What Does My Korean Name Mean?

[Series Index]

Dear Korean,

My question concerns my Korean name. The story I have been told all my life is that I was found on a street corner by a policeman in Seoul and subsequently placed in an orphanage. I was given a name and a date of birth, one of which stuck with me (the birth date), while the other (the name) was abandoned faster than a politician’s promise when I was adopted by a military family from the United States. I was adopted during a time when the philosophy was to assimilate foreign children into their new culture as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. For most of my life, it never even occurred to me that my Korean name might mean anything other than “Jane Doe.”

Recently, I was told that my name means “fate” or “destiny,” but upon a Google search, I found other meanings. I am wondering if you would be willing to set the matter straight. The romanization I was given is: Park Sook-Myung.

Rebekah M.

Believe it or not, this is one of the most common types of question that the Korean would receive: Korean Americans, usually adoptees, asking about the meaning of their Korean name. Although the Korean previously dealt with this issue several times, it wouldn't hurt to go over this one more time and have a post that is more explicitly focused on the name meanings.

Here is the short answer to Rebekah: there is no way to know the meaning of your name unless we know the Chinese characters behind your name.

Let's first get a sense of Korean language generally. Remember this important point: (classical) Chinese is to Korean is Latin is to English. Just like many English words have a Latin origin, many Korean words have a Chinese origin. Those words are called Sino-Korean. As is the case with English, Korean words that are on the more sophisticated side tend to be Sino-Korean.

For example, the word "boxer" originates from Middle English; the word "pugilist," which means the same but is usually used in a higher-level discourse, originates from Latin. Similarly, for example, Koreans may use the pure Korean word 아기 ("baby") to refer to a young child, in an everyday conversation. But in legal documents, Koreans are more likely to use the Sino-Korean word 영아 ("infant"). Because 아기 is a pure Korean word, one cannot write this word using Chinese characters. But because 영아 is a Sino-Korean word, one can write this word using Chinese characters, like so:  嬰兒.

Importantly, most Korean names are Sino-Korean, which means they use Chinese characters. To be sure, some babies are given purely Korean names, such as 하늘 (Haneul, "sky") or 나래 (Narae, "wings"). But these names tend to be the minority: depending on the year, between 3 and 9 percent of the babies are given purely Korean names. In all other instances, Korean names are Sino-Korean words. This means that, for most Korean names, one cannot know their meaning unless one also knows the Chinese characters behind them. This becomes even truer because a single Korean syllable does not correspond one-on-one to a single Chinese character. Instead, it is very common for a dozen different Chinese characters to have the same sound in Korean.

For example, let's take the syllables "sook" (숙) and "myung" (명) from Rebehak's name. Here are just some of the Chinese characters that are pronounced as "sook" in Sino-Korean: 淑 (to be clear); 宿 (to sleep); 肅 (to be somber); 熟 (to be cooked); 叔 (uncle); 夙 (early); 琡 (jade); 菽 (bean). Similarly, here are the Chinese characters that are pronounced as "myung" in Sino-Korean: 明 (bright); 命 (life); 名 (name); 鳴 (to cry); 銘 (to engrave); 冥 (to be dark); 螟 (inchworm); 皿 (dish; vessel); 酩 (to be drunk).

(Note: the Chinese language does a much better job at distinguishing these characters because the Chinese language is tonal. Centuries ago, Korean language used to be tonal as well--which probably helped navigating the Sino-Korean words. But today, Korean language only has the tiