#29. 관종 -- Craving attention

In English, we call them "attention whores." In real life, these people are willing to do anything to make sure that they are always in the centre of attention: they fake illnesses, and they scream, cry, and storm out in rage when they're not getting the attention they want. Online, they provoke by making outlandish statements, harass other users, and spread falsehoods.

In Korean, the word "attention" can be translated as "관심." The phrase "giving attention" is translated exactly in Korean as well, as "관심을 주다." You can use them in standard sentences such as

학생들에게 관심을 주면 그들은 더 빨리 발전해요 (If you give attention to the students, they improve more quickly.)

There are other phrases that are direct equivalents of English phrases. For example, "Not paying attention" is written in standard formal Korean as "관심을 주지 않다," simply negating the previous sentence. If the action of not paying attention is deliberate, you would probably use the word "ignore" in English, and "무시하다" in Korean.

If you pin down someone as an attention whore, and decide to no longer pay attention, however, you can say this in two ways in Korean. In a more standard Korean, you would say "더이상 (no longer) 관심을 주지 않다," but you can also say "관심을 끄다." This latter phrase is an informal slang that has been around for a long time, which translates as "turn off your attention."

Moving towards the more recent slang, the attention whores of Korea go by several names, all of which are pretty offensive and are only really good for the internet, or for your worst enemies whom you're looking to pick a fight with. You can call them:

• 관심병자, where you compare the attention-seeking behaviour to an "attention (관심) disease (병)." As "자" means a "person," a "관심병자" is a person who is suffering from the malaise of attention.
• 관심종자. A "종자" is a breed of an animal. Instead of just calling people out on their compulsion to seek attention (which is actually a thing; for example, people suffering from histrionic disorder often engage in attention-seeking behaviour,) this word actually groups all of these attention whores together and label them as a breed of an animal. Needless to say, this word is more derogatory than "관심병자," where you're at least treated like a human being!
• 관종. Koreans really like to shorten compound words, and it is often done by taking the first letter of each of the words that form the compound word. In this case, 관심종자 is made up of two words, "관심" and "종자," so take the first letters from each word to get "관종." This has the effect of making the word even more informal, and somehow it is even more degrading since you can't even be bothered to spell out the whole word.

There are many ways to call out a 관종 on the web. You could call them out directly by saying

관종짓 하지 마라. (Don't engage "하지마라" in the behaviour "짓"  that seeks attention "관종".)

You could also insult them indirectly to the other users online about this troll, and say

관종이 또 한 마리 나타났네 (It seems that another attention whore appeared).

Note the use of the counter "마리," which is never used for counting people (it is only for animals!), but since "관종" compares people to animals, using this counter enables you to insult the attention whore further.

Or you could also use a liberal amount of sarcasm, and say

옛다, 관심 (Here you go, some attention for you).

"옛다" is an old Korean word meaning "here you go" or "voilà/tiens," when an older person is giving something (not very valuable) to a younger person as a favour. For example, if your grandfather were giving you a piece of chocolate, he might say "옛다, 초콜렛 먹어라." But if he were giving you a gold necklace, he probably would not say this.

While it is no longer really used in real life, this word signifies that you are doing them a small favour because they really crave your attention. It further signifies that it is not a huge deal for you to turn your attention to them for a little bit. Since they are usually trying pretty hard to grab all the attention that they can, this phrase belittles all of their efforts, and insults them in a slightly different way (by making them realize how childish they are being, and how you're basically indulging them for a moment.) You see these phrases a lot in internet forums, where a lot of trolls are known to appear.

Read more

#28. 호구 -- The giving tree

I have already talked about how the game of Go (바둑) is nationally loved by the Koreans in a previous post. In case you have never tried playing it, the game works as follows. Two players, one playing black stones and the other white stones, take turns placing one stone each on the game board. The object is to surround as much territory on the game board as possible with your stones. When your stones is surrounded completely by your enemy's stones, they are captured by your enemy.

Here, the black stone in the centre is completely surrounded by white stones, so it will be captured and removed.

There are certain basic formations of stones that everyone should recognize. The following is the most basic formation:

As the white player, you never want to place your stone in position A, because then the black player will surely place her next stone in position B and capture your stone in position A. The position A is a dangerous, forbidden territory for the white player. Every 바둑 player is expected to recognize this formation, and as it is so basic and common-sense, it is even given a name. This formation of stones is called a "호구."

The letter "호" comes from the Chinese letter meaning a "tiger." This is the same letter that appears in the Korean word "호랑이" meaning tiger.

