#113. 선폭풍, 후폭풍 -- When your relationship comes to an end (Hanja 4)

Note: this is a post about Hanja; if you are confused about the notation, I encourage to check out my first Hanja post, where my notation for Hanja is explained in more detail.

Have you ever thought about what steps you would take if a nuclear bomb were to hit your city? Having lived in the country with possibly the most active nuclear threat in the world, I definitely have.

You should be inside, if at all possible, because it seems that the majority of the nuclear fallout can be blocked easily by any physical barrier. As long as you're far enough from the explosion, being in a secure indoors location is your best bet to survival (and simple acts such as removing the outer layer of clothing or taking a shower can reduce your exposure to nuclear fallout.)

However, if you cannot get inside in time (you are likely to have about ten minutes to prepare), then you should duck and cover (to protect yourself from soon-to-be-flying debris, the heat, and the fallout), and open your mouth so that your eardrums don't burst from pressure. This is exactly as Bert the Turtle from the Cold War Era tells you:

The important thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to get up immediately after having survived the initial blast; when a nuclear bomb explodes, it will create a vacuum at the centre of the explosion (as it pushes out everything when it explodes), which means that after the initial blast, things will get sucked back into the centre of explosion to create equilibrium. So you should expect a second blast to follow soon after the first blast, in the opposite direction of the initial blast, and stay protected until this second blast happens.

This second blast is called the "reverse blast" in English, and "후폭풍" in Korean. The word "후폭풍" is made up of two parts: "후" which is Hanja meaning "back, late, or behind," and "폭풍" meaning "storm." So, "후폭풍" literally means "after-storm" or "second (later) storm." 

Here is the Hanja for "후": you pronounce this hanja as "후", but its meaning is "뒤," or "behind" in English. The numbers show you the order in which to write this hanja.

The Hanja 뒤 후 is used in many everyday words, such as 후진 (driving in reverse, i.e. driving towards the back); 오후 (afternoon); 후년 (next year); 후퇴 (retreat); 후사 (heir); 방과후 (after school); and 후기 (an after-story, which is a detailed account of your experience).

This word is, of course, a proper word that you can find in a Korean dictionary; and given that nuclear bombs do not explode very frequently, this word is used mostly as a metaphor. For example, the government may implement a higher minimum wage (just happened in Korea as of January 2018; now the minimum wage is 7530 Korean won, about $7.50 USD, up from 6470 Korean won, about $6.50 USD), and as a result, many people may lose their jobs, or small businesses may have to close as they cannot afford to hire workers anymore (there are signs of these, although the total effect remains to be seen).

A newspaper might decide to report on the aftermath of the steep minimum wage hike, by saying:

"최저임금 인상의 후폭풍이 우려됩니다." (The reverse-blast of the minimum-wage hike could become a worry.)

However, the Korean internet users found another clever way to use this word in a more everyday scenario. Consider the following breakup scenario, which many of us have must have experienced to some degree.

A declares that they no longer want to be with B; B gets upset and cries, and blows up A's phone with texts and missed calls. After a few whirlwind days of emotionally charged texts and phone calls involving pleading and begging, followed by anger and resentment, B finally accepts the breakup. B goes through many months of erasing and forgetting the memories of A.

Just about when B decides that the memories of A are no longer the cause of acute heartache, B's phone rings. It's A, asking: "How are you doing?" A regrets having left B, and would do anything to be back with B. Now it is A who is blowing up B's phone, begging for a second chance.

Aside from the role that one plays in this scenario (I have certainly been both A and B!) this is a familiar story to many people who have experienced breakups.

The Koreans are no exceptions to this rule. What's interesting is that they have extra vocabulary that doesn't seem to exist in the English language, to describe various parts of breaking up.

The word "후폭풍" describes the whirlwind of texts and phone calls that follow the breakup several months later, usually by the person who did the breakup, who realized that they made a terrible mistake of letting the love of their lives go. After the initial begging and pleading by B (which often have the intensity of the figurative nuclear bomb!), A returns the begging and pleading (also equally intense, just in the opposite direction), which matches exactly the nuclear blast scenario.

Many people who were dumped secretly (or not-so-secretly) hope that their ex will soon realize that they made a mistake. So they end up hoping for a 후폭풍. They may ask their friends on tips for making this happen, by saying:

"후폭풍이 오게하려면 어떻게 해야하지?" (What do I have to do to make the reverse-blast come?)

And they may end up laughing at their ex, when the reverse blast comes after they have moved on:

"헤어진지 일년이 다 됐는데 이제 후폭풍이 오면 어쩌라는거야 ㅋㅋ" (It's been a year since the breakup; what am I supposed to do with a reverse-blast now? lol)

When this word became standard usage on the Korean internet, people noticed the fact that there are, in fact, two "blasts" to a typical breakup. The first blast, of course, is when B has not yet come to terms with the fact that they will no longer be together. While there was no particular word that described this in the dictionary, the Koreans noticed that the Hanja "뒤 후" has a clear antonym, also in Hanja: the appropriate Hanja would have been "먼저 선," that is, the pronunciation is "선," and the meaning is "먼저" -- "first" or "before" in English.

There are many everyday words that use "먼저 선" as well: 선생 (teacher; as "생" is Hanja for "life," the Korean word for "teacher" denotes a person who lived first); 선배 (sunbae, or your seniors. "배" means "to learn," so these people are the ones who learned before you); 선대 or 선조 (ancestors); 선약 (prior appointment); 선입견 (prejudice, which are notions that are conceived prior to experience).

Using this Hanja, the Koreans started calling the initial blast of emotions following a declaration of breakup a "선폭풍," or the "initial blast." While it is not used as frequently, you can use this word to say things like:

"한바탕 선폭풍을 겪고나니 오히려 후련해요." (I feel like a huge weight has been lifted, now that I've gone through the initial blast.)

 or

"난 선폭풍때문에 힘든데 그새끼는 벌써 새 여자친구가 생겼더라." (I'm still struggling from the initial blast, but that bastard already has a new girlfriend.)

 Both of these words are widely accepted within the younger Koreans, and the nuance is extremely neutral. You can use these words without worrying about offending, while showing off your mastery of Korean slang!

