#116. 세로드립 -- Find the secret message (feat. f(x), Apink, and GFriend)

Have you ever seen the "Christian Fish symbol"? It's called Ichthys, or "ΙΧΘΥΣ" in Greek, and it looks like this:

You may be wondering why the Christians decided to use a fish, of all things, to represent them. If you're familiar with biblical stories, there is the story of Jesus feeding a huge crowd out of a couple of bread loafs and some fish, but that story is just one out of thousands of stories in the bible. While it is a well-known story, it seems like a major leap of logic to summarize the entire Christian faith by that one story, then go even further and use a fish to represent an entire religion, don't you agree?

Indeed, that story is not why the Christians use a fish to represent their religion. Rather, it comes from a more straightforward reason, that when you take the acrostic (taking the first letter of each word) of the phrase "Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Saviour" in Greek, you get "ΙΧΘΥΣ (ichthys)," which means "fish" in Greek.

Ιησούς    I  esous   Jesus
Χριστός   CH ristos  Christ
Θεού      TH eou     of God
Υἱός      Y  ios     son
Σωτήρ     S  oter    saviour

(Source: Wikipedia)

This is called an acrostic in English. It can be used to deliver a secret message, or to remember things easily (want to know the names of the great lakes? Just remember HOMES, or Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior!) An acrostic in English almost feels outdated and antique. It's the kind of puzzle Sherlock Holmes might have delighted in.

In Korea, however, acrostics are still thriving on the 'net. Here is a scenario where you might see an acrostic.

You engage in a bout of keyboard battle with another internet user, probably over some minor and irrelevant issue. These battles are pretty fun to watch, but unbelievably infuriating to actually engage in. These usually result in a lot of name-calling, not only about you, but about your family, your ancestors, and what they did with their sensitive body parts (the more creative you can be, the more likely you are to win!)

Here, a Buddhist monk (?) engages in a keyboard battle with another netizen named 박용민. The exchange goes:
박용민: You fake monk, you're a human trash. How was your beef meal? (ed: monks aren't allowed to eat meat).
Monk: I ate your daughter, she was tasty (ed: "먹다" or "to eat" means "to have sex with" in Korean slang).
박용민: I don't have a daughter, lol.
Monk: Oh, must have been your mother that I ate, then.

The problem is that in Korea, once you are insulted in a public forum, you are allowed to sue the other person for having been humiliated in public. So, if you get too carried away, your keyboard battle opponent might decide to screenshot your very creative insults, take them to a local police station, and file a police report. Of course, this is a hassle and rarely carried out, but such threats are daily occurrences on the Korean internet.

But once in a while, some of these people will actually threaten to file a lawsuit, usually by actually printing out the screenshots, and taking a photo of the screenshots in front of the local police station, then posting it on the online forum. At this point, you probably want to apologize and de-escalate the situation (the alternative is that a lawsuit gets filed, then you have a nice in-person meeting with a police detective, who will read aloud the insults that you wrote, the ones about someone else's family members and their ancestors and their body parts).

The accepted solution in the Korean internet community is to publicly post a sincere letter of apology, and hope that a lawsuit doesn't actually get filed. This of course hurts your pride a little, but the alternative is just too terrible to think about.

If you are daring, and if you want to spare your pride a little bit, you can try an acrostic, where you hide your real feelings in the letter of apology, and hope that the other people don't notice (not recommended). Here is an example of it:

In this letter of apology from a student to his teacher, the student apologizes for skipping "야자," which is short for "야간자습." Korean high schools have nightly review sessions for students, and you can get in trouble for missing many of these. However, in his letter of apology, the first letters of each sentence spell out "쓰발새끼야 내가 반성할거같아," which means "You f*cker, you think I'm actually sorry?"

This type of acrostic, in Korean, is called a "세로드립." The word "세로" means "downward," and its antonym is "가로" meaning "horizontal." The word "드립" is short for "ad lib," and it refers to any clever and witty remark (especially made online). Therefore, "세로드립" means "being witty downwards" or a "downward witticism."

When someone notices the 세로드립 on an online post, they generally try to give clues to the other readers by posting comments along the lines of "세로드립 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ (look downwards lol)," "세로드립 보소 ㅋㅋㅋ (look at that cleverness downwards lol)," or "세로드립 지린다 (that's some awesome downward witticism)."

The Koreans generally enjoy these kinds of 세로드립 so much that a tamer version often appears on TV shows, where the celebrities are asked to create a 세로드립 using each other's names or other simple words. These go by the name of "삼행시" or a "three (삼)-line (행) poem (시)."

이상민, the man in the screenshot, is known for having incurred an astronomical amount of debt (and he is still paying it off). When asked to create a 삼행시 using 이상민's name, 미나 (Mina) of the popular girl group IOI created this clever verse:
"I will definitely pay it back before the end of this month ("이번달")!
Things ("상황") aren't going great right now.
Please don't sue ("민사소송 = civil law suit") me!"

Some K-Pop groups also use 세로드립 that are hidden in their songs. For example, the group f(x) used in in their song "electric shock." Listen and see if you can find it:

Beginning at 0:09, Krystal sings two verses, followed by Sulli's two verses. Their lyrics go like this:

전 전 전류들이 몸을 타고 흘러 다녀 (the electric current flows through my body)
기 기 기절할 듯 아슬아슬 찌릿찌릿 (I could almost faint, the precarious of electricity)
충 충 충분해 네 사랑이 과분해 (This is enough, your love is too much for me)
격 격 격하게 날 아끼는 거 다 알아 (I know that you really adore me)

If you look at the 세로드립, it spells out the title of their song in Korean, "전기 (electric) 충격 (shock)." It seems that they were worried that their fans might not get this the first time around, because they do it again in the next verse, beginning at 1:11. This time, Luna sings the first two verses, followed by Victoria.

