#79. 파오후 -- You are f-ing obese (not my words, theirs!)

Another shout-out to Shane for suggesting covering more onomatopoeic words! :)

This had not occurred to me before Shane asked me about the Korean onomatopoeia in one of my other posts -- the Korean language is full of onomatopoeia, compared to English! For example, the following sentences all use onomatopoeia and they are sentences that you would often hear in everyday life.

"먹을때 쩝쩝대지 마." (Don't chew with your mouth open -- "쩝쩝" is onomatopoeia for the sound that you make when you do)

"이 수학문제를 가지고 한시간째 끙끙대고 있어." (I've been struggling with this math problem for an hour -- "끙끙" is the sound that you might make when you're struggling with a heavy weight at the gym. Math problems make you suffer just as much, right?)

"물결이 찰랑대는 호수가 너무 예쁘다." (The lake with small waves is so beautiful -- "찰랑" is the onomatopoeia for the small sloshing of water. For a larger wave, you might use "출렁" instead.)

These onomatopoeia occupy a large portion of the Korean language, and while we, the anglophones, might use these words to a toddler to engage in conversation, these are totally normal words to use in Korean. This brings up the question, how about on the internet? Do the Koreans also make up new onomatopoeia?

The answer is a loud YES. Looking through my previous posts, I have talked about one instance of onomatopoeia here (the word is "철컹철컹" which describes the clanking of handcuffs, and also describes how you might be locked up in a jail cell with a lock). Perhaps this is not totally satisfactory since "철컹철컹" is an onomatopoeia that already existed in standard Korean. But here is one that you might find to be more amusing (or more offensive, as is the case with most internet literature!)

Long before YouTube was a thing, Koreans already had a platform where people could have their own channels, and create video content that was broadcasted live. The website still exists. But it often comes under fire because a lot of people there create questionable content (for example, minors trying to create sexual content for the money, or adults trying dangerous stunts), and the censorship is not well enforced for the most part.

Anyway, one of these broadcasters, who was known for being overweight, was one day streaming a video of himself eating. He made some interesting noises during the broadcast, which, to Koreans, seemed like the sound that people make when they are very enthusiastic about food (and this is an awful stereotype, but a fair number of these people are overweight).

When he inhales the food, it sounds like he's breathing in and saying "파오후," and when he chews, he makes a sound very similar to "쿰척쿰척," listen for yourself and see if you agree that this sounds like a fair representation of the eating sounds that the broadcaster is making.

So the Koreans started making fun of obese people with the phrase "파오후 쿰척쿰척." First when they were eating food, but then it just kind of became a phrase to mock the obese people of the internet. In the current usage, "파오후" just became a noun for "an obese person," and "쿰척쿰척" became an onomatopoeia describing anything that an obese person does. (Another theory says that "파오후" refers to the sounds of breathing of an obese person, and "쿰척쿰척" is the sound of sniffling, so you are free to believe whichever theory suits your imagination!)

At this point, I can imagine your reactions. You are gasping in shock, because this is incredibly insensitive and mean-spirited. And I agree with you; Korean internet users tend to be a lot more vitriolic than their anglophone counterparts.

One of the reasons this is tolerated is because the Korean society is a lot less forgiving towards the people who stand out. This is really how the unfortunate tradition of 왕따 started, where people attempt to punish those who stand out by not acknowledging their existence, or with open hostility.

Another reason is that these kinds of words get made up in what you might call the garbage dumps of the Korean internet -- namely DC Inside and ilbe.com, where they are notorious for their blatant disregard for the social norms. A lot of people hide the fact that they have accounts on these websites (for the fear of being ostracized), but I guess a lot of people still use these communities, as they are still one of the most popular internet communities of Korea. These slang words end up becoming mainstream either through these secret users slipping up and using them in real life, or by the non-users, who try to use these new neologisms to insult the users of DC Inside and ilbe.com (as the internet communities always seem to be at war with one another.)

