Plot: A Korean family claims the 4077th as their property, and a Korean girl with a baby claims that Radar is the father.

I have also seen this title listed as "The Chosan People."

IMHO, one of the all-time funniest episodes. I love how the lowly Korean farmers just sort of take over, and the Army (O.K., Frank and Henry, but still) can't do anything about it. There's a great scene along these lines, when they call in Pat Morita's Colonel Pak (sp.?) to translate: 'Okay, Henry, I think they understand...You've got three days to get the hell out of here.'
BTW, as far as I can tell from various reference materials, the correct title IS 'Chosan People'.

Radar said that he liked the way people treated him when they thought that he was the father of the girl's baby. I will never understand people's attitudes. Getting a girl pregnant and abandoning her is something to admire?

Hey, this is RADAR, remember -- the guy who spent a great deal of time (at least during the first few seasons) trying to lose his virginity and/or be taken seriously by his womanizing doctor heroes. Notice the hypermacho story he concocts to explain his behaviour.

According to the DVD, the correct title of this episode is "The Chosen People".

In this ep we see Hawkeye learning (or trying to learn) to speak Korean. We never see him attempt to learn it in any other episode.

Why does Radar seem so reluctant to get close to the cow? He’s a farm boy. It shouldn’t be a new experience to him.

The Korean farmer claims the 4077th is on their property. How long has the MASH unit been there? Why hasn’t the farmer staked a claim before the time of this ep? Given that the village Choon-Hi was from is nearby and Radar has visited it several times (since September) (which tells us nothing of how long the MASH unit has been there), I’d say the Korean farmer and his family took a little too much time to stake a claim to the land the 4077th is on.

“They ought to get down on the ground and kiss their lucky stars”? Boy, does Frank Burns have away with words or what?

Igor speaks for the first time in this ep. To Radar he says, “Yo son of a gun, you” while getting food in the Mess Tent. I think this part of the Mess Tent sequence has been deleted for syndication.

Surprising that Harper from the Judge Advocate General office fails to notice that the Korean boy has begun to shine his boot. The act of raising the officer’s foot and putting it on the shoeshine box and the sensation caused by the act of the shoeshine surely could not have gone unnoticed.

The DVD may have a line cut. I’m not sure. But after Frank informs Trapper and Hawkeye that a truck is coming to evacuate the farmer and family, the captains tell Major Burns that the family is not going on the truck ‘til Pierce and McIntyre know where they’re going. Burns sniffs, “Captains do not order majors!” I swear I expected Hawkeye to reply, “Then we’re threatening you.” Or something. The scene ends with Frank’s line.

This is the first time in the series that Radar would be a surrogate father to a Korean family. The next time would be in the episode “The General’s Practitioner”.

This ep also helps to establish the idea of Radar being a virgin.

If the Korean farm family do not speak English, it’s a cinch they do not read it, either. So why does Father Mulcahy give them Bibles printed in English?

A nurse asks Radar who he’s going to go to the movies with that night. Why doesn’t she wait for answer?

The DVD may have a line cut. I'm not sure. But after Frank informs Trapper and Hawkeye that a truck is coming to evacuate the farmer and family, the captains tell Major Burns that the family is not going on the truck 'til Pierce and McIntyre know where they're going. Burns sniffs, "Captains do not order majors!" I swear I expected Hawkeye to reply, "Then we're threatening you." Or something. The scene ends with Frank's line.

I remember that 'threatening' line too, Benn, but we may both be remembering another ep altogether. IIRC it was delivered in more anger than is evident at the end of this ep.

According to the DVD, the correct title of this episode is "The Chosen People".

Then - not to dispute here, just observe - it's very weird that every bit of official reference material I've seen refers to 'Chosan People". To me that version, with the pun, makes considerably more sense as an ep title. Why just call 'em 'chosen people', no explanation?

The threatening line occurs in another ep. "Crisis" I think. I'll have to check on it.

I've got a book by David Reis that identifies this ep as "The Chosan People". I looked the word up in my dictionary and found it is, if memory serves, the term used by Koreans for themselves. My dictionary spells it "C-h-o-s-e-n". Perhaps there are two ways of spelling it?

Of course, the biggest Nit is the question: Why does the MASH as Mobile Hospital, not simply move a few miles? Just how large could this farm have been? Surely not several hundreds of acres like in texas? I'd expect small-scale farming.

I'm no expert for livestock in korea, but that cow looks very european, maybe american to me; (and well fed, too) I'd have expected sth. more oriental looking like waterbuffaloes or the type seen in indian movies.

D.K., I get the impression that people are impressed that radar has hit it off with a girl; this also seems to make him attractive to the other girls (maybe along the line: if noone touches him, he must be strange, but if one girl likes him, he can't be that bad).

Doesnt the same line of Burns sniffs, “Captains do not order majors!” I swear I expected Hawkeye to reply, “Then we’re threatening you.” appear in one of the next ep. with the supply shortage?

Are the bibles printed in english? I thought they were in korean. Anyway, it seemed a bit tasteless to me: The western army drives the people from their own country to a refugee camp (which will probably have bad conditions) and expects them to read the bible happily, when the white ones do not follow it?

The whole scene with Hawk speaking korean and sam translating it was very funny. I think its the attitude of hawk versus frank thats important, not the fact if hawk ever again speaks korean. When frank says sth. along the line of "I'm american, I do not need to learn other languages, as people speak english everywhere" he is following the old clichee, while hawk is showing some respect by trying to learn a different language. Probably, with the many hours of surgery, it was too hard for him to really learn it. Or sam wasn't around anymore to help him?

Oh, about the blood test: when they take blood from the baby, I wondered just what they would test: DNA wasn't possible then, but blood type is very uncertain. Luckily, it turns out very distintive: Radar has B, mother has 0, the baby has A, so the father must have A or AB. The probabilty is very high for such a neat event. If Radar had AB, or the baby had 0, then nothing would have been proved. Like hawk says, blood typing lets you establish who can't be the father, if you are lucky, but nothing more.

I checked carefully on my DVD. The Bibles were printed in English.

"Doesnt the same line of Burns sniffs, 'Captains do not order majors!' I swear I expected Hawkeye to reply, 'Then we’re threatening you.” appear in one of the next ep. with the supply shortage?" - constanze

The lines do indeed appear in the ep, "Crisis". That may have been what was throwing me off.

The way to render this title under the current official Romanization system is joseon. Josun would be acceptable, as would choseon and chosun, but never chosan or chosen. (A Chosan does exist in what is now North Korea, but it's a different referent.) The ch- denotes an older Romanization system.

Chosan is likely the writer misremembering a too-esoteric word. Chosen is either a spell check correction or human error.

I'd've thought it was meant to be a pun.

It was. It doesn't have to be spelled the same way as the English word to be a pun.

True.