The letter "구" comes from the Chinese letter meaning "mouth." For example, "대구 (cod)" is called this in Korean because a cod has a really big mouth, and "대" means "large." "이목구비" literally means "ear, eye, mouth, and nose," or in other words, the components of your face.

Anyway, the above Go formation is called a "호구" or a "tiger's mouth," because the formation looks a bit like the open mouth of a tiger (if you don't see it, think about Pacman.) Placing your stone inside the open mouth is as dangerous as a tiger's mouth, because you will almost surely lose your stone, just like how you would almost surely lose your hand if you placed it inside a tiger's mouth.

But then, there are those people in life. The kind of people who do stupid things, knowing that they will probably lose out by doing these things. But they do it anyway. You probably know some of those people. The dude who does everything that he can for his girlfriend (who treats him terribly) knowing full well that he will one day get dumped (From the girl's point of view, he is the opposing player who keeps putting stone after stone into the 호구, almost like an open wallet.) That girl who always buys people lunch although no one ever reciprocates.

Nowadays, both online and offline (although it probably originated online), we call these people "호구" (to be completely precise, they shouldn't be called "호구" but rather, the opposing player who places their stones inside the 호구, but sometimes meanings get lost in favour of brevity.) So for that dude who can't seem to stop giving to his terrible girlfriend, you might want to say something like:

그 여자는 널 호구취급해. (She treats you like an open wallet.)

To the girl who buys everyone's lunch all the time, you might say:

니가 호구니? 정신차려. (Wake up, you're not the giving tree.)

Of course, there is some distinction to be made between generosity and being taken advantage of. The word "호구" is only used in this latter case.

Furthermore, since the word comes from 바둑, even the elderly should be able to guess its meaning. So you can try out this word to pretty much any Korean, save for a very formal setting (such as writing a report, or when you're meeting the boss of your boss).

Read more

#27. 죽빵 -- Punch them in the face

I love comic books. These are great to wind down a busy day with, because you don't have to do a lot of work to enjoy them. No need to imagine the scenes in my head, because they're already drawn in. And there is something inherently funny about the onomatopoeia that get used in comic books. I would never say "KAPOW" or "BLAM" or "ZAP" in real life, but I kind of wish that everyone would start using these words more often, because these words are so lively and full of dynamic energy, with a touch of vulgarity.

It turns out that the Koreans are actually better at using these words in real life. Sure, they shouldn't be used in formal settings. But to me, these words add a bit of slapstick spark to our lives when they do get used.

Here are a couple of Korean onomatopoeia that you will see in comic books, or 만화.

First is the word "주욱," which you might recognize better by its variations such as "주우욱," "주우우우욱," "쭉," "쭈욱," etc. This word means to reach out. For example, if a cartoon character was stretching, there might be the word "주욱" written in the background. Since you're reaching out, it sometimes makes sense to write out the longer version of the word such as "주우우우우욱" to describe the length of the stretch and the reach.

This word also gets used in everyday Korean, in contexts such as "주욱 뻗은 길" meaning "the (straight) road that stretches way out," or "쭉 뻗은 나무" meaning "the tall (straight) tree."

The second onomatopoeia doesn't need a lot of explanation; the word is "빵." Although I have just said that "빵" is an adjective for well-inflated objects, there is one other meaning for it. When you hit someone, "빵" is the sound you make.

So when you use these two words together to create a new slang "죽빵," first of all, it is vulgar (not in a profanity type way, but in the comic-book informality), and it means that you are reaching out (죽) to hit (빵). Well, when you reach out to hit, you usually end up punching people squarely in the face. It's slightly entertaining that you can count these things, and the unit of count is "대." So one 죽빵 is "죽빵 한 대," and two 죽빵 is "죽빵 두 대," etc.

When you dish out a 죽빵 to someone.

Remembering that we are using a comic book-style word, so whenever you use it, it's definitely going to be funny. So it's used mostly in an exaggerated way. For example, if your little brother is being annoying, you might threaten him by saying:

나한테 죽빵 한 대 맞고싶어?  (Do you want to get punched in the face?)

 If your friend 준호 accidentally hit you in the face, you might rant to your other friends about how you got beaten up by your friend by saying,

방금 준호가 나한테 죽빵을 날렸어 (준호 flew a 죽빵 at me; 준호 punched me in the face.)

If you got involved in a bar fight, and managed to get in a good one before you got broken up,  you might later brag to your friends by saying:

어제 싸우면서 죽빵 한 대 갈겼어 (I landed a 죽빵 last night in a fight.)

