#118. 마크정식 -- A best way to a man's heart is through his stomach (feat. GOT7)

Special thanks to Jess from Paris, who suggested that I do a food-related post!

Pardon the cliché beginning; my family was quite poor when I was growing up. There was never enough money to get anything beyond the absolutely necessary. Forget the designer-brand clothing (even when I was a child, the Koreans were sensitive to designer brands, which make you appear wealthy, or so they believe!) and the adorable stationary (a must-have for every schoolchild in Korea); I was a happy child if I could share a small 컵떡볶이 on my way home with a friend, which was a rare occasion.

If I remember correctly, this 떡볶이 (rice cake in spicy chili sauce) in a small paper cup (컵) used to cost around 200 won, or 20 cents. Back then, that was a lot of money to me!

On the other end of the spectrum, if you wanted a very fancy Korean meal, you would be looking for a "한정식" restaurant. The letter "한" comes from "Korean" (remember that "Korea" is "한국", and "Korean language" is "한글", etc.) and the word "정식" means "a meal with decorum." In the Western world, this often means a full-course meal; in Korea, it often refers to a meal with many, many side dishes all laid out in a single table (Koreans often talk about a meal that will "break the legs of the table," or "상다리가 부러지게 차렸다.")

한정식 itself has an interesting history; while the meals derive from the palatial cuisine of Korea, the modern 한정식 restaurants are influenced by the Japanese occupation era -- prior to that, the traditional palatial meals meant that everyone got their own table. Nowadays, a single table is laid out for everyone in your party.

These meals can be quite pricey; the restaurants that specialize in the food of the kings charge upwards of $250 USD for a single meal (but despair not, there are some restaurants that sell more affordable 한정식 meals as well).

Certainly, most middle-class Koreans will never experience a real 한정식. For many Koreans, splurging a little on their meal is already a luxury. For example, one might decide to cook some ramyun noodle for dinner, crack an egg inside it (a real luxury!), and even buy a couple of 김밥 (rice and vegetables rolled in seaweed, almost like sushi) to go with it. Then one might ironically call this meal a "라면정식" (a ramyun meal with decorum).

I mean, this is pretty fancy, as far as a ramyun meal goes!

Here's another way to splurge on your meal. On a regular day, you might decide that a cup of instant noodles is a quick and cheap meal. If you want to add a little bit of decorum to this meal, try what the Koreans call 마크정식 (Mark's meal with decorum):

The ingredients:

Instant cup spaghetti, instant cup 떡볶이, a sausage (microwaveable), and some shredded cheese. Cheese and sausage are optional, and you can replace the spaghetti by any reasonable instant cup noodle.

Normally, just one of these cup noodles, or even just the single sausage, could be a quick and light meal. But remember that you're splurging (and adding some decorum to your meal), so you buy a lot of food that you would normally eat over a couple of meals -- remember that 한정식 has a ton of dishes. What's just a few of these cup noodles, right? The total cost of this meal is about 7000 Korean won, or $7 USD. 

And the recipe (with translation) follows:

Boil some water in a coffee pot, or a kettle. If you have water dispenser, don't worry about this step. While the water boils, microwave the sausage for about 15-30 seconds.

Pour boiling water into the instant 떡볶이 and the instant spaghetti -- put about 0.5-1cm less water in the 떡볶이 than what the recipe asks for. Allow the spaghetti to cook by closing the lid with the sausage, and microwave the 떡볶이 for 3 minutes (2 minutes into microwaving, stir the contents).

After three minutes, take out the 떡볶이 from the microwave, and put in the powdered sauce into the drained spaghetti noodles.

Now stir the contents of the two bowls together.

At this point, maybe it should be added that the instant spaghetti noodles in Korea tend to have a sweet taste, while the 떡볶이 is spicy. And if you have ever tried the Korean fried chicken, you know that the sweet and spicy combination is pretty fantastic!

Then chop the sausage on top of the spaghetti and 떡볶이, and sprinkle the shredded cheese on top.

The trend in Korean food for the past decade or so has been to 1. exploit the sweet-and-salty (단맛과 짠맛, "단짠" for short in Korean slang!) combination, and 2. add cheese where possible. And most of the time, it works! You can see that this combination of food uses both points of the food philosophy, and honestly, you can't go wrong with combinations such as this.

Now microwave the bowl for about thirty seconds, so that the cheese will melt.

Tada! It is finished. Now go and enjoy!

This clever way of combining low-cost food items to create something quite delicious actually went viral on the Korean internet a few years ago (as far as I can tell, it was around 2016). A part of the reason for this recipe going viral is certainly due to the fact that the final product tastes fantastic. However, there is a cute story behind the creation of this "fancy" meal.

