#69. The vixen sister (Shamanism 4)

In continuation of last week's story, I continue with yet another story about a vixen.

In the Western folklore, the fox is often seen to be of neutral gender -- by this, I mean that when a fox appears in a story, unless explicitly told of its gender, there is no reason to assume that the fox is either male or female.

However, in the Korean folklore, you almost always assume that if a fox appears in a story, then it is female (hence my translation as a "vixen" rather than a "fox" -- both are just called "여우" in Korean.) They have magical powers (mostly used for hiding their real identities), are malicious, and -- just like the Western foxes -- sly. Combining these two facts, it is no coincidence that Koreans often call the women who try to manipulate others using their femininity "여우." For example, the Koreans may badmouth the women who suddenly become full of 애교 (aegyo) in front of men by saying:

걔는 정말 남자들 앞에서는 여우야 (She is such a vixen in front of the other men).

 While this seems like a simple comparison between these women and what is considered the most sly of the animals, even this simple phrase is deeply rooted in this well-known Korean folklore, often referred to as "여우누이전" ("누이" is an old Korean word for "sister (both older and younger)" and "전" just means "folklore.")

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Once upon a time, there lived a husband and wife, who had three sons from their marriage. However, they longed for a daughter, and they prayed to their god for a daughter daily. It seemed that their wish was not granted, as the wife did not seem to become pregnant. In their frustration, the couple said, "If only we could have a daughter, we wouldn't even mind if our three sons were dead."

If you've traveled around the Korean countryside, you may have seen a tree with a lot of colourful cloths tied to it along with a small temple. This means that the area is sacred in the Korean shamanism. Back in the day, most villages had one of these, called "서낭당," and this was a place of prayer. If you acted disrespectfully, you would have gotten punished by the local gods, and the children were forbidden to play in the sacred place.

Their god, upon hearing this, became enraged at their blatant disregard for their sons' lives. So he cursed the couple, although he allowed the wife to be pregnant with a daughter.

After the daughter was born, the household animals mysteriously dying off one by one. The couple, worried, asked their eldest son to investigate the cause, by standing watch over the animals one night. While the eldest son was dozing off in the stables, he was woken by the sound of footsteps. When he looked up, he saw that his younger sister had snuck into the stables, and had killed one of the horses. She opened up the horse, took out its liver, ate it raw, and disappeared.

Shocked and shaken, the eldest son went directly to his parents and told them about his sister. His parents, who had taken to doting on their daughter, were enraged at this story and bade the eldest brother to leave their home.

The animals continued to die off, and the second and the youngest sons were also met with the same fate as the oldest son.

The three brothers spent the next few years under the protection of a Buddhist monk ("중" in Korean), who fed and clothed them, and also taught them many things. All this time, the brothers were worried sick about having left their parents alone with their sister. They eventually decided to go back home to see how things were.

The Buddhist monk, fearing for the sons' safety, gave each of them a small 호리병 (these were made by scraping out the inside of a gourd -- a type of a pumpkin -- and drying them out, or they were made to resemble the shape). The eldest's 호리병 was yellow, the middle brother's blue, and the youngest's red. The monk told the brothers to throw the 호리병 in case of danger.

This is a 호리병. As an aside, have you ever heard people describe someone as having a "호리병 몸매?"

When the three brothers went home, they were astonished to see that only an abandoned house stood where their old house used to be. As they stood, thunderstruck, their sister came out from the abandoned house and greeted the brothers in tears. When they asked where their parents and servants were, the sister responded that they all died from illness.

A page from a Korean book depicting this story, where the sister (who clearly doesn't look right) is rushing out to greet the brothers.

Sensing danger, the brothers said, "Dear sister, we have come a long way and we are very hungry. Do you think you could find some food for us to eat?"

When the sister went into the kitchen to prepare food, the three brothers took flight. However, the sister had immediately realized that they were running away, and chased them at an unbelievable speed.

Terrified, the eldest son threw his yellow 호리병 between himself and the chasing sister. Immediately, an endless expanse of thorned hedges appeared between the brothers and the sister, and the brothers were able to put some distance between them.

However, the sister soon caught up with them again, and this time, the middle brother threw his blue 호리병. This time, an ocean appeared between the brothers and the sister, but the sister overcame that in time too.

A page from yet another Korean storybook telling the story of 여우누이.

