What do 객 (客), 객 (喀), and 객 (䘔) all have in common?

 ANSWER: They are the only 객's in the Korean language.

The Chinese character 客 (객) means "a guest," but it can also mean "extra," superfluous," or "uncalled for." And 喀 (객) and 䘔 (객) both mean "to vomit" or "to spit," though the character 䘔 (객) suggests vomiting "blood" (血 혈).

Here are some interesting Korean words with the character 客 in them:

• 객식구 (客食口) a hanger-on
• 객설 (客說) or 객소리 (客소리) useless or idle talk
• 객귀 (客鬼) the ghost of a man who died while staying abroad
• 객기 (客氣) ill-advised bravery or rashness
• 객년 (客年) last year
• 객담 (客談) idle talk
• 객동 (客冬) last winter
• 객랍 (客臘) last December
• 객비 (客費) "wasteful expenses" or "travel expenses"
• 객사 (客死) to die in a foreign land
• 객수 (客水) "unwanted rain," "unwanted water," or "water drunk at times other than meal times (extra water?)." By the way, in China (水客 수객) can mean "smuggler," "boatman," "fisherman," or "itinerant trader."
• 객수 (客愁) homesickness 
• 객월 (客月) last month
• 객정 (客情) a traveler's lonely feelings
• 객중 (客中) on one's journey, in transit
• 객쩍다 (客쩍다) to be uncalled for, be out of place
• 객추 (客秋) last autumn
• 객춘 (客春) last spring
• 객토 (客토) the soil brought from another place (to improve the soil to which it is brought)
• 객향 (客鄕) a strange land
• 객회 (客懷) homesickness, nostalgia

And here is one Korean word with the character 喀 (객) in it:

• 객혈 (喀血) to spit (cough up) blood, a hemorrhage of the lungs

I did not list all of the Korean words with 객 (客) in them, but I think that is enough to show that the 객 sound in any Korean word comes from either the Chinese characters 客, 喀, or  䘔. And that means, as far as I know, that there are no pure Korean words with the sound 객 in them.

After writing this, I feel a little thirsty, so now I think I will drink some 객수 (客水).

Does 馬脚 (마각) mean "horse's foot" or "horse's leg"?

 ANSWER: Well, in Korea, 馬脚 (마각) means "horse's (馬) leg (脚)," but in China, it means "a horse's foot" or "hoof," though there seems to be some confusion since 脚 (각) can mean both "leg" and "foot" in certain regions of China.

I have read, however, that in Mandarin Chinese, 脚 (각) is usually used to mean "foot" or "feet," such as in 小脚 (소각), which literally means "small (小) feet (脚)," and 大脚 (대각), which literally means "big (大) feet (脚)." In China, the word 小脚 (소각) refers to "bound feet," feet that have been deformed by the old Chinese practice of binding women's feet to make them look smaller. Women with small feet were considered to be more beautiful in ancient China. And the word 大脚 (대각) refers to "naturally formed feet," which apparently were considered to be ugly for a woman.

There seems to be two Chinese words for "foot-binding." One is 裹脚 (과각) and the other is 纏足 (전족) and both of them literally mean "to wrap or package (裹/纏) feet (脚/足)." The Chinese character 足 (족) can also mean "foot" and is the character that Koreans prefer to use for "foot." So, Koreans usually use the Sino-Korean word 전족 (纏足) to refer to "foot-binding."

Anyway, the idiom 마각을 드러내다 literally means "to show or expose horse feet" or "a horse foot" but is used to mean "to reveal one's true character," seemingly in a negative way. So, 마각 (馬脚) can mean either "horse feet" or "one's true character."

I have read that the expression 마각을 드러내다 comes from a story about the wife of the founder of China's Ming Dynasty. Her family name was supposedly 馬 (마), which is also the character used to mean "horse." Ms. Ma supposedly had "big feet" (大脚), meaning that her feet had not been bound and deformed when she was a child. Ms. Ma was ashamed of her unbound feet because only ugly women had unbound feet in ancient China. Therefore, Ms. Ma always tried hide her "big feet," probably by wearing long gowns. However, one day while getting out of a carriage, Ms. Ma's "big feet" were exposed, revealing her secret or "true character" to the public, which supposedly caused people to start referring to "unbound feet" as 馬脚 (마각).

However, the story does not make sense to me. First, why would the founder of the Ming Dynasty marry a woman with "big feet"? Second, feet that have been deformed by binding look more like "horse feet" than feet that are naturally formed. So, I think that Ms. Ma probably had bound feet, not unbound feet, and that on that day she forgot to put on her fancy shoes before getting out of her carriage, thereby exposing her deformed "horse feet" to the public.