The creator of this meal (who opted to stay anonymous) is said to be a longtime fan of the K-Pop boy group GOT7, and in particular, a huge fan of Mark ("마크" in Korean), a member of GOT7. Coincidentally, GOT7 just released a new song, so take a moment to listen:

Anyway, the beginning of this group was not particularly noteworthy, and they had a bit of trouble attracting the public attention. In particular, when you Googled "마크," the search results related to Mark would be overshadowed by those for Minecraft (마인크래프트, or 마크 for short in Korean slang!) It is said that the creator of this recipe was upset by the fact that Mark was not very well-known, and she came up with this recipe as a way to advertise Mark's name.

This is Mark of GOT7.

This is why this meal is called "마크정식," or "Mark's meal with decorum," even though the meal itself has nothing to do with Mark. And the creator achieved all of her goals, and more. As the recipe went viral, many Koreans learned about the existence of Mark of GOT7, and Mark was actually asked to be on a couple of Korean TV entertainment shows, where the cast of the show cooked 마크정식 together with Mark and ate them. Mark himself has also posted pictures of himself eating the 마크정식 on his social media account! (Unfortunately, when I Google "마크," I still get the Minecraft results first... here's hoping that one day, Mark catches up to Minecraft!)

Furthermore, the creation of this recipe is considered to have shown a great way to be a good fan. This fan used her talents (cooking) to do something creative and productive that helped her group of choice, and even got acknowledged by her favourite idol himself. In the K-Pop culture, creative ways of supporting your group is encouraged, and the example of 마크정식 is one of the best examples of it that I can think of.

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#112. 인실좆, 고소미 -- Three unexpected ways you can end up in a Korean court

Back in the 1990s when I lived in Korea, I remember watching a sitcom episode (I wish I remembered the title!) that featured a Korean-American family. While they mostly spoke Korean, they had a bit of an American attitude. They would mix in random English words in conversation (to brag that they know English), and they would behave in a stereotypical American way. One thing they constantly said to each other was:

"너 쑤할거야!" (I'm going to sue you! -- "쑤" is just the Koreaniztion of the English word "sue")

Koreans used to believe that the Americans take each other to court for the most trivial of reasons. Maybe they still believe this, I am not sure.

Whatever the case may have been in the 1990s, I actually think that the Koreans have become much more liberal about suing each other since then. And in the typical Korean fashion, the Koreans find humour out of the situation. For example, when they catch wind of the fact that you are engaged in a questionable behaviour, they may say various things. I have covered some of these sayings in a previous post, but here are some of the things the Koreans might say to you:

"너 고소미 먹어볼래?" (Do you want to taste "고소미 Gosomi"?)

Or

"인실좆 당해봐야 정신을 차리지" (You will only behave yourself when you have experienced "인실좆 Insiljot.")

Both of these things imply that you are about to get sued (or be charged with a crime) and face the Korean court, but Koreans rarely use the word "sue" ("고소" in Korean) in the Korean internet. The proper way to say that "You may get sued soon" would have been:

"너 곧 고소당할것 같아." (I think you'll get sued soon.)

In particular, "to get sued" in Korean is "고소당하다," but in informal speech, they may say instead "고소 먹다." Here, "먹다" is "to eat" in English, so the speaker would be saying that they got a taste of a lawsuit.

But the thing is, there is a brand of crackers in Korea called "고소미," which you can literally eat. So these (admittedly delicious) crackers became synonymous with "getting sued." So if someone talks about eating "고소미," more often than not, they're not actually talking about these crackers!

You can probably find these in your local Korean grocery store -- these are delicious and highly recommended!

Another expression that I mentioned above, "인실좆," is short for

"인생은 실전이다 좆만아." (Life is not a practice game, you baby.)

Here, "인생" means "life," and "실전" means "real battle." All four letters come from Hanja, and these are standard dictionary words. The slanginess of this phrase comes from the fact that the speaker is calling the listener "좆만이" (for example, if your friend's name is "김다솜," you often refer to her as "다솜이," and when you call her directly, you call her "다솜아!")

I have covered the word "좆 (vulgar slang for penis)" and phrases involving it in a couple of posts, and you can read about them here and here. In this particular instance, the name "좆만이" comes from the derogatory assertion that your listener is about as big as a penis ("좆만하다.") Turning that into a name-form, you drop the suffix "-하다" and turn it into "좆만이," like how "다솜" becomes "다솜이."

