#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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#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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