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#111. 즙을 짜다 -- Crocodile tears

In the past 48 hours, Korean internet has seen unrestrained fiery anger, which had not been witnessed since the impeachment of the president Park Geun-Hye (who had been seeking advice from the shaman Choi Soon-Sil on important national matters).

The story unfolded quite unexpectedly, on the ice during Women's Team Pursuit in the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. In this event, all three members of a team start together, and run six laps (2400m) around the arena. The catch is that the team's time is recorded as the time it took the slowest member of the team to complete six laps. This means that there are some unexpected strategizing involved. If one member seems to be struggling, the other two members should push them along, and all three members should stay together in case of any unexpected events. It seems to be a heartwarming sport that emphasizes teamwork instead of individual records.

In this quarterfinal match, the Korean team was not expected to medal, but they were aiming for 4th place. Instead, they came in 7th out of 8 teams that competed, because the last member of the Korean team, Noh Sun-Young, was about half a lap behind her teammates.

Many Koreans felt that something was off, since team members are supposed to stay together to help each other.

So, even though the two Koreans (Kim Bo-Reum, and Park Ji-Woo) did well, the Korean team's time was recorded as the last teammate's record, which was four seconds behind the qualifying time.

Something was clearly off, and the Korean netizens started digging around to try to understand what had happened. Of course, the Koreans had a good idea of what was going on -- when one person is separated from the mass, the Korean instinct is to suspect bullying, or 왕따 in Korean (which could loosely be translated as "mass ostracization.")

This is the Korean style of bullying; one person is ignored by everyone else. Every action they take is criticized and laughed at, and as far as everyone is concerned, you don't exist unless they want to tell you something mean-spirited. Almost every Korean experiences it at some point of their life, as ostracization is fairly rampant in the Korean society. So, Koreans react sensitively whenever there is a public 왕따 scandal. First of all, no one should be humiliated like that, and the Koreans see in the victim a shadow of themselves; so they really want to see the bullies punished.

The Koreans dug up evidence in no time.

Exhibit 1: The two Korean skaters (Kim and Park, bottom right) don't seem very friendly with the final team member (Noh, top left).

Exhibit 2: Noh Sun-Young, despondent about having come in so behind her teammates, was crying immediately after the race. The only person caught on camera comforting her was the coach, Bob de Jong.

Exhibit 3: Noh Sun-Young is crying on the left; the other two, Kim Bo-Reum and Park Ji-Woo, on the right, completely ignore their crying teammate.

All of this painted a very clear picture for the Koreans, who have all been there. It was clear that Noh Sun-Young was being bullied and ostracized by her teammates.

The Koreans were thrown into a further fury when Kim Bo-Reum, the captain of the Korean team, gave an interview, in which she insinuated that the Korean team was brought down by their weak link. To the Koreans, this showed that she did not understand the spirit of the sport; Team Pursuit was about teamwork and helping each other, and she was going out of her way to do the opposite.

And her smirk was enough to paint the picture of the perfect villain.

The Koreans started a petition to the Blue House (청와대, Korean equivalent of the White house, translated as the house of blue roof-bricks) and the president; Kim Bo-Reum and Park Ji-Woo lacked the compassion of a human being. Furthermore, they did not have the professionalism to set aside their differences with Noh Sun-Young, and to really play the sport. It also did not help that Noh Sun-Young is older than Kim Bo-Reum and Park Ji-Woo, so Kim and Park expected to be courteous to Noh, according to the teachings of Confucianism.

In just two days, over 500,000 Koreans signed the petition (almost one in every 100 Koreans!) It is said to be the petition that gathered the most number of signatures in the shortest amount of time in the history of the Blue House. You can check the status of the petition here.

They are petitioning for the disqualification of Kim and Park, and they are asking for an investigation into the Korean Skating Association, for having allowed this to happen. The petition will be gathering signatures until March 21, 2018.

Furthermore, the Korean clothing brand NEPA, which had been sponsoring Kim's trainings, announced that their contract with Kim is up on February 28, 2018, and that they will not be renewing their sponsorship.

Kim Bo-Reum called a press conference to apologize for her behaviour in tears, but it seems that no one was moved by her tears. In fact, many Koreans sneered at the fact that she was crying mere days after the smirk which had become famous in the Korean internet. They laughed at her, saying:

"즙짜고 있네" (Way to squeeze out some juice.)

 The word "즙" is often used to describe the juice or sap that you get from squeezing. For example, "오렌지즙" would be the juice of orange that you get when you squeeze. "나무즙" would be the sap of a tree, and so on. The common feature of the 즙 is that you do have to work a little (or a lot, in some cases) to actually get the liquid; so by saying that Kim Bo-Reum is "즙을 짠다," the Korean internauts are making fun of the fact that she is probably making an effort at showing some tears -- that is, they doubt the sincerity of her tears.

Mmmmm!

In general, you can use the verb "즙을 짜다" to describe anyone in Kim Bo-Reum's situation in a derogatory way. If your friend is crying, and you use this word on her, it had better be the case that everyone agrees that she is crying to win over some sympathy; otherwise, you will seem heartless.

I am not sure how this story will wrap up. Kim Bo-Reum and Park Ji-Woo both have more events coming up, and the three women will have to skate once more as a team at the Team Pursuit event today, which determines the 7th place and the 8th place.

People often say that in Korea, there are only two kinds of scandals that will damage your career forever -- one is to evade your military duties (since most Korean men spend about two years of their lives in service), and the other is to cause a bullying scandal.

No scandal of this magnitude has ever happened in the Korean athletic community. While I hope that these talented skaters are given a second chance, they seemed to have touched one of the very few taboo things in the Koreans' collective psyche, and we will have to wait and see what happens. Many Koreans seem to believe that PyeongChang will be Kim's last Olympic games.

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#109. 욜로, 골로가다 -- What the YOLO lifestyle will get you in Korea

#YOLO is something of a 2010 phrase in the English language (Drake used it first in 2011). While it is still occasionally used as a hashtag, the feeling that I get is that it is often used ironically.

In Korea, however, the word YOLO (욜로 in Korean) is still going strong. Generally, it takes a while for a foreign word to gain enough popularity, so the word was slow to rise in the Korean culture, so the word became popular after its English counterpart was past its peak, and it started being used in the Korean media around 2017.