Finally, the default assumption of the Korean internet users is that whoever you are interacting with on the internet is the biggest loser imaginable (as this makes it easier to insult them). They are probably losers with no jobs, ugly or deformed, never dated, and probably went to a 지잡대. Also, they are probably morbidly obese. So it is not unusual to see insults of the kind

"이 파오후새끼야, 쿰척쿰척하지말고 가서 알바라도 해." (You f-ing pig, stop being a fat loser and get a part-time job)

Regardless of they are actually obese or not. (Of course, they also get used correctly to mock obese people.)

So there you have it, probably the first truly mean Korean internet slang that I've covered in this blog. This only touches the surface of what some of the Korean internet users are capable of, though (and if this scares you, you should stay far away from DC Inside and ilbe.com, and a few other communities!) And please, do not use these words in real life!

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#78. 아닥 -- Shut your pie hole

If you've spent time around any Korean media at all, chances are good that you know the most used Korean expression for "shut up!" That expression is:

"닥쳐!" (Shut up)

and it is literally identical to "shut up." According to 국립국어원 (National Institute for the Korean Language), the word "닥쳐" originally comes from "닫쳐," which means "to shut (things like doors, etc.)" This word has been widely used for generations, but there is actually a trendier slang going around the younger generation of Korea.

Suppose that you were in a group project with a couple of your friends together. They all slack off, and you end up having to pull an all-nighter to pick up the slack and complete the project on time. When the time comes for you to submit it, your groupmates show up and take a quick look at what you've done, and they start criticizing your work. Your font isn't professional. Your content could have been better researched. Suppressing the urge to punch them in the face, you say:

"나한테 죽빵맞기싫으면 당장 아닥해라." (Unless you want to be punched in the face, shut your pie hole right now.)

 So, "아닥" is short for "아가리 닥치다," and since the verb ending has been suppressed, you use "아닥하다" as its verb form (in particular, Koreans don't use "아닥치다" which seems more logical!)

The word "아가리" is an old Korean word that is probably a little bit too old even for our grandparents -- their parents and their grandparents might have used this word to denote the mouth of a jar, or the entrance to a village. And just like in the English usage, this word has long been used as a slang to denote our mouths. For example, if someone has a foul mouth, Koreans might say:

"아가리에 걸레물었냐?" (Do you have a rag in your pie hole?)

So both "아가리" and "닥치다" are fairly vulgar slang words, but Koreans managed to combine them to into yet another word that should be at least as vulgar. However, this word came into usage in the last few years, so among the younger generation, it is used fairly commonly, not only for the literal usage of "shut up" but also for the situations where you have nothing to say. For example, if you were debating with someone and your opponent was so logical that you can't think of anything else to say, you might concede defeat in a slangy and vulgar way by saying:

"니 논리가 나를 아닥하게 만드네." (Your logic made me shut up.)

In general, it seems that the most vulgar of the Korean slang are exclusively reserved for the internet. Then the next tier of vulgar words are used mostly by Korean men, then there are the mildly vulgar words used by everyone. I can easily visualize even the Korean women using this word as well, among close friends or on the internet.

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Listening exercise with transcript #13: the Korean Pig Latin

Here are some Korean girls speaking 외계어 that I talked about a few days ago. The older members in the show clearly don't know anything about it, and they are shocked that all these young girls know how to communicate with each other using this strange language!

There are many popular Korean girl groups in this video, including GFriend, APink, and IOI, but I won't refer to them by name since not every reader is familiar with everyone.

Panel member 1: 할줄아시는분 계세요?
(Can anyone speak it?)

Panel member 2: 도깨비 언어가뭐야?
(What's the 도깨비 언어? -- language of the hobgoblins)

Girl 1: 어떤거요? ㄹ이요?
 (Which consonant do you use? ㄹ? -- remember that you need to pick a consonant to speak the Korean Pig Latin, and that choice is up to you!)

