#39. 발암 -- It's killing me!

Here's an expression that I'm not a huge fan of, but it is used widely as of a couple of years ago.

There's some degree of belief among the Koreans (although not nearly as widespread as fan death, I think!) that stress causes cancer. FYI, it seems that there's no real evidence that stress causes cancer at the moment.

Anyway, if you frequent the Korean internet, you will undoubtedly see a lot of stress-inducing users. Some of them are so blinded by their own convictions that they refuse to have a conversation, preferring to more or less resort to circular logic and using the technique of 도배 to get through their points. Some of them are so foul-mouthed (even by Korean standards!) that you actually cannot stand reading their profanity. You of course see them everywhere on the internet worldwide, but because of the unique Korean internet culture, I always find that the problematic users are more problematic in Korea. At least, while I am very rarely bothered by the anglophone or francophone internet users (the only two other languages that I am confident with) I am often shaking my head at the Korean internet users.

This, of course, happens a lot less frequently in real life, but these people exist nonetheless.

Since some of these experiences are stress-inducing (and downright traumatizing if you're not used to the Korean internet culture,) the Koreans call these people "carcinogenic," or "발암" in Korean. The letter "발" means to "induce," as in "유발 (to cause)" or "시발점 (starting point)." The letter "암," of course, just means "cancer."

The word "발암" is completely standard, featured in Korean dictionaries, and if you wanted to use it in its proper way, you say it in sentences such as:

석면은 발암물질이다. (Asbestos is a carcinogenic material.)

However, in its neologism, it means that you are so angry and frustrated, and that you have that feeling of stuck 고구마 in your chest (probably eventually leading to cancer.) In this usage, Koreans might say:

 보람이는 남의 말은 들으려고 하지도 않아. 걘 정말 발암이야. (Boram never listens to others. She is carcinogenic.)

You could also use it as a prefix, and talk about a "발암 영상" (cancer-inducing video clip, meaning a video clip that makes the viewer angry and frustrated) or "발암 경기" (cancer-inducing game, when your team played so terribly that you nearly died from the frustration).

When I first heard it a couple of years ago, I was so violently against this expression because it felt like such a heartless and uncouth thing to say when so many people are affected by cancer each year. However, this word seems to be used in a fairly lighthearted way, often just substituting the word "frustrating." I am still very much against it and have never used it myself, and perhaps for the same reason, this word seems to be in a rapid decline -- I saw it everywhere a year ago, but not nearly as much nowadays. It's not completely out of fashion yet, however.

For this reason, I would reserve using this word only for conversations with very close friends, or on the internet (where more things are forgivable, for what it's worth.) But in any case, it's a good usage to know, since otherwise the expression probably doesn't make sense as a non-Korean.

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#38. Knowing your internet literature

Today, I was browsing the Korean websites as usual, when I came across the following post (which I re-create below for the ease of reading.)

Title: 놀이공원이 없는 마을에서 (In a village that has no amusement parks)
Text (very short): 이장님이 허락한 아이들의 유일한 마약 (The only drug that the mayor allowed the children to access)
Accompanying gif:

A lot of posts in Korean internet forums are very short, like this one. They are intended for a quick chuckle (or a quick fit of laughter, in many cases!) and you move on. The issue is that there's more to these posts than what's shown on the surface!

The post itself is fairly easy to understand (maybe the accompanying text is a bit bizarre, but I'll explain that below.) With a funny gif (that is not even Korean,) the Koreans enjoy creating the caption that goes with it. In our case here, they are imagining a village with no amusement parks, and the adults manually providing an amusement park-esque entertainment to the children.

Of course, that's only mildly funny, and I would not even break into a faint smile reading that.

What makes this post truly funny is the accompanying short text that says "이장님이 허락한 아이들의 유일한 마약."

I hope this text looks vaguely familiar! A very similar text made an appearance a while ago in one of my posts. In the post, a Korean teenager full of 허세 posted in his social media account (most likely Cyworld) that "음악만이 나라에서 허락한 유일한 마약 (music is the only drug allowed by the nation.)"

Although this original embarrassing post went viral at least 15 years ago, Koreans found it too funny to forget. And now they are paying tribute to this original post by modifying it and quoting it. And everyone reading it will be reminded of the original 허세 post.

This is one of the reasons that makes the Korean internet so difficult to navigate! Not only do you need to be fluent in the Korean language, you also need to understand the cultural context that lies behind it. It might date back only a decade or so like in this case, but in other cases, you need to know some Korean history to truly understand what's going on, as in knowing how to say that you're good with women, or when you're trying to pretend that you can read people's minds.

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#37. 동공지진 -- Oh, Sh!t

Have you ever had that experience, where you know you screwed up, and you have no idea how to get yourself out of the situation? You're embarrassed, you feel terrible, you want to apologize but you're not sure how things will go from there, and there doesn't seem to be much else that you can do. You're stuck and you know it. And you can't bring yourself to make eye contact with anyone.