전 전 전압을 좀 맞춰서 날 사랑해줘 (Please love me at the right level of current)
기 기척 없이 나를 놀래키진 말아줘 (Don't surprise me without giving me any hints)
충 충돌 하진 말고 살짝 나를 피해줘 (Don't clash with me, just avoid me once in a while)
격 격변하는 세계 그 속에 날 지켜줘 (But protect me in this fast-changing world)


f(x) is not the only group to do this. Apink has a bit of an odd 세로드립 in their song "no no no". See if you can guess what their secret message is, starting at 2:34.

가장 내게 힘이 돼 주었던 (You supported me the most)
나를 언제나 믿어주던 그대 (you always trusted me)
다들 그만해 (When everyone says to stop)
라고 말할 때
마지막 니가 (I will become the last love that you will lay eyes on)
바라볼
사랑 이젠 내가 돼줄게
아~

Weirdly enough, they decided to encode the first eight letters of the Korean alphabet into their song. If you think that the translation is more awkward than usual, this is probably because they had to sacrifice a bit of the natural flow in order to fit in the 세로드립! It sounds a bit awkward in Korean as well.

Here is one last example by GFriend, in their song "Love Whisper." The 세로드립 starts at 1:52.

여전히 오늘도 화창했었지 (Today was sunny, as usual)
자꾸만 하루 종일 네 생각만 (I kept thinking of you all day)
친절한 너에게 전하고 싶어 내 맘을 (I want you to know how I feel, you kind-hearted person)
구름에 실어 말하고 말 거야 (I will send my heart to you by a cloud, and finally tell you how I feel)

Their group name ("여자친구") has been hidden in their lyrics!

So, here is another reason to pay attention to the Korean lyrics of the K-Pop groups, because you never know when they will be sending you a secret message.

I will close this long post by adding that, Koreans have moved one step further from the usual acrostic, and sometimes they attempt "대각선 드립," or "diagonal witticism." While this is much harder to pull off, a famous 대각선드립 happened in nothing less than the official North Korean website "우리민족끼리," where they decided to insult Kim Jong-Il:

아 위대한 령도자 김정일 동지께서 코쟁이 놈들과 내통하는 그런 민족의 배신자들을 한시라도 빨리 이 조선땅에서 몰아내주셨으면 좋겠당께요 설레발일지도 모르겠지만. 나에게는 꿈이있당께 위대한 령도자 김정일 동지께서 핵무기를 하루빨리 만드시어 그런놈들을정말 한소리도 못하게 시방 북조선의 무서운 맛을 보여주어야 한디 참말로 위대한일을 하시고 계신 김정일장군님과 무기개발 선생님들께 언제나 감사드린당께

The poem supposedly translates to:

I cannot wait for our great leader and comrade Kim Jong-Il to

sweep out the traitors who are passing information to the big-nosed people (ed: caucasians)

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but I have a great dream

That our great leader Kim Jong-Il completes the nuclear weapons quickly

And show the traitors the true power of North Korea

I am always so thankful to the general Kim Jong-Il and his scientists who are doing great things.

However, you can see that the diagonal spells out "아시발김정일" or "Ah f*ck, Kim Jong-Il." Needless to say, this poem is said to have been deleted from the North Korean website rather quickly.

All of this proves that you really need to be on your guard at all times when you're navigating the Korean internet -- you never know when you'll be fooled by a 세로드립!

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#114. 막, 어, 그, 네 -- How to use filler words in a Korean conversation

Here's a shout-out to Jessica from Michigan, who suggested this post! :)

Everyone has a quirk when they speak. For some, this might show up as a gesture (for example, winking at random moments), or in the intonation of their speech. But the most common is their choice of filler words.

Like, it really helps to, like, insert these random words into your sentences because, like um, it gives you a bit more time to organize your thoughts, you know?

For example, the English speakers often use words such as "like", "I mean", "you know", and "um," and these can be inserted into any pauses that you might take while speaking the sentence. They fill the space which would otherwise be filled with an awkward pause, and they help the conversation go smoothly.

So, as a non-native speaker, it would be definitely very helpful to be able to use these filler words properly. Some of the Korean filler words include "막", "어", "그", and so on, and there are many examples of Koreans speaking with these filler words below. So, pick a filler word, and practice filling the pauses with them.

A word of caution, though: you should remember that each filler word comes with a specific nuance, and each group of people has a different preferred filler word (think about how the filler word "like" is mostly associated to teenaged girls in English!) So, while it's not wrong to choose any filler word you would like, you should pay attention to the native Koreans when they speak, and see if you can see any popular filler word that is used within your demographic.

Without any further ado, here are some Koreans engaged in a spontaneous speech (which is usually when the filler words get used the most). See if you can pick out the filler words.

The first two clips are from the popular Korean reality show called "Produce 101." In this show, 101 young women (101 young men in season 2) aspiring to be K-pop singers competed for one of the 11 spots in the team that would debut through this show. The winners were determined by the viewers' votes. So the competition was fierce to get even a tiny bit of the screen time, as if you got none, you would not have any viewers vote for you!

In these clips, the women and men are given exactly one minute to guess the object hidden inside a box that they cannot see, and they are only allowed to feel the object. When they guess the object within the time limit, they are allowed to use the remaining time to show their talents, or to plead for more votes, in however way they want. Many contestants elected to say a few words about themselves, and as they were under a time pressure and a bit frazzled (understandingly so!), many of them used more filler words than usual.

