#61. 짤방 -- Pictures included

In case you haven't noticed, I have a new page on my website, which is an alphabetized list of the Korean slang that I have covered so far, and you can find the link on the sidebar for desktop, and if you scroll down on mobile. Alternatively, just click here for the Korean Slang Dictionary. I plan to add to it as I add more posts here!

If you have spent any time on the Korean internet, you have surely seen the word "짤" or "짤방." It's not too hard to figure out what this is supposed to mean, as the posts are often titled in a straightforward way; for example, a post might be simply titled "웃긴 짤" (or "funny 짤" in English). When you open the said post, it often contains a single photo and nothing else.

Whatever "짤" is supposed to mean, we end up guessing that "짤" means either a photo or a gif after browsing through the internet for a few moments.

Although I knew the meaning of this word for a long time, I only recently found out where this word comes from -- the letter "짤" really has nothing to do with the Korean words meaning pictures. The natural choices would have been "사진" or "gif," after all!

It turns out that the word "짤방" comes from "짤림방지." And "짤" is a further simplification of "짤방." The word "짤림" is already slang for "잘림," which means "being cut."

If you're fired from work, or if you didn't pass the audition, you can say

나 짤렸어 (I got cut).

By the way, the phrase "나 잘렸어" is almost too formal, and most Koreans would actually use the slang "나 짤렸어."

Here's another context where you can use the word "짤리다." In a moderated website, contents not meeting the requirements of the websites can get censored by the moderators. It could be violent/explicit content, but it could also be an arbitrarily imposed rule. In fact, many Korean websites stipulate that you must include a picture with your posts, in order to increase readability and reduce haphazard posts (In fact, DC Inside automatically inserts a photo!)

So Koreans started inserting random pictures into their posts to prevent ("방지" in Korean) being cut ("짤림" in Korean). And when you post pictures unrelated to the content of your post, you would often just explain that the photo is there to prevent censorship, by typing out:

사진은 짤림방지 (photo is preventing censorship)

And from this phrase, the usage degenerated into "사진 = 짤림방지 (photo = preventing censorship)" and people started calling "사진" as "짤림방지," soon shortened as "짤방" or "짤."

This usage is incredibly common online, although only among the younger people. On the bright side, it is a non-offensive usage!!

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#60. 교과서 튜닝 -- Improving your school experience

One of the most striking thing when I moved from Korea to North America was the fact that you don't own your textbooks (called 교과서 in Korean). In North America (at least, in my experience!) the textbooks in schools are bought in bulk in hardcover, and rented to the student for the semester. If you damage it, you have to pay a penalty or replace it, so you take very good care of your textbook.

On the other hand, in Korea, you are provided all of your textbooks (free of charge, if I remember correctly), which are paperbacks and quite small -- the textbooks are smaller not because Koreans learn less in school, but because they have many more subjects, often around 15 or so. I've also found that the North American schools pick and choose the units being covered from the textbooks, while the Koreans tend to cover everything that is in the textbook. The Korean textbooks are often very dense and to-the-point as well.

A set of grade seven textbooks. From the top, Math, Social Studies, Korean 1&2, Music, English, Career Studies, Physical Education, Health, Informatics, Science, Home Economics and Technology, and Appendix to Social Studies.

Anyway, you own these books, and you are free to take notes, or write on your textbooks as you please. What do the Korean 급식s do when you suddenly get a bunch of free books that you don't really care about?

Well, you set out to create an internet legend. The practice of "교과서 튜닝" or "textbook tuning" has been popular for several decades, and it is still going strong. In Korean, "튜닝" or "tuning" almost exclusively means "doing some modifications to improve the object." It is often used in the context of cars, but in this case, it is applied to textbooks.

Usually, your goal is to modify a page (or the cover) of the textbook to make it funnier. If you do a good job, your post achieves the fifteen minutes of internet fame. Here are some examples of what the Korean students do in their free time.

Left is original, right is modified. She looks more stylish, for sure!

Left is original (wearing the Korean traditional clothing called 한복), and right is modified.

The title reads "torture and massacre (already twenty people)." You have to think a little, but the original title of the textbook was "과학" meaning "Science." Some words were added in to make "고문과 학살."

The original textbook was called "문학 (하)," or "literature (volume 2)." The title has been changed to "항문 학대, 고문(하)자." This means "abusing your anus, let's torture." Can you imagine carrying this around for the entire year?

You can be as creative as you want with these textbooks, and almost everyone does it at some point. Ask your Korean friends about their experiences with 교과서 튜닝, and you'll hear some amusing answers!

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Listening exercise with transcript #10: Aggravation

In a previous post, I had talked about hostile behaviour against many people, in order to provoke them and create a fight (= internet entertainment.) Such a behaviour is called "어그로," or as a verb, "어그로를 끌다." I also gave an example of such a behaviour, done by a national news outlet.

