Why are Korean Names Two Syllables?

(To read more about Korean names, here is a list of all posts related to Korean names.)

Dear Korean,

I want to know what the deal with the two syllable names. After almost 8 months of teaching and living here in Korea 99.9% of the names I come across are two syllable names. Why the two syllables all the time? And why is it ok to break that rule sometimes?

Jo-Anna

Jo-Anna is correct that most Korean names are two syllables, like, for example, Jin-yeong [진영]. Why the two syllables? 

Actually, this question was partially answered in the previous post that explained dollimja [돌림자]. To recap: generally, Koreans follow a convention in which they use one of the syllables to signify the generational level, and the other syllable is given as the "true" name. Thus, a traditional Korean "given" name ends up being two syllables: one to show your generational level, the other your "true" name.

Dollimja tradition is somewhat weakened today, but the convention for two syllables stayed. For Koreans, it just looks normal for a given name to have two syllables. So even in case of a given name that do not follow the dollimja system, Koreans tend to name their children with two syllables. For example, purely Korean names, by definition, do not follow dollimja, because dollimja requires Chinese characters. Yet even Korean people with purely Korean names tend to have two-syllable first names. (E.g., Ha-neul [하늘] or Na-rae [나래]).

Deviation from this rule can come in two forms: a single-syllable given name, or a given name with 3+ syllables. Single-syllable name is generally still in the dollimja framework. Certain clans (e.g. Yangcheon Heo [양천 허씨]) consciously reject the "generational syllable," and name their children with a single syllable. Certain others name their firstborn son with the generational syllable only (without a "true" name,) to signify that the child is the first of the generation.

On the other hand, given names with 3+ syllables--which are extremely rare--are almost always a result of the parent's attempt to use a purely Korean word. For example, in 1997 there was a notorious kidnap-murder case involving an 8-year-old girl. Although a murder of an 8-year-old is a sensational news under any circumstance, the murdered girl's name was so unusual that it stayed with Korean public's consciousness like the way Jon-Benet Ramsay's name stayed with American public consciousness. The girl's name? Take a deep breath: 박초롱초롱빛나리, a given name with whopping seven syllables.

Interestingly, because the two-syllable convention is so strong, even Koreans with 3+ syllable given names are usually compelled to use a two-syllable nickname. (For example, in a lot of official forms in Korea, there are only two spaces to fill out one's first name.) The murdered 8-year-old was also known as 박나리, taking the last two syllables of her name.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Your One-Stop Guide to Korean Dialects

Dear Korean,

Could you give us a primer on the dialects of South Korea's provinces/areas?

Cactus McHarris 

Certainly! Korea is known as a very homogeneous country, and to some degree it is true. It has been a single country for thousands of years, and it is mostly comprised of a single ethnicity. Yet in other respects, Korea has a great deal of regional variations across the peninsula--and regional dialects are a great window into those variations.

Before we get started: if you cannot read Korean characters, it would make sense to review this post, which provides an overview of how to read Korean alphabet.

First, we should get a sense of how regions are divided in Korea. By "regions," the Korean means a sub-area within the country that is recognized to have similar dialects, cuisines and culture. (E.g. the American South, Japan's kansai.) Let's take a look at this map.

(source)

This map shows Korea's administrative districts, which roughly correlates with Korea's cultural regions. Broadly speaking, there are six regions in Korea:  Seoul/Gyeonggi, Gangwon, Chuncheong, Yeongnam, Honam and Jeju. Seoul is the city in the center of Korean Peninsula, in blue; Gyeonggi is the province that surrounds it, colored in olive. Gangwon is the large province to the east of Gyeonggi, colored in tan.

Chungcheong region is in the immediate south of Gyeonggi, and encompasses the two provinces (i.e. Chungcheongbuk-do and Chungcheongnam-do) colored in orange and red. Moving further south, Honam refers to the two provinces of Jeollabuk-do and Jeollanam-do, colored in light and dark purple. Yeongnam refers to the two provinces to the east to Honam, i.e. Gyeongsangbuk-do and Gyeongsangnam-do (colored in light green and yellow.) Finally, Jeju is the large island south of Honam, colored in blue.