Does 재봉도구통 mean "housewife"?

 ANSWER: Well, according to my Korean-English dictionary it does.

재봉 means "sewing," and 도구통 can translate as "tool kit." So, instead of  재봉도구통 meaning "housewife," wouldn't a better translation be "sewing kit," unless it is also used as some kind of slang expression? Korean does have a lot of crazy slang, but "a housewife" is actually English slang for "a sewing kit."

By the way, why did they translate 여자는 as "She" in the example sentence 여자는 재봉을 잘한다? I would have translated 여자는 as "Women," but if a previous sentence had mentioned a particular man, then I guess 여자는 could be referring to a particular woman. In other words, "She" could have been used to contrast a particular woman with a particular man, a man who is not good at sewing.

Finally, besides meaning "professor," the word 교수 can also mean "teaching" or "instruction," which is why 재봉 교수 is translated below as "instruction in needlework." Personally, I have never met a "sewing professor."

What does 우리부부 mean, again?

 ANSWER: It literally means "my husband and wife," but . . . .

Today, I was reading my favorite Korean bathroom book when I came across the phrase "우리 부부," which literally means "my husband and wife" but is used by Koreans to mean "my spouse." I am reading this book for the third time, by the way, so I had come across the phrase before, more than 15 years ago, and then wrote about it here in this blog but today did not remember doing it, so I Googled "우리부부" and was reminded of that fact. I guess it still bothers me.

Anyway, HERE is the link to that 15-year-old post. And below are photos of my favorite bathroom book and the page in the book where "우리부부" was mentioned. I have also included a screenshot of my Google search.

Do "aliens" (외계인) know when to go to the bathroom?

ANSWER: Apparently not.

In the story below, a grandmother has "dementia" (치매), which apparently causes her to forget when to go to the bathroom, a symptom Koreans describe as "대소변을 가리지 못 하다." The word 대변 means "feces," and the word 소변 means "urine," so 대소변 can translate as "feces and urine" or "urine and feces." The word 가리다 can translate as "to choose," "to select," or "to discriminate," so 대소변을 가리지 못 하다 literally translates as "unable to discriminate urine and feces," which implies that a person does not know when to go to the bathroom. That means that a person with such a problem will go to the bathroom wherever he or she just happens to be. 

The girl in the story below, who is about to graduate middle school, talks about how her grandmother gets up in the middle of the night and turns their house into a 쑥대밭, which literally means "mugwort (쑥) and bamboo (대) field (밭)" but implies an overgrown, uncultivated plot of land or, in other words, a wasteland. Except that in this case, the girl seems to be implying that the wasteland in their house is made up of feces and urine.

The girl also talks about how her grandmother these days follows them around the house all day "whining" (칭얼대다) for them to play with her, something the girl does not remember her grandmother doing when the girl was younger. So, the girl starts to think of her grandmother as being "a strange alien being" (낯선 외계인) and wonders what happened to the grandmother she used to know, the one who used to love and take care of her and read her bedtime stories when she was a little girl. 

I like this story, and I like the way it is told, though I think the use of the word 외계인 to describe the grandmother is a little immature for a girl who is about to graduate middle school. Use of the word would make more sense if the girl were only about five or six years old. A girl in middle school should be able to understand what dementia is and what it does to people. Nevertheless, this story still brought a tear to my eye. 

 

 

What smells worse than a "rice fart" (쌀방구/쌍방귀)?

ANSWER: A "barley fart" (보리방구/보리방귀).

Koreans apparently used to believe that the more barley you ate the more you farted. They also apparently believed that your farts smelled worse if you ate rice with barley mixed in it. So Korean school kids in the past probably wouldn't have wanted to share a 2-person school desk with a poor kid who ate rice with a lot of barley in it, especially if that kid rarely washed his hair and had body odor that smelled like a "cesspool" (시궁창). In Korea, poor people used to mix barley in with their rice because barley was cheaper than rice.

Now imagine that your teacher makes you and the students in your class change "desk partners" (짝꿍) once every month. Last month the girls got to choose the boy they wanted to sit next to in class, and this month the boys are supposed to choose the girl they want to sit next to. The "barley-farter" (보리방쥐쟁이) in this class is 조수택, who works after class delivering the "evening newspaper" ( 석간신문). Which girl will he choose to sit next to, and how will that girl react?