So you carefully control your gaze, but of course, that means your gaze just wanders everywhere except that one place every few seconds. Oops.

Koreans have a really cute expression for this situation. They call this state "동공 지진." Here, "동공" means "pupil." "지진" means "earthquake." Namely, your pupils are shaking as if there was an earthquake going on.

While this is not often used in a sentence, and rather as a very short expression like "oh, snap!" you'll see this word a fair bit in TV subtitles (Korean TV usually has subtitles, and they're pretty witty and hilarious!) such as in the following image:

Then you know that the woman in the image got into some trouble that is difficult to get out of. If you wanted to really use it in a sentence, you would use it mostly in internet-style dialogues, such as:

동공지진 보소 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ (look at your eyes shaking lol)

I suppose I find this word to be hilarious because the two words that make up this new expression are fairly scientific words. No one would say "동공" in a regular conversation. They would say "눈동자." And "지진," while used commonly, is still a word you hear in a science class. These two highly scientific words combined in an unusual way to describe a pretty cute situation, and I detect humour from there, as do most other Koreans.

The word is not offensive, but the word seems fairly new, maybe only a couple of years old, and I would restrict the usage to fairly young people, maybe people in their 30s and younger.

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#36. 부심 -- Be proud of who you are (but don't be overly so)

If you have spent any time in Korea, or if you have any friends who identify culturally with Korea, you might have noticed that they are pretty humble about their achievements. This probably stems from the culture of putting the community first before yourself, and it is one of the most intricate aspects of the Korean culture that I cannot explain in a single post. The Koreans react more strongly even to what we call humblebrag (where people pretend to be humble while fishing for compliments), and learning to brag in Korea without turning half of your friends into enemies might take a very, very long time.

Anyway, that doesn't mean the Koreans don't have any self-esteem. In fact, there's a whole family of words related to your self-esteem. The stem of all of these words come from the standard Korean word "자부심." It could be translated as self-pride, but it's a bit more than that in nuance. It's believing that you're in a good place in whatever aspect is being discussed, you're confident because of how you feel about yourself, and so you love yourself a little bit more than the others. For example, when you win a prize in something and you get awarded the prize in front of your entire school during the school assembly (this does happen on a regular basis in Korea), you are probably feeling "자부심." It's not as permanent as self-confidence for most people, although I'm sure that some people live with it all the time.

Sorry for being pretty!

In the word "자부심," the letter "자" has a Chinese origin, meaning "self." For example, "자신" or "자기" both means "oneself.

Anyway, this is not necessarily a negative word. For example, a school principal might tell the students:

여러분은 이 학교의 학생이라는것에 자부심을 가져야 합니다. (You should feel proud that you are students of this school.)

But depending on context, it could have negative meanings, if someone is too confident.

Anyway, if "자" means "self," what should "부심" mean? Well, "자부심" roughly means "self-confidence," "self-love," and all that stuff, so "부심" should mean "confidence," or "love."

Thus another internet slang was born. If a friend of yours, call her 인아, is the class president (in Korean, we call that "반장." The letter "반" means "class" as in "1학년 1반 -- class 1 of grade 1," and "장" means "captain," "leader," etc., as in "대장 (captain)," "장군 (general)," "회장 (CEO or the leader of a company)" and so on,) and say that she is always shoving the fact that she is the class president in your face. Maybe she always orders you around. Maybe she calls you to check that you've done your homework, or maybe she makes you clean the classroom after classes way more often than you should. And she thinks that she's better than everyone because she's the class president.

Then while you talk about her behind her back with your other friends (as you will sooner or later do, if you had a friend like that!) you might say,

인아는 반장부심이 너무 커. (Ina is too confident and proud of the fact that she is the class president.)

Here, the word "반장부심" should mean something like "loving the status of 반장," or "being confident of the fact that she is a 반장." That is, you replace the word "self" by "class president" in the nuance given by "자부심." In creating this new word, not only did the Koreans succeed in accurately conveying the (annoying) characteristic of certain people, they also managed to slip in a bit of snideness into this expression. When someone is using a word of this type, they are definitely being sarcastic and making fun of someone.

 Or if your friend is an athelete ("운동선수," literally a competitor of sports) and always looks down on the less athletic people, you could say:

운동선수부심좀 그만 부려. (Stop being so cocky just because you're an athlete.)

If someone is a wine snob and doesn't let anyone forget it, you could say:

그 애는 와인부심이 너무 심해 (He has too much of a wine snobbery.)

And so on. People really do say it in real life, but be careful of overusing it, as it could really offend someone!

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Listening exercise with transcript #6: Attention!

Here is a short video clip of some women talking to each other. Although it is getting better, in an organizational setting (most notably in military, corporate setting, or in schools,) Koreans like to have something called "군기." This non-slang word coming from Chinese roots mean the rules and standards of an army. The letter "군" is Chinese for "army," for example "군대" means "army" and "장군" means a "general." The letter "기" is Chinese for "discipline." For example, the word "기강" also means "discipline."

