#57. How to beat a hobgoblin in wrestling (Shamanism 2)

Gather around with your roasted chestnuts and a blanket, lie on the warmest part of the stone-heated floor, and I'll tell you some stories from my childhood that my grandparents have told me. Through the "folklore" series of this blog, you will get to meet the Korean deities and the demons, which form the basis of the modern Korean shamanism as well. I will upload a folklore every Wednesday.

I was an easily frightened child. When I heard my first 도깨비 story, my grandparents told me not to be afraid. "There are much worse demons out there," they said. "The 도깨비 is not really your enemy. If you know how to deal with them, you will be more than fine."

Here are the few things that they told me. The 도깨비 more or less looks and dresses like a very strong human male. They may or may not carry around a 도깨비 방망이 (a magical club that conjures anything you want), but the one thing that is sure is that they will always want to engage you in some competition. Their favourite competition is wrestling (씨름). They just want to prank you and have a good laugh -- It's much better than most other demons, who just want to kill you.

"And here's how you beat a 도깨비 when they ask you for a game of 씨름," they said.

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Once upon a time, there was a farmer who really liked to have a drink at the end of the day.

This day also, he had gone to the pub in the next village over to have a drink with his friends, and he was coming home, slightly drunk but in a good mood. When he was just about ten minutes away from his village, he saw a tall man blocking the road. The man was almost ten feet tall.

"I'll let you use the road, if you can beat me in the game of 씨름," the tall man said.

The farmer, who was not a weak man himself, agreed, and they started wrestling. The man was very strong, and the farmer, no matter what he tried, could not beat him (you have to either force the opponent's knee or his back to touch the ground). Now, the easiest technique (and really, the only viable technique if you're not a professional wrestler) to try in the game of 씨름 is to try to knock out one of your opponent's legs by using one of your legs as a hook. But no matter what the farmer tried, the man was like a mountain.

So the wrestling went on all night. As the dawn approached, the farmer, finally feeling clear-headed after the night of drinking, looked down. To his surprise, he realized that the man had only one leg. His right leg, which is the leg that the farmer has been trying to knock out all night, was not actually there. The man was a 도깨비.

Gathering his wits about him, the farmer hooked the 도깨비's left leg, and down the 도깨비 went!

While the 도깨비 was dazed in shock, the farmer dragged the 도깨비 to a nearby tree, and tied it up tightly to the tree. Exhausted, the farmer went back home, and fell asleep.

The next morning, the farmer, remembering the previous night's encounter, went back to the tree to check on the 도깨비. The 도깨비 was no longer there; tied to the tree was an old broom.

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"Remember," my grandparents said. "The 도깨비 is very strong. The only way to defeat it in wrestling is to remember to hook its left leg and knock it out, because they have only one leg. But don't worry, because whether you win or not, the 도깨비 will let you go in the morning."

Then my grandmother, who is always a little bit mischievous and loves to tease, added, "but if you don't manage to defeat the 도깨비, you will be sick for fifteen days." Okay, thanks, grandma.


Anyway, so, there are two things that I want to point out (Koreans would learn it through repeated exposure. But maybe you want to know it sooner.)

First, how are the 도깨비 born? It seems that they are made from well-used household objects, such as brooms. Koreans believed that if you use something for a long time, those objects get a soul of its own! And since you go back a long way with these objects, they rarely mean you real harm. They're happy to have some fun with you.

This also illustrates something that is at the core of Korean shamanism, which believes that everything (including the inanimate things) has a soul. The Korean shamans worshipped certain animals and sacred objects, while other things were condemned as having cursed.

If you think about it, this is not a bad way to think about your everyday life -- if you believe that even the most mundane things have souls, you would naturally be a lot more respectful. Maybe you wouldn't litter, because that piece of trash could have a soul, and curse you for littering. You would think twice before plucking off that flower, lest the soul of the flower appear in your dreams.

So, while the word "shamanism" definitely comes with some sort of a negative connotation (maybe that people who practice shamanism are uncivilized), there are always two sides to a story!

Secondly, the Korean demons, including 도깨비, seem to have a common special power. They are able to distract you enough, to make you imagine seeing things that are not actually there. For example, the 도깨비 in the above story was able to trick the farmer into thinking that he was a real person (when in reality, he has only one leg!) Other demons often do this as well. When this happens to you, Koreans say that they have been "귀신에 홀렸다," or "mislead by a demon."