So in the above phrase, the speaker is:

1. Insulting the listener by asserting that the listener is nothing but a baby, since the listener is about as big as a penis, and

2. Telling the listener that they are about to experience the bitter taste of life, since there is no second try in a real battle.

While this phrase could be used anywhere, its shortened form "인실좆" is exclusively used for the Korean internet users to imply that because of the listener's mistake, they are about to get sued (and experience just how difficult life can get for them.) Nowadays, you can use "인실좆" as a noun that substitute the Korean word "고소," so that instead of "고소당하다 (getting sued)," you might "인실좆 당하다 (get to experience just how real life can get.)"

Of course, in calling someone a "좆만이," there is the air of forced toughness, or "허세" in Korean, on the speaker's part, and the nuance of the phrase ends up sounding a bit ridiculous, injecting some humour into the situation.

In a true display of 허세, you might decide to sue someone, watch them get dragged off by police officers, and when they pass by you in handcuffs, you might whisper in their ear: "인생은 실전이야, 좆만아" with a small smirk. A classic comic book moment!

And it turns out that it is easier to get sued in Korea than in America -- there are some actions that are considered to be a crime in Korean that are not crimes in the Western world. Here are three very common reasons for suing someone in Korea, that the Westerners would not have thought about:

1. 모욕죄 (the crime of insulting someone)

In the Western world, we mostly operate by the principle of "freedom of speech," and so uttering a simple insult is generally protected by the constitution. However, in Korea, a simple insult in public can be grounds for suing someone. According to the Korean criminal law:

311. Any one who intentionally insults another can be subject to incarceration of less than one year, or a fine of less than $2000 USD.

This law covers the case where one person publicly humiliates another via insults, in a way that the bystanders can tell who the insulted person is. So, in particular, if a Korean internet user goes on someone's Facebook profile, and posts vulgarity clearly directed at the owner of the page, the owner can take screenshots of these insults and head to the police station.

Note that this is different from slander; as long as the listener feels humiliated, you have committed a crime in the eyes of the Korean law, even if you may have spoken the truth.

And these laws get used frequently. There were 8488 lawsuits filed by the end of July in 2015, pertaining to online insults. And these lawsuits have been on the rise ever since.

For a culture that puts a lot of emphasis on saving face, this is not a completely unreasonable law, although it goes directly against the Western values! My feeling is that a lot of Koreans don't take this very seriously; some people view this as an opportunity for a small side income, and habitually sues anyone who insults them online. Others view this as a source of amusement, as there are many dramas related to one internet user trying to sue another (often, the drama concludes by a public apology by the offending party.)

2. 초상권 (the right to your portraits)

In the Western world, if you are in a public place, it is assumed that anyone can be recording you. Your right to privacy applies only in areas where you can reasonably expect privacy. 

That being said, if you read the Korean newspapers, you may have seen the blurred-out faces of the people in the background of a newspaper photo. In Korea, it is recognized that if you are photographed against your will and the photo distributed, the person can feel humiliation or embarrassment, and this act infringes on the right to privacy. So, unless you are explicitly doing acts that are presumably inviting photographers (such as leading a demonstration, or performing in the streets), you are not allowed to take photos of strangers and share it publicly.

If you're taking a photo of some celebrities in a crowd, make sure you blur out everyone's faces, except the celebrities' faces, since they are probably expecting to get photographed!

In fact, if someone posts photos on online communities or newspapers without blurring out the faces of the people in the background, someone will invariably point out that the photo needs to be edited. 

3. 상간 손해배상 (compensation for adultery)

Up until 2015, it was illegal to commit adultery! Adultery was a crime, and if the faithful spouse was able to provide clear evidence of adultery, the cheating spouse could go to jail for at least 6 months, but less than 2 years. (Fun fact: each sexual act could be counted as a separate instance of the crime!)

There was a surprising amount of hesitation getting rid of this law with the Korean public. They were afraid that their spouses would cheat with abandon, and with no regards to the consequences. The media reports that it is true that people started feeling less guilt about cheating since abolishing the adultery laws.

However, the non-cheating spouse can still ask for damages from not only their cheating spouse, but also the partner of the cheating spouse. As this is a civil matter and no longer criminal, depending on the extent of the damage, they can expect a fair bit of money to be awarded. Unlike the Western world, where anything that goes inside of your bedroom is your business, Koreans feel very differently. In fact, the divorce process is very different as well -- the cheating spouse cannot initiate divorce procedures in Korea, although people think this will change in the future.

So, take care not to trip yourself up while in Korea! I am sure there are other laws that are different, but these three are the ones that I hear about the most online, while being very different from the Western legal perspectives. While the cracker 고소미 may be tasty, I am sure the taste of the Korean court will not be the same.