Like many English-based slang in Korean, the word 욜로 actually changed its meaning at some point. While the anglophones use the word to justify reckless behaviour, the Koreans use it to describe something slightly different.

For the Koreans, 욜로 is a lifestyle. So, people who pursue this lifestyle are called 욜로족 (the YOLO tribe; the "족" here appears in words such as "가족 (family)," and "부족 (tribe).")

The Koreans who pursue the 욜로 lifestyle tend to live for the moment. These people, mostly in their 20s and 30s, spend most of their earnings on their hobbies. They see their spending as an investment in a better quality of life in their future. They save very little, if at all, and they immerse themselves completely in the activities they enjoy. For example, a 욜로족 might decide to quit their high-paying job and travel around the world until they run out of their savings. Or they might decide to spend thousands of dollars to pursue their ballet hobbies, by taking many lessons. They try to think as little as possible of the consequences of their decisions, because for them, living the moment is just as important as their future.

So, instead of the completely negative and derogatory nuance in the English language, the Korean version of YOLO is a mix of the positive and the negative. I would say that the nuance of "욜로" matches the phrase "carpe diem" much more than "YOLO."

Of course, there are many Koreans that disapprove of this lifestyle, especially among the older Koreans. While reading an article that describes this YOLO lifestyle, I saw a comment that made me laugh out loud. The comment was:

"욜로족 좋아하다 골로족 된다."

If you try to translate this sentence following its nuance, it could translate to something like "if you keep following the YOLO tribe, you'll become a part of the GOLO tribe."

This sentence was so appropriate that even the super-popular Korean celebrity 유재석 (Jae-Suk Yoo) made references to it.

The value of this sentence in this clever construction of the two rhyming words. The writer of this sentence managed to make the connection between the similarities of the two words "욜로" and "골로." So, what does "골로" mean, and why is this an appropriate and witty thing to say on the internet?

Well, the word "골로" in the above sentence (which is not actually a word) comes from the verb "골로 가다," and it actually has a sad history.

The word "골" means "valley." You may have come across this word in "산골짜기" which means a valley in the mountains. Or you may have seen this word in "고랑 (which likely comes from "골앙" although no one knows the exact etymology)," which means furrow (long narrow trench in the ground, to make the water flow through it).

So the verb "골로 가다" means "to go to a valley" (and this is why "골로" is not actually a word; it means "to the valley" and it is an incomplete phrase in the Korean language).

"너 골로가고싶냐?" might be a perfect caption for this photo -- remember how to use the conjugation -냐?

It turns out that this slang comes from the times of the Korean War in the 1950s. Back then, the Korean population was divided into two factions; the heavily left-leaning people (most of whom left to North Korea to see their communist ideals come to fruition), and the heavily right-leaning people (who had the political power right after the Korean War). Both sides tried very hard to kill off the other side. Back in these days, even the smallest act such as giving a bowl of rice to the "enemy" was enough to get you killed by the other side, whichever side that may be.

When one was pegged as the enemy by one of these sides, they would force one into a secluded area, to be shot and killed, then buried quietly. As Korea is a very mountainous place, the easiest choice for a secluded area were in the mountains, and often in the valleys as it would be difficult to escape from a valley. Therefore, back in the 1950s, if someone led you to a valley, you would know that something has gone very wrong, and you would have been fearful of your life.

So people in this era, and the years following it, used the phrase "골로 가다" to (playfully) threaten each other. For example, say that you were doing the dishes, then you slipped and almost broke one of the family heirloom dishes. Your younger brother, who watched the whole thing, might say:

"조심해. 엄마가 알면 골로간다." (Be careful. If mom finds out, she might send you to the valley.)

Or, if you failed your exam badly, you might say:

"나 오늘 집에 가면 골로 갈듯." (When I go home tonight, I might get sent to the valley.)

So, the phrase "골로 간다" means that you f*cked up big time, and your life is at stake (exaggeration, I hope!)

Of course, this phrase doesn't get used that much anymore, as it sounds fairly old-fashioned.

This screenshot is a bit funny; while "골로 가다" has a long history, it is still slang and not totally appropriate to use in a formal setting -- certainly I would not expect a uniformed police officer to use this word!

However, this phrase is so perfect for the situation that I described above, that it made a brief comeback. Now we can understand what this sentence means:

"욜로족 좋아하다 골로족 된다." (If you like the YOLO tribe too much, you might be sent to the valley.)

"골로족" is not actually a word; however, knowing that the suffix "-족" describes a clan or a tribe of people doing the activity in the root word together, the word "골로족" should mean a group of people who are getting sent to the valley (if you think about it, this word is a bit troubling, as many Koreans were indeed massacred in the valleys during and immediately after the Korean War).

So this clever comment is saying that if you try to hard to be in the "YOLO tribe," you might end up in the "GOLO tribe = 골로족," which are the people who get sent to the valley -- that is, the people who screwed up big-time in their lives. Of course, the speaker is trying to say that if you spend without any regards to the future, you will one day be sorry.

Except, the sentence sounds a lot catchy with this clever rhyme of "욜로족" against "골로족." To me, sentences like this really highlight the linguistic abilities of the Korean people -- what a clever yet appropriate witticism!

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#108. 번역체 -- Five ways Koreans can tell that you are not a native speaker

Pyeongchang Olympics are all set to begin, and the excitement is mounting (well, a lot of Koreans are still unhappy about the flag fiasco...)

The American alpine skier Lindsey Vonn shares the sentiment, and she posted on her Instagram account about how her journey was delayed, yet how she is still very excited. The Korean media reported her Instagram post as front-page news of the sports section.

This is partly due to her success as an alpine skier, but mostly because she used a Korean phrase in her Instagram post. She wrote:

"나는 너무 흥분 돼." (I am so excited.)

The Korean media must have loved the fact that she went through the trouble of using Google Translate to post this short phrase, and the headlines reflect this.

The headline says: "Lindsey Vonn arrives in Korea, writes in Korean "I am so excited""

Wait, you might say. How do you know that she used Google Translate? Are you saying this because she's white?

Interestingly enough, I am not being a racist. I know that she is nowhere near being a native speaker, because she used the kind of Korean that the Koreans call "번역체." This word is a composition of two words: "번역" and "체." The word "번역" just means "translation."