This second part, some Koreans still believe. There are still malicious beings in the modern Korean shamanism, and Koreans often believe that these demons are responsible for seeing things that are not actually there. If they were grossly mistaken, they still often say:

내가 뭔가에 홀렸었나 봐. (It seems that I was mislead by something supernatural.)

 I added the word "supernatural" into the translation even though it isn't really explicitly present in the Korean sentence, because the use of the verb "홀리다" already implies a supernatural being.

While this of course provides a terrifying element to the Korean folklore, there is also a positive side -- if you are able to pay attention and stay focused, you should be able to overcome the demon's powers, and see through what they really are (really, nothing but an old broom!)

So, there it is. Always remember to have your wits about you, and remember, it's the left leg!

(Also this seems like a good time to say that I don't actively practice shamanism... I'm an atheist, so there are no religious motives behind these posts!)

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#56. 빠순이 -- Oppa, I love you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

걔 완전 방탄소년단빠야.

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

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

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#55. 등골브레이커 -- Making your parents pay?

As a student in Korea, I wanted to fit in. This is a lot more important than being a student in North America, because belonging to a group is valued so much in Korea. For example, Koreans often quote the proverb "모난 돌이 정 맞는다," or "stones that stick out get the chisel."

Thinking back to my time as a student in Korea, I felt as if I existed to fit into a group. I really did everything that I could to not stick out. In my juvenile mind, the easiest thing to do was to do what the others were doing. If everyone in my group got a particular pen and raved about it, then I would get it too, even though it was way over my allowance budget. If everyone wanted to go eat 떡볶이 (spicy rice cakes), then I would go too, even though I hated spicy food (and still do!)

Nowadays, I hear that things are a bit tougher in the Korean schools.

The "it" items are supposedly no longer a fancy pen, or heading off to a street food stall to eat 떡볶이. The popular kids at school now wear expensive coats (North Face was the popular brand a few years ago; Canada Goose had its fifteen minutes of spotlight, and so on.) They wear designer shoes, and carry fancy backpacks. And everyone else wants to do the same to fit in.

This photo was taken at a graduation ceremony of a middle school, back when North Face was the brand to be wearing. Could you stand to not wear one of these, and risk sticking out?

But of course, buying an expensive coat that costs $500-1000 USD is not within their allowance budget at all. The only way for the students to get it is to beg their parents until they give in. And even then, it's not a trivial sum of money that the parents can just cough out. It probably stressed them out, and some parents probably spent the money that they couldn't afford.

From this, the internet users started calling these students "등골 브레이커."

The word "등골" comes from "등의 골짜기," or "the valley in your back." It refers to the fact that your back where the spine lies underneath looks like a valley.

And the word "브레이커" comes from the English word "breaker."

Putting them together, the internet users are mocking these students for breaking the spines (of their parents), because their parents probably had to do some rough work to be able to afford these coats. In the Koreans' collective mind, the rough work is often working for a construction site, carrying heavy load in their backs (somehow, that seems like the hardest work that you can do!) and severely damaging their backs.

There are many other instances of "등골브레이커" other than these young 급식충, though!

Many parents pay the college tuition of their children; some young adults have to take their college entrance test multiple times in order to get into good universities, and their parents usually pay for the cost associated to taking the test again (these students often enroll themselves in a private academy or 학원 in Korean to study); some children want their video games which are expensive; and some people expect their parents to help them out when they get married, often into the six figures in USD. You get the idea.

Remember that Korean values are based on Confucianism, which stresses filial piety (효도 -- this is such a common word in Korean that I am always shocked that there does not exist an equivalent common word in English!) So the act of being a 등골브레이커 is particularly terrible in Korea.

So although this word is probably less than a decade old, it has struck a chord with all Koreans. This word is used widely in the media, as well as by the Koreans of all ages. Also notice that the word is made up of an English word and a Korean word, so this combination, as usual (see an example), gives some humour into the word as well, which sits well with the Koreans. As long as you don't use this word in a formal report, most Koreans would understand (and probably agree) with you, if you use it in appropriate places!

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#54. 성지순례 -- Making an internet pilgrimage

Back when religion occupied a larger part of our lives, many people dreamed of journeys of the spiritual sort, where they travel to the religiously significant places, be it Mecca, Vatican, or Temple Mount. They travel not only to quench their curiosity about the important place where their religion flourished, but they probably thought that their gods were more present in these holy places. I can easily imagine them having a small personal prayer in the hopes that their gods will be more attentive in their mecca.