Finally, terrified and fearing for their lives, the youngest brother threw his red 호리병. Immediately, huge flames engulfed the sister in pursuit. She was burned to death, and the flames disappeared.

In the place where the sister's body should have been was the scorched body of a vixen. In hearing the couple's unreasonable prayer for a daughter, they had angered the gods, who had given them a vixen child instead of a real daughter, who then proceeded to ruin the entire family.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 So, vixens were sly beings that misled the people around them to hide their real identities. I am aware that the foxes are rarely portrayed as protagonists in the Western folklore; however, in the Korean folklore, the foxes, or rather, the vixens, were downright evil. The way to defeat them was first and foremost to be vigilant, so that you are not caught unawares, and to hope for a little bit of divine intervention (in both stories of the vixens that I've presented, they appear in the form of a Buddhist monk!) After all, the foxes are not particularly powerful, so you just have to be not tricked.

I do, however, wonder why the foxes in the Korean folklore are almost always women. No doubt this negative portrayal has somehow contributed to the Korean sexism, which often sees women as sly, two-faced beings (we do this sometimes in the Western culture too, but Koreans are much worse at this.) My guess is that among the animals familiar to the Korean terrains, there was the natural choice for the most powerful animal -- the tiger, who are almost always portrayed as being masculine (on the other hand, bears or wolves were also common in Korea, and they are fairly neutral in gender).

For what it's worth, tigers are often portrayed as antagonists too -- the powerful yet stupid kind. Sexism much? (To be continued in the next installation!)

Read more

#68. 핑거프린세스 -- Can't you do it yourself?

I will admit that most of my time on the Korean internet is actually spent on mostly male-dominated sites. I'm not really sure why; I just find the blunt humour that is characteristic of the male-dominated websites a lot funnier than the female-dominated ones. As a result, a large number of slang that I have covered in this blog are used more frequently by men than women (Also, many women's websites are login only, where you are only accepted as a user if you can prove that you're female, so accessibility is sometimes an issue.)

That doesn't mean that I don't spend any time on the female-dominated websites. And these websites often have their own slang.

"핑거프린세스" is one of such slang, used almost exclusively by women. This word is broken up into two parts like many Korean slang, as "핑거" and "프린세스." Both words are English; "핑거" is "finger," and "프린세스" is "princess."

A: 나 내일 남자친구랑 롯데월드에 놀러가는데, 날씨가 좋을까? (I'm going to Lotte World with my boyfriend, do you think it will be nice tomorrow?)
B: 좋겠네. 잘 놀고 와! (You must be excitd, have fun!)
A: 날씨가 좋아야 잘 놀텐데. 너 내일 날씨 어떤지 알아? (I can't have fun if it's not nice out. Do you know the weather tomorrow?)
B: (핸드폰에 검색후) 내일 날씨 좋다네.  (Searching on phone Apparently it will be nice tomorrow.)
A: 다행이다. 근데 롯데월드에 지하철타고갈건데 혹시 몇호선을 타야 가는지 알아? (That's good. By the way, I'm going there by subway. Do you know what line goes there?)
B: 잘 모르겠는데. (I'm not sure.)
A: 나 지하철 자주 안타서 걱정되는데, 혹시 좀 알아봐줄수있어? (I'm really nervous because I don't take subways often. Do you think you could find out the directions for me?)
B: 야, 핑거프린세스짓 그만하고 니가 직접 검색해봐. (Hey, stop being a finger princess and look it up yourself.)

Knowing the meaning of each part, and a context in which this word might be used, can you guess what it means?

I sometimes link my 핑프 friends to this website.

"핑거프린세스," "핑프" for short, means that the person in question is such a princess in the fingers that they refuse to search the internet for themselves. These are the people who ask very straightforward questions (usually online) whose answers can be found out by a very quick Google search.

Here are some more examples of how to use this word in context:

The girl from the above example might see her boyfriend the next day on her way to Lotte World, and tell him:

"나 어제 핑프라고 욕먹었어." (Yesterday, I was insulted to be a 핑프).

Or, on an internet forum, someone might see this word for the first time, and make a post to ask about its meaning:

Netizen A: "핑프가 뭐에요?" (What dose 핑프 mean?)
Netizen B: "너요." (That would be you.)