Here is Jeon Somi (전소미), the winner of Season 1 of Produce 101, trying to guess the object in the box (a small octopus, 낙지 in Korean).

She says:

아... 안녕하세요! 전소미라고 합니다.
Ah... hi! My name is Jeon Somi.
아 네 지난번 PR때 너무 건성건성 했다고 하시는데
Ah... yes. People said that I wasn't doing my best in the last PR opportunity.
저 엄청 떨어가지고 말을 잘 못했던것 같습니다.
I was really nervous and couldn't speak properly.
어 일단 너무 죄송하고요 이제 저 오늘 기분 최고치입니다!
Ah... first of all, I'm really sorry about that, and now I am feeling the better than I have ever been!
너무 행복해서 아 여러분들한테 비타민을 막 쏴주겠습니다.
I'm so happy and so... ah... I want to send vitamin to everyone.
너무 감사하고요 아- 사랑하고 아 저 투표해주시고요.
Thank you so much! Ah... I love you, ah, and please vote for me.

낙지 진짜 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
Octopus, really! lol
감사하고요 사랑합니다. 네 소미 많이 투표해주시고 사랑해주시고
Thank you, and I love you. Yeah. Please vote for Somi and send some love!
꼭 프로듀스 101도 많이 사랑해주세요. 감사합니다!
And please love Produce 101 as well. Thank you!


So you can tell that Somi's preferred filler word is "아" and "네."

The filler word "아" is used fairly universally among the younger people of Korea and is fairly neutral in nuance.

The filler word "네" is very different, however. You know that "네" is "yes" in Korean, in formal speech (for example, if you want to say "yes" to your teacher, you would say "네," as opposed to the informal "응.") Somi is using this filler word because she is addressing millions of viewers, most of whom she would use the formal speech to. In fact, you will see many Korean celebrities use this filler word on TV shows for the same reason, that it is somewhat formal and respectful.

However, this is less appropriate as a filler word in your daily speech, even when you are speaking to your elders! Personally, I think of salespeople who are extremely eager to please when people use this filler word (not common at all!) and it is only appropriate when you are really lowering yourself and trying to make the other person feel extremely valued.



Here is another clip from Season 2 of the same show, where Kim Samuel (김사무엘) and Lee Dae Hui (이대휘, who ranked in top 11 and is now a member of the group Wanna One) competing to guess the object first. The object is raw chicken feet (닭발)!

네, 여러분. 네, 어, 국민 프로듀서님!
Yes, everyone. Yes, uh, the citizen producers! (Ed: as the viewers voted for the winner, the contestants called the viewers the "citizen producers")
네, 안녕하세요, 네, 어, 브레이브 엔터테인먼트의 김사무엘입니다.
Yes, hello. Yes, uh, I am Kim Samuel of Brave Entertainment.
이 이름을 꼭 기억해주시고요,
Please remember this name,
네, 저는, 어, 24시간동안 열심히 하고, 어, 꿈을 향해 달려가고
Yes, I, uh, worked really hard for 24 hours, uh, and I am running towards my dreams
네, 손에 비린내가 많이 납니다.
Yes, my hand smells pretty bad.
네 하지만 이 비린내가 나도 여러분들한테 어, 얘기를 할수 있는게
Yes, but even despite the smell, it is, uh,
어 정말 영광이고요,
such an honour to be able to talk to you all,
아... 저를 만약에 뽑아주시면 어... 국민프로듀서님들을 위해,
Ah... if you vote for me, uh... I will, for all of you citizen producers,
국민 프로듀서님 뿐만이 아니라, 여러분들을 위해, 어, 정말 최고의, 어
and not just the citizen producers, but for everyone, uh, I will really, uh
아이돌이 되겠습니다.
become the best idol.
네 그러면 많이 사랑해주시고요,
Yes, so, please send me some love,
네 그리고 프로듀스 101에 들어가셔서 꼭 투표해주세요!
Yes, and please log onto the Produce 101 website and vote for me!
네, 김사무엘입니다!
Yes, I am Kim Samuel!
네, 나이는 16살이고요, 네, 춤, 노래, 랩 다 자신있습니다.
Yes, I am 16 years old, and yes, I am confident in all of dance, singing, and rap.


You can tell that Samuel really likes to use the two filler words "네" and "어." Just as in the case of Somi, I would say that it is very unlikely that Samuel will use the word "네" as filler in normal conversation, and you can tell that this filler word usually begins a phrase -- these pauses are more intentional than the mid-sentence pauses, and it seems that Samuel uses this artificial filler "네" more frequently in these intentional pauses.

However, in mid-sentence, if he needs to pause for a second, he reverts to what is presumably his usual choice of filler, "어." If I had to guess, I would say that this is the filler that he uses when he is conversing with his friends.


Finally, here is a clip of a middle school principal making a speech at a graduation ceremony (boring, I know!) and the transcript is mostly subtitled in the video. Can you guess what filler words he is using?

Here, the principal is using an overwhelming amount of "에" and "어" as his filler (both similar in nuance as "ah"), but you can hear the occasional "그" as well. In fact, for whatever reason, when Koreans make a (boring) speech, "에" is a very common filler word -- some Koreans might even call "에" the filler word of the principals.



