#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!