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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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#91. 나물 -- a uniquely Korean dish (and hipsters will be all over it in 10 years)

It's been a busy few weeks for me. I spent the past three weeks on the road for some work trips before the semester starts up again, and I'm now writing this post from my parents' house, where I spent the past couple of days before going back to work. As you might have guessed, the semester starting means that I will probably no longer update this blog on a daily basis, although I will aim for 2-3 updates a week, and more when I am less busy with work. The best way to stay connected might be to subscribe, or to follow my Twitter account, which updates automatically when I post something.

I'll admit that I was fairly ignorant of the Korean culture until a few years ago, and never appreciated many aspects of my own culture. After having started this blog, I am often struck by the mundane things that I used to take for granted.

나물 is one of these things that I always took for granted. I am not even sure if there is a word for this type of dish in English -- running them through various Korean-English dictionary just returns "herbs," which is a gross underestimation and a terrible description of these dishes that I am about to tell you about.

Let me start by giving you a recipe of one of my favourite dishes that my mom makes every time I come home. It's called "시금치 나물," or "spinach 나물." Note that I am not giving any measurements of the ingredients -- this is kind of intentional. Although every Korean eats this dish, it tastes differently in every household. You should feel free to add/take away any ingredients and adjust the amount so that it tastes good to you!

This isn't the picture of my mom's dish, unfortunately. I meant to take a photo but I had already eaten too much of it by the time I remembered!

Ingredients:

- spinach leaves

- minced garlic

- chopped scallions

- sesame seeds (if they're not already roasted, you should roast them in an ungreased pan to increase flavour)

- soy sauce

- sesame oil

- salt & pepper

 Steps:

- Boil water in a pot, and add a pinch of salt.

- Blanch the spinach leaves in the boiling water, just until the leaves don't have the crunchy feel to them anymore (Koreans call this state of vegetables "숨이 죽다" or "no longer breathing -- the more literal translation would be that their breaths have died.") Koreans say that it's important to leave the lid open while you do this, otherwise the colour of the spinach will not be as green, and also destroy some vitamins that are in the spinach (although I can't find anything credible that backs up this claim.)

-Drop the blanched spinach leaves into cold water to stop cooking. Wring out any excess water by squeezing them hard with your hands. You should only have a small handful of spinach leaves left at this point!

- Season the spinach leaves with the garlic, scallion and soy sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste (My mom prefers to season with soy sauce, because it's supposed to add the umami taste that is present in many Asian foods. But too much soy sauce ruins the look of the food sometimes, at which point she starts using salt.)

-Finally, drizzle sesame oil and decorate with roasted sesame seeds. Serve with rice and other 반찬. Use the sesame oil sparingly, as it has a fairly strong taste.

This is a typical recipe of a 나물. The word 나물 has two meanings. It can refer to all edible herbs/leaves/stem (not all vegetables are 나물, though! For examples, potatoes are definitely not 나물), but it an also refer to the blanched and seasoned herbes/leaves/stem.

Many traditional Korean markets will sell all kinds of 나물, and there are hundreds of different kinds! Not even Koreans would know all of these.

시금치 (spinach), 콩나물 (soybean sprouts; these are more common in Korea than bean sprouts and they are less crunchy), 숙주나물 (bean sprouts), and 미나리 (Korean parsley) are among the most popular kinds of 나물 that appear in the Koreans' dinner tables frequently.

The 나물 are not rich men's food. But meat of any kind was generally very expensive for the Koreans throughout our history, and so they needed ways to make their tables more interesting, not to mention that droughts and ensuing famine was a frequent occurrence. As Korea is home to hundreds of mountains, the easiest way to do this was to go into one of these mountains and scavenge for edible things.

A typical Korean table back in these days would often consist of a bowl of rice, a soup of some kind (called "국", also often made with some of these 나물), some kind of kimchi (김치, there are also hundreds of variety of this), and some 나물, as well as some kind of sauce such as 간장 (soy sauce), 된장 (soybean paste), or 고추장 (hot pepper paste) so that you can adjust the flavours yourself.

It still hasn't changed much. Now that food is abundant in Korea, people would often add a meat 반찬 to their tables, but still the 나물 are consumed on a daily basis. They are cheap, healthy, and easy to make. And depending on what kind of 나물 you use, the taste is amazingly varied! So, it is totally possible to set up a fancy dinner table with just the 나물, see for yourself:

This table is set with the spring herbs, or 봄나물 in Korean.