Mecca

If you think about it, though, it is increasingly becoming the case that the most important aspect of our lives is no longer religion, but rather items of convenience, such as the internet. So, doesn't it make sense that we should try to take our own pilgrimages, and find what is the most sacred and holy in the realm of the internet?

Well, I can tell you that the Koreans have already started. While the word "성지순례" means pilgrimage ("성지" means "holy site" -- "성" is "holy" as in "성서 (bible)," "성인 (saint)", and "지" means "place" as in "지구 (earth)"), it is now also used as a slang term for particularly notable posts on the Korean internet. And you can take your cyber-journey to these sacred places and even make a wish!

What do I mean by notable posts? There are a few different possibilities.

First, this blog is dedicated to the Korean internet slang. They get created somewhere, and in the case where the origin is clear, the posts that created the particular slang can be the 성지 of the internet.

Secondly, and more commonly, there are posts on the internet that predict the future. Often, these posts predict the upcoming celebrity scandals (there will soon be an article on how so-and-so is dating so-and-so). While people rarely believe these things when it first gets posted, sometimes they really do prove to be true!

Thirdly, some keyboard battles are so epic that they get preserved as a 성지. Of course, these are pretty vulgar and it's maybe not the kind of 성지 that you want to visit!

It is quite fun to try to find and visit some of these places. You see the marks of the other pilgrims in the form of 댓글 (comments), like this holy site here.

In the 수능 subreddit of DC Inside (remember that 수능 is the most important test of the life of any Korean!), one user posted the following a few days before the actual test. She asks in the title, "In the written section of the math part of 수능, how many times does 0 appear as an answer?" She then writes in the body that she will "guess 0 for all of them."

Just as a background, while most questions are multiple-choice, there are some questions where the test-takers are required to write in the answer (but not how you arrived at the answer).

Amazingly, in this particular year's 수능, all of the answers in the math section were actually 0. Goosebumps, anyone?

 

 And so this post became a holy site. Even to this day, many internet users flock to this particular post to share their wishes. Here are some of the wishes that the Korean internet users left in the comments:

 Many of them wish for a high score in the 수능 exam (1등급 is the highest), because really, if the god of 수능 existed, that god must live here. But you occasionally also see other wishes such as "please let my crush like me back."

Here is the actual link to the 성지. Make a wish yourself, if you believe in the god of the internet!

While the word "성지 (holy site)" or "성지순례 (pilgrimage)" are clearly Korean internet slang in this context, it has caught on, and media has been seen reporting using this word in the context of slang. If an opportunity arises in real life, you can try using it without offending anyone!

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Listening exercise with transcript #9: Gag Concert, continued

Following last week's listening exercise, I thought I'd post another related clip, which is shorter and easier to understand, that comes from the same "코너" of the comedy show "개그 콘서트." Unfortunately, the video is a little bit out of sync.

Without giving any hints away, I challenge you to listen to the following very short clip and see how much you can understand. Transcript and explanation follows the video, as usual. I have even done a full translation this week!

MC: 여러분, 안녕하십니까? "달인을만나다" 의 류담입니다.
오늘 이 시간에는 세상의 황폐함에 분노를 느끼시고 이 세상의 모든 소리와 안녕을 고하며 스스로의 마음을 정화시키기 위해 무려 16년째 단 한 마디도 하지 않고 묵언 수행을 하며 살아 오신 "음소거 김병만선생님" 모셨습니다. 아, 선생님, 그... 이 현대사회에서 이... 말을 안하고 산다는게 굉장히 어려운 일인데 말이죠. 정말로대단하십니다. 네, 아무튼 반갑습니다.

Guest: 네, 반갑습니다.

The format of the skit is very similar to the one covered in the previous week. This week, the guest is "음소거 김병만." The word "음소거" means "mute" -- you press the 음소거 button of your remote control to mute your TV. So this week's expert is Byung Man "the mute" Kim. As always, he's a fake, and both him and his top apprentice are swatted away by the MC.

This week, I'll provide a translation of what the MC says, because even though he says little, what he does say is fairly eloquent and high-level Korean. (Some orders of words are changed around to make sense in English!)