The word "체," meaning "body" in Hanja, is a bit more complicated. It can be used to describe the form of anything related to a language. For example, it can describe physical attributes of letters. The font of your letters are called "글씨체" and cursive fonts are called "필기체." At the very beginning of this blog, I also talked about a specific Korean font called "궁서체," which refers to the font traditionally used within the palace. The font with which you write gives some character to the sentence itself -- in English, the big loopy and girly writings with hearts to dot your i's have a completely different character from Times New Roman, with which you write your college reports.

Here are some basic Korean fonts. From top to bottom, rounded font, palatial calligraphy font, standout font, clear gothic font, and basic font.

However, in modern Korean slang, it can also refer to the mood of the sentences. The most widely used example of this is the word "번역체," where people decide that certain sentences feel so "off" that they must have come badly translating another language. While the actual written letters have no physical characteristics, the overall mood of the sentence gives the sentence a character.

What Lindsey Vonn wrote is a clear example of "영어 번역체" (English-translated mood). While the correct translation of the word "excitement" is indeed "흥분," for lack of a better word in the Korean language, Koreans generally use the word "흥분" to mean "aroused." (As of recent, some Koreans use it to mean "excited" but this is an influence of Koreans who have become more fluent in English!) So when I Googled the phrase "흥분돼" I got a mix of Korean language lessons (where English speakers want to translate the phrase "I am excited"), and porn. Fun stuff.

Then there are other elements in Vonn's writing that seem slightly off to a native Korean. The use of "는" in "나는" seems wrong (I'd have suppressed it), and her spacing in "흥분 돼" seems off. While I could not tell you exactly why it is grammatically wrong, I just know that it doesn't sound right. And from experience (of having read many English sentences translated through Google translate), I know that her sentence has been auto-translated.

If it were a native Korean writing this sentence, she probably would have said something along the lines of:

"나 올림픽이 정말 기대돼." (I am really looking forward to the Olympics.)

or

"진짜 신난다." (I'm feeling the fun.)

 While these are not the exact translates of the sentence "I'm excited," the whole point is that there is no exact translation of this sentence in Korean, so any attempt at an exact translation will make it sound awkward. Young Koreans are beginning to adopt this phrase, by saying things like

 "나 지금 흥분함" (I'm excited right now)

but in order to use it in a non-awkward manner, you would need a complete mastery of the language, where you don't want to follow all rules of grammar, but you still want to follow enough. This is a subtle nuance issue that most learners will struggle with, as the 번역체 sentences are still mostly grammatically correct!

So, here are a few examples of 번역체 sentences that you could keep in mind. I am covering the ones coming from English, but many language-specific examples exist, and Koreans can generally tell apart the ones coming from English, Japanese, or Chinese.

1. Pay attention to the order of your phrases.

English and Korean have very different order of words. A silly 번역체 would be:

"나는 간다, 학교에." (I am going to school.)

While each word matches up the English counterpart, the natural Korean grammar would say "나는 학교에 간다." So if the ordering of your words are awkward, the Koreans can usually tell that you are not a native speaker. A more complicated example might be:

"와서 나를 봐 바쁘지 않으면" (Come see me when you are not busy.) 

The more natural translation is: "바쁘지 않을 때 들러."

2. Suppress your pronouns. 

Unlike the English language, Korean doesn't need a lot of pronouns, and they tend to be suppressed whenever it is clear from context. For example, the sentence "I love you" does not get translated in Korean as "나는 너를 사랑한다," which is definitely an example of 번역체. It is enough to say:

"사랑해."

It should be clear from context whether this sentence is an affirmation of love, or if you simply adore Korean fried chicken. Similarly, you don't want to translate "They're coming!" as "그들이 오고있어!" It is enough to simply say:

"온다!" 

3. Be more specific with your pronouns.

This sounds contradictory to point 2, but this rule covers a completely different set of cases. If the context is clear, you should suppress your pronouns. But suppose that you are about to open the windows in the classroom, and your friend happens to know that the teacher is allergic and he really hates it. Then she might tell you, "He really doesn't like the windows open."

In this case, the easiest Korean translation might be "그는 창문을 여는것을 좋아하지 않아." However, the usage of non-specific pronouns such as 그, 그녀, or 그것 is very rare in Korean. Instead, saying:

"선생님은 창문을 여는것을 좋아하시지 않아"

is a much better translation.

4. Learn the Korean equivalent of the English idioms (sometimes they don't exist).

You should think twice when an English sentence does not serve its literal purpose. For example, think about the sentence:

"Seulgi is nicer than you think, if you ask me."

While a literal translation might be: "만약 나에게 물어본다면, 슬기는 네가 생각하는것보다 착해," the phrase "if you ask me" does not literally mean that the listener asked the speaker her opinion about Seulgi. The speaker is using this phrase to emphasize the fact that she is stating an opinion. Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect that Korean would have a literal counterpart to this English expression. A better translation is:

"내생각엔 슬기는 네가 생각하는것보다 착해." (I think Seulgi is nicer than you think.)

Other expressions that sound awkward when translated directly into Korean include:

- "please" (for example, "Can you please help me" doesn't translate to "나를 제발 도와줄래?"  but rather "도와줄수 있어?")
-  "I say": use "내 생각엔," not "내가 말하길."
- "Give me a break": use "그만좀 해" and not "휴식을 줘."
- "take into account": use "고려하다" or "염두에 두다."
- "you know": use "있잖아."
- "I'm excited": use "정말 기대돼" (note the suppressed pronoun.)

5. "Oh" translates to a variety of different words in Korean.

While it is not wrong to translate "oh" into "오" in Korean, as soon as this word is inserted into a sentence, it smells strongly of a 번역체 sentence. In general, the better translation is "아," but it depends on the purpose of "oh" in the sentence.

If it precedes a revelation ("Oh, you live here too?") or an afterthought ("Oh, don't forget to buy some apples!"), then the Korean translation uses "아." For example, the two above sentences become:

"아, 여기 사시네요?" (Oh, you live here too? -- note the suppressed pronoun of "you")

and

"아, 사과 사는거 잊지마!" (Oh, don't forget to buy some apples.)

If it denotes a mild surprise ("Oh, is that right?") you can use "아", as well as "어" or "어라." So you can translate this sentence to:

"아, 진짜?" or "어라, 진짜야?" etc.