While I am glad that many Korean dishes such as 돌솥비빔밥, 불고기, and 잡채 are gaining popularity in the Western culture, I wonder whether people realize that these are not something that Koreans eat on a daily basis. They would have been a huge treat back in the day, and you would have gotten a taste of it if your village was having a festival of some sort.

The 나물, on the other hand, is what kept the Koreans alive through the difficult times, and I feel that it is uniquely Korean (and at some point, I hope that enough people will pick up on it for it to gain popularity!)

So, I hope you try out this humble yet delicious Korean dish in your kitchen. You can vary the seasoning as you wish -- that's exactly what our Korean forefathers would have done, when they got tired of eating the same 나물 over and over again. Of course, to get the authentic taste, you'd want to use some of the more Korean seasonings such as 간장, 된장, or 고추장 (and also sometimes vinegar), but really, 나물 is about making use of edible things that are otherwise not very interesting, and I don't think the Korean forefathers would be picky.

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#83. 숙주나물 -- Bean sprouts

Let's start with the King Sejong (세종), who was a great king for the early Joseon Dynasty. He has done a lot to bring order into the new Dynasty that was barely 30 years old, but of course, his greatest achievement is coming up with a new system for the Korean language.

King Sejong, one of the greatest kings in the Korean history.

He did not make Hangul (한글) all by himself, though. He had a large number of scholars working for him in 집현전 (which was basically the National Academy that supported the best scholars of the time), and they were the ones who created 한글. One scholar in particular stood out. His name was 신숙주 (Sookju Shin).

신숙주, whose reputation is questionable at best.

It is said that his passion for the studies was so great that he would often spend all night at the Academy reading. One night, he fell asleep at his table while reading, and King Sejong saw this while passing by. The king took off his coat and draped it over 신숙주's shoulders as a gesture of appreciation. When 신숙주 woke up the next day, he saw the coat, and swore that he would be his loyal subject forever. In return, 세종 was very fond of 신숙주 and had complete trust in him.

Unfortunately, this oath was not to be kept. After 세종 passed away, his oldest son, 문종, took over. While 문종 was a competent and savvy politician, his health was not so great, and he died only two years into his reign.

This was a terrible time for Joseon, as 문종 had only one child, and he was only twelve years old. This child, 단종, succeeded his father, which immediately made many Koreans (Joseonians?) unhappy. In particular, his uncle 수양대군 felt that this was his opportunity (note that this makes 수양대군 a son of Sejong, and a younger brother of 문종.) 

단종, one of the more tragic figures of the Korean history.

So 수양대군, who really had no claim on the throne as he was not the first-born, plotted a very bloody coup d'état, and succeeded in becoming king. To keep the cause of the rebellion legitimate, his nephew 단종 was "elevated" to the title of "상왕" or "high king," but it was of course just a show.

Many scholars of the National Academy (집현전), who were trusted by Sejong and created Hangul, felt that this was very wrong (in particular, very against the principles of Confucianism, as this tested their loyalty towards the now-deceased King Sejong). Six of these brilliant scholars plotted a rebellion, but it failed and they were executed by the evil uncle. Another six quit their posts and refused to help 수양대군 in his political endeavors.

The former six who gave up their lives are called 사육신. "사" is Chinese for "death," "육" is Chinese for the number 6, and "신" is Chinese for "subject." So "사육신" means "six subjects that died (for their beliefs.)"

The latter six who did not take part in the rebellion, yet let their beliefs known through resignation, are called "생육신" and "생" is Chinese for "life." For example, "생일" is "birthday, or day of life." They are the "six subjects that lived."

So which was 신숙주? Astonishingly (given Sejong's trust in him), he was neither. In fact, it seems that he was with 수양대군 from the beginning. In fact, he was one of the people who strongly pushed for the execution of the "six subjects that died," although he was once colleagues with all of them at the National Academy. He was also instrumental in executing the poor boy king, in order to stop more rebellions from taking place. If only Sejong knew what he ended up doing to his own grandson!

In any case, his political career thrived from here, and he was later appointed to be the prime minister (영의정) of Joseon.

This betrayal was not taken well by the Koreans, both from the Joseon era and the modern era.  So, the Koreans found a way to mock 신숙주 for eternity.

If you've ever bought bean sprouts, you might have noticed that they spoil very well, within a couple of days. It is one of the trickier ingredients to work with if you're trying to cook.

Well, bean sprouts are called "숙주나물" or "the sookjoo vegetable" in Korean (totally standard usage at that!) This is a twofold insult for 신숙주.