Here is another example of 어그로, also done by a national news outlet MBC (one of the three largest broadcasting companies in Korea.) Although it's been a long time since this clip was broadcast, the content of the clip propelled it to a legendary status, and it is still talked about in the Korean internet. As always, transcript and explanation follows:

20여명의 학생들이 컴퓨터 게임에 몰입해 있는 또 다른 PC방.
곳곳에 관찰 카메라를 설치한 뒤 게임이 한창 진행중인 컴퓨터의 전원을 순간적으로 모두 꺼 봤습니다.
(Dialogue already subtitled).
순간적인 상황 변화를 받아들이지 못하고 곳곳에서 욕설과 격한 반응이 터져나옵니다. 폭력게임의 주인공처럼 난폭하게 변해 버린겁니다.
(Interview already subtitled).

The news outlet wanted to make the point of the harmful effects of video games. In order to prove its point, it heads out to an internet cafe (called PC방 in Korean, meaning PC room) and shuts down the power for a moment. The people playing games in the internet cafe are of course frustrated and start yelling out and swearing. This quite clearly proves the point that gamers turn violent... yes?

I chose a news clip for this week, not only for its entertainment value, but also because this is one of the best sources to practice your Korean if you wanted to hear clear Korean. Try following along, as the reporter speaks quite slowly and clearly!

A few years later, SNL Korea did a parody of this clip (mostly subtitled):

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#59. A rose can bloom even in a garbage dump

It's been over two months since this blog started; over two months of learning internet slang for you!

If any of you have tried venturing into the Korean internet forums, you have probably still found it difficult to understand many posts. This is because the Koreans use a lot of profanity, I have not covered all the slang that are used frequently yet, and new slang is born all the time. Besides, you want to ease into the Korean internet, and not start off in the lawless lands like DC Inside's baseball gallery or ilbe, where things get really ugly.

Instead, consider spending a little bit of time in the Plants Gallery of DC Inside (식물갤러리, or 식갤 for short in Korean)

In order to tell you about what is special about this Gallery, I have to first tell you a little bit about DC Inside (디씨인사이드 or 디씨 for short). I have always explained DC Inside as being Korea's Reddit. This explanation is partly true; DC Inside is split into many sub-forums called "Galleries"  (갤러리 or 갤 for short), much like the subreddits. For most interesting topics (or many celebrities, even), there exists a gallery, or "gall," dedicated to it.

But there is one major difference; each "gall" acts as if they are an independent nation (remember, Koreans really care about belonging to a community!) Many galls are either in alliance or at war with another. And sometimes, users of a particular gall "go to war" with another gall (here, you don't use the word "전쟁하다" which means the actual war; the word you want to use is "털다," which is closer to "to plunder.") You accomplish this by invading your target gall with hundreds or thousands of other users, and putting up 도배글 all over their gall. Then the original users of your target gall are annoyed, they fight with you, and when the users from your gall have largely taken over their gall, you have won. This is the largest scale of 어그로 you will see on the Korean internet, and it happens more frequently than you would think.

If the celebrity 민호 insults another celebrity 준영? Well, the users of 준영갤러리 are probably gearing up for a plundering of 민호갤러리 (they probably tell each other, "민호갤러리 털러가자" or "let's go plunder 민호갤러리.") Even if there are no outside catalysts, people do it just for fun. Sometimes one person can singlehandedly take over a gall if they're good at pulling an 어그로.

Even without all these plundering, the users of DC Inside are known for being rough. They are often rough with their choice of words, and they often egg each other on to do stupid things (daring each other to eat insects, and posting picture proofs, and so on.)

For these reasons, Koreans often describe DC Inside as a garbage dump. They are more or less correct with this description.

With the exception of 식물갤러리. The users there do not use profanity. Even when someone is trying to rile them up, they are so courteous that the 관종 regains his senses, and becomes ashamed of his behaviour. The users of 식물갤러리 (often called "식갤러" meaning plants gallery-ers) just really love trees and plants, and that's all. One Korean has eloquently described it as "the national park amongst the dumpsters (쓰레기장속의 국립공원)." There are many instances where 식갤 proved its worth, but I would like to show you just a couple of very short ones. Consider it another round of 성지순례!

성지 #1. A user, upon hearing that 식물갤러리 is very clean, takes it upon himself as a challenge, and tries to troll the gall-ers, by writing a 낚시글.

He writes, "Hey Plants Gall-ers (식갤러), I just plucked a flower and threw it out" as his title. In the body of his post, he simply writes "부들부들?" which describes "shaking in anger" (since he put a question mark, he really means, "Are you shaking in anger yet?") He expects that everyone will be upset, and that they will start swearing at him to get him off their gall.

 

Contrary to his expectation, he gets the following comment in his post. One of the 식갤러 has written:

"Normal people only look at the flower when they look at plants, and don't look at the leaves or the stem. For this reason, even though the others might judge you harshly by this one post, I will imagine that your inside (내면) is beautiful (just like how stems and leaves might still be beautiful with an ugly flower). I hope that at a later time, your flower can also be beautiful, so that you can be loved by the others."

He probably apologized at this point and just left the gall, because how do you troll something like that?