If "oh" is used as lamentation ("Oh no!") then you can use "아아," such as:

"아아, 안돼!!"

And above all, "Oh my god" does not translate to "오, 신이시여." Koreans are more likely to resort to profanity, but the most (politically) correct translation might be:

"아이구, 맙소사." 

Oh my god, indeed!

Of course, all of these things don't operate according to a well-defined set of rules, and most Koreans avoid these usages by the "ear test" -- they just don't sound quite right. The best way to avoid making these mistakes is just to expose yourself to more Korean, and get used to the way Korean sentences are constructed.

However, I also want to emphasize that the Koreans love it when foreigners speak Korean. I think the foreigners, especially anglophones, do not really understand just how happy it makes the Koreans to hear a foreigner speak Korean. Learning Korean generally does not advance your career except in very specific niches (although speaking more popular languages such as English, Spanish, French, or German probably will!) and so knowing any amount of Korean really demonstrates your interest in the Korean culture. So, you should continue to learn and speak Korean, whether you make mistakes or not -- it is flattery of the highest form to the Koreans. I mean, just look at how Lindsey Vonn made the headlines with just one Korean sentence!

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#105. 달님, 재앙 -- Current Korean political climate, North Korea, and the Olympics

Have you ever tried to eat the outer part of old celery stalks?

As the celery ages, the fibres become tough, and chewing doesn't do anything to make them any more palatable. Unless you toss them in a huge pot and boil them for hours, there is nothing you can do to make it delicious.

You can imagine that there are other things that are even tougher to eat. For example, imagine you are trying to cook cornstalk, or barks of trees. They would be tough, chewy, and rubbery.

South Koreans would sometimes steep tree bark into a cup of tea; North Koreans might actually eat these tough-looking things!

Koreans call this state of toughness "억세다." It is an adjective describing the toughness and hardness of material; unlike young shoots, willow tree, or fabric, which bend easily to the touch, the objects that are tough (or, "억센 물건들" in Korean) have the quality of resilience, and do not change easily from the outside force. For example, you can say:

"셀러리 줄기는 빨리 먹지 않으면 억세져." (The celery stalks become tough and chewy if you don't eat them soon.)

In this case, there is no nuance to this word other than the neutral one used to describe some property. However, you can describe someone who doesn't bend to outside pressure by using this word. While I would say that the nuance of this word is slightly negative in this case, it can be used in a positive context, like the example below:

"정아는 성격이 억세서 마음먹은 일은 꼭 이뤄내." (Jung-ah is tough and resilient, so she always gets things done that she intended to do.)

 Of course, some listeners would detect a subtle undertone of criticism, about how her personality is rather too strong (definitely not a desired trait in the Korean society!)

Nonetheless, the word "억세다" is often used by the South Koreans to describe the North Koreans. Due to the lack of food and other resources, the North Koreans are forced to be tough and resilient; otherwise they would have died from starvation already. When the food situation is dire, they resort to eating things like barks of trees (which are "억세다" themselves); it seems socially acceptable to commit small acts of crime such as petty theft (especially if it is against the government officials), and unfortunately, their sense of morals are not quite at the level of that of the South Koreans.

As you can see, natural resources are scarce in North Korea; between the government needing trees and other things, and the North Koreans eating whatever they can find, most of their mountains are bald. South Koreans call this "민둥산," literally "bald mountain."

Combined with the long years of separation between the two nations (this July marks 65 years since the truce), the young South Koreans are actually apprehensive about trying to unify the two countries. Although many of them have long-lost relatives in Korea, it is a tall order to try to feel that you are connected to someone that you don't even know exists -- I am one of them; my paternal grandfather is from Hwanghae Province in North Korea, although he moved to Seoul before the Korean war. He had siblings in the Hwanghae Province, although whether they married and had children, I have absolutely no clue. So, I might have cousins in North Korea, but so what?

When you're on the verge of starvation, anything can be fair game. Poverty in North Korea is heartbreaking.

In fact, I feel a little more negative than indifference. Suppose that the two Koreas decided to unite. It might happen that one day, some North Koreans might show up at my doorstep. Likely they don't own anything, they are very poor, and they might have been brought up thinking that stealing is more or less OK (as it might be necessary to survive). And because we're related by blood, they might be expecting me to take care of them (that would be the proper thing to do according to Confucianism.) As heartless as it might sound, I am not OK with this idea. Furthermore, our more-or-less orderly South Korean society would be flooded with these 억센 North Koreans who are used to doing whatever they can to survive. It could be a disaster in terms of our economy, security, and social stability.

This makes politics a little bit complicated in Korea. While many young people (myself included) tend to lean towards the left in the political spectrum, in Korea, if you lean too much to the left, you land right on the communism side, which is a real possibility!

Currently, our president Moon Jae-In (문재인) is left-leaning in the political spectrum, whereas the previous president Park Geun-Hye (박근혜) was right-leaning. This means that ever since the power change, there has been a drastic change in our attitude towards the North.

Choi Soon-Sil (left) and Park Geun-Hye (right)

Park Geun-Hye took a very strict approach to North Korea, with minimal aids ($337 million USD, compared to $4.36 billion USD during president Roh Moo-Hyun (노무현), who was the last left-leaning president before Moon), and as far as I can tell, did not give into any demands by the North that she deemed unreasonable, which lead to a few tense situations. (Ironically, she still wanted to unify the two Koreas; with the approach she was taking, I have no idea how she would have accomplished this -- perhaps she wanted the Kim Dynasty to collapse, and the South would just absorb the North.)

The current president Moon Jae-In

Moon Jae-In is taking a completely different approach, by trying to invite North Korea to participate in conversations, and to interact with other countries. While he is barely eight months into his presidency, and we will have to wait and see what he accomplishes, one of his achievements so far was to dissolve the tension between the US and North Korea, and to convince North Korea to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics, which is being hosted in Pyeongchang, South Korea. While the figures won't be available, I imagine that the aid towards North Korea will again increase, compared to Park's times.

Ironically, this achievement threw Korea into a huge political turmoil.

Moon became the president under overwhelming support by the Koreans, whether they were fundamentally on the left or right wing, because of the scandal involving Park's impeachment (mostly due to the fact that she was being unofficially advised by Choi Soon-Sil, who is the daughter of a shaman). At the time of his inauguration, he was supported by nearly 80% of the Koreans in his political endeavors, and even until a few months ago, his approval rating was in the mid-70% range.