Here, "너요" is a very sarcastic reply, because the first half of this short sentence "너" is an informal denotation of "you," while the second half "요" is formal honorifics. By writing out a sentence in informal speech except the very end, you can give off a very sarcastic vibe, like in the above example. Many websites require its users to use honorifics at all times, so Netizen B is trying to get away with as much non-honorifics as possible, managing to be sarcastic and disrespectful at the same time!

"핑프" is definitely an internet slang known to only the young people of Korea. It came into use not too long ago, I would estimate it to be maybe 3-5 years old. It is fairly popular among the young women, although it is, of course, designed to insult. It seems that some men try to use this as well by calling their male friends "핑거프린스 (finger prince)" but it hasn't caught on so much.

Read more

#67. 현타 -- Just what was I doing?

Sexual references are rife in the Korean internet scene. Some of them are hilariously clever, while some of them are downright foul and makes the listeners cringe. If you think that English profanity is bad... Well, make sure that you stay on the squeaky clean side of the Korean internet!

But there are also some expressions that are almost cute, like the expression "현자타임."

The meaning of this expression, originally used by only men (I'll explain why in a second), can be easily guessed by any Korean. It breaks up easily into two parts, "현자" and "타임."

"현자" means "wise man." The letter "현" is Chinese for "wisdom," as in "현명" meaning "wise." The letter "자" is Chinese for "man." For example, "기자" means "reporter." Although this word is very rarely used in everyday life, you would often see this word appear in fantasy novels, for example, to describe the man who lives alone in the wilderness, leading an austere life, in search for truth. The protagonist probably needs to pay a visit to this man at some point in order to realize something very deep.


"타임," of course, is the Koreanization of the English word "time."

So, putting the two words together, the slang word "현자타임" means "the time of the wise man." You can also tell that it probably has a humorous nuance, because it combines an English word and a Korean word (since there are almost no standard Korean word that should mix with English, when these kinds of combinations appear in Korean slang, the Koreans are almost always trying to be funny. They're kind of trying to play the part of the dumb arrogant jerk, who opts to use simple English words -- for example, "time" -- in lieu of a Korean word -- "시간.")

Now, this word was originally used by the Korean men to describe the feeling of calmness and the lack of sexual libido right after ejaculation. Of course, the wise men would abstain from worldly sins such as sex (they probably don't ever feel the need to have sex, right?), and every man gets to feel just as holy and austere as the wise men right after having ejaculated.

I'd say that Yoda qualifies as a wise man. Learned, insightful, wise, and probably doesn't care about trivial things like sex.

So, the Korean internet users, in their usual vulgar manner, would often type out:

"현자타임 왔다." (The hour of the wise men has come.)

Which was initially taken to mean that they had just masturbated (after perhaps seeing a particularly lewd post somewhere on the internet).

Sometimes, 짤방 like this will substitute the word "현자타임."

But here's the thing. If you think about what's going on here, this expression really should apply to a wider variety of situation than just sex or masturbation. In both cases, you're basically having a moment of insanity/euphoria/clouded judgement, and after that moment passes, you regain your sanity and your perspective on the things around you. It doesn't have to be sex; it could be the moment of wild partying, maybe you went crazy with your makeup experiment, or you were really hungry and you devoured everything in your sight.

Then at some point, you realize that you were slightly crazy, and the feeling of slight shame creeps in.

And the expression "현자타임 왔다" was just too good not to use.

In a delicate balance between not wanting to use such a sexual expression, and the desire to use such an appropriate expression, the Koreans seem to have decided to use its abbreviation, "현타." Most Koreans, in non-sexual context that describes a moment of insanity and the ensuing feeling of guilt, would say:

"현타 왔다."

Of course, this word is still also used to describe the post-coital calmness/sadness/whatever, although it seems that the full neologism "현자타임" is often used in sexual context, and "현타" is often used in a more general context (partly because you could also claim that "현타" means "현실자각 타임," or "coming to terms with reality time"). In any case, I don't think there will be much confusion with regards to what the speaker is talking about.

As for when this word is appropriate, I would say that with people close to your own age, "현타" is always a safe bet. If you're male and you want to use the word in a sexual context with your male friends, "현자타임" should also be fine. In other contexts, maybe I'd be a little wary of using it depending on my familiarity with the listeners just to avoid awkward moments (although it's not really that offensive). In any case, this is real slang that started (and mostly stayed) among the younger generation who spend a significant portion of their days on the internet.

