In today's Korea, one of the jobs that are considered the best by the Korean people is to be a public servant (공무원: "공" means "public" as in "공공기관 (public institution)" or "공익 (public good)"; "무" means "work" as in "업무 (work)"; "원" refers to a person who holds down a particular job.) The reason for this is simple. While any other job, be it by a corporate or self-employment, has the potential to disappear, being a public servant is as stable as it gets. Getting fired takes a lot of paperwork (just like any other governmental work!) and promotion is more or less automatic. When you retire, you are given a good pension to comfortably live out the rest of your life. Even though the public servants tend to get paid less than corporate jobs, the Koreans still flock to this job due to its stability.
How to obtain one of these jobs? Simple. Take a test. This test, called 공무원 시험 (literally, public servant test), often tests your knowledge in Korean, English, Korean history, and other subjects relevant to the position that you are applying for. For most of the Korean public servant positions, you must pass one of these tests. There are classes of public servants. The lowest being 9급 공무원 (level 9 public servant), who work in local offices. The highest is 1급 공무원 (level 1 public servant), who work as the head of national-level governmental offices.
These tests are, as you may guess, very competitive. For example, in 2016, for the 9급 공무원 시험 (test to select level 9 public servants), about 165,000 people signed up to take the test. The target number of public servants? Around 4,000. Many people waste years of their lives trying to score well on these tests, but things don't always go as planned.
This may seem like a strange way to select public servants. This is because the tradition of taking a test to hold a governmental post goes back to the Joseon Dynasty.
Back then, the level of the public servants went from the lowest of level 9 (9품) to the highest of level 1 (1품). They were selected by a nationally administered test called "과거 시험," and if you passed the test, then you were given a governmental post. If you pass, it was an honour of the family, and of your village, as it was very competitive -- often around two hundred people were selected out of hundreds of thousands of people who took the test. Not much has changed, huh?
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| Koreans sometimes reenact the 과거시험, which was held in one of the palaces around Seoul. |
Anyway, in order to prepare for the test, you often had to start preparing at a very young age, pretty much as soon as you could walk and talk. In most villages, some people (sometimes retired public servants, sometimes just literate people) opened private schools, and taught the children of the village how to read and write. (As an interesting aside, there were a few nationally operated schools for talented or rich students -- the most famous one is 성균관, which is now a well-recognized university in Korea, and it has a language school that many foreigners go to in order to learn Korean!)
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| This iconic picture depicts a child being admonished by his teacher while his classmates look on with glee. |
These precursors of teachers were called "훈장" or "훈장님." They taught Chinese characters, Confucianism, and ethics (most of which were tested in the 과거 시험). They were probably very strict, making sure that the students were up to the standards not only in reading and writing, but also in their ethics and everyday behaviour. After all, Confucianism is less a subject and more a way of life (which emphasizes humanity, loyalty, filial piety, and so on), so the 훈장님 had every right to interfere with how you were living with your life!
And then there were the other learned people, who did not necessarily teach the village children, but were just as well-versed in Confucianism as the 훈장님. These people were called 선비. They were smart, well-mannered, and seemingly incorruptible. If you were doing something that was morally wrong (say eating from your neighbour's apple tree) and a 선비 passed by you, you would have been ashamed to be caught by him, although they may or may not have said something to you.
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| This is how a typical 선비 used to dress. From the long overcoat called 도포 and the characteristic hat called 갓, you could recognize a 선비 from a mile away. |
For example, you might encounter a user who thinks that swearing is immoral, and they either try to put you down, or suggest a phrase that you could say instead. Or, when you're ranting about your ex, a user chimes in and says that you are being too emotional and unfair, and that in any case, you should never say anything bad about people that you know in a public place. In your anger, you can say:
훈장질 하지 마 (Don't play teacher)or
선비 납셨네 (Here comes a 선비.)"-질" is a derogatory suffix that attaches to job titles, so "훈장질" means you're playing the part of a teacher when you really shouldn't. "납시다" is an extremely respectful form of "오시다" which is already a respectful form of "오다 (to come)." You never use this word in modern Korea, as it could only be taken as sarcasm. In ancient Korea, this word would have been used only for the king. So by saying "선비 납셨네," you are saying, "A 선비 deigned to come to my humble abode" or something along these lines.
In both cases, you're basically making fun of their holier-than-thou attitudes, and these usages are fairly common non-profanity in Korea's online communities. While it is not vulgar enough to get you banned (some communities ban you for extreme swearing) it is bad enough to insult the listener. It also gets used among friends, but saying this to a stranger (especially older strangers) is a sure formula for some sort of a fight (probably verbal, as you wouldn't provoke them enough for a fistfight.)
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