MC: Hello, everyone? This is "Dam Ryu" of "Meeting the Expert."
Today at this hour, we have as our guest "Byung Man 'the Mute' Kim," the man who resents the barrenness of the world. As a result, he took his leave from all sound in this world in order to purify his mind, and he spent 16 years committed to silence. Ah, sir, it is very difficult not to say anything in this modern society. I have such respect for you. It is a pleasure to meet you.

Guest: Yes, it's a pleasure.

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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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#52. 지잡대 -- Does happiness correlate with your grades?

First, a very important disclaimer. The contents in this post are pretty much only useful for starting up a fight online (and understanding fights between other users, I guess.) You should probably expect a fair bit of hate if you dare to use these words in real life. I mean, I've done posts on a lot of rude words, but this post contains the issue that most Koreans feel particularly sensitive about, because it touches a nerve with all the Koreans. So use extreme caution!

Koreans don't deny that there is a problem with their education system. I think that the root of the issue is so deep that the Koreans don't know where to start to fix this. The Korean logic goes as follows.

In order to be happy, you must have a good, stable job.

Good, stable jobs are one of the following. A doctor (의사); a high-level governmental post (고위 공무원, where "고위" means "high level." "고" means "high" as in "고급 (high level/high quality)" or "고층 (high rise)," and the letter "위" means place as in "위치 (place)". I've explained "공무원" in a previous post.); or an employee of a large corporate such as Samsung or LG (Samsung, in particular, is so desired that there is a nickname for the people who work for Samsung: they are called 삼성맨, or Samsung-man.)

So, three possibilities here.

If you want to be a doctor, you must get into a medical school (in Korea, you get in straight out of high school.) Well, medical schools are THE hardest schools to get into (doesn't matter what university they're attached to.) You must more or less have a perfect score on the 대학수학능력시험 (수능 for short, College Scholastic Ability Test), which is the insanely difficult college entrance exam of Korea.

If you want to be a high-level government worker, the best way to achieve that is to get into the best law school (connections and good education help, you know), and pass the bar with a high score to become a prosecutor or a judge. Well, law schools at the best universities are also extremely competitive. Again, you must score very very well on the 수능.

If you want to get into a large corporate, the best thing you can have on your resume is the name of the most elite school of Korea with a reasonable major. These schools are usually 서울대학교 (Seoul National University), 연세대학교 (Yonsei University), 고려대학교 (Koryo University), 카이스트 (KAIST), and 포항공대 (Postech). Not surprisingly, the required scores in 수능 are fairly unrealistically high.

 So summing up the above points, if you want to be happy, you must score well on 수능, which you take when you are in your final year of high school (고등학교 3학년 in Korea, as high schools last for three years.) The third years of high school are called 고삼 or 고3 for short, and as you may imagine, the word "고3" carries a very specific connotation.

As an example, I took piano lessons when I lived in Korea. I would practice piano from 4-5pm when I came back home from school. But for one year, my mother, who was usually draconian about keeping my practice time, forbade me from playing the piano. That was the year when our next-door neighbour had a daughter who was a 고3. As she was studying all the time for the biggest test of her life, it just made sense that we were going to do everything that we can to help her out (in our case, being quiet.)

The younger students often show up on the day of the 수능 to cheer on the 고3. The 고3 are truly treated like kings and queens for the one year!

If they mess up the 수능, which happens exactly once a year, they must spend yet another year trying to take it again. They are then called a 재수생 ("재" means to repeat, as in "재방송 (re-run)"). The 재수생 are pretty common in Korea. If they fail again, though, then they are called 삼수생 ("삼" as in three, since they're taking the test for the third time). And the count goes on. At some point, they're just called n수생 (re-taking the 수능 for the n-th time), and that becomes a mild insult.

So anyway, this one test, and consequently the university that you are admitted to, largely determines your life trajectory. No wonder the Koreans would be sensitive about which university they go to, especially if they feel that they are attending a sub-par university. This university that you attend might predict the kind of life that you will live, to some degree (Of course, there are some exceptions, but for the large part, the system is set up in a way that the name of the university matters too much!)

Because the name of the university that you go to is such a sensitive topic, this provides a very good ammunition to the Korean internet users online. When you get into a battle with another user (often called a "keyboard battle" or 키보드 배틀 in Korean), basically assuming that the user goes to a "terrible" university and attacking the user from that angle is a good idea if you want to win the battle. I mean, statistically speaking, chances are, there are more people that attend "mediocre" universities than those that attend "elite" universities.