Girl 2: 아.. 저는 ㅂ으로...
 (Oh, I use ㅂ...)

Girl 3: 저는 ㅅ이요.
(I use ㅅ.)

Panel member 3: 도깨비 언어가 뭐야?
(What is the 도깨비 언어?)

Panel member 4: 일단 시범을 한번보여줘요.
(Can you do a demonstration first before talking about it?)

Girl 1: 펴성소소에세 보소미시서선배새니심 패샌이시에세요소.

Girl 2: 아사 저서도소 너서무수 패샌이신데세.
(The above conversation between the two girls is repeated twice)

Girl 3: 너서무수 귀시여서워서요소.

Girl 4: 가삼사사하삽니시다사. ㅅ은 잘 못하겠어요.

Girl 5: 저러도로 하랄수루이맀스릅니리다라.

So there's the transcript. Can you figure out what they are saying? Here is the translation of the Korean Pig Latin:

Girl 1: 평소에 보미선배님 팬이에요. (I've been a fan of Bomi sunbae -- sunbae is a word referring to someone who has been in your profession for longer than you. For example, a student in a higher year is your 선배, as well as someone who has worked at your workplace for longer than you.)

Girl 2: 아 저도 너무 팬인데. (Oh, I'm a fan of yours too.)

Girl 3: 너무 귀여워요 (You're so cute!)

Girl 4: 감사합니다. ㅅ은 잘 못하겠어요 (Thank you. I can't really speak it well using ㅅ -- here, she messes up slightly in speaking the Korean Pig Latin, and she says that she is used to using a different consonant from ㅅ.)

Girl 5: 저도 할 수 있습니다 (She pipes up from nowhere, telling people that she can also speak it too. But instead of using ㅅ like all the other girls before her, she chooses to use ㄹ, which is presumably the consonant that she is familiar with.)

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#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 right. However,  there is one thing that is unique about the Korean gamer drama.

Remember that Korea is a tiny country. For context, South Korea is about 1/3 the size of Germany, and about 1/5 the size of California. And the majority of the Korean population lives in Seoul. This means that if you get so upset at your opponent in a 키배 that you want to punch him, that can be easily arranged.

The Koreans would say,

"너 나와! 나랑 현피뜨자!" (Come out, let's have a 현피).

The word "현피" and its verb form "현피뜨다" comes from combining "현실" (real life) and "PK" which is a gaming word for "Player Kill." So you get "현P" which gets written as "현피" in Korean. It literally means that two gamers want to meet in real life to kill each other (instead of killing each other's characters online.) You can substitute "real-life player kill" for "현피" and it would be a pretty accurate translation.

By the way, this is one of the reasons that makes the Korean internet so unique in my opinion. It feels so much more "real" than say, American internet.

In reality, no blows were exchanged in this 현피.

 Anyway, you are probably wondering, why on earth would you agree to a real-life fight?

Well, I can think of two major reasons.

The first is that most Korean internet users tend to assume that everyone on the internet is a huge loser. They are probably weak, they were probably bullied in school, they probably don't have a job or a girlfriend, they probably mooch off of their parents. Of course they are going to win if they fight in real life.

The second is, of course, peer pressure. Koreans tend to value community over the individual, so compared to an average North American, Koreans tend to be a lot more aware of what is going on around them. In general, they seem more susceptible to peer pressure as well. Once a major 키배 breaks out, a lot of people are watching them fight and exchange brave words, and they are egging them on. Once the word "현피" is uttered, it would be majorly embarrassing to back down!

It's not incredibly frequent that a 현피 takes place, so when it does, it provides a major 떡밥 to the internet community. Word travels quickly that something is happening in real life, and since all communications leading up to the 현피 are done publicly, hundreds of thousands of people end up knowing the time and the location of a 현피. You are very likely to have a spectator if you ever engage in it.