First, just like how 신숙주 changed his loyalty quickly, these veggies have a very quick turnaround date. And secondly, the Koreans decided to use the first name only in naming this vegetable. You use the first name (without the last name) for friends, or when you want to be very insulting. For example, try walking up to your Korean teacher and call them by their first Korean name only: they'll gasp and tell you that this is rude and you must never do it!

So, there you have it. Next time you eat your pho, I hope you take some time reflecting on this piece of Korean history, and take a moment to silently curse 신숙주 on his very non-Confucian (yet good for his career) betrayal!

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#66. 보쌈 -- Wrapped up

When Romulus founded Rome, he had only male followers. This was not particularly surprising, as Rome was founded via numerous battles against Alba Longa, which was the major Latin city of the area. This soon became problematic, as no city can prosper without having enough younger generation. So he invited the Sabines, a nearby Italian tribe, to a festival in Rome. At a predetermined signal, the Roman men grabbed the Sabine women and married them. For what it's worth, the historian Livy claims that no rape took place right then, and that the Sabine women were more seduced into their marriages rather than coerced. Nonetheless, it still makes us cringe a little.

Rape of the Sabine Women, Pietro da Cortona, 1627-29.

Unfortunately, Koreans resorted to similar types of violence from time to time. If the lack of women was the major problem for the Romans, the big issue for the Koreans was Confucianism (called "유교" in Korean). The teachings of Confucius forbade widows from re-marrying again, as being faithful to your husband (of whom there is only one) was one of the major virtues for the women. There have been nation-wide efforts to praise women who were exceptionally faithful to her husband (for example, by acting like a daughter to her deceased husband's parents and rejecting all advances by other men, or even, killing herself to be with her husband), to encourage faithfulness. (By the way, men were allowed to re-marry three years after their wives' deaths...)

However, this became a problem as Korea went through major wars against China and Japan in the Joseon Dynasty. Many men were killed in the wars, and there were too many widows who were not willing to re-marry, due to their faith in Confucianism and also due to the societal pressure. And if the country were to re-build, they needed the birth rates to be up.

Thus came about the custom of "보쌈." The word "보쌈" literally means "wrapped up (쌈, whose verb form is 싸다) by cloth (보자기, or more commonly 보 in old Korean)."

Among the lower and lower middle class of Korea, men would enter a widow's house late at night, wrap her up in a piece of cloth (보자기), and kidnap her to his own home. At this point, as her fidelity was already violated, she would be forced to marry the man. And the government would turn a blind eye towards it, as they were secretly happy about unions of this kind. The upper class, of course, would prefer to adhere to the rules of Confucianism, and did not engage in this kind of behaviour.

Just like the story of the Sabine women, historians claim that it wasn't all bad. Often the kidnapping would be pre-arranged between the man and the woman, to set up the pretext that the widow had no choice but to marry the man (but secretly she wanted it as well). This was, of course, not always the case, and some women, who took Confucianism seriously, would prefer to kill themselves after being kidnapped.

This problem was resolved only in the late 1800s, when the Joseon Dynasty, at the urging of the critics, ruled that widows indeed have the right to re-marry whoever, and whenever they please. This was one of the clauses inserted into 갑오개혁 (Reform "개혁" of the 갑오 year, which works out to be 1894).

Although this practice disappeared, the word remained in a particular type of kimchi (김치), weirdly enough. There is a type of kimchi called 보쌈김치. Usually, kimchi has two components. Brined cabbage, and what the Koreans call "속 (insides)," consisting of chopped radish seasoned with red pepper powder. Normally, you take the 속 and interlace it with the leaves of the cabbage.

보쌈김치.

But in 보쌈김치, the cabbage leaves enclose the 속, so that it forms the shape of a 보쌈, as if there is a woman inside the cabbage leaves (of course, you have the 속 instead of the woman!) As this type of kimchi was the popular choice to eat with boiled pork, the word "보쌈" started becoming the word of choice to denote the Korean dish where you wrap some pork in leaves of kimchi.

So there you have it, why this food is called 보쌈.

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#53. 창렬 -- There's barely anything there!

Have you ever been unhappy that your bag of chips contains just a little bit too much air (okay, nitrogen, actually), and not enough chips? If so, the Koreans have a perfect expression for you. They would say:

감자칩 양이 창렬이네. (The amount of potato chips is "창렬.")

 So, let me tell you about what this word means. The word "창렬" is short for "김창렬,"which is the name of this guy.

Say hello to 창렬.