I personally use "막" as a filler word. It originates from the adverb "마구" meaning "haphazardly" or "without pattern," and it can be used as a proper part of speech. For example, a sentence using "막" correctly might be:

"눈싸움을 하면서 눈덩이를 마구 (막) 던졌다." (In a snowball fight, I threw snowballs without any regards to the consequences/without pattern/indiscriminately/)

However, if I were to say the above sentence in an informal speech, I might have to use "막" in two different ways:

"막 어제 내가 막 눈싸움을 하는데 막 눈덩이를 막 던져버렸어." (So like, I was in a, like, snowball fight, and like, I threw so many snowballs.)

Here, the red "막" denote fillers (without any meaning), and the blue "막" is used properly as an adverb. It is even more informal than "아" or "어" in nuance, and if I were ever to appear on a TV show (unlikely), I would probably refrain from using "막" myself and maybe choose "아" or "어" out of respect for the viewers (but since my career doesn't depend on gaining love and support from the viewers, I probably won't stoop to using "네" -- it feels too professional and it has a nuance of pandering to the crowd at the same time!)

While I can't help you choose your own personal filler, I will once again recommend that you listen to normal speech by the Koreans. Possibly the easiest filler is just "아" or "어," but some fillers have more aegyo (listen to girls who have more aegyo, and see what they use as fillers -- sometimes just the way a word is spoken can change a nuance!), some fillers might signify that you are very educated or very serious, and so on. And I hope that this makes your conversation flow a bit more naturally!

In closing, here is a small tidbit of Korean grammar (I had to consult several Korean language teachers and would-be teachers in Korean high schools to learn about this; so don't expect an average Korean to know this!): the filler words in Korean are called "간투사."

The letter "간" comes from Hanja, meaning "the crack in between." Its full name is "사이 간" (as in, "우리사이" means "the space (사이) between us (우리)") and you see this Hanja show up in words as "미간" (the space between your eyebrows), "중간" (the space in the middle), and "간격" (width of space).

Here is Hanja for "사이 간," which is really cool! The Hanja for "door" is  門, and the Hanja for the "sun" is 日, so "사이 간" visually represents the sunlight shining through the crack in your door!

The letter "투" means "to throw," as in "투수" (the pitcher), and the letter "사" means "word" (for example, "명사" means "a noun", "동사" means "verb", and "형용사" means "adjective.")

So "간투사" literally means "words thrown in between," that is, an "interjection!"

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#101. How to find your true love (feat. Would U by Red Velvet, Shamanism 9)

K-Pop is one of my guilty pleasures in life. Yet I can't completely figure it out.

Although I am a straight woman, I listen almost exclusively to the girl groups. I suppose I do this because I feel that the K-Pop girl groups are the embodiment of femininity. Having always been a super-feminine person, listening and watching these girls with perfect faces and perfect body, with beautiful hair, makeup, and costume make me feel envious and happy at the same time.

They are also something that I could never be; I could never have that much courage to step out into the streets of North America wearing so much frills and laces in my clothes (although I secretly love them!), nor could I reasonably put that much care into my appearances and still not be sleep-deprived.

So, I never tell my real-life friends and acquaintances about how much time I actually spend listening to K-Pop (answer: most of the time when I'm listening to music.) But sometimes, you come across something so fantastic that you have to talk about it somewhere!

Red Velvet is one of the most popular K-Pop girl groups today. They are produced by SM Entertainment (the producer of Girls' Generation, f(x), Super Junior, TVXQ!, SHINee, EXO, NCT, etc.) which means they are comprised of the most elite trainees in the Korean entertainment system. Indeed, all five members of Red Velvet are known for being beautiful and talented. Everyone sings, raps, and dances extremely well. Furthermore, they go by two concepts: "red" and "velvet." While the "red" concept is the usual K-Pop stuff -- cheerful, bright dance songs -- the "velvet" concept is aimed at musicality and artistry. And they have found success in both, which is fairly unusual.

Let's stop for a moment to appreciate these beautiful and talented girls.

Anyway, the song that really caught my attention recently is a fairly minor piece for Red Velvet. This song was featured in SM Station, which publishes a song each week by SM artists to allow for experiments. The artists are free to deviate from their usual style and work on whatever they want. Red Velvet occasionally participates in SM Station as well, and the song "Would U" feels neither "red" nor "velvet." It is more stereotypically K-Pop, and a beautiful one at that. Take a moment to watch and listen:

In this video, Irene (there is just one girl in this video!) is surprised by a red yarn while daydreaming, and she follows it to find a boy waiting for her. Through the lyrics, she expresses her hope that this is the love from the fairy tales that she's been dreaming of for a very long time. And there is no doubt in my mind that she found it in this music video.

I say this because of the red yarn. According to a very popular myth in East Asia (Korea, China, and Japan), it is said that every woman has a red string tied to her little finger from birth. When you follow the string, you will find that the other end of the red string is tied to her spouse and one true love.

One famous legend comes from China, where a man meets a 신선 (immortal man-god who is said to know everything about humans) during his travels. The 신선 was carrying a heavy bag and resting under the moonlight. The man was curious about this bag, and asked the 신선 what the bag contained. When he looked inside, he saw heaps of red strings, and the man-god explained that everyone is tied to their future spouse by one of these red strings (which are invisible to the human eyes). When the man asked about his red string, the 신선 pointed out an old one-eyed woman in rags carrying a toddler, and told him that the toddler was his future bride. Enraged, the man ordered  his servant to kill the toddler. The servant, as ordered, found the pair and stabbed the toddler with a knife, then ran away.

Many years later, the man was still not married, although he played a crucial role in a battle which led his country (Tang Dynasty) to victory. His general was very pleased and offered to give his daughter to the man as a reward. The daughter was very beautiful, but had a scar between her eyes. Curious about this scar, he asked the general about it, who responded that when the toddler was out with her nanny, some psychopath (!) tried to stab her and ran away. Her nanny was, of course, one-eyed and very old. It is said that the man finally realized that he could not go against the will of the gods.

