Fun With Konglish and a Concerning Development

Instead of doing what I should be doing, which is writing lesson plans and emailing friends (and telling you about last weekend which will inevitably go down as forgotten since I'm obviously not going to tackle that goal), I've decided that it's more important to share with you highlights from my recently gained list of Konglish words and their translations. This is the kind of thing that cracks me up when I read it. I'm sitting there for a hot minute trying to decipher some Korean sign and it turns out to be an English(esque) word. A lot of times, it doesn't mean what you'd think it meant, or it's a bastardization of an English word. It's kind of like it's own Asian version of ebonics. The following is a direct translation of the Hangeul, and keep in mind that these are real live Korean words we're dealing with here, so don't pull the pin out unless you plan on throwing it at someone evil. So, here we go:

더치페이-Dutchee pay - You can guess what this is. Is your date ugly and the toilet isn't situated coveniently by the exit? Just say "Dutchee pay" and you'll save a little cash by going Dutch.

파마-Pama - Perms are real popular in Korea. Men, women, dogs, you name it. I made a half-assed promise to my co-teacher that I'd get one before my year was up. We'll see.

글라머-Glamour - This is a full bodied, beautiful woman. It's more like "Guhlamuh" which sounds akin to the way Koreans pronounce "grammar." So, if you just call a beautiful woman Grammar, she'll be flattered. Hmm, I might actually try that.

스킨쉽-skinship - PDA or public displays of affection. I'm not even really sure how this one works. I guess your skin has a friendship?

헬스-health -a gym or a healthclub. I've seen this one in action. Well, I've seen many of these in action, but I just saw it last night so it seems like it's more fresh.

원사이드러브-One side love -a crush or infatuation. I'm pretty sure you can have a mutual crush, but I guess a lot of the times, you don't know how the other party feels.

샤프-sharp -One of my students was quizzing me on classroom Korean and she held up a mechanical pencil. Stupidly, I said 연필 (yeonpil, or pencil) and she laughed at me. Straight up. I should have known they called it a "sharp."

컨닝-cunning -When a student is cheating on a test, you can call him (usually a him) out by saying "cunning!" In Amurrica, the student would probably be more flattered than anything and continue to cheat. "You're so cunning!" I like to falsely think that I can be cunning.

리모콘- remo-con -remote control. Same goes for air conditioning: air-con.

츄리닝-training -a track suit. Apparently, simply wearing the track suit is a perfectly acceptable way to get into shape or get better at a sport.

아이쇼핑-eye shopping -window shopping. We've run into this one before on World Class Flaneur. On a previous episode, Mr. Lee took me eye shopping. I didn't realize it was actually a Korean word until recently.

Now I need to talk to you about a serious problem in Daegu. Put your game face on. Hard hitting stuff. Front page news. Last week, a 50 year old public school foreign teacher got caught molesting children. We don't need to go into how despicable that is in itself. On that we can all agree. The dude touched elementary school children, and then quickly "resigned" and fled to Japan before the authorities could catch him. Why they would even mention his resignation baffles me. Did they let him resign? There's more holes in this than in the JFK assassination. What I want to talk to you about is the parallels between this and the 9/11 aftermath.
I am not here to make light of the tragedy that happend on 9/11. I'm talking about the reaction to it. The news broke on Monday and the guy fled on Sunday. Tuesday, I learned about it and everyone was freaking out. The DMOE sent all Native teachers a letter, which was well worded and attempting to stay positive. My school is getting CCTVs installed. Teachers have to wear name badges to identify themselves. Doors will be locked. Teachers will take turns patrolling school halls. Police have started appearing on my morning walk to school. There will be papers to sign, DMOE checks to have, and a lecture to be given on codes of conduct.

I understand their reaction. Nobody wants their children to be unsafe. But, they do criminal background checks for a reason, and there really is no way of anticipating how each teacher will act once in Korea. It's the nature of the beast. Unfortunately, it happens. However, what I am going through is a trickle of an inconvenience compared to what those poor children went through. I can't imagine how they feel. It's really terrible that someone would even think about that. Anyway, sorry to begin the post on a light note and end it in a downer, but hey, I'm no writer for the Korea Herald. Keep it real, y'all. It's weekend time.