Note that various verbs describe the act of landing a 죽빵. As it was never a proper word to begin with, you can choose the verbs that seems to go well with the context. Even if it were not used previously, if the Koreans agree with you that the verb was appropriate, maybe it'll even catch on! As always, the important thing in Korean internet slang is to experiment, and to be creative.

Read more

#26. 궁예질 -- Mind-reading

Here's a question that is perhaps a bit cliché, but fascinating nonetheless: let's say that you're the king of a nation. Unfortunately, as things go for most kings, there are a few people that you're not so fond of, and you'd like to get rid of them. How would you go about accomplishing such a task? One Korean man was so bizarre in his ways in trying to achieve this goal, that it ultimately led him to the internet fame of Korea.

You may remember the kingdom of 신라 (Silla) from an earlier post. In that post, 신라 was the driving force behind the destruction of the kingdom of 백제 (Baekje), and the cause of the death of (supposedly) three thousand palace maidens. Although 신라 lasted almost 300 years longer than 백제 after unifying the three kingdoms, it too eventually came to its demise by a man named 궁예. He was a supporting character (but really, more memorable than the main character!) in the wildly popular Korean drama "태조 왕건" about fifteen years ago, and most Koreans imagine 궁예 to look like this guy:

A quick biography: rumour has it that he was a prince of 신라, but due to various political reasons, he was thrown off a high building to be killed as an infant. Thankfully, his nurse was waiting at the base of the building and caught him as he was flung off, although she poked one of his eyes with her finger while catching him. He was raised as a Buddhist monk after this. As a result, 궁예 was very hostile towards 신라, which has already weakened considerably, and eventually claimed parts of 신라 as his own country (what the country was called isn't really important; the man couldn't make up his mind and changed the name of this country several times, and probably the Koreans don't remember this either.)

As a king, he focused heavily on strengthening his power against the nobles. He accomplished this by claiming himself to be the living Buddha (going by the name of "미륵"), and claiming that he could read people's minds. Of course, he then read that his political enemies were thinking about rebelling against him, which was good enough for him to execute them. Not surprisingly, people soon had enough of his antics, and they really did rebel against him, leading to the destruction of his country, and the establishment of 고려 (Goryo, which is where the name "Korea" comes from!)

While the opinions differ on what kind of a man he was (he even killed his own wife through his "mind-reading skills," but perhaps he was a very talented politician), the internet found its own way to immortalize this memorable figure.

For example, say that you're spacing out with no expression on your face. Your friend is walking by and sees you spacing out, and decides that judging by the expressionless face that you're wearing, you must have had a bad day. Not just a bad day, but since your expression looked sad, you probably broke up with your significant other. In fact, you must have been dumped since you look like you're on the verge of tears. In your annoyance, you could tell your friend:

궁예질 좀 그만해! (Stop trying to read my mind as if you're 궁예!)

The new word is "궁예질," made up of two parts "궁예" and "질." The word "질" is a derogatory suffix that attaches itself to nouns (usually body parts or job titles) with negative connotations. For example, "손가락질" is supposed to denote negative actions done with your fingers, so it means "pointing at someone to deride them." "선생질" is supposed to emphasize the negative aspects of being a teacher, maybe dealing with disrespectful students, or maybe having students with very low grades.

So in our context, "궁예질" is talking about the negative aspects of "궁예," or "mind-reading," in a derogatory way. Put in another words, the word "궁예질" is making fun (in a derogatory way) of the people who infer things from where there is no meaning.

For the people who blow things out of proportion by drawing incorrect conclusions because they were too imaginative, I might say (with a certain amount of sarcasm):

궁예질이 너무 심하다 (your mind-reading is really too much).

While 궁예 is really a well-known figure in the Korean history because of his antics, and most Koreans will pick up on your meaning if you use this word, there is a mix of sarcasm and condescension placed on this word, and you should only use it when you want to insult someone. Likely you will see this word online the most!

Read more

#25. 포돌이 -- This wonderful Korean character has no parallel

Once upon a time, the Koreans got tired of the negative public image of the Korean police force. In order to ensure that the Koreans could perceive the police force as friendly and approachable, the Korean police force decided to re-brand themselves by creating a mascot. Below is the culmination of their efforts.

This adorable character's name is 포돌이 (the letter "포" comes from "police," and "돌이" is a suffix to describe an affectionate male nickname. For example, if you have a friend who eats ("먹다") all the time, you call him "먹돌이"; if someone sleeps ("잠자다") all the time, you call him "잠돌이". For women, use the suffix "-순이" instead of "-돌이" to get "포순이," "먹순이," and "잠순이.")  He looked cute, he looked friendly, and it seemed that the re-branding efforts would be a total success.

However, the police officials neglected to take one thing into account.

They forgot that they lived in Korea.

There was no way that the fun-loving Koreans would leave this character alone. First came pictures like below from the (presumably) part-time workers taking a break from masquerading in the 포돌이 costume:

They definitely look approachable, at least if you just need a cigarette.

However, the real boost in the status of the mascot came from a very unlikely place even within the internet culture. Here is a portion of the webtoon that brought 포돌이 to the elevated status that it enjoys today. This webtoon is extracted from a horror series called "공부하기 좋은 날" (A good day for studying). Its episodes often feature a dark motif or a ghost. The artist of this webtoon is renowned for his horrifying images that are sure to haunt you in the dark, especially if you try to sleep too soon after reading one of his episodes. I hesitate to prove my claim with real examples, but here are two connecting episodes that illustrate a typical work of this artist. WARNING: DO NOT CLICK IF YOU ARE NOT INTO HORROR. You will have no trouble understanding the rest of the post even if you do not read these. Here is installment #1, and installment #2.

Here are the summary of each of the episodes to ease the Korean translation. Drag your mouse over the blank space to reveal the spoilers:

Installment #1: A freelancer mother and her son move to a new apartment. The son loves the new apartment, and visits the playground in front of their house daily to play with his new friends. At first the mother does not worry since she can see and hear the playground from their house. but she comes to the realization that she can only hear her son's voice and no one else's.
Installment #2: When the mother looks out, she sees no one in the playground. In a panic, she goes outside to find her son, only to find him in front of their apartment returning to do his homework. When she interrogates him about no one else being in the playground, he says that everyone else left to do their homework too. She tries to see if the playground is cursed, but no one knows anything about it. That night, in her dream, she dreams that her son is going out to the playground to play again. She opens the curtain to see the playground only to see a terrifying figure appear in front of her window and faints. When she realizes that everything was a dream, she breathes a sigh of relief, only to realize that her son was the terrifying figure, and that it was not a dream.

This particular episode seemed like it was no different. A student begins by ranting about the reality of the high school English education in Korea:

The English classes are useless. Exactly what kind of abilities do they hope to measure by an English test?
It is impossible to measure the speaking skills, and one could maybe test whether some words or grammar points are memorized.
That's why one cannot be good at English through the classes provided at school. High school English is merely memorizing words, grammar, and sentences.

I won't succumb to such terrible curriculum. The society wants nothing more than good grades. That is, I just need to do well on the tests!!

By the way, the student's soliloquy aligns quite well with how the Korean students often feel about school subjects. They are not the most effective ways to learn, but as the school grades are so important in the university entrance exam, they have no choice but to follow the curriculum to get good grades. After all, the society cares only about good grades!

So the student decides to sneak into the teachers' office one night, and steal the exam papers in advance.

 

If you are a fan of this particular artist, this is the point where you nearly close your eyes and scroll very slowly, because this is about the point where a very horrifying ghost figure appears. It could be the ghost of a student who killed himself because of bad grades, it could be the ghost of a school caretaker rumoured to be roaming the school grounds punishing the bad students, etc. However...

Well, 포돌이 can be just as terrifying.

Don't cheat, people.

These last two cuts became quite famous in the Korean internet culture, because the irony in these scenes were too great. The contrast of the outrageously cheerful face of 포돌이 against the dark mood, along with the fact that a student is being arrested, was pure hilarity. To this day, these cuts are used over and over again in the internet culture, and 포돌이 became a real celebrity!

I end with one more related word: "철컹철컹." To many Koreans, this word should remind you of 포돌이 (the creepy version, I suppose). This is because "철컹철컹" is an onomatopoeia for the clang of metal, or in our case, the clang of the handcuffs as they close around your wrists. You will see this word appear when an internet user makes not-safe-for-work sexual remarks, especially in the context that might remind people of child pornography. Although the internet users are sending a serious warning towards the target, they are also reminding themselves of the cheerfully creepy face of 포돌이. Some people prefer to use the phrase "잡았다 요놈," or "I got you, you rascal," which is something 포돌이 might say, as he slaps those handcuffs on you. Both words are fairly humorous in nuance, although it is a word definitely reserved for close friends, or for the internet.