There are many variations of this story; some say that the strings are tied to one's ankles, or that the strings are actually red and blue (to signify yin and yang). In fact, in traditional Korean marriages, the strings are featured prominently in various parts of the wedding.

Can you find the red-and-blue strings?

Even in modern-day Korea, some shamans will claim to see these red strings ("붉은 실") tied to people's fingers (and the Koreans are, for the most part, willing to play along or believe). Can you imagine what our world would look like, though, if everyone had a string tied to their fingers? It would look amazingly complicated, as all the strings will be tangled together.

But then, if you think about it, this is how relationships work. Like the mass of tangled strings, we meet many people and then drift away, realizing that we're not right for each other. Sometimes the strings are so tangled up that we don't realize that our true love has been right beside us all along. Then once in a while, the world rights itself, all the strings get untangled, and it is clear as day that the person in front of you is definitely your true love.

While I find the Asian philosophy to be too complicated for the most part, I find the story of the red string of fate to be incredibly romantic. It tells me that if I follow the path of my life as I follow the red string tied to my finger, one day I will eventually arrive at my destination, where my true love awaits.

Of course, this sounds way to fantastical to actually voice out in real life -- just like how I will only ever secretly listen to K-Pop. In that sense, I am glad that Irene of Red Velvet managed to follow her red string of fate and found her true love. Such is the world of K-Pop. That wonderful world of ideals and fantasy.

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#98. 빻다 -- you're f-ugly

A few years ago, a journalist contacted people of various nationalities, and asked them to photoshop her own face to conform to the standards of beauty of their country.

This is the original picture of the journalist.

I suppose that if less photoshop was applied to her face, then the corresponding culture has a less rigid standards of beauty. Here are some examples of the photoshopped results by various nations. To see more photos, you can visit here.

Australia

Germany

Morocco

United States

I had an interesting reaction to this experiment. While I felt that all these women were undoubtedly on the pretty side, I felt reluctant to call any of these photoshopped images the ideal standard of beauty.

Except the one from Korea.

One Korean netizen commented: "Wow, we even changed her race."

To me, the Korean beauty very accurately reflected what people consider to be ideal. In fact, I feel confident that nearly every Korean will agree that this woman is beautiful.

I suppose this is because the Koreans tend to have a very rigid standards for beauty. For example, you are required to have snow-white and clear skin; your eyes must be large and double-lidded; your face must be oval-shaped and not too long, nor not too square; your nose should be high (but not too high), and narrow (but not too narrow); your lips must be plump (but not too plump) and curve slightly upwards. I could go on, but you get the idea.

I can more or less understand why the Koreans do this; they are ranked from the first place to the last place on their grades from their early lives. This rank largely determines their life trajectory, and so the Koreans remain sensitive to "where they stand in relation to the others." This attitude does not just apply to your grades in school, or the rank of your university that you attended. They tend to want to rank many different things, from the prestige of your job, to your desirability as a potential spouse, to how beautiful your face is.

This means that the Koreans use the word "ugly" to describe someone's face with more ease than those coming from the Western culture. There is a rigid standard of beauty, which you can use to rank everyone's faces, and if someone's face does not conform to the Korean standards, then they must be ugly. And quite frankly, they can be offensive about it.

The most standard way to say that someone is ugly is:

"준호는 정말 못생겼어." (Junho is really ugly).

"생기다" means "to have an appearance." For example, if something looks like a flower, you can say:

"저건 꽃처럼 생겼네" (That has the appearance of a flower).

So, if you say "못생기다," since "못" means "unable," it means to "unable to have an appearance," which is to say, "ugly." While the connotation is of course rude, this word is standard and nonoffensive (for example, if you want to talk about an ugly but endearing doll, you can say "못생긴 인형.")

Unfortunately, as the concept of "being ugly" is so clearly defined in the Korean culture, the slang for "ugly" also has many variations. When I was a child, I remember the popular choice of word for being ugly was to say:

"내친구는 메주같이 생겼어." (My friend looks like a block of fermented soybeans.) 

"메주" is a block of fermented soybeans, which is the Korean version of the miso paste. The Korean 메주 is a lot thicker in texture; so thick that you can mold them into bricks and hang them up.

You ferment the soybeans for a while, then you hang them up like this to dry them. This way, they get preserved for years. From this, you can make soy sauce (간장) and gochujang (고추장).

The reason for calling someone a "메주" is because a 메주 is everything that you don't want in your face. It has a dark complexion; its surface is rough and uneven, and sometimes you can even see pieces of soybean on it; and its shape is a square instead of oval. If you had any of these attributes on your face, you would be ugly by the Korean standards. Thankfully, it seems that "메주" is no longer in fashion, and I have not heard anyone use it in years.

The current choice of word for being ugly is "빻다." This verb, pronounced "빠타," is a standard verb that you can find in a Korean dictionary. It means to pulverize something using a mortar and pestle. For example, you may dry some hot red peppers, then pulverize them to get the hot pepper flakes (in Korean, you would say "고추를 빻아서 고추가루를 만든다.")

The Korean version of mortar and pestle. (절구 is the bowl in Korean, and 절구공이 is the pestle). 

So, if you say that someone's face is "빻았다" (past tense of "빻다," pronounced "빠았다"), this means that they are so ugly that it looks like their face has been pulverized by the mortar and pestle. For example, you might say:

"은영이 얼굴은 진짜 빻았어." (Eunyoung's face is so ugly that it looks like it's been crushed into a powder.)