In the past, when 조수택, who is better known as "보리방구", was assigned a new desk partner, the new partner would always ask the teacher for a different partner, but the teacher always refused until 조수택, sensing that the student didn't want to be his desk partner, asked the teacher himself if he could sit alone in the back because it would help him study better since it would give him more room to hang his bag on his chair and more room to spread out his elbows on his desk.

So, which girl in class will 조수택 choose to sit next to, and how will that girl react? The only hint that I will give you is that there are a lot of sad stories in Korea.

By the way, the adjective 멋쩍다 means "to feel embarrassed, awkward, or uncomfortable," but 멋 by itself can mean "taste," "charm," or "elegance," and "-쩍다" means "to feel" or "to have a feeling," so why does 멋쩍다 mean "to feel embarrassed or awkward" instead of "to feel charming or elegant"? I am not sure, but maybe the word 쩍다 here is a dialectical pronunciation for 적다, which can mean "few" or "little." So, maybe 멋쩍다 literally means 멋이 적다, which could translate as "lacking charm or elegance," and that would imply "awkwardness."

   

What does 습자지 mean?

ANSWER: writing paper 습자지 (習字紙) literally translates as "practice (習) characters (字) [writing] paper (紙)," which means it was writing paper used in school to practice writing Chinese characters. Apparently, students in Korea back in the 1930s, and probably earlier, were supposed to bring such writing paper with them to school. They were also supposed to pay a monthly tuition fee known as 월사금 (月謝金), which literally translates as "monthly (月) gratuity (謝金)." The Chinese character 謝 (사) means "to thank (someone)."

Anyway, today I read a Korean short story written by Paek Sin-ae (백신애), who most likely wrote it in the 1930s since she died in 1939 at the relatively young age of 31. It is a story of two 12-year-old friends (11 years old in Western age) who had to end their friendship when the father and family of one of them were forced by poverty to move to Manchuria to try to find work. It was a sad parting since both of the friends seemed to know that they would most likely never see or hear from each other again. The friend staying behind feared that his friend going to Manchuria would be killed on the road by 마적 (馬賊), which translates as "bandits on horseback." I was moved by the story, and I will definitely add it to my list of "Favorite Korean Short Stories." The Korean story is posted below:

 

What does 三國演義 (삼국연의) translate as in English?

ANSWER: "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"

三國 (삼국) means "Three (三) Kingdoms (國)," and 演義 (연의) is used in China to refer to a novel or play with an historical theme.

 

Can Koreans still read Hanja (한자)?

ANSWER: Of course, some Koreans can still read Hanja, but it seems to be mainly the older Koreans. In the video below, many of the younger Koreans seemed to have a hard time recognizing even simple Chinese characters. Many of them, for example, couldn't even read the characters 未安 (미안), which means "sorry."

What happened to the 1,800-character standard for Korean high school graduates? Is that no longer a standard or a goal in Korea? Is learning Chinese characters in Korea now as unpopular as learning Latin is in the United States?

   

Why did Korea create the character 㔔, a character not used anywhere else but in Korea?

ANSWER: Because Koreans apparently needed a character to represent the Korean sound /덩/.

 But why would 㔔 represent the sound /덩/ instead of the sound /강/, given that its component character 加 is pronounced /가/, not /더/?

ANSWER: Because they used the pronunciation of the pure-Korean "meaning" of 加 (가), not the pronunciation of 加, and the pure-Korean meaning of 加 in 더, which means "more." And then they just needed to add the /ng/ sound of the Hangeul letter "ㅇ" to the character 加 to represent the Korean sound /덩/.

 But instead of 加 (가), why didn't they just use a Chinese character that is pronounced /더/ as the component character?

ANSWER: Because there is no Chinese character that is pronounced /더/.

   

What do "Ants (螞蟻 마의) Climbing a Tree (上樹 상수)" look like?

ANSWER: Delicious

Why do the Chinese call this dish "Ants (螞蟻 마의) Climbing a Tree (上樹 상수)"?

ANSWER: Because when they hold up the noodles with their chopsticks, they think that the ground beef that is stuck to each noodle looks like ants climbing up a tree (the noodle).

The Chinese have not only interesting food but also interesting food names.

What does 結束 (결속) mean?

 ANSWER: It depends. In China, 結束 (결속) means "to end," "to finish," or "to conclude," but in Korea, it means "union," "unity," or "solidarity."

I am not sure if it was China or Korea, but one of them has screwed up.