He is a Korean singer, who is actually quite good at singing. Due to his celebrity status, he signed an advertising contract with 7-Eleven Korea (a convenience store), over their own brand of frozen food. The contract specified that the frozen foods will be branded as "김창렬의 포장마차 (roughly, 김창렬's street food)."  Unfortunately, the quality of the food wasn't so great. Here are a couple of examples. Compare what's pictured on the package, versus what the consumers actually got:

Pig's feet and pig's head meat

Blood sausage stir fry

Understandably, the consumers were pretty upset. The whole thing started, because one of the internet users, who had seen these pictures circulate on the internet, came up with an admittedly very good 드립: He called it "에미창렬."

Now, "에미창렬" is a clever 드립 because it almost sounds like a swear word in Korean. One of the worst insults that you can tell someone is "에미창녀" meaning that "your mother (에미) is a prostitute (창녀)." Here, "에미" is a dialect form of "어머니," and in this case, this has the effect of adding vulgarity. (Okay, just to add to this, although this is a terrible insult in real life, this is actually not that bad of an insult on the Korean internet forum -- Korean internet is truly a wild place!)

And you see that "에미창녀" and "에미창렬" sound very, very similar. And it also expresses the rage the consumer must have expected opening this package of frozen food!

So that stuck, and by dropping "에미," 김창렬's first name, 창렬, became the newest Korean slang. (because, why bring your mother into it, right?) By calling something a "창렬," you're basically saying that it has no content. And that's how a new Korean internet slang is born! Use this word with young-ish Koreans, and they will most likely understand you. With the older Koreans, I'm not so sure. It's not that offensive, other than the fact that you're using this random guy's first name without even knowing him (and you're probably younger than him, too).

If you're wondering how 김창렬 took this neologism, well, he didn't take it well. He believed that his public image took a hit because of this Korean slang, and he sued 7-11 over his damaged reputation. On February 3, 2017, he lost the lawsuit (although perhaps he'll appeal). The judge cited the reason that his image was already not that great with the public (i.e. his image was already 창렬?!) -- he had settled many assault cases with his victims, and he also had some DUI records under his belt. The judge also said that the public was already making fun of a lot of over-packaged food items, and this was just one of these instances, and not directed personally at him. Fair? Unfair? I am not so sure. But there you have it.

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#42. 김칫국 드링킹 -- Being pathetic

Of course, there are many breeds of pathetic out there. The kind of pathetic people that I want to talk about are people like 준호. 준호 happens to have a crush on a girl 아영, and from any outsider's point of view, it's painfully clear that 아영 is not interested in 준호 at all. In fact, she goes out of her way to avoid 준호, to ensure that he doesn't get any false hopes.

준호, on the other hand, is not getting any hints. He thinks that 아영 is avoiding him because he thinks that 아영 has such a crush on him; that she is avoiding him to not make a fool of herself in front of him. 준호 regularly stresses out about whether 아영 would be okay with having just two kids. He already has a list of wedding guests, although he's excluded a few of their mutual friends since 아영 is sure to invite them even if he doesn't.

If 준호 ever came around to writing down his stresses on an internet forum, the Korean internet users would probably scold him using the following phrase:

김칫국좀 그만 마셔 ㅋㅋㅋ (stop drinking kimchi soup).

Or if they're younger, they might even say:

김칫국 드링킹하냐? (Are you drinking kimchi soup?)

Or

김칫국 원샷하는것좀 보소 (Look at the dude chugging down the kimchi soup).

This phrase actually has a very long history. And it features two everyday Korean food items beloved by the Koreans (but these don't seem very well-known or very loved by the non-Koreans.) These food items are 동치미 and 떡. Have you heard of these?

동치미 is a kind of 김치, but it might be different from the standard 김치 that you think of. There are some major differences between the two.

Despite the appearance, this is still a type of 김치.

동치미 doesn't use red pepper flakes (고춧가루). Since the redness of 김치 comes from the red pepper flakes, 동치미 is not red. The main ingredient of 동치미 is not the Korean cabbage (배추), but Korean radishes (무). Finally, 동치미 comes with a lot more soup than the regular 김치 (when you make it, a lot more water goes into it, so 동치미 has an appearance of being a watery soup, rather than 김치 looking like a vegetable.) It is still served cold.

My favourite part of 동치미 was always the soup. I was never really interested in the vegetables inside, but the soup is absolutely fantastic. It's cold, it's very light and flavourful, and when you're eating something greasy or heavy, you start craving a sip of the ice-cold 동치미 국물 (동치미 soup.)

One food that 동치미 pairs very well with is, of course, 떡 (rice cakes.) In my opinion, it pairs especially well with the type of 떡 called 백설기, which is just steamed rice flour. 백설기 is pretty boring as far as 떡 goes, and you can find other kinds of 떡 that is a lot more interesting and delicious. I especially dislike the relatively dry texture, since it crumbles, and it doesn't feel so different from eating a 고구마.

"백" means "white," and "설" means "snow" in Chinese. "백설기" got its name because rice flour looks like snow.

So when you eat food such as 백설기 (or 고구마, but that's irrelevant for this post), it's good to have some 동치미 국물 at hand. If you've never tried this food pairing, you should try it -- it's a classic Korean food pairing!

And so our ancestors started using a proverb (속담 in Korean) that goes:

떡 줄 사람은 생각도 않는데 김칫국부터 마신다.

 If someone says this to you, it translates to: "Drinking 김치 soup when the person holding the 떡 isn't even thinking of sharing with you." That is, you're expecting that you will be given 떡, and you've already set the table with some 동치미 soup, while the person with the 떡 has no intention of sharing. Awkward!

And this phrase applies perfectly to 준호, since he's setting the table with the proverbial 동치미 soup of wedding plans and planning for children, while 아영 doesn't even have any intention of dating 준호.

But Korea is a country of trends. While the above phrase is known to all Koreans, only the very elderly like my grandparents would use the full phrase. It often gets shortened to

김칫국 마시네 (you're drinking kimchi soup)

suppressing the mention of 떡. This phrase is probably the most common among the Koreans (even the elder people) without getting internet-vulgar.

The younger people of Korea are even more trendy, and they popularized this phrase by adding some humour into it. Instead of just saying "마시다" (to drink) which is standard Korean, they replaced it with the English word "드링킹" (literally, "drinking") to make it sound a little more vulgar and a little funnier. Remember that when a Korean word gets combined with an English word that has an easy Korean substitute, the result is often vulgar yet funny (이불킥 is another example.)

If you tell 준호 over the internet:

김칫국 드링킹 하냐? (Are you drinking kimchi soup?)

Then you've succeeded in using a trendy phrase, and you've possibly set yourself up for a little skirmish over the internet!

Of course, there are other vulgar substitutes for "마시다" such as "원샷때리다 (chug down in one gulp)" and that would achieve the same effect. In that case, you would say "김칫국 원샷하냐?" or "김칫국 원샷때리냐?"

Despite the long history of this phrase, I would use the neologisms only to close friends or over the internet, since the phrase itself already has an element of derision in it. But if you wanted to use it in the proverbial sense in the right context, you should be able to use it with everyone, with a little bit of tact!

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#30. Creatively complaining about your dinner (where's the meat?)

A friend of mine posted a picture of his dinner on Facebook, that looked a lot like the following picture:

This is one of those things that everyone will either love or hate. The banchan (반찬, the side dishes aside from the rice and the soup) are all made up of spring herbs. They might look delicious and very seasonal to some people. But to most Koreans, where vegetarianism is not as common as in North America, it will look like there is not enough protein. Even the soup is made out of spring herbs!

One of the comments posted under my friend's photo had me laughing tears. One of the commenters said:

반찬이 개마고원이네. 대자연을 펼쳐놓은듯.

This is not a standard internet slang. In fact, this is the first time I have heard this expression. But Korean internet users value fresh expressions that are appropriate and humorous to the situation, and I thought that this was a perfect example of such an expression.

In the first half of the above quote, the commenter compares the 반찬 to 개마고원 (Kaema Plateau). Here is the picture of 개마고원:

"고원" means "highland/plateau." "개마" is just the name of this plateau, and it is located in North Korea.

개마고원 is well-known to the Koreans for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it is the largest highland plateau in the Korean peninsula, so you learn to memorize its name in school. It is also known for being home to many wild animals, and it is said to be very well-preserved due to sparse population.

But perhaps more importantly, it is also one of the maps that appear on Starcraft... I suppose I will never know which of these two reasons prompted the above comment, but I have my suspicions.

Anyway, the first part of the quote compares the 반찬 to 개마고원, which seems pretty hilarious both for the comparison, but also the random appearance of 개마고원, which is appropriate but unexpected.

The second half of the quote is also not very different. The commenter says that "대자연,"or "the great nature" is spread out on the table, and the grandeur of the comment contrasts with the simple meal to create humour.

These kinds of fresh expressions are welcomed and well-loved on the Korean internet. This kind of creativity is what makes the Korean internet unique (it contrasts with the deadpan humour of Reddit in my opinion, for example.) This must also be one of the reasons why the Korean internet slang has such a short lifespan. Many of these slang come from novel expressions from random internet users that caught on, and as there is no shortage of witty internet users, the internet slang keeps evolving at a breakneck speed.

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