When this word was popularized (maybe in 2016 or so), many people understandably felt repulsed by the word. This word was mostly used on the internet, as people tend to be more cruel when they can be anonymous, and strongly shunned in real life. You should also stick to this guideline -- never use this word in real life, as it is highly offensive.

Another theory for the origin of this word is that it comes from the 경상 dialect, which says "빠사지다" or "빠아지다" instead of "부서지다" (broken); while this is slightly less offensive, I think this origin is still plenty offensive!

As of very recent, this word does get used in an endearing way in very specific contexts (however, one should still avoid this word in real life). Below is a photo of a girl named 최유정 (Yoojung Choi), who placed 3rd in the reality show "Produce 101," which aimed to choose eleven beautiful girls to form an idol group (the group debuted under the name of IOI, and became immediately popular; however, under the terms of the contract of the reality show, the group disbanded less than a year after their debut.)

Absolutely adorable!

This adorable and talented girl immediately gained many fans. She could sing, dance, and rap, and most of all, she had a ton of aegyo, which won over many viewers.

Unfortunately, she does not meet the standards for the Korean beauty. Her eyes are a tad too small; her face is a little bit too round; her nose is not high enough; and the list goes on. Her talents were more than enough to compensate for it, though, and the Korean fans found this very amusing that this "ugly" girl had charmed an entire nation.

Her fans therefore gave her the nickname of "빻요미" (here, the ㅎ is silent). This is a combination of "빻다" and "귀요미," meaning "an ugly cutie." I suppose this is Korea's way of admitting that there are beautiful girls out there who do not meet the traditional standards for the Korean beauty. 

This style of nickname found its way to other Korean celebrities who are in the same boat as 최유정, namely, not beautiful enough, yet so charming that you can't help liking them. Another example is the Korean girl group Gfriend ("여자친구" in Korean). They are sometimes called "빻자친구" in the Korean internet.

The Korean reaction to these nicknames varies. Some people find this nickname adorable, and they use it with love and endearment. The others are offended by this nickname, and they will get angry when they hear it.

The fact that there is a clear divide between "beautiful" and "ugly" is one of the most difficult things for me to reconcile, having spent enough time in both the Korean and the Western culture. A huge point of debate for the Koreans is the following: some will insist that the foreigners secretly have an identical standards for beauty, and that whoever is beautiful in Korea is also beautiful abroad; and the others will argue that the foreigners all have different standards for beauty, and some "ugly" Koreans would be a top-notch beauty in other cultures. What do you think?

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#56. 빠순이 -- Oppa, I love you

Here is a very quick Korean slang that gets used a lot in the K-pop scene.

Back in the day (and nowadays, too!) the K-pop boy groups commanded a frightening number of fans. They would send them fan letters and gifts, attend concerts, and the very devoted ones would even follow them to their other scheduled events. Some of them were truly fanatics about their boy groups.

When the boy group members appeared in front of the waiting fans, they would scream in the hopes that the boy group members would look at them. One of the most common words that you could hear at this point was, of course, "오빠! (oppa!)"

The Koreans who were not so into fan clubs found this pretty amusing. The word "오빠" is a friendly honorific, with which a younger female calls an older male, but only when they know each other well. But somehow, it was tolerated in K-pop to call a celebrity "오빠." The Koreans soon made up new words to make fun of this phenomenon. The group of girls religiously following a boy band around were called an "오빠부대 (an "oppa" army)" and it is not so different in nuance to "groupies," although no direct contact with the band member is necessary.

An individual member of an "오빠부대" was often called "오빠순이." Remember that "-순이" is a suffix you can add to many words (both nouns and verbs, as well as adjectives and adverbs) which then acts as a nickname to a woman ("-돌이" is the corresponding male version).  For example, a girl who really likes apples (사과) can be called "사과순이," a girl who really likes to eat (먹다) can be called "먹순이," and so on. So a girl who likes her oppas can be nicknamed "오빠순이."

Then as the language evolved, people started looking at "오빠순이" as a full name. To make it even friendlier (or maybe more derogatory), the took out the first letter, which would have acted as the last name in the Korean naming system (for example, the skater Yu-Na Kim writes her name as 김연아 in the Korean system, and 김 is her last name; if you were friends with her, you just call her 연아; if you're not friends with her but somehow want to look down on her, you call her 연아 as well. It's the nuance that counts!)

And nowadays, a girl who fangirls a little too hard (okay, maybe really hard) is called a "빠순이." It is fairly derogatory, although some people will take pride in the fact that they are a 빠순이. Similarly, for a fanboy, they call him "빠돌이." If you see a girl who is a hardcore fan of BTS, you can say:

걔 완전 방탄소년단 빠순이야 (She is a total fangirl of BTS.)

It has gotten even shorter as of late; now you can simply call someone a "빠," even dropping the friendly suffix "-순이." Often, it is used like a suffix "-빠" although you can use it as an independent word. And the above sentence becomes

걔 완전 방탄소년단빠야.

 Weirdly enough, while the word "빠순이" still has a very negative connotation, as it is derogatory (remember that you're calling someone (오빠순이) by their first name only (빠순이), and not using the last name (오)!) the suffix "-빠" is only a little bit negative. Sometimes "-빠" can be translated as just "fan," although it depends on the context (is the speaker being sarcastic? neutral?)

These words are derogatory enough that they do not get used in the mainstream media. Some people would also take offense being called a 빠순이. While many people use these words, take care never to call someone a 빠순이 in their face, as you never know how they will react! But it is still a useful word to know, if you were to navigate an internet forum!