Or it's just a good way to 어그로 끌기 (i.e. anger a lot of people at once.) Post a picture that looks like the following, and you will suddenly find yourself surrounded by hundreds of angry Korean internet users. If you're the kind of person who likes that kind of attention, it could be fun.

The red lines often are called "넘사벽." And it's used in the most derisive nuance possible, of course, because the whole point of posting one of these is to insult a lot of other users.

There are names that denote each classes of these universities. As you move down the list, the more derogatory it becomes.

The top tier universities consisting of Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Koryo University, KAIST, and Postech often go by the names 스카이 (SKY: Seoul, Koryo, and Yonsei, this is particularly brilliant because getting into one of these schools is as hard as reaching for the sky), 서연고 (서울, 연세, 고려), or 서카포 (서울, 카이스트, 포항공대). If you're more of a humanities person, you want to go to SKY, if you're more of a STEM person, you want to go to 서카포, so you never refer to all five at the same time, I guess. (This explains "누가봐도 명문대" comment in the picture; it means "you can't argue that these are elite universities.")

The next tier universities are often called 서성한 중경외시 (서강대, 성균관대, 한양대, 중앙대, 경희대, 외국어대, 시립대), by just taking the first letters of the universites on the list. This is a phrase that all Koreans know, weirdly enough. Up to here, the names of the universities are definitely compliments. (In the picture, they are referred to as "가끔씩은명문대." It means "sometimes considered as elite universities.")

The next tier of universities are called 지거국 (short for 지방 거점 국립대학교, provincially-located national universities). These universities, although not in Seoul, are nationally endorsed, and are still very good. The nuance is fairly neutral. (In the above picture, they are described as "그래도 공부 좀 했네," or "You were probably pretty smart in high school.")

Then the next tier is more or less nameless. Those that are located in Seoul, which are preferred since Seoul is more fun, are often called 인서울 which comes from the English compound word in-Seoul. This is because most universities in the next tier are located in Seoul. You could imagine that university students probably want to live in Seoul, so that they can have some fun! Up to here, the nuance of these words are fairly neutral. (The diagram describes these schools as "아주 놀진 않았네," or "You didn't let yourself go in high school.")

As for the universities that didn't make it to this list, the internet users often call these universities "지잡대." This is for "지방에 있는 잡스러운 대학." This is a really terrible insult. Most of the derogatory nuance comes from the word "잡스럽다." This has the same root as the word "잡종," which denotes the animals without any particular breed. For example, mutts are 잡종. The nuance here is that the universities not on the list are so without roots that it is not worth calling them by name. Here are some of the common insults:

말하는걸 보니 넌 지잡대 다니는 듯 ㅋㅋ (Judging by how you speak, you must go to a mutt university.)

지잡대생이 뭘 안다고 잘난척이냐? (Why are you pretending to know things when you're nothing but a mutt university student?)

Here, -생 suffix means the student of a particular school, in this case, a 지잡대. You can use this to say 서울대생 (student of Seoul National University), or 인서울생 (student of an in-Seoul university), etc.

Remember that the name of the universities largely determine the Koreans' futures (much like how your heritage and breed determined your future back in the olden days!) So hearing that you're nothing more than a mutt is not only just an insult, it's an insult based on truth. It really hurts. If you use this word against an internet user, chances are, he will be coming at your throat with all the insult he has in his verbal arsenal.

Not only that, if you release a diagram such as the above, the rest of the users will be chiming in, saying things like "University X doesn't belong in that tier, it should be in the tier above," or "What are you thinking putting University Y in that tier? Its quality has gone down since the 90s" etc.

Pretty much, if you ever bring up the topic of universities in a Korean internet forum, hell is sure to break loose (Amusingly, there's a version for foreign universities too. As a lot of Koreans study abroad, that also brings out the same reaction.)

It's a terrible situation that Korea has gotten itself into, but it will need a lot of time to figure out how to resolve this issue of extreme ranking of universities. Here's hoping that things improve one day!

Addendum: Per request, here is a chart comparing Korean universities to Foreign universities. It seems to have been made by someone not attending Korean universities, given that the Korean universities are ranked very low. Remember that these charts are made to anger, not to disseminate information, and enjoy! (you might have to download or open the chart in a separate window to be able to read it.)

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