#37. 동공지진 -- Oh, Sh!t

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

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

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

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

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

동공지진 보소 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ (look at your eyes shaking lol)

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

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

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

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

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

Sorry for being pretty!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Listening exercise with transcript #6: Attention!

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

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

군기가 섰다 or 군기가 잡혔다.

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

군기를 세우다 or 군기를 잡다.

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

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

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

후배들이 군기가 서있네.

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#35. 월급루팡 -- A very very sweet job

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An example of the walls in a Korean house.

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

도배하지 마세요 (don't cover up the wall).

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

도배금지 (forbidden to cover up the wall).

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

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

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#33. 왕따 -- Bullied and ostricized

Here's a heavy topic. Korean schools are a pretty dangerous place.

Let me start by saying that there is no such word that describes a place like Korean schools in English. The word bullying just doesn't cut it. The only other language that I know of that has a word with a similar nuance is Japanese. They call it ijime (苛め/虐め). A quick look around Wikipedia seems to suggest that some European cultures such as the French, Italians, and the Germans are aware of it, but they also do not have words to describe what I am about to tell you.

Not this Carrie, but I find most screenshots of the movie Carrie to be too disturbing.

If I absolutely had to find something in the English-speaking world that is similar to the the bullying culture of Korea, I would maybe recommend that you read Stephen King's horror novel, Carrie (yes, it's that horrifying that it would get categorized as a horror novel if it were written). This is a huge social problem in Korea, because it's so widespread. A huge number of people experience what we call "왕따" at some point in their lives, sometimes leading to drastic consequences like suicide. As you can imagine, the Koreans take a very strong stance against it (but somehow, they have not been able to get rid of it). Because so many people experience this personally, if a celebrity is involved in a 왕따 scandal where he/she was the bully, it can effectively end your career in Korea.

The word "왕따" came into being in the 90s-00s when I was a student in South Korea Although the word is relatively new, the concept must be fairly old, as it is featured in some of the older literature, as well as throughout the history going as far back as the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392 A.D.). It is composed of two Korean words:

1.  "왕," which means "king"; and
2.  "따," short for "따돌림," which means "exclusion."

So the word literally means the "king of exclusion," or "the worst kind of exclusion," which I suppose is a form of bullying. The concept of 왕따 includes several specific forms of bullying under it. Some examples are:

1. 전따, the first word comes from 전교생, which means all the students in the school (the letter "전" means "every," as in "전부," "전체," etc.) It means that you are excluded by everyone in the school.
2. 은따, the first word of which comes from "은근히", which means "subtle." It means that you are being excluded in subtle ways.
3. 카따, the first word of which comes from "Kakaotalk," or "카카오톡" which is a Korean messaging system that almost everyone uses. It means that you are bullied and excluded on Kakaotalk.

You could use these words in a pretty straightforward way:

쟤는 잘난척하더니 결국 왕따가 됐네 (He became a 왕따 because he was so arrogant.)

Or:

소영이는 전교에 친구가 하나도 없는 전따야. (Soyoung is a 전따 who doesn't have any friends in the entire school.)

As you may imagine, there are countless other sub-types of 왕따 that exist. These types are evolving too. Children with boundless imaginations are unfortunately always coming up with new ways to bully someone. As a student before the Kakaotalk era, I saw the first two types of 왕따 first-hand, but the third type came into being long after I left Korea.

I went to school in Korea, Canada, and the US. In my experience, there was bullying in all countries, but the bullying in Korea just seemed to be the worst.

The thing about Korea is that groups are very, very valued. You are expected to fit into a group. People often stare at you if you eat alone in a restaurant. Going to see a movie or a performance alone is pretty weird in the Korean culture (actually, it's getting better now, and some brave people will go out and do these things alone, take pictures, and share it with their friends for the bragging rights. But it's that rare.) As a schoolgirl, you don't even go to the bathroom alone. A good friend will wait for you outside the stalls while you pee. Whatever it is that you are doing, you do it with a few other of your friends.  So, as a student, if you don't have any friends, you have to endure the stares and whispers of everyone in the school while you eat, while you go to the bathroom, while you walk alone in the halls, during the breaks, and during classes when team participation is expected. That's a pretty huge part of your school life.

Technically, all of these things could happen in the western world too (okay, minus the bathroom thing. I don't think anyone looks at you funny if you go to the bathroom by yourself). But the thing that makes the act of 왕따 truly devastating is that it often ends up involving everyone in the school (and often, even if you change schools, the rumour will eventually follow you.) Once you are labeled as a 왕따, the rumor spreads very quickly. Everyone knows that you are friendless, and no one wants to be near you, because to befriend 왕따 is to risk becoming a 왕따 yourself. As being in a group is more valued in Korea, no one wants to go against the majority and rescue you from your misery.