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#46. 아재개그 -- Dad jokes (feat. Mamamoo)

Okay, I'll admit this now. I am a big fan of Mamamoo. And they just came out with a new song today that has such clever lyrics, that despite the fact that I had already scheduled my posts to appear for the next week, I am going to change the order around and write a post about how cute their lyrics are.

Before going into that, though, one of the readers of this blog had commented before that certain ideas seem to transcend languages (the example that prompted this discussion was the fact that when someone is beyond frustrating, Koreans call them "carcinogenic," or "발암" -- on Reddit, you often see the comments of the form "this post just gave me cancer.")

Another instance of the transcendence of ideas is the idea of "dad jokes." For some reason, in both anglophone and Korean cultures, people think that dads really like lame jokes (Given that my dad is the master of lame pun-y jokes, I can't dispute that!)

The Korean equivalent of "dad jokes" is "아재개그." The word "아재" is a 경상 dialect (경상도 사투리) for "아저씨," which officially refers to married men (but in reality, it's hard to figure out whether someone is married or not, so calling people who look like they're past their late thirties is a fair game!) And using 사투리 (dialect) adds familiarity to "아저씨."

Anyway, here are some examples of 아재개그 in Korean!

Q: 미치기 싫으면 어떻게 하죠? (What to do if I don't want to go crazy?)
A: 솔을 치면 됩니다. (Hit the sol-note instead.)

Most dad jokes rely on lame puns. This is one example of it. The word "미치다" means crazy, but you could also break it up into two parts to get "미 치다," which means to hit "미." Koreans use the note names for music scales (so cdefgabc becomes do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do (도레미파솔라시도)). They're telling you that if you don't want to hit "미" then just go ahead and hit "솔."

Q: 이 바나나를 먹으면 어떻게 될까요? (What happens when you eat this banana?)
A: 저한테 반하게 됩니다. (You will fall for me.)

This is another pun. When you read out the word "바나나," it sounds exactly like the word "반하나," which means "to fall for." It's a silly play on two words sounding the same!

Q: 저한테 불만있으세요? (Do you have problems with me?)
A: 아니요, 물도 있어요 (No, I also have water.)

"불만있다" means "to have a complaint." But you can also break it up to "불만 있다," or "only have fire." Well, they're telling you that not only do they have only fire, but also they have water.

Q: 지금 제주도에요. (I'm at Jeju Island.)
A: 재주도 좋으시네요. (You're talented.)

This one is a bit of a stretch. The word "제주도" sounds like "재주도" which is "재주" + "도 (particle meaning 'also')" So when someone says that they're in Jeju Island, the dad joke is that they must be talented/lucky to be there. (In the song itself, the lyrics are: "내 맘을 흔든 너 재주도 좋아", or "lucky you, you made me fall for you.")

Well, these dad jokes, or 아재개그, make up the first part of Mamamoo's new song "아재개그." Here is the music video, which is subtitled because even the native Koreans would appreciate it!

And here are the rest of the 아재개그 that appear in the song:

Q: 잘생긴 부처님은 뭐라고 부를까요? (What do you call a handsome buddha?)
A: 부처핸섬! (Literally, buddha handsome, but it sounds like "put your hands up!")

The Korean word for "buddha" is "부처." If you were a buddhist and you wanted to talk about buddha, you would add "-님" to it to make it "부처님," to elevate buddha to a status higher than your own (this is common in all the religions in that you add "-님" to your deity. In Christianity, which was mixed with the Korean shamanism when it was first introduced, the deity's name is "하늘" or "the sky." So you call the deity "하늘님" or "하느님" which is the common usage nowadays.)

Q: 소금이 죽으면 어떻게 돼요? (What happens when salt dies?")
A: 죽염이 돼요. (It becomes bamboo salt.)
While "죽" means "bamboo" and "염" means "salt" in Chinese, this joke gives "죽" a secondary meaning of "dead," since it shares the same letter as "죽다 (to die)." Bamboo salt is made by putting regular salt in the hollow of bamboo branches, then roasting it over fire over time.

Q: 복숭아가 결혼하면 뭐게? (What happens when a peach marries?)
A: 웨딩피치. (It becomes Wedding Peach.)
"Wedding Peach" is a Japanese anime that had its heyday in Korea in the late 90s. It is similar to "Sailor Moon" -- a bunch of girls transform (into warriors in bridal dresses) to fight the evil.

Q: 만인의 파이는 뭐게? (What is the pie that everyone loves?)
A: 와이파이 (Wi-Fi.)
Since Korean alphabet doesn't distinguish between "P" and "F," the "pie" that everyone ("만인" or "ten thousand people") loves is "wi-fi."

Q: 소녀시대는 가게에서 뭘 할까요? (What does Girls' Generation do in stores?")
A: 티파니 (Tiffany/they sell t-shirts)
Girls' Generation is a popular girl group in Korea, and Tiffany is a member. "Tiffany," or "티파니" in Korean, sounds like "티 파니" or "Selling T." Koreans often just say "티" instead of "티셔츠 (t-shirts)."

Q: 소가 올라가면 어떻게 되나요? (What happens when an ox goes up?)
A: 소오름 (Goosebumps).
"소오름" is a slang for "소름" meaning "goosebumps." It can be broken up into "소 오름" or "the rise of ox."

Hopefully you enjoyed some of the Korean dad jokes -- they seem just as lame as the English ones. But then, the more lame a dad joke is, the better, right?