Read more

#66. 보쌈 -- Wrapped up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

보쌈김치.

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

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

Read more

Listening exercise with transcript #11: Dad jokes revisited (feat. Mamamoo)

This week we revisit Mamamoo, because their new song Aze Gag has such wondeful references to the Korean culture. In particular, they did a live performance a few weeks ago, which I thought was absolutely wonderful, as it includes a random bit of a dad jokes in the middle (starting at 1:35).

One other thing to notice is that since the dad jokes are so old fashioned, they have elected to add the subtitles for the dad jokes in 궁서체.

See the clip below, and try to understand what the joke says. The transcript follows (after which is the translation/explanation), where D stands for "the Dude" and M stands for "Mamamoo."

D: 마마무 신곡나왔나봐, 신곡!
M: 네~
D: 야~ 나 이 무대 십년 기다렸잖니. 어?
근데, 나 뒤에서 들으니까... 아재개그 이런거 좋아하나봐?
M: 아, 네.
D: 내가 아주 기가 막힌거 하나 가르켜줄까?
잘들어. 음악의 음이 장음과 단음이 있잖아.
근데 세상에서 제일 긴음, 이게 뭐게?
ㅋㅋㅋ 참기름!
M: ...
D: 참기름, 참기름! 야! 이거 가사에 쓸래, 가사에? 어? 왜? 시.. 싫어?
M: ... 네.
D: 싫으면 시집가!

Here are the translations:
D: Mamamoo, out with the new song ("신곡" where "신" means "new" in Chinese, and "곡" means "song" in chinese)!
M: Yes~
D: Wow, I waited for this stage for ten years, huh?
I was just listening to you guys in the backstage, and... you like dad jokes?
M: Oh, yeah.
D: Can I tell you an awesome one?
Listen. You know how music has long notes ("장음," where "장" means "long" in Chinese, "음" means note) and short notes ("단음," where "단" means "short" in Chinese). What's the longest note in the world? It's "참기름 (sesame oil; explanation after translation)" lol. Sesame oil!
M: ...
D: Sesame oil, sesame oil! Hey, do you want to use this in your lyrics? Huh? Why? You don't like it?
M: ... No.
D: Well, if you don't like it, go get yourself married!

So there are two jokes here.

The first asks, what's the longest note in the world, and the answer is "참기름." In the true dad joke fashion, the word "참기름" should be re-written as "참길음" and separated as "참 길음." The word "참" means "very (a more literal translation would be "truly")," and "길음" means "long."

The clever feature of this dad joke is that musical terms denoting notes should end in "음" as that's the Chinese letter for "note." Interestingly enough, "참 길음" also ends in "음," a happy accident that makes the joke even better!

The second joke is more subtle, and it is a true dad joke in the sense that it was a popular phrase back in the 80s and 90s. When someone refuses to do something by saying "싫어 (I don't want to)!," it used to be the funny thing to say "싫으면 시집가 (If you don't like it, go get yourself married!)" Not being from this era, I'm not really sure why this was even funny, other than the fact that there's a very weak alliteration there. But I do remember being a very young child and saying this phrase to my friends, because my parents thought it was really funny!

Read more

#65. 까방권 -- No one gets to badmouth you. Ever.

In the world of K-entertainment, there are a few things that can drag even the most-loved superstar of the highest popularity down into the mud in the blink of an eye.

The two biggest reasons that can end your career are 왕따 scandal and 병역 scandal ("병역" means "military duty" -- "병" is chinese for "army," as in "병사 (soldier)" or "병력 (strength of the army)," and "역" means "duty," as in "역할 (given responsibility).")

Being the instigator to ostracize someone is of course terrible, as so many Koreans have been on the receiving end of bullying and ostracizing. Once you are involved in such a scandal (most notably, T-ara, whose story I will write about in the next week or so), you gain a lot of haters (anti-fans, Koreans call them) and your K-entertainment career is more or less over.

Avoiding active military duty is along the same lines of thought. Given the situation with North Korea, all Korean men must serve full-time in the military for about one year and nine months, putting their lives on hold. You must enlist between the ages of 18 and 30, although for most Koreans, you are not given a choice of when to enlist. You go when you are served a notice. Therefore, if someone manages to avoid this duty using sketchy means, this brings on the rage of all Korean men, their mothers, sisters, daughters, girlfriends, and relatives (aka all Koreans).