성지 #2. Korea's weightlifter 장미란 has won a gold medal in the Olympics. As a celebration, the Korean internet users decide to plunder 식물갤러리, because her name contains the word "장미" which is a plant (yes, totally a valid reason to plunder a gall). Many people spontaneously gather in 식갤 and start posting random things on their gall.

Instead of cursing them out or being annoyed, the original 식갤러 are excited that their gall is so active! So they decide to share the things that they love the most. One gall-er posts some pictures of beautiful roses (장미) for the plunderers, because he wants to celebrate 장미란's win.

 And the internet users, who had originally thought of plundering the gall, instead leave heartwarming comments and disappear. It's really hard to troll in the absence or reaction! Most of the sentences below are standard Korean, so you should be able to translate them, but I will give you the words that are slang below, so that the translation is easier.

횽 is slang for 형, meaning "older brother." In this case, they are calling each other by a respectful form (it doesn't usually happen on the internet, but you're on 식갤).

대인배 means a generous person.

상투스 is not a slang, it is the Latin word "sanctus," meaning "holy." They are talking about holy hymns often sung in large-scale masses.

정화 is also not a slang, but it gets used a few times -- it just means "to purify."



So, this is not a bad place to start your exploration of the Korean internet forums. Firstly, they are not vulgar, so understanding them is a lot easier than understanding other internet users. Secondly, they are so courteous, and if you had decided to try out using your Korean, I would imagine that they would very respectfully help you with it. Finally, maybe you'll learn a thing or two about plants!

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#58. 미만잡 -- You don't reach my standards

There are many ways to entertain yourself in the Korean internet scene. You could, for example, engage in the hobby of 어그로 끌기 (usually by saying something controversial and enraging many people at once, which is not unlike trolling), you could produce a lot of funny 드립s to bask in the glory of your witticisms, or you could play a little game of 낚시 to spread false information and see who falls for it.

Here's one other way to be annoying on the Korean internet without bringing on a full-scale keyboard war. Suppose that you found someone who was bragging about her achievements. She is talking about how she is a student of 연세대학교 (Yonsei University, often regarded as one of the top schools in Korea), how her relatives gave her a new iPhone for her birthday, how people say that she looks like a well-known k-pop girl group member, and she is going on and on.

While you don't feel that you have the energy to get into a fight with her, you want to annoy her a tiny bit. So as she is writing things about herself, you start adding these little comments to her writing. When she writes that she goes to Yonsei University, you comment:

대학은 서울대 미만잡.

The word "미만잡" comes from two Korean words. The first part, "미만" means "less than." For example, the inequality "2 < 5" is translated to "5는 2 미만이다." It also gets used in sentences such as "You will not be offered admission if your score is less than 70," which is translated to Korean as "70점 미만의 점수로는 입학허가가 나지 않습니다." The second word, "잡," has been written about before. It comes from the word "잡종" which means "mutt." Korea used to have a caste system, and people belonging to the lowest caste were often called "잡것" (mutt thing). So the word "잡" carries a very negative connotation and is insulting when you hear it.

This means that the word "미만잡" signifies something along the lines of "anything less than a given standard is a mutt thing (i.e. useless and irrelevant)." Therefore, by the above quote, you are saying that "no matter what university you go to, unless you go to Seoul University, you are nothing more than a mutt thing."

In this case, it's more humorous than anything, since everyone knows that Yonsei University is actually a great school. But by saying the above phrase, you are just being annoying, and slightly insulting the girl for not having made it into Seoul University (Seoul University is almost certainly more elite than Yonsei University in the Korean system.)

You can continue to annoy her, by saying the following things too. When she brags about her new iPhone gift, you can say:

선물은 현금 미만잡. (Any gift less than cash is irrelevant)

When she talks about her beautiful face, you can tell her:

얼굴은 김태희 미만잡. (Any face less than Kim Tae Hee's face is irrelevant)

This is 김태희, often considered the most beautiful actress by many Koreans.

 While you are obviously setting a very high standard and no one is expected to meet all of them, if you keep saying things along these lines, you are sure to be annoying! By the way, there is a verb for behaving in this kind of subtle annoying way: you can say that you are "깐족거리다." (For example, the girl that you are annoying might tell you, "깐족거리니까 진짜 짜증나네." -- you are annoying because you are "깐족거리다.")

Of course, there is another context in which you can use the word "미만잡." Suppose that you are a fan of a k-pop group (for convenience, let's just say that we're all fans of IOI.) In order to advocate how great your group is, you could tell everyone:

IOI 미만잡 (Anything less than IOI is irrelevant).

 The difference between the two meanings are always clear depending on the context.

IOI was a girl group produced via a survival program. They were very popular although they disbanded after a year.

 This is of course a slang popular among the younger generation of Korea. As you traverse up in age group, the word "잡" is more and more offensive (because the older generation probably remembers the days of the caste system more clearly). With your friends, you should be able to use this word without offending people (although it depends on what you do with the word!) while I would stay away from using this word with the people of the older generation.

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#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.

========================================================================

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.

========================================================================

"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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