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Addendum: Per request, here is the translation + explanation of the interlude (where the Mamamoo members are watching the TV broadcasting more 아재개그):

치맥먹을래? 여기요! 여기요! 서울역이요!

The speaker decide that he wants to order "치맥" (치킨과 맥주, chicken and beer), so he calls the waiter over. In Korean, the standard way to signal a waiter over is to say "여기요 (here)!" But "여기요" sounds exactly like "역이요 (this is a station)," so he adds a lame dad joke, saying "서울역이요 (this is Seoul station)." So, first he notes that there are two ways to interpret the short sentence "여기요," then he adds a few words to the beginning of that sentence to clarify the meaning of the sentence, showing the readers that he chose the very minor and obscure meaning over the meaning that everyone would have guessed.

저기요, 저기요, 옛날옛적이요!

Continuing with the above theme of same sound + adding a few words to the beginning to change the meaning, this time, he begins with the phrase "저기요 (excuse me)!" But again, "저기요" sounds exactly like "적이요 (doesn't even make a ton of sense)," and adds a few words at the beginning to get "옛날옛적이요 (once upon a time)." Seriously, these guys are even worse at dad jokes than Mamamoo!

A: 여기올 때 뭐 타고 왔어? (What did you ride to get here?)
B: 가르마 타고 왔지. (I parted my hair.)
A: 나는 커피타고왔는데! (I just made a coffee from coffee mix!)

This joke is more in line with the dad jokes in Mamamoo's songs. The verb "타다" usually refers to riding cars, but its very minor usage is "가르마 타다," or "part one's hair" (Koreans have a word for the part itself; it's called "가르마.") So when one guy asks what the other guy took as transportation to get there, the guy intentionally misunderstands the meaning of "to take" to tell him that he parted his hair, as they use the same verb.

Another minor usage of "타다" is "to mix powder into liquid." In Korea, coffee mix is fairly common. Instead of fancy espresso machines, a lot of workplaces will provide you with coffee mix, and you mix the powder with the hot water to make coffee yourself. So when the guy B gives a dumb answer, the guy A gives an even dumber answer, saying "I just made coffee!"

A: 무슨 치킨 먹을래? (What kind of chicken do you want?)
B: 난 저기... 로보캅이 먹는거. (The kind that Robocop eats.)
A: 그게 뭐야? (What's that?)
B: 음~치킨, 음~치킨!

Listen to this joke, rather than just reading it! "음~치킨" definitely looks like a kind of chicken (like "양념치킨") but it also feels like a robot might make this sound when it's moving. This joke is definitely funnier than the others!

A: 엄마! 여기 무좀 주세요! 마마, 무!

This one should be pretty easy to understand. The man wants some pickled radish to go with his chicken, so he calls over the waitress (when they're not young, you sometimes call them "이모 (aunt)" or "엄마 (mother)") and asks for the radish (무). Of course, this is the same thing as "Mama, 무!" or, the name of the group "Mamamoo!"

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#12. 역주행 -- Every underdog's dream

In looking back at some of my earlier posts, I realized that there is a word that, in theory, means the polar opposite thing of the word "정주행." The word that I have in mind is "역주행." While the letter "정" means "correctly," the letter "역" means "in reverse." Therefore, if "정주행" is describing the movement of a car going forward, "역주행" describes the movement of a car going backwards.

In the context of internet slang, however, it means something completely different from what you might think. While "정주행" means binge watching dramas or reading webtoon episodes starting at episode #1 and moving on, no one starts at the last episode and works their way to the first episode! But there's a context in which the word "역주행" makes sense.

That context is the K-pop scene. It is amazingly fascinating how the competitive nature of the Korean society drives the K-pop groups to come up with better music, better dances, and better entertainment. There are several large charts that track in real-time (in Korean, that's "실시간," literally real-time) how the new single releases are doing; some of the more popular ones are 가온차트, 소리바다, 멜론차트, and 벅스차트. Each K-pop group pays a lot of attention to it; they count how many days, if not hours, their songs stayed at the top of the chart, and who they had to beat out to rise to the top. While it is usually normal to debut their new songs near the top of the chart, and the ranking moves down as the time passes, sometimes a miracle happens.

The word "역주행" was brought into light by a K-pop girl group called EXID. They were barely noticeable among hundreds of groups that debuted in 2012. For nearly three years, none of their songs grabbed the public attention, and "위아래," or "Up-down," the song that would eventually make them become famous, was ranked at #90 for one week, then disappeared altogether from the chart (Koreans call this "차트아웃되다," or "outed from the chart.")

Before their fame, no one wanted to meet them. When they announced a fan-meet, only about 10 people showed up.

Then, two months after "위아래" came out (and disappeared from the charts), everything changed, when a fan took a video of one of the members dancing to their song "위아래," and put it up on YouTube. Something about her looks and the dance just seemed right to many people, and the video went viral. You can see for yourself what was so special about the video below:

 

Their song, formerly not even in the charts, made a re-appearance. For a culture that loves the newest things, this was extremely unusual. Not only did the song "위아래" make it back into the chart, it kept creeping up on ranks. About five months after the initial release of the song, and three months after the viral YouTube video, their song did a "역주행," and made it to the top of the Korean music charts.

Now, EXID is one of the best-known Korean girl groups, and doing quite well in the entertainment industry. And all for that one video, and the touching story of their "역주행." For many years to come, the word "역주행" will make the Koreans think of EXID. Of course, this word now gets used in the media all the time, and so you could use it to anyone, although the older generation might not know the context.

To finish off, here's what Hani did, when she met the fan who propelled her group to stardom again at a later event:

You can see her recognizing the fan, then mouthing "고마워요!"

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