This is an example of the South Korean military barracks. Although not all barracks are like this (and even those are only a minor improvement, however), you may end up in one that looks like this. No wonder people try to avoid active military duty if they can!

The thing is, it is really hard for the celebrities who are at the height of their popularity to drop everything, put their lives on hold, and disappear from the public eye for almost two years. They are probably afraid that they will be forgotten, and that they will never return to the same level of popularity when they are discharged. So many celebrities are still caught trying to avoid the military duty (including PSY, who tried to get discharged early; he ended up enlisting twice.)

Not only this, the military is known for its terrible living conditions, and for its tradition of bullying and hazing -- Korean society is already hierarchical; add the military structure which is even more hierarchical, and the rest is left to your imagination!

Nonetheless, few good posts exist; you could be a public servant (공익근무요원) and commute from home; you could also join the publicity team of the Korean military, which is significantly less demanding physically, and in terms of hierarchy. Because of their social statuses, many celebrities end up going to one of these posts, and this is constantly the target of ridicule and hatred of the Korean public.

This is 오종혁 (Jong-hyuk Oh), who was a member of the K-pop group Click-B in the 90s. He is now better known as T-ara Soyeon's ex-boyfriend. He volunteered to serve in the special search team of the Korean marines, which has a reputation for being difficult. Later on, he was accidentally caught on TV smoking, but the Koreans did not want to hate on him like they normally would because of his military records.

On the other hand, there's a twist. If a celebrity at the height of his popularity successfully completes his term of military duty, serving as an active soldier (as opposed to a public servant or a publicity team member), they can win the admiration of the Korean public. Of course, this is a difficult route to go to. They would be mingling with random members of the public, and they would be watched all the time by the other members of their squadron. Should they slack off, or be less than exemplary, you can be sure that the story will make it to the internet. Essentially, they are signing themselves up for nearly two years of hard labour in which you are not allowed to slack off, ever.

When a celebrity does this feat, they achieve what the Korean internet users call "까방권," which is short for "까임방지권."

"까임,"which is noun form for the verb "까다," means "badmouthing." This is a widely used slang, although not appropriate for polite company.

"방지" means "prevention," and it is standard Korean.

"권" is Chinese for "right," as in "권리 (right)" or "여권 (passport, literally your right to travel)."

This is 유승호 (Seung-Ho Yoo), who is a popular Korean actor. He chose to enlist in his early 20s, and served as a military instructor, which is said to be one of the more difficult positions. He is seen crying on this photo, taken on his discharge day. Although his filmography since his discharge hasn't been particularly impressive, the Koreans still cheer for him.

In short, when a celebrity completes an exemplar military service, he gains "the right to be never badmouthed again." When a celebrity is honorably discharged from active military duties, the Koreans will say:

"까방권 얻었네. 축하한다!" (You gained a 까방권; congratulations!)

Suppose that a celebrity with a 까방권 commits a minor fault, say he spoke to someone older using the informal speech instead of using honorifics. Usually, this would get the Koreans pretty upset, but for this celebrity, the Koreans might say:

"군대에서 열심히 생활한 사람이 일부러 반말을 하진 않았을거야. 까방권 있으니 봐주자. " (He was a model soldier during military service, and he probably didn't do it on purpose. Since he has a 까방권, we should let it slide.)

This is a pretty astounding right, because the Korean internet users are known for being vicious! And unless you commit another high-profile error (such as 왕따, DUI, or drugs), your 까방권 lasts for life.

Why don't more celebrities do it? I think it speaks more to the difficulty of being in the Korean military. When you get a chance, you should ask the Koreans about their military experience. You will be astounded at some of the answers you get!

Read more

#64. 먹튀 -- Dine and dash

The Korean internet has been pretty heated the past couple of days.

A news story broke two days ago, which simply stated that a business CEO has been called in by the prosecutors on the charge of blackmailing a celebrity. It was said that the CEO demanded about $160,000 USD from this celebrity, telling her that if she doesn't comply, her nude video will be released to the public. This outraged the Koreans, and the CEO was called by all sorts of names, the milder of which included "인간 쓰레기" (human trash).

Soon enough, the name and the face of the CEO was released, as well as the name of his business (As an aside, the Koreans are very very good at internet sleuthing. They are often able to track down a person much better than the police, even!) The CEO, no longer having anything to lose, requested an interview with the Korean media and told his side of the story.

This is 손태영 (Tae-Young Son), the CEO of Coffeesmith, a coffee franchise in Korea. He is 48 years old.

According to him, he and the celebrity were dating for about a year and a half. During this time, he claims that he spent over a million dollars USD on his girlfriend ($180k USD for moving costs, $90k USD for her credit card payments, $50k USD for her rent payments, $270k USD for shopping costs, $40k USD as cash present, $180k USD for vacation costs, $90k USD for various gifts, and $50k USD for miscellaneous grocery costs). For whatever reason, he believed that they were going to marry, so he was not stingy with his money.

He then said that when he proposed to her (Koreans don't always propose; in his case, he says that he just asked her whether they were getting married or not), she stopped responding to his calls. And so, in a burst of anger, he messaged her telling her that if she did not give him back everything he had given her, he would destroy her career. He then said that after he regained control of himself, he returned the $160k USD his girlfriend had sent.

In time, the name of the celebrity became known too, although how the Korean internauts found out, I will never know (of course, it has not been officially confirmed, but she also hasn't denied it). The identity of the celebrity was particularly ironic, because she appears as a panel member in a gossip show called "용감한 기자들 (brave reporters)" where entertainment reporters share the juiciest gossip of the celebrities that they know of while not releasing the names of the celebrities. She generally appears in the show while shaking her head at these terrible celebrities!

Her name is 김정민 (Jung-Min Kim), aged 29. She is suspected to be involved in the blackmail scandal currently raging through Korea.

So a debate started raging between the Korean internet users. Who was in the wrong?

A part of the Korean internet users think that the CEO was in the wrong. The celebrity was never obligated to marry him, and he should have been grateful that a beautiful 29-year-old even dated a 48-year-old like him. Koreans are fairly sensitive about age, and when a man dates a woman significantly younger than him, they are often called "thieves," or "도둑놈" in Korean ("도둑" means "thief," and "-놈" is a diminutive suffix, which conveys the feeling of disdain).

Another part thinks that the celebrity was wrong and led him on for the money. It's an extreme version of dine-and-dash. In the past two days, her action has been condemned as being a "먹튀," which is a shortened form for "먹고 튀다."

"먹-" comes from the verb "먹다" meaning "to eat."

"-고" goes between two verbs, conjugating the first verb. "A -고 B" means to do A then B.

"튀다" is a verb meaning "to run away." This is slang of the more standard verb "도망가다." The word "튀다" is used to describe the bounce of a spring, or the scattering of popcorn when they are being popped. Both actions are very quick, and this is where the slang derives, that you are quick as a popcorn or a spring when you're running away.

So since this celebrity "ate" a lot of the CEO's money then "ran away," she has committed an act of "먹튀," which has a very negative connotation. According to the CEO, there is a lawsuit underway, in which he has sued the actress for having committed a marriage fraud, and in which the actress claims blackmail.

In the meantime, the celebrity posted an instagram update (although quickly deleted afterwards) that simply said: 

"Thank you. I'm so sorry, and also grateful. I will be strong and I will work harder. I will not disappoint unni (it's unclear who she is referring to) who believed me, and those who encouraged me."

 It seems that many Koreans are of the opinion that she is simply trying to achieve some 정신승리 through this post, unfortunately.

Here are some more examples of when you can use "먹튀" in a sentence, though:

During a video game, one user drops an expensive item on the floor, and another user grabs it and disappears off the screen. In your astonishment, you might exclaim:

저사람 지금 아이템 먹튀했어! (That user just did a 먹튀 on an item!)

You might have invested some money into a questionable venture, and although the result of the venture dictates that you should have gotten some money back, they never contact you, nor can you contact them. You might complain to your friend:

나 투자했던거 먹튀당했어 (Someone pulled a 먹튀 on what I had invested.)

So you use "먹튀하다" when the subject is the one doing the stealing, and "먹튀당하다" when the subject lost something due to fraudulent behaviour.

While the word "먹튀" itself has some vulgar nuances, it is widely known in Korea, and you can use it with anyone!

Read more