Often it ends up with a hilarious result. In one instance, one riled-up internet user accepted the challenge of 현피 just to see that his opponent was a kid in elementary school; in another case, two internet users met up to fight, only to realize that they were far too overweight to actually fight in earnest (and to their mortification, a sizeable audience had gathered); and sometimes they get stood up by their opponent.

I would discourage you from engaging in a 현피, however, since some of the spectators will probably record the interaction and you will be forever remembered in a gif ("움짤" in Korean, which comes from "움직이는 짤방" or "moving pictures"). Most likely you will be doing a lot of 이불킥 when you think about it in a couple of years! Then there are the couple of rare cases where someone actually ends up being killed, although those are incredibly rare, maybe one or two cases in the history of Korean internet have been known to the public.

However, if you ever see people actually organizing a 현피, grab some popcorn and stick around -- they are pretty rare, and chances are, you are witnessing the birth of yet another page of Korean internet literature!

As for when to use this word in real life... I guess you wouldn't really. The only cases where I can think of using this word is maybe when you're texting your friend and you playfully challenge them to a fight. This is definitely a word among the younger generation, though!

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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 a good reason. If you do, you are "backstabbing" someone.

Koreans also have this code of honour, but their expression is a bit peculiar.

The back of our heads is called "뒤통수" in Korean.  The etymology is not totally clear, although "뒤" is a Korean word for "back," and "수" is Chinese for "head." The letter "통" is a bit confusing, and no good explanation seems to exist. But "통" in Korean means "a container," and I guess that's what our heads are!

This is your 뒤통수.

The back of our heads is a pretty awkward thing to try to protect. There really aren't any good ways to do that. We also know that it's a pretty important part of our body, because if you fall backwards and hit your head, you're definitely looking at a lengthy recovery, assuming that it didn't kill you first!

If someone hit you in the back of your head, then

1. you were not expecting an attack like that at all, and
2. it really hurt.

So, when someone cruelly backstabs you in a way that you didn't expect at all, say your little brother decided to tattle on your mom about your secret stash of games that you were forbidden to play, then you might say:

어제 동생한테 뒤통수 맞았어 (My little brother hit me in the back of the head yesterday.)

And your little brother is probably telling his friends all about how he got you in trouble by saying:

어제 우리 형 뒤통수쳤어 ㅋㅋ (Yesterday I hit my older brother in the back of his head.)

This is a fairly common and accepted expression across all generations in Korea. Now, you can try to add a touch of vulgarity by changing the word "뒤통수." It's a three-letter word, which reminds us of a Korean name (for example, 권지용, Ji-Yong Kwon, is a typical Korean name, and it has three characters.) If you wanted to call this name in an informal, familiar name, then you omit the last name "권" (Kwon) and just call the person by their first name "지용."

You can do the same thing with the three-letter word "뒤통수." Just pretend that "뒤" is a last name, and "통수" is the first name. Instead of saying "뒤통수 맞다 (be hit in the back of the head)," you could try to say "통수 맞다," or "통수 치다." While the meaning is clear to everyone, now this becomes an expression that you want to use with your friends, and probably not with your boss.

This kind of construction has almost identical nuance as saying bro instead of brother, or 'rents instead of parents, although I'd say that the degree of vulgarity added by omitting a syllable is a bit harsher in Korean.

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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 (and thus, tigers are almost always described as antagonists in folklore), Koreans also likened themselves to tigers, by asserting that the Korean peninsula looks like a crouching tiger (a 무리수, if you ask me!)

And later, during the Japanese occupation era, the Japanese did not like this comparison, and their historians started asserting that the Korean peninsula looks like a rabbit. We are mature, no?

If beliefs are the food necessary for the survival of mythical beings, the tiger-demons would be the first mythical beings that survive to this day, as many Koreans swear having encountered the tiger-demon. The Korean internet seems to be flooded with true stories (or at least, what the netizens swear to be true stories!) of these strange encounters.

First of all, the standard Korean word for a tiger is "호랑이." This word actually comes from Chinese. But there is also a pure Korean word for a tiger, which is "범." To most Koreans, these two words are completely synonymous.

However, if you ask your grandparents, they might tell you that a 호랑이 and a 범 are two completely different creatures. While a 호랑이 is just a normal tiger, the elders often claim that a 범 is a demonic being that is much more sinister than a 호랑이. This 범 is most often seen in the 장산 area near Busan, so people often call this demon "장산범" or "tiger of 장산."

First of all, a 장산범 does not look like a regular tiger. It is covered with long, flowy white fur, much like the silky hair of a woman, and bright blue eyes that glow in the dark. It is said that once you look into its eyes, you will be so mesmerized that you won't be able to run away. It is extremely fast, and usually uses all four limbs to move (people describe the movement as "awkward crawling"), although it is capable of standing in its two hind legs. It is capable of mimicking sounds of all kinds.

Several people who claim to have met a 장산범 sketched the pictures of the beast; surprisingly, many of them look very similar! Coincidence?

What makes a 장산범 terrifying is that it seems to have some magical powers. Once a person is eaten by a 장산범, his soul is trapped by the tiger-demon. His soul then lives near the jaw of the tiger-demon, and it must aid the tiger-demon in finding other prey before being released from the indenture. This enslaved soul is called a "창귀" in Korean, and it often leads the tiger-demon to the homes of the people that it used to know when it was alive. (the letter "창" means "to go insane," and the letter "귀" means "ghost." That's pretty dark, no?)

When a tiger arrives at the door to the house of its prey, the 창귀 will call out people's name in the most moving voice you can imagine. It pleads with you and it evokes such feelings of longing that people cannot help but answer to this call. However, if you do answer, you will fall under the spell of the tiger-demon, and you will not be able to resist going outside to meet the tiger-demon, and be eaten. However, the 창귀 can only call out your name three times, so it is said that even today, people living in a deserted mountainous area will only answer once their name is called a fourth time.

There are many stories on the internet, but here is a short one by an anonymous Korean internet user. I've translated it, but it is edited somewhat from the Korean version, to get rid of the unnecessary detail. If you'd like to read the full, original Korean version of the story, it is posted on my Twitter account.

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When my mom was young, she took her younger brother (my uncle) to the next town over. She lost track of time because she was having too much fun, and she only started on her way home when the sun has almost set.

My mom lived in a small village in the countryside, so there was a significant distance between villages, so she had to hike over a small hill (now, that village is too deep inside a mountain for people to live, but I've seen the village on my way fishing). At least because of the development plan by the government, there was a clear path between the two villages.

While she was walking on the path holding onto my uncle's hand, she felt something scatter and land around her feet. ("툭" is the Korean onomatopoeia; I'm not sure what the English equivalent would be). When she looked down, it looked like some sort of topsoil had been thrown at her feet.

But she lived in a rural village, so it wasn't unusual that there was dirt on the road, so she kept on walking with her brother. But after only a few steps, she felt the soil being scattered around her feet again. Only then did she remember what her mother had told her:

"There is a beast named 장산범. It will sometimes appear to the lone travelers on the mountain paths and throw dirt at them, so that they will look up and lock eyes with it. Once you look into its eyes, you will fall under its powers (the Korean verb is "홀리다," like how the vixen can also put you under her spell!) so never look in the direction where the dirt came from."

Remembering this, she told her brother to never look around and look straight ahead, but from the corner of her eyes, she could see a white figure following them behind the trees. It would run for a few steps, pause, and throw dirt. Then it would run a few more steps, pause, and throw more dirt, and it followed my mom and my uncle until the end of the mountain path.

My mom thinks that it hesitated to attack right away because there were two people, so it tried to put them under its magic by trying to get them to look into its eyes. When I first heard the story, I laughed it off, but my mom is usually very serious and doesn't joke around much, so I am forced to believe at least some parts of the story. Plus, it agrees with most of the other accounts on the internet!

Back then, my mom lived in 주촌 of 김해, which is still a very rural village which bases its economy on agriculture and pottery.

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Whether the Koreans believe stories of this kind in earnest, I don't know. But you will certainly find people who will swear that they have seen a 장산범 at some point in their lives, and you will find yet more people who are willing to listen to these stories and pretend to believe. Why the 도깨비 and the 여우 seem to have fallen into the realm of folklore while 장산범 still has some foothold in the Korean culture, I do not know. Perhaps it just survived by the virtue of a lucky draw. But perhaps it is due the Korean reluctance to part with the idea of a tiger, as they want to believe that Korea is ultimately a country much like a tiger.

This story is also fascinating to me for a completely different reason. Although there are many well-known beings in the Western mythology as well, if someone walks into the room and announces that they saw a vampire, or a leprechaun, they will likely meet with snickers and sarcasm. On the other hand, there are a few mythical beings that the Koreans can claim to have seen, and still have a sympathetic audience. To me, this shows that traces of shamanism are still present in the Koreans' lives.

As long as it doesn't interfere with your day-to-day life, and as long as it is not hurting anyone, a touch of mythology, and a touch of the belief in the magical beings doesn't really seem so bad to me. On the contrary, it adds a new dimension to their lives, and it keeps life a little bit more interesting.

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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 ID is 패스트 -- the DC Inside users call each user "갤로거" which is the DC Inside equivalent of a "Redditor") discusses the subject of "스포," which comes from the English word "Spoilers" or "스포일러" in Korean. The Koreans often choose to abbreviate by using the first two letters only. The act of giving out spoilers is written in Korean as "스포하다." When you want to say "spoiler alert" the Koreans will say "스포주의" and so on.

Anyway, here is the translation of the above post:

Title: 스포하는게 뭐가 나쁘냐?
(What's so bad about giving out spoilers?)

Body:
친구: 야 나 오늘 XX 보러가.
Friend: Hey, I'm going to go see XX today.

나: 어 그러냐? 잘보고와라.
Me: Oh yeah? Have fun. [By the way, this way of speaking is very masculine. Women almost never conjugate their sentences with -냐 or -라; they would have instead said: "아 그래? 잘보고와."]

바로 집에가서 네이버에 검색해서 결말 알아낸다음에 친구한테 문자해주면
Then I go home and search on Naver (Korean equivalent of Google) to find out the ending and text my friend

애들이 되게 좋아하던데
Then my friends really like it

니들은 스포당하면 싫음?
 But you don't like spoilers?

흠 이상하네
Hmm strange.

So for whatever reason, the poster is convinced (or maybe he is trolling; I am also calling the above poster a "he" and not "she" because the way the verbs are conjugated strongly suggests that the speaker is male) that everyone he knows likes spoilers.

Of course, the people reading this post are outraged, and now they must think of a clever comeback. A user whose ID is "산고양이" (mountain cat) manages to do just that. He says:

너네 엄마가 애가졌을때 니가 태어날꺼라고 알려줬었어봐라
Suppose (-어봐라) that your mom was told (알려줬-) that you would be (-거라고) born when (-을때) she was pregnant (애가졌다).

엄마가 어떤 기분일까
How do you suppose (-일까) that she would have felt?

And this kind of witty comeback is definitely something that the Koreans love to hear. It's vicious, it's personally insulting, and it's very fitting to the situation (You like spoilers? Let's see how your mom likes the spoilers about you!) There's also a certain amount of rudeness, because calling a mother who is not your own an "엄마" is not really acceptable unless you're a child.

So the other spectators compliment "산고양이" by calling his remark a "파워드립" or "powerful ad-lib." Note that the original poster, 패스트, has also responded, saying "산고양이 너 센데?" or, "you're a pretty strong opponent." Clearly he is not offended, although if he heard that in real life he probably would be. Korean internet is definitely a strange place!

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