What's more is that most Koreans are fearful that they would one day become the 왕따. Korean school system assigns everyone to a classroom at the beginning of the school year, and you take all of your classes together with your classmates. When I was a student in Korea, it seemed that every class had a 왕따 or two (usually at least one of each gender). Since each class had about 30 students each, you had about one in fifteen chance of becoming a 왕따. And the reasons are so varied. You could become a 왕따 or any of the following reasons:

1. your friend group outed you, and once you were labelled, no one wanted to be your friend.
2. you were the smallest and the weakest of the class.
3. you were different in some way (Koreans don't like it when you stick out).
4. you had a different religion from everyone else in the class.
5. you liked a different boy band from everyone else in the class (I guess that's basically religion at that age)
6. your grades were too low and people started looking down on you.
7. your grades were too high and people got jealous.
8. you were too ugly.
9. you were too pretty.
10. they were afraid of becoming a 왕따 so they decided to strike first.
11. your friends' parents didn't like your parents and told their kids to not play with you.
12. just because.

You can pretty much become a 왕따 for hundreds of reasons. And it is so widespread. According to a Korean survey, 53.9% of college students in Korea responded that they have been the victim or an active instigator of 왕따, and it starts in elementary school. Things don't get much better when you are older, as 45% of the people in the workforce responded that they still have 왕따 at their work. The majority, 61%, of these people responded that the bullying and the exclusion is very serious. 75% of the total responds said that when they see a 왕따, they just remain as bystanders, because they don't believe that it would change anything (52.8%), and because they are afraid of becoming 왕따 themselves (12.3%).

Most Koreans have some latent fear that they will one day say some wrong thing, and become a 왕따. People who have experienced 왕따 (not surprisingly) report psychological effects, such as suicidal thoughts, depression, continuing difficulty in forming interpersonal relationships based on trust, and so on. There are even some cases where some students drove their peers to suicide. Whenever there is a public 왕따 scandal, the Koreans come down with full force and condemn the bullies. This is totally understandable since it's an issue that is relevant to their daily lives. But at the same time, most Koreans probably have experience not stepping up to help a 왕따. How do you reconcile the two? How do you fix something this toxic, yet this widespread?

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#32. 기승전 -- Always returning to the same topic

Here's a slightly nonstandard way to tell a compelling short story.

Start by introducing an attention-grabbing scene. For example, a hare makes fun of a tortoise for being slow. Immediately, we are annoyed with the hare, sympathize with the tortoise, and we are emotionally invested. We are setting the stage for the story to rise up to its full potential. In Korean, the Chinese letter "기" means "to rise." For example, "기립" means to "stand up," and "기상" means "to wake up."

You must then continue and develop the scene further, so that there is a story to it. The tortoise challenges the hare to a race. This is a story rather than a description, as it will have a clear ending to it, and it is more interesting than just a scene. In Korean, the Chinese letter "승" means "to continue, to relay." For example, "계승" means "to continue a lineage (for example, a prince becoming the king after his father dies is called 계승)."

An effective technique at this point is to talk about a completely different topic. For example, you describe all the beautiful flowers, feels the soft breeze, and the velvety grass. In Korean, the Chinese letter "전" means "to flip over." The word "반전" means "the event that is completely the opposite of what you might have expected."

Then you finish the story by connecting the two seemingly unrelated stories of "승" and "전." The hare then decides that it is time for a nap, and the tortoise is slow and steady, and wins the race. You get two stories in one, and so your conclusion is twice as powerful. In Korean, we call this "결," as in "결말" or "the end."

While these four letters are almost never used individually, this form of story-telling is called "기승전결." You can also use this for a slightly broader context, where "기승전결" just means "the form of story-telling." For example, you could say:

이 얘기는 기승전결이 너무 뻔하잖아 (this story is too cliché.)

You could also say

그 영화의 기승전결은 정말 신선했다. (that movie's story telling was very fresh/that movie had very fresh story-telling perspectives, etc.)

But then, there are people who never know when to let go of a certain topic. You see this the most often in children, although some adults also do this. Your 3-year-old niece might be obsessed with the latest Disney character, and demand that you buy her the doll at every possible moment.

You're having fun with your niece at the playground, when all of a sudden she runs over to you and ask for the doll. You're eating dinner with your niece, when she starts talking about her dream doll. You're walking down the street with her, when she tells you that you need to buy her that doll. You get the idea.

In Korean internet slang, you might say something like:

내 조카는 요즘 기승전인형이야.

The word "기승전인형" is very similar to "기승전결," but the letter "결" meaning "conclusion" has been replaced by "인형" meaning "doll." This neologism "기승전인형" literally means that no matter how the story is started and developed, the story ends with "인형," or a "doll." This perfectly describes your niece's condition, where she is so obsessed with getting that doll that regardless of the setting, she always returns to that topic.

You can replace "결" with pretty much anything imaginable. For example, for your friend who only cares about getting food, you could tell her that she is such a "기승전밥." For your parents who always pressure you to study, you tell them to stop being "기승전공부."

Aside from the slight sarcasm and the usual incomprehensibility issues for the very elderly who don't regularly go on the internet, you can use this word nearly anywhere informal.

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