With his unique situation involving the spectacular failure of the previous president, his campaign, and also his good looks, he gained quite a following (think of the Korean version of the popular Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau!) leading to the nickname "idol president." His strongest supporters call him by various nicknames, "달님 (the moon-god, because of his last name "Moon")," and "이니 (Innie, using the last syllable of his first name; kind of like Lexie for Alexandra)."

When he first became the president, you would often see comments throwing huge support behind him, such as:

"우리 이니 하고싶은거 다 해" (Our dearst Innie, do everything that you want to do.)

Or

"달님이 계셔서 든든합니다" (Because we have our moon-god, we feel protected.) 

While exaggerated, it was that much of a relief to get rid of our previous president, and her shaman advisor.

Unfortunately, Moon's approval rating has dropped to around 58% in the past few days, and it has something to do with his approach to North Korea. And it came from a seemingly innocuous move involving North Korea and the Olympics.

A few days into 2018, North Korea announced that they are open for conversations with the South, and South Korea took this offer. At this meeting, it was agreed that North Korea would participate in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. The two Koreas would make their entrance as a single team (meaning that neither the South or the North Korean flags would be used; instead, they would use the 한반도기, the Korean peninsula flag.) Furthermore, while the two Koreas would compete mostly separately, they would form a single team for women's ice hockey.

This threw many Koreans into rage and disappointment.

This is Dokdo. Although it is a tiny island, it comes with a large amount of surrounding water, hence the dispute with Japan.

First of all, news broke that the 한반도기 that the two Koreas would use at entrance did not include 독도 (Dokdo), the disputed island territory in the East Sea between South Korea and Japan. Given that most Koreans feel animosity against the Japanese for their occupation (my grandmother, who lived through Japanese occupation and the Korean war, says that the Japanese were a million times worse than the North Koreans) this territorial dispute is a huge deal to many Koreans. To make matters worse, a Japanese news outlet has remarked that the flag does not include 독도, therefore the Koreans are giving up their claim on the island. Koreans were enraged at this; the would much rather just see the South Korean flag at the Olympics. The Korean government recently confirmed that the flag does not include Dokdo, as it doesn't make sense to add every island to the flag.

When the government confirmed that there was no Dokdo in the Korean Peninsula flag, the netizens went and found a photo of the flag, held by the unified Korean team at the Torino Olympics in 2006. Notice that this flag depicts Dokdo, which led to further criticism for the Moon administration.

Secondly, Koreans feared that by forming a single team for women's hockey, the South Korean hockey players would get less ice time, since the North Koreans need to play on ice. The young Koreans were especially upset at this; Korean society is lacking some transparency, as the children of high-ranking officials are sometimes mysteriously excluded from military duties, or they get into a better university than they deserve, like the case of Chung Yoo-Ra, the daughter of Choi Soon-Sil. They hoped for a more transparent society under Moon's presidency, but instead, he was bringing politics into the Olympics, and took away the opportunity from the Korean hockey players who worked hard for their spots on the Olympics team.

The unified women's hockey team.

Furthermore, one of the ministers in Moon's administration made the mistake of saying that "the unified team doesn't matter; they're not in the range for a medal anyway." The youths of Korea, who hope for fair opportunities and rewards commensurate with the efforts that you put in, were enraged. At least one hockey player has publicly spoken out against it, saying that she does not understand how the government believes that they are not taking opportunities away from the South Korean players, as every minute on ice counts. Her post more or less confirmed that the South Korean hockey players are not happy that they became the scapegoat for a political agenda.

Because of this, Moon also gained some negative nicknames. Some are calling him "문재앙" (Disaster Moon, because the word "재앙" meaning disaster is very similar to his name "재인.") For similar reasons, some are calling him "문죄인" (Sinner Moon). There seems to be a sizable (and possibly growing) Korean population that believe that he is too friendly towards North Korea, and that one day, he might sell out to North Korea. Some are critical towards the staunch supporters of Moon, and started calling them "문슬람" (Moom-slam, coming from Moon+Islam; Koreans tend to be very liberal with using racial slurs.)

An article that I read today gives some numbers to this.

55.8% of the Koreans believe that having North Korea participate in the Olympics will contribute to its success, whereas 42.9% believe that this will not help.

56.7% of the Koreans believe that this move will help improve the relationship between the two Koreas; 41.9% of the Koreans believe that this will not help.

37.7% of the Koreans believe that the participation of North Korea in the 2018 Olympics is an embodiment of the spirit of the Olympics.

51.0% of the Koreans felt positively towards using the Korean peninsula flag, while 47.4% of the Koreans were against using the Korean peninsula flag.

58.7% of the Koreans are against forming a single women's ice hockey team.

88.2% of the Koreans feel that unification of two Koreas in unnecessary; they prefer to have two Koreas, and just maintain the peace. Only 9.8% of the Koreans felt that Korea should take active steps towards reunification.

73.2% of the Koreans felt that while the North Koreans are of the same ethnicity, North Korea is a separate entity. 25.2% of the Koreans felt that North Korea is the same country as South Korea.


This feels like a tricky situation; I can understand where both sides are coming from, and I hope that they will come to some kind of an understanding. I've often felt that the Korean politics tend to be extremely polarized (probably because of North Korea), so this may just be one of these instances that highlight this. In any case, do keep an eye on the political situation, as it really is very fascinating how everything changes so drastically (even more than the Obama-Trump transition, I would say!) with the change of power. I wish all my best for Korea.

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#104. A trilingual Korean joke (Hanja 3)

I saw the following photo (or 짤, if you are fluent in Korean internet language) while browsing a Korean website. The poster of this image claims that this is a useful image to download onto your phone, and send it to whoever you are texting at an appropriate moment. Can you guess when you are supposed to send this photo? (answer below the image)

The answer is that you send this photo when someone is making excuses. To understand why, you need to be trilingual, amazingly.

The word "핑계" matches up with the background photo, which depicts a pink rooster. The letter "핑" comes from the English word "pink (핑크 in Korean)," and just taking the first letter from it. And the letter "계" comes from the Hanja meaning "chicken." As far as I am aware, the letter "계" does not refer to either the male rooster or the female hen.

