Composed after Kim Sakkat was refused hospitality in the house of a certain Mr. Kong. The Kong character is a family name that literally means a hole; the Korean pronunciation of the character puns on the barking of a dog. The poem appears in Ch’a Sangch’an’s “Puru shi’in yŏlchŏn,” Chung’ang, February 1936. Chŏng Taegu gave the poem its title.
Hollow barks from the shaggy mutt at the gate;
the master too bears a hollow name.
How dare he drive a traveler away in the setting sun!
He must be afraid his wife will have a hollow underside too?