#77. 현피 -- Korean gamer drama gone wrong

The gaming community (of which nearly every Korean is a member) always carries a lot of potential for drama. People put in years, if not decades, of effort into their characters, and it is so easy to lose all of that in a heartbeat if someone sets their mind on it. So "keyboard battles" (키보드 배틀, or 키배 for short) where people insult each other via chat are a daily occurrence in the Korean internet. Well, everyone fights, you say. And you would be...

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#76. 통수 맞다 -- Backstabbed

Even at the worst of times, there is always an unspoken code of honour that one must abide by. You may be so angry that you are seeing red in front of your eyes, but you just don't hit your opponent below the belt. If you do, your actions are ridiculed by the onlookers of being a "low blow." You also don't attack someone without a fair warning if there is no provocation. In particular, you don't strike when they are not paying attention to you without...

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#75. Korea might still be haunted by tiger-demons (Shamanism 5)

We continue our journey into the Korean folklore, to talk about tigers, which were ubiquitous in Korea until just a few decades ago (unfortunately, they are believed to be extinct now). Tigers hold an interesting place in Koreans' collective consciousness. They are undoubtedly the strongest of the animals that roamed the Korean mountains, which terrified yet inspired awe to the people of Korea. Despite the fact that many people were killed by tigers...

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#74. Why do people hate spoilers?

While browsing the internet, I saw a 드립 that made me laugh, so I thought I'd share this for today's post. While I translate the post below, see if you can see the humour in it before seeing the translation: This post is from DC Inside, which is generally a pretty rough part of the Korean internet. The internet users are pretty ruthless in making fun of you, or putting you down, so you have to learn to take it in stride. The original poster (whose...

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#73. 외계어 -- The Korean Pig Latin

Derived languages such as Pig Latin are great for communicating secretly. You're either in on the secret, or you're not. And it's a great way to feel that you belong in a group. For example, many young people speak it to each other, hoping that the adults don't understand. Korean also has an equivalent of Pig Latin. It's often called "외계어" or "도깨비어". The suffix "-어" means "language." For example, "영어" is English (language of "영국"), "프랑스어" is French (language of "프랑스"), and so on. "외계" means "out of this world." Both letters forming this word...

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#72. 찐따 -- Ugh, you loser

A shout-out to Shane for asking about this word! Thank you for suggesting this post, and please keep the suggestions coming :) Early 20th century Korea has seen a lot of hardship. In 1910, the Japanese occupation began, and continued until the end of the second world war in 1945. The VJ (victory over Japan) day is still celebrated as the national independence day (광복절) in Korea. (As an aside, although the official VJ day seems to be in September,...

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Listening exercise with transcript #12: An advice to those who are in love

Here, a Korean celebrity 홍석천 talks about being in love. To digress a little bit about 홍석천, he is the only celebrity who came out as gay in Korea. He came out publicly in 2000. Despite his popularity, his career took a severe hit (I have talked a little bit about the status of LGBT rights in Korea in this post) and he took a break from his entertainment career for many years (it is rumoured that he was unofficially blacklisted by the broadcasting companies). Despite all this, he made a comeback in 2007, and often makes jokes about being gay,...

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