All jokes aside, 포돌이 is still the leading face of the Korean police force. As far as the re-branding efforts go, I would say that he is a huge success, as no other mascot has the popularity of 포돌이. And although we will never know what life would have been like without 포돌이, I like to think that he contributed to changing the image of the Korean police force.

Read more

#24. 팩트폭행 -- The truth hurts

Believe it or not, according to the reports of the Korean internet users, the following conversation is said to have taken place in a Korean school during a history class.

Student: It really is too bad that polygamy is no longer a thing.
Teacher: Actually, you should be grateful that polygamy is no longer accepted.
Student: ???
Teacher: If we still practiced polygamy, you would never be able to marry because people like 송중기 will have 100 wives each.

This is 송중기, a very popular Korean actor.

Okay, that hurts, but that's also probably true, and that student definitely got pwned by his teacher, so to speak. His friends probably made fun of him after the history class was over, and they might have said something like:

선생님한테 팩트폭행 당했네 (You got pwned by the teacher bluntly telling you the truth.)

The word "팩트폭행" is made up of two parts, "팩트" and "폭행." The first word is the Koreanization of the English word "fact," and the second word means "assault."

To go a little bit deeper into the nuance of the second word, it is a pretty official word, as if you are charged with the assault of someone, you would be charged with "폭행죄" ("죄" means "sin" or "crime" -- as Christianity came into Korea fairly late, the word "죄" is used for both legal and religious contexts.)

As for the word "폭행," it has Chinese origins. The letter "폭" means violent (for example, "폭풍" means violent winds, or "storm"; "폭식" means to violently eat, or "binge-eat"; "폭행" is a violent "폭"action "행", or "assault.)

Putting these two words together, "팩트폭행" means that you have been violently assaulted by the means of the truth, which is a pretty accurate description of what happened in that history class. You can replace "폭행" with other words that describe violent actions, and get words such as "팩트폭력 (폭력 also means violent assault, but it pertains more to the bullying-type assaults, where one side is decidedly stronger)", "팩트폭격 (a bombardment of facts)," and so on.

Also remember that it is usually the case that when a new word is made by combining an English word and a Korean word (such as in 발퀄, 이불킥, or 프로 불만러) the resulting word is almost always pretty humorous. This is another instance of this claim, so there's definite sense of amusement and humour when you are using this word in a sentence. As usual, this word originated from the internet, and although not inherently offensive, I would play it safe and use this word only with my friends.

Finally, Koreans like to shorten words, especially if it's made up of multiple words. In our case, since "팩트폭행" is made up of two words "팩트" and "폭행," you will often see Koreans shorten this word to "팩폭" by just using the first letter of each word, especially on the internet. Since the Korean slang is very quickly evolving, it is actually not so easy for even a native Korean to guess the meaning of these shortened forms of words without looking them up! But then, it's kind of fun to try and guess what they mean as well.

Read more

Listening exercise with transcript #4: What does he like about you?

Here is a short video clip. Without giving anything away, try to listen and see how much you can understand. The transcript is provided below. You may want to turn off the English subtitles. It is remarkably free of slang, and the informality of the dialogue is very much the kind of conversation that you could have with your close friends, so it might be worth it to practice!

진짜 싫다. 사람들이 알아? 너 평소에 이러고 사는거. 옷을 입었다가 더러워서 빨래통에 넣었다가 결국 입을게 없어서 그걸 다시 꺼내서 입고 심지어 그걸 밖에서도 아무렇지 않게 입고 돌아다니는거, 그사람은 혹시 아나해서. (이래봬도 쓸만해!) 너는 손이 많이가. 나정도 되니까 이런말도 해주는건데, (뭐지?) 너 이러면 사람들이 싫어한다니까? (가!) 좀 안흘리고 먹을수 없어? 이제 막 이유식 뗀 애도 아니고. 욕심은 또 왜 이렇게 많냐? 니가 잘못해놓고 니가 화내고. 먹을것만보면 환장하고. (나 한입만) 하. 안귀엽거든? (야, 우리 가위바위보해서 진사람이 우산사오기할래?) 불길해. 느낌이 안좋아. 아니 너같이 이기적이고 배려심없고 명령 잘하고 가식적이고 예쁜척하는 애가, 아.. 내 옆에 있다는게 불길해. (야, 너 내가 여자로 보인적 있어?) 내가 돌았냐? 내가 아무리... 내가 여자가 없어도. 근데 걔, 니 오빤지 뭔지, 걘 니 어디가 좋대? 좋긴 좋대냐?

Read more