2005. A young woman sits on a commuter train, protectively clutching a fluffy, miniaturized pet canine. Dogs are allowed on Korean subways, but dog bathrooms are not. Long story short: for lack of more comfortable accommodations, the dog was compelled to take a big ol' shitzu -- all spluttery, and with a lot of fanfare -- right on the rubberized linoleum floor of the subway car, to the horrified stares and glares of fellow subway passengers. Eyewitness testimony from one passenger known only as Miss Kim:

"The dog pooped right next to the old man and the girl was embarrassed so she said to dog, "What's wrong? You have not done that before!" She had many bags to carry so she was embarrassed. She didn't know what to do at the time. So my girlfriend took out a tissue from her bag and gave it to her and the old man, me and my girlfriend, gave her some space. She said thank you. And she sat down and cleaned the dog's anus with the tissue. I was ten meters distance from her. "Hey, you have to clean the poop, too. If you bring the dog, you have to be responsible for that," I yelled at her. From that time, people started paying attention to her. The old woman who was near her, said, "Hey, you have to clean! Clean! Clean the poop!" The ajumma (old woman) pushed and threw a red rag at her to use to clean. I took out my camera and I was taking pictures and pushing her to clean the poop, but she didn't say anything. She was just looking at her dog and petting it. The subway train got to Ahyun Station and when the doors open, she got off. At that time, she said something rude to the ajumma."

Miss Kim, armed with digital and cellular photography equipment, snapped several quick pictures of the offending scene, making sure the girl's face was as visible as the dog shit, and extending the narrative pastiche to include other subway patrons begrudgingly cleaning up the dog shit for her. When Miss Kim returned home, she uploaded the images to her personal website, where they existed for many weeks accompanied by exactly the sort of "outrageous, what kind of ridiculous world are we all living in" text one might glance at briefly in a blog but never actually read. But people did read, and yes, they were furious. How can you not want to rub her nose in it? The image was instantly popular, sparking a nation-wide dog shit hunt. The girl in the photograph quickly earned a new nickname: Gae-Ttong-Nyue, or "puppy poo girl"
encouraging the Western translation of Dog Shit Girl. Viewers zoomed in on portions of the image: the dog, the bag, the girl's watch. Within days, she would be found and "punished" by an online mob, with a campaign of ridicule, harassment, impenetrable JPEG parodies, shaming techniques and all-out intimidation. She was treated like a public enemy, according to the JoongAng Daily. Internetters began visiting the Web site of the university they assumed she attended, and bombarded it with posts, effectively crashing the server. When an administrative staff member finally saw a photo of the Dog Shit Girl, it was determined there was no such student in the university's records. Nevertheless, the young woman was eventually forced to capitulate with an online apology, which in time made the whole thing blow over:

"I know I was wrong, but you guys are so harsh. I'm regret it, but I was so embarrassed so I just wanted to leave there. I was very irritable because many people looked at me and pushed me to clean the poop. Anyhow, I'm sorry. But, if you keep putting me down on the Internet I will sue all the people and at the worst I will commit suicide. So please don't do that anymore."

It should be noted that The Washington Post did not have the courage to call Dog Shit Girl by her full and complete alias, preferring instead to call her Dog Poop Girl.

Dog shit, dog shit, look at all the dog shit. What if people did that? What if human beings just left shit and piss all over the sidewalk? Can you imagine that crazy alternate upside-down backwards reality? Well, of course that's exactly what babies are doing all over our poor Mother Earth. There's shit everywhere, folks-- dog and otherwise. Nobody wants to talk about it, but human beings are increasingly mirroring the behavior of canines. Ever heard of Chinese mud flaps? Sure you have: they're snug, split-open half-pants which allow toddlers in China, India, and Kenya to run around naked from the waist down, dongs flapping in the breeze and buttocks exposed. When it's time for these kids to take a shit, they can do so quickly and easily -- even when they're right in the middle of playing jump rope! Chinese mud flaps also simplify the process of helping a young one squat over a hole, a common sight in regions of China unencumbered by modern architecture. Can Western civilization be far... "behind"?

Take a moment or two to recover from that joke, and then consider a report by Aimee Green in The Oregonian, who cites similarities between the world of dog shit and the world of people shit. Kelia Rawlinson is one of many new-wave mothers who believe, "Our culture is inclined to tell you you've got to wait for your children to pee or poop on themselves and go clean them up. But why make them pee and poop on themselves? They're not born to want to do that -- really what happens is, they end up marinating in it." And now you can get Chinese mud flaps for your dog, so he can shit everywhere without getting his pants dirty! What a country!

Everywhere you look, every time you turn around, it all comes back to dog shit. Experts agree: it's an annoying, disgusting problem. While it hasn't exactly started World War III, one is still forced to wonder: is there anything good about dog shit? Well, certainly when trod upon at the scene of a crime, police can examine or identify footprints, tire tracks, and threaded bicycle trails by closely examining a pile of dog shit. And surely to some extent it could be collected en masse by special interest groups and used to fertilize the White House rose garden. And is it any wonder that some of the world's most popular snack treats are coiled, curly-cued, or otherwise fashioned in proud dollops which resemble the substance? It's true! Yogurt-covered clusters, chocolate-drenched nut clumps, and misshapen carob-coated marshmallows melting in the noonday sun, to observe just a few. Ironically, it must be reported that none of these treats should ever be fed to your dog. And look at those Lincoln-log-shaped peanut butter filled pretzels sprinkled with enormous salt crystals like the kind you'd see in the laboratory of a sewage treatment plant. Christ, they're awful. So are Cheetos™ Cheese Puffs which quite frankly mirror the individually placed, cylindrical cross-sectionals of orange dog shit stiffening on the lawn after several days of exposure. So in closure, I say “You’re the man, now, dog shit!”