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."