Each region of Korea displays a great deal of variation in food, temperament, manners, politics and language, in the form of dialects. We will take a look at the dialects of each region in turn, after the jump. Please be mindful that this is a broad overview, rather than the most precise description. Warning -- unless you have basic knowledge of Korean, much of the rest of the post will be gibberish.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Ten Most Influential Korean Movies

Dear Korean,

What are the ten most influential Korean movies?

Sam J.

This highly worthy question has been languishing for years in the Korean's inbox for one simple reason: the Korean is not a big movie person. Sure, he likes movies, and Korean movies. But he cannot write about Korean movies in a way that he could write about, say, Korean pop music.

When in doubt, call in the experts. Pierce Conran, with his blog Modern Korean Cinema, has been providing an excellent resource for devotees of Korean movies abroad, with movie reviews, box office figures and discussions about contemporary issues in Korean movies. And he graciously agreed to enlighten the readers with his top 10 list.

So without further ado, here is Mr. Conran's top 10 most influential Korean movies, after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Good Korean Beer is Just Around the Bend

The Korean just returned from another trip to Korea, and he is ready to make a bold prediction:  good beer from Korea is just around the bend.

If the Korean were asked to pick the most significant change in Korea in the past five years, he has an easy winner:  coffee. In the last five years, Korea's coffee went from the range of terrible-to-average, to the range of average-to-pretty-darn-good. To be sure, coffee in Korea is still on the expensive side, easily topping KRW 5,000 for a cup of good drip coffee. But five years ago, good coffee was simply unavailable in Korea, regardless of the price. Starbucks was the only option for a decent cup of coffee, and for many, Starbucks stretches the definition of "a decent cup of coffee."

Not so today. Coffee in Korea, and especially in Seoul, compares favorably to any large American city associated with good coffee. The Korean would dare say that coffee in Seoul is head and shoulders better than coffee in Washington D.C., where he lives. The coffee quality improved outside of Seoul as well. The Korean was able to get a solid cup of espresso near his grandmother's small town, where, just 20 years ago, the Korean Grandmother lived in a house without indoor plumbing. This progress was so remarkable that the Korean came up with a hypothesis connecting liberal education and the progress of coffee.

Korea's beer is ready to make a similar leap. If Korea's coffee was terrible-to-average five years ago, Korea's beer was abominable-to-tolerable just a year ago. The state of beer in Korea was so awful that the Economist took note:  "brewing remains just about the only useful activity at which North Korea beats the South."

But that is about to change. As the Economist noted, a large part of the problem was the governmental regulations that enabled the duopoly of Hite-Jinro and OB in Korean beer market. Together, the two companies hold more than 96% of Korea's market share for beer. However, responding to the Economist article, Korea's National Assembly will soon pass a series of legislation that will slash down those regulations so that microbrewers in Korea will face lower taxes to import the ingredients for beer and distribute the final product. Currently, a brewer must have a minimal capacity to produce 120,000 litres of beer in order to apply for a wholesale license. The new law will halve the minimum required capacity. Also, brewers currently face 72% tax; for microbrewers only, the tax will be lowered to 30%.

Korean people's taste for beer is ready for the change as well. Five years ago, even the imported bottled beer selection was limited to Budweiser, Miller and Heineken, save a few hip bars. Now, regular grocery stores in Korea carry Warsteiner and Hoegaarden. In trendy parts of Seoul, it is not difficult to find a selection of craft beer that would make the hipster bars of Lower East Side green with envy. The logical next step is good local brews, and there are several Korean microbrewers ready for the challenge, such as 7brau and Kapa Brewery. The infrastructure of establishing more microbreweries and distributing different kinds of beer--such as wholesale of brewing equipments--is also taking root as we speak.

So, the prediction: in five years, the beer scene in Korea will be nothing like the one we see today. It will have a diverse selection of interesting beers, brewed in Korea. The revolution is well on its way; when it is completed, you will hardly remember that Korea once was a beer wasteland.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.