#71. 맘충 -- Your kid is NOT the best

Some parents... should not be parents. I often find myself raging (internally, because I'm a loser) at parents who cannot control their kids not to kick the seat in front of them in planes. Then there are parents who let their kids run around screaming in restaurants, and so on. Korea is a breeding ground for such parents. This is because Korea is not a society built on just law. Because of the influence of Confucianism (유교 in Korean), the Koreans...

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#70. 골때린다 -- I feel as if I've been hit on the head.

Everyone probably has a memory of the moment of betrayal by someone trusted. Maybe your boyfriend, with whom you were completely in love with, broke up with you out of nowhere. Maybe your sister knew a secret about you and promised not to tell mom, but then she did. The moment you find out about this betrayal, especially if the person who betrayed you was someone you deeply trusted, there is actually a physical response to this. Blood rushes to...

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#69. The vixen sister (Shamanism 4)

In continuation of last week's story, I continue with yet another story about a vixen. In the Western folklore, the fox is often seen to be of neutral gender -- by this, I mean that when a fox appears in a story, unless explicitly told of its gender, there is no reason to assume that the fox is either male or female. However, in the Korean folklore, you almost always assume that if a fox appears in a story, then it is female (hence my translation...

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

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

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#67. 현타 -- Just what was I doing?

Sexual references are rife in the Korean internet scene. Some of them are hilariously clever, while some of them are downright foul and makes the listeners cringe. If you think that English profanity is bad... Well, make sure that you stay on the squeaky clean side of the Korean internet! But there are also some expressions that are almost cute, like the expression "현자타임." The meaning of this expression, originally used by only men (I'll explain...

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#66. 보쌈 -- Wrapped up

When Romulus founded Rome, he had only male followers. This was not particularly surprising, as Rome was founded via numerous battles against Alba Longa, which was the major Latin city of the area. This soon became problematic, as no city can prosper without having enough younger generation. So he invited the Sabines, a nearby Italian tribe, to a festival in Rome. At a predetermined signal, the Roman men grabbed the Sabine women and married...

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

This week we revisit Mamamoo, because their new song Aze Gag has such wondeful references to the Korean culture. In particular, they did a live performance a few weeks ago, which I thought was absolutely wonderful, as it includes a random bit of a dad jokes in the middle (starting at 1:35). One other thing to notice is that since the dad jokes are so old fashioned, they have elected to add the subtitles for the dad jokes in 궁서체. See the clip below, and try to understand what the joke says. The transcript follows (after which is the translation/explanation),...

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