The full name of this Hanja is 닭 계. For an explanation of how Hanja works, see my first post on it!

This Hanja appears often enough in the Korean language that the Koreans would relate the letter "계" to a chicken; I am not sure if I would have recognized this Hanja if someone just showed it to me, however. Some Korean words that use this Hanja letter 닭 계 include:

- 계란 (literally, an egg of a chicken -- so it would be wrong to use this word for an ostrich egg, for example!)

- 삼계탕 (Samgyetang, a Korean chicken stew, where you boil a whole chicken with various roots believed to be very good for your health)

- 군계일학 (one crane among a group of chickens; this word is used to denote someone who is way above everyone else in a group)

So, a "핑계" could mean a pink chicken, because of this clever wordplay using Hanja. Of course, this is just slang, and a fairly minor one at that, almost like an English pun. The prevalent meaning of "핑계" that you can find in a dictionary is "excuses."

The next animal is fairly self-explanatory: a "돼지" is a pig. In this case, however, the Koreans noticed that "돼지" sounds almost like "대지," which is difficult to translate alone in English. The point of this substitution is that the above phrase becomes "핑계 대지 마," which means "don't make excuses." The word "대지," coming from the verb "대다 (to give, tell, or apply things such as excuses)," roughly corresponds to "make" in the above sentence.

And the final animal, which is a horse, comes with a single letter "마." This is another Hanja!

This Hanja, which you would learn sometime in elementary school in Korea, has the full name of 말 마. So it means a horse (말), but it would be read as the letter "마" in Korean. Some Korean words that include this Hanja are:

- 마굿간: a stable (for horses)

- 출마: to leave on a horse; however, nowadays, it means to become a candidate for an election, as all government officials going to work would have been riding their horses back in the olden days.

- 애마: beloved horse (along with the Hanja 사랑 애, meaning love); however, nowadays, this is a slang referring to your car. This slang has been used across all generations!

Anyway, putting all of these three photos together, we get:

"핑계 돼지 마" (pink chicken, pig, horse),

  which sounds nearly identical to

"핑계 대지 마" (don't make any excuses).

So, by the virtue of the fact that most Koreans will understand this short photo that incorporates all three languages (Korean, English, and Chinese/Hanja), the above photo becomes a witty internet .jpg file to use among the Koreans! Having spent a lot of my life in notoriously monolingual countries, I am occasionally blown away by just how non-monolingual the Koreans can be!

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#102. 병림픽 -- Battle of idiots

As a child living in South Korea, I was perpetually afraid of the Korean War II. I used to cry at night worried that North Korea will attack South Korea overnight, and that my family would be caught in the middle of it all without any preparations (this is how the first Korean war started -- North Korea invaded South Korea at 4am on June 25, 1950, and South Korea was not prepared for it at all.)

It also didn't help that instead of fire drills, schools used to have air strike drills. We were to hide under our desks, while the loudspeaker would announce possible scenarios about where the North Korean soldiers were, and what we were to do in these situations. Even as a young kid, I was pretty sure that hiding under our desks wasn't going to save us.

We used to call it "공습경보 훈련," and I guess Koreans still do this! (also effective for earthquakes, etc.)

In a sense, the recent events brought back those nightmares for me. While I was immensely relieved that my immediate family and I no longer live in Korea, I was extremely concerned and terrified about my extended family and friends, and all the other innocent Koreans who would be caught between the two nuclear powers -- North Korea and the United States.

But this time, it was frustrating to watch. As someone who really didn't want a war to break out, the exchange between Trump and Kim was terrifying to watch. Trump calls Kim a "Rocket Man," and Kim in turn condemns Trump to death. All the while, they are threatening to push the button. This may have been based in some politics, but to me, it felt stupid and reckless. And one comment I saw online deeply resonated with me. This Korean internet user wrote on one of the US/North Korea articles:

"병림픽이 따로 없네."

Here, "따로 없네" literally means "there is no other." So this above phrase says that there is no other "병림픽," or that whatever is going on between the US and North Korea is the very definition of "병림픽."

So let me explain the word "병림픽." I am normally offended by this word, which is a combination of the Korean insult "병신" and the English word "Olympics" (in Korean, the "s" in "Olympics" somehow got dropped, and Koreans write it as just "올림픽.")

Now, the word "병신" is frequently used in Korean profanity. If your friend asks out a girl who is way out of his league, and gets turned down in a spectacular way, you might say (in way of consolation)

"병신아, 아주 삽질을 했구나?" (You idiot, you totally wasted your time.)

In this usage, the word "병신" is just a friendly derogatory word, just like how you can insult someone without actually meaning it in English.

Now you must be able to guess that the word "병림픽" means an Olympic of the idiots, where two 병신s (in the lighter sense of the word) duel to see who is the bigger idiot (fairly appropriate in the case of Trump and Kim, and you can easily see cases like this in Korean life too, such as in the case of 현피).

However, the word "병신" actually has a clearly established meaning: it comes from two Hanja letters "병" (illness) and "신" (body), so it refers to a body with an illness; i.e. someone who is disabled. No one should use this word in its full meaning, as it is incredibly offensive. Technically, if someone could not walk, you could call them a "다리병신" (since "다리" means leg, it means that the person has an illness in his legs). But remember that "병신" is also an insult in Korean, so you are insulting a disabled person in the worst possible way. You will NEVER see a Korean use such a word in real life (but you might see it in K-drama, or in some old literature, where this usage seems to have been more common, before the word "병신" became a widespread insult.)

And this original meaning of the word "병신" makes the meaning of the slang "병림픽" incredibly offensive. My issue with the word "병림픽" is that in the literal sense of the word, it is in fact synonymous with the Paralympic games.

Here's one other instance where you can definitely use the word "병림픽," to talk about that Olympic game where the figure skater Yuna Kim lost to Adelina Sotnikova. Koreans were so enraged, and I think they still are.

It seems that the Korean population is divided on this issue; some people will be very offended for the same reason that I just explained. But some argue that the word "병신" is not being used to describe the handicapped, and that one should not even be thinking about this real meaning.

In any case, I would refrain from using this word around most Koreans. Among close friends (who you know are foul-mouthed) I can see it being OK; but I would use this word with extreme caution.

