Former taekwondo champion and Olympic gold medalist Moon Dae-Sung, PhD, is under fire again as rumours that he plagiarized his doctoral thesis resurface in the Chicago Tribune, making many Korean netizens upset at the revelation that Moon really has spent most his life living in a plagiarist’s paradise.
Moon's Electoral Victory
Moon, a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), who was recently elected to the national assembly for the Saenuri Party, is accused of copy-paste plagiarism on substantial portions of his PhD dissertation, “Effect of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) on Flexibility and Isokinetic Muscle Strength in Taekwondo Player”[sic]. The scandal, which emerged during his successful electoral campaign, has earned Moon the nicknames “Control-V” (the keyboard shortcut for ‘paste’) and “Moon Do-Ricoh” (a play on his name which combines “mun-do” the Chinese characters for “the path of learning,” and Ricoh, the Japanese photocopier manufacturers).
According to an article on Daum, the furore surrounding Moon’s purported plagiarism was rekindled by Twitter users when @barry**** linked to a Chicago Tribune article, tweeting that
He is not simply an assembly member, he is also a member of the IOC, so the impact will be much greater.
This tweet was re-tweeted in excess of two-hundred times. In the article, published in the April 13 edition of the Chicago Tribune sports journalist Philip Hersh had cited the Korea Times’ indictment of South Korea as a “plagiarist’s paradise,” and compared Moon to the Hungarian president Schmitt Pál, who announced his resignation on April 2 2012 after having been stripped of his doctorate due to accusations of plagiarism. Schmitt, himself a member of the IOC and a former fencing champion, may now also face IOC sanctions for his theft of intellectual property, a fate which is also likely to befall Moon.
I just had a brilliant idea for my PhD thesis...
The Twitterers who saw Hersh’s article reacted with great embarrassment at the fact that the misbehaviour of a Korean public figure was being reported in the foreign press:
(@mjoo****)
This is a morning when our national dignity was provoked.
(@mun***)
The Saenuri Party is really throwing away our national dignity! Busan is more important than our national dignity!”
(@o_***)
“Properly shameful.”
When the article appeared on Daum on April 14, it attracted almost 4,000 comments in a short space of time, with many netizens agreeing with the outraged Twitter users that Moon is an embarrassment to the entire nation, but generally adding that he is only the tip of the iceberg.
Moon Dae Sung
Moon is now waiting to see what the ramifications of his alleged plagiarism might be, with the Senuri Party announcing that they will take no further action until they have more information, including the decision of the IOC as to whether Moon, and Schmitt, will face disciplinary action for their unfair behaviour. Needless to say, many believe that harbouring cheats within the Olympic governing body is as despicable as overlooking cheating in the Olympics themselves. Do you think Moon can roundhouse his way out of this one? Or will his copy-and-paste plagiarism leave him wishing he could press control z?
Comments from Daum:
MINU:
Taekwondo is a martial art, but you’re bad, Moon Dae- Sung, ke ke
사람잡는견떡찰:
For the past four years this country was like candy…but in the next four years it’ll become a country like bullshit…it’ll be begging.
가나나:
But Moon didn’t even write the plagiarised dissertation, heh, voting….
섬지기:
The Senuri Party call this kind of thing national dignity, ke ke ke ke
봄나들이:
This is really shameful, and this is not something I’ve said, but Koreans themselves are ashamed. How embarrassed must Koreans who live abroad be? Articles were carried in the foreign media prominently calling the illegal activities of Koreans under the Lee Myung Bak administration a Korean Watergate and that the bird-brained Senuri Party will be defeated , but the result is that they hold the majority, so the media was talking nonsense. But still, what do foreigners think of Koreans? They’ll think that they are a people who have no common sense. And of course, I mean , Koreans living abroad and Kyopo will be conscious of this too, and it will be made formal that Koreans have no common sense and are immoral. How embarrassing is that?
김영은:
The North Korean leader ‘Kim Jong-Un’ is ‘Kim Dae-Jung’s seventh son’ and before plastic surgery his actual age was 52, and now, on a farm in Namyang, near Mokpo city in Jeonnam, there are “Hidden Raider Boys” 56th Unit , where each tribe –Taiwan Chinese and Chinese-Koreans — are being trained from all over Korea. The leader of Korea’s ‘Samsung Group’ is really a Chinese guy, ‘Secretary of the Interior Continuing Ideological War’ who deceives us. So that they can hand over Korea to China, they said there was a rocket launch test on April 13, in North Korea, is facing South Korean “Jeju Island Kangjong Village America-Korea Command”, and was an attack on the “Hidden Raider Wave Boys”. Boycott Samsung products!
노둣돌:
Even just by looking at the comments, looks like already popular MB is even more popular. I wonder if party politician Moon Dae-Sung’s parents are happy, too?
노둣돌:
The actions of the Saenuri Party are those of courageous generals~~I’m scared, and the Senuri Party pisses me off~~
노둣돌:
There is something Moon Dae-Sung has to do. When they rush the bill through parliament, be right in front of the main gate. If you attack anyone who tells you to come inside, they’ll rush the bill through safely~~
용디와대가리:
Who would dare to throw money to Moon Do-Ricoh? The electorate that voted for that kind of person is the problem….
모키:
The assembly members match exactly the level of South Korea. Our neighbourhood is mistaken for a different country, and its not thought of as unusual…I hope that in these four years it’ll all go to pot, and that they’ll let regional economies go bankrupt.
강용석:
You’re astounded that a bastard like him can get elected? There’ll always be twats that’ll elect him, even if the bastard goes out. Happens all the time.
K35224:
Oh this is hilarious…It’s alright for you, it’s not alright for other
s…ke ke ke Red…looks like you do it more than the Communists. The Communist party was like that…if those upstairs say it’s right, it’s right, if they say it’s wrong, it’s wrong…Kim whatshisname from the opposition party attacked them like that…there are many more bastards in addition to them…Oh well…This is why people talk shit about them
ehfdkrkwkcjdmadmfh:
Right now, injustice, corruption, monopoly, having one law for the rich and another for the poor, and the privileges of one’s former post for judges and prosecutors are apparently, completely rampant; they take pains to produce leaflets full of distortion and novelistic writing, and ordinary people have the ladder kicked away from them from the very beginning; the middle classes, who can’t have any dreams or hopes above their station, they are busy maintaining the status quo and causing collapse, the wealth gap is becoming worse. As it becomes fixed, ultimately people are busy just trying to survive, and disinterested in politics so it’s alright for one man to rule for long periods, and while the world becomes the kind of place that the impossible Senuri party and the new right who’ll thieve our tax and ruin us, and chaebol and those bastards who’ll sell the country, the nouveau riche upstarts and the speculators are all hoping for, when the next election comes around, I just feel that we should come to our senses and do our best ~ !!
kahep972:
What kind of mental state is he in? What the hell kind of mental state would you be in to give this kind of person your vote?
쿠아:
Moon Do-Ricoh, you’re really raising Korea’s national dignity to new heights! ke ke ke ke
JK Seong:
Try being a bit stricter on yourself. Even if no-one else knows, Moon Dae-Sung, you know the truth, don’t you? Want to become a member of the national assembly? Be strict…
군만두:
Isn’t this just photocopying, rather than plagiarism?
번개:
The famous sports writer Philip Hersh knows nothing. In Moon’s neighbourhood, they’ll recruit you even if you’ve raped your brother’s wife…this is just photocopying a dissertation!!