If a group of people have the military-like discipline, in Korean, we call it

군기가 섰다 or 군기가 잡혔다.

If some older person is trying to establish some military discipline to the juniors, this act is called

군기를 세우다 or 군기를 잡다.

It's not as obvious as you might think. Watch the following video, and see if you can figure out what's going on:

Woman 1: 야, 내가 막내때는 진짜, 집에도 못가고 맨날 밤새서 일했어. 너네 진짜 편하게 일하는거야 지금.
Woman 2: 아, 또 그소리 한. 선배가 맨날 나 막내때는, 나 어렸을때는, 이런얘기 하니까 애들이 스트레스 받는거야.
Woman 1: 아 그래? 맞아? 너네 진짜 그래?
(아니! 아니요! 전 아니에요!)
Woman 2: 야, 맞잖아!
(아니에요!)
Woman 1: 리지야, 너 대답 안한다?
Lizzie:  저는 사실은 정아 (Woman 1) 선배보다는 주연 (Woman 2) 선배가 더...
Woman 2: 뭐? 야, 너 죽을래?
Lizzie: 아, 완전 사랑스럽다고! 하하하하하하! 어우, 러블리한거봐!
Woman 2: 그러니까 그얘기 할려고 그런거지?
Lizzie: 아우, 너무 이쁘다.
Woman 2: 꾼이 있네.
Woman 1:그러니까 나한테 잔소리 듣기 싫으면 열심히 하라고.

Woman 1, who is pretty clearly the oldest in the group, wants to make sure that all of her juniors (후배) are motivated, and tells them directly to work hard. Notice that everyone else, who is younger than she is, doesn't try to counter her at all (Woman 2 tries, but she is younger and backs off quickly). In other words,

후배들이 군기가 서있네.

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#35. 월급루팡 -- A very very sweet job

This is a quick post because I am on a vacation! While I was packing for my vacation, I started thinking about how I still get paid from my job during the time that I'm away even though I am not really working, and how my job really is pretty sweet!

That being said, there are sweeter jobs online. Once I read about a software engineer who hired someone else at a lower price than his salary to do all of his work, and basically got free money for years before he was caught (due to security breech). I am sure there are other sweet jobs out there.

Koreans have a very specific word for this situation. For the software engineer above (or maybe even for myself!) they might say,

쟤는 월급루팡이야 (He/she just steals his/her salary.)

So the new word of the day is "월급루팡." You probably already know what "월급" means; it is just standard (and non-slang) Korean for "monthly salary." The interesting word here is "루팡."

"루팡," or Arsène Lupin, is a character in the classic French series who is a gentleman but also a thief. For most Koreans, Lupin is the natural archnemesis of Sherlock Holmes, and the name of Lupin is as well-known as the name of Holmes (but actually, if you read the Arsène Lupin series, he battles Herlock Sholmes, not Sherlock Holmes!)

Anyway, the word "월급루팡" means that the subject of this description is essentially stealing his salary (since they are getting their salary without doing anything!) I find it to be a cute usage, and something that I am doing right now, so I thought I would share this word with you.

As for the appropriateness, it's not particularly offensive, and I'd imagine that a lot of Koreans in their middle ages or younger would get the reference (I'm not sure if my grandma would, though!) It's informal, and although it's a combination of a Korean word and a French word, it doens't give the same level of vulgarity as a Korean+English combination (probably because fewer Koreans are familiar with French, so if you're trying to replace a Korean word by a French word, people can't decide if you're trying to be funny or trying to appear intelligent.) As always, don't use a word like this in a formal report!

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#34. 도배 -- Making sure that you get noticed (and hated, as a bonus)

If you wanted to get noticed in a large online community such as Reddit, what would you do?

I suppose if I were really desperate, I could try submitting the same post over and over again, just to make sure that it gets noticed.

Looks like there's an event going on where the owner of the website is choosing someone at random.

I suppose it works; but it's annoying, and most websites have some rules against repeat submissions. Korea is no exception; most communities have a rule forbidding its users from the act of "도배."

You might have noticed that many Korean houses have patterned walls, instead of simply painted walls. For whatever reasons, Koreans prefer to glue on patterned paper onto the wall. This paper is called "벽지" (where "벽" means "wall," and "지" is Chinese for "paper." You see this letter in "휴지 (toilet paper)," "폐지 (used paper)," "일간지 (daily papers)," etc.) And the act of gluing the 벽지 onto the wall is called "도배."

An example of the walls in a Korean house.

So, when someone keeps posting the same post over and over again, the person is covering the wall (as in the Facebook wall) with a patterned paper (in the form of repeated posts). In other words, he is committing the act of "도배." Other users might tell him,

도배하지 마세요 (don't cover up the wall).

In fact, many online communities have an explicit warning saying:

도배금지 (forbidden to cover up the wall).

Failure to follow this warning usually results in the webmasters blocking your ID (or even IP addresses in extreme cases!) from their websites, so don't do it!

This term is very specific to online activities, so it is naturally not used in real life.

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