In closing, here's a fun fact. The Chinese calendar uses sixty different words to describe each year (these words cycle, so the same name is given to different years spaced 60 years apart.) By this calendar, the word given to the year 2018 is "무술" ("무" means "yellow" and "술" refers to "dog", hence the year of the "yellow (golden) dog.") Similarly, 2017 was 정유년 (year of "red rooster") and 2016 was, amazingly, "병신년" (the year of "red monkey.")

But of course, the more common usage of the word "병신" is the insult for disabled people. To make matters worse, the word "년" has two common meanings; it can refer to the year, but it is also a derogatory suffix for a woman, so that "미친년" is a "crazy b-tch," and "짜증나는년" is an "annoying b-tch." And what was supposed to be "the year of red monkey" because "disabled b-tch." So, 2016 was an interesting year for the Koreans!

Koreans waited for 2016 just for this. It says "We have entered 2016, the year of the monkey," but of course, the more common meaning is "We have entered 2016, the year of the crazy b-tch."

Although the word "병신" have absolutely nothing to do with the insult "병신"as they are based on different Hanja, the Koreans didn't miss this funny coincidence. Not only that, 2016 was the year of the Olympics in Rio, so this Olympic Games was dubbed "병림픽." I guess this is one of the reasons I can't stay away from the Korean internet. They can be ridiculously politically incorrect, but at least you can count on them to be witty and hilarious!

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#100. 졸혼 -- the most searched-for Korean slang of 2017

Happy new year! As we send off 2017 and greet 2018, here is a short blog post about the most popular Korean slang of 2017.

Naver, as you probably know, is probably the most-used search engine among the Koreans (I often find that Google is not the best at searching Korean content; for example, Google often assumes that I made a typo when I am searching for some celebrity's name, and shows me the result for the more popular celebrity. What can I say, the Korean names are all very similar!)

Unlike Google, Naver offers various other services and entertainment. You can read all the headline news and celebrity gossip; you can read webtoons; you can find information about stocks and exchange rates; there are online forums not unlike Reddit; and you can read articles entirely dedicated to humour. Furthermore, Naver offers a good dictionary for various languages, which sometimes includes slang words in Korean.

The Naver dictionary team writes a blog post about various statistics at the end of each year. Among these is the most searched-for slang word of the year. In 2017, the slang word chosen by Naver was the word "졸혼."

The headline that prompted me to write this article.

This word, not really existent in the English language, comes from the combination of two words. "졸업," which means to graduate, and "결혼," which means a marriage. (You could have guessed, without actually looking up the meaning of the word, that "졸혼" had something to do with marriage, because of the Hanja letter "혼.")  Putting the two words together, "졸혼" roughly means that you "graduate from a marriage." You might say something like:

"우리부부는 이제 서로에게 간섭하지 않기로 했어. 이제 졸혼하려고." (My spouse and I decided not to get involved in each other's life. It's time to graduate our marriage.)

It almost sounds like a divorce, but for the Koreans who are after this lifestyle, it is definitely different. While a divorce is often heated and bitter, graduating from a marriage isn't quite the same. You look back at the good memories with fondness, you still support your partner, and you still maintain your marriage (like how you are still an alum to your old school, and occasionally make donations.) However, you no longer try to involve yourself in the life of your partner, and your partner does the same. Some people in the stages of 졸혼 might go on a long trip; some might start dating others; yet others might continue living their lives in the exact same way as before.

This post parodies the title of the popular Korean entertainment show, "We got married" (우리 결혼했어요). In that show, two celebrities pretend to be in a marriage and go through all the motions of a Korean marriage.

I suppose the idea of 졸혼 is somewhere between a marriage and a divorce. I think there are a few reasons in the Korean society why such a phenomenon might become commonplace.

In my previous post, I talked about how a Korean marriage is often a union of two families, rather than a union of two individuals. While Korean marriages are usually not arranged, this means that your family could potentially object to you marrying your one true love. They could decide not to support you at all financially (typically most Koreans will support their children with a significant amount of money at the time of their marriage, either in the form of cash, or by paying a large part of their apartment.) They could also decide to bully your spouse whenever there is a family gathering (the women feel this more than the men; hence the word 시월드.)

If you thought that a couple is likely to split while planning a wedding, a typical Korean couple plans a wedding and deal with two families who want the best for their respective child (who is clearly the best spouse there is!), and so they are even more likely to split in the planning stages. Even if they hold onto each other, I think the continuous nagging from their families really wear on the Korean marriage.

And Koreans tend to have less privacy --  your spouse (and their family) will most likely be interested in even your very private business, and perhaps they would like some space.

On the other hand, Koreans are still a conservative bunch. A divorce is still somewhat frowned-upon in the Korean society, and having a divorced parents is one of the reasons a family might reject a potential spouse for their child. So it is a huge decision to get a divorce, especially if you have a child. Not only will you be labelled as the divorcee, your child might have problems when it is time for him to marry. So as long as you and your spouse can't stand the sight of each other (and it's just a case of love not being there), there are social advantages to keeping a marriage going, at least in the eyes of the public.

Here is an image inserted into a Korean newspaper article explaining the word "졸혼." It explains that 졸혼 comes from the Japanese culture, where a couple maintains their marriage, but they live separately to pursue their personal hobbies, while meeting a couple of times each month. It seems that 57% of the surveyed Koreans felt positively about it.

There seems to be a lot of negative publicity on getting married on the Korean internet nowadays. People feel that there are so many unnecessary components to a Korean marriage (both financially and emotionally). The women feel that there is a significant risk that the in-laws will treat them like a servant (which is how a traditional Korean marriage worked), and the men feel that the women will quit their jobs when they marry (which is also how a traditional Korean marriage worked), leaving them to be the sole bread-winner of the family while the women enjoy their free time and the money that they bring home. You often see people writing that you should not get married if you are able to support yourself.

Despite that, this seems to have a neutral nuance. It's less of a taboo than 이혼 (divorce), and there is no underlying vulgarity that even the media feel fine using this word once in a while.

I haven't quite made up my mind about how I feel about this phenomenon of 졸혼, but I suppose I will go with my usual philosophy about these things -- as long as there is no harm done to the others, people are free to do whatever they want in their bedroom!

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