When would a Chinese person say "丫"?

ANSWER: When a doctor is looking in his or her mouth.

Doctor: "Open (張開 장개) mouth (嘴巴 취파) [and] say (說 설) 'Ahh' (丫 아)."

What does the Korean word 콘서트 mean in English?

ANSWER: 콘서트 is the transliteration of the English word "concert."

The Sino-Korean word for "music concert" is 음악회 (音樂會), which can literally translate as "sound" (音) enjoying (樂) meeting (會)," but Koreans also use the transliterated word 콘서트 to mean "music concert."

Though Koreans seem to use word 음악회 (音樂會) to mean just "music concert," they seem to use the transliterated word 콘서트 to mean both "music concert" and "lecture." I wonder why.

Besides meaning "sound," the character 音 (음) can also mean "talk," so 음악회 (音樂會) could also literally translate as "a talk (音) enjoying (樂) meeting (會)," which could describe "a lecture." 

It is interesting that the following video clip from the TV series "Young Sheldon" equates "a concert" with "a lecture" since Koreans sometimes also do that, though usually just in book titles. In fact, I am kind of getting tired of seeing Korean book titles with the word "콘서트" in them.

Below is a photo of a book I have that is entitled 과학 콘서트, which literally translates as "A Science Concert" but which really means "A Science Lecture," a book in which the author explains and answers questions about "Science."

I hope you have enjoyed my brief "concert" on the word "콘서트."

What does 太平間 (태평간) mean in China?

ANSWER: I don't want to tell you right now, but I will give you a hint. 太平間 (태평간) literally means "a very (太) peaceful (平) room (間)." To find out what that means, you need to read the story below.

 

一(일)位(위)醫(의)生(생)在(재)做(주)完(완)急(급)診(진)後(후)已(이)是(시)午(오)夜(야), 正(정)準(준)備(비)回(회)家(가).

When a doctor finishes his shift in the emergency room, it is already midnight as he prepares to go home.

走(주)到(도)電(전)梯(제)門(문)口(구), 見(견)一(일)女(여)護(호)理(리)師(사), 便(편)一(일)同(동)乘(승)電(전)梯(제)下(하)樓(루).

He walks to the elevator entrance and sees a female nurse. They then take the elevator down together.

可(가)電(전)梯(제)到(도)了(료)一(일)樓(루)還(환)不(불)停(정), 一(일)直(직)向(향)下(하).

But when the elevator arrives at the first floor, it doesn’t stop and still continues downward.

到(도)了(료)B3時(시)門(문)開(개)了(료)電(전)梯(제)門(문)開(개)了(료).

When it arrives at sublevel 3, and the elevator door opens.

一(일)個(개)小(소)女(여)孩(해)出(출)現(현)在(재)他(타)們(문)眼(안)前(전)低(저)著(저)頭(두)說(설)要(요)搭(탑)電(전)梯(제).

A little girl appears in front of them and, with her head lowered, she says she wants to get on the elevator.

醫(의)生(생)見(견)狀(상)急(급)忙(망)關(관)上(상)電(전)梯(제)門(문). 護(호)理(리)師(사)奇(기)怪(괴)地(지)問(문): “爲(위)什(십)麽(마)不(불)讓(양)她(타)上(상)來(래)?”

Upon seeing this, the doctor hastily closes the elevator door. Baffled, the nurse asks, “Why didn’t you let her get on?”

醫(의)生(생)說(설): B3是(시)我(아)們(문)醫(의)院(원)的(적)太(태)平(평)間(간).  醫(의)院(원)給(급)每(매)個(개)屍(시)體(처)的(적)右(우)手(수)都(도)綁(방)了(료) 一(일)根(근)紅(홍)絲(사)帶(대).她(타)的(적)右(우)手(수), 她(타)的(적)右(우)手(수)有(유)一(일)根(근)紅(홍)絲(사)帶(대).

The doctor says, “Sublevel 3 is our hospital’s morgue, and the hospital always ties a red ribbon around the right wrist of every corpse. Her right wrist, on her right wrist, there was a red ribbon.”

護(호)士(사)聽(청)了(료)漸(점)漸(점)伸(신)出(출)右(우)手(우)陰(음)笑(소)一(일)聲(성)說(설): “是(시)不(불)是(시)這(저)樣(양)的(적)一(일)根(근)紅(홍)絲(사)帶(대)啊(아)?”

Hearing this, the nurse gradually extends her right hand, and with an evil laugh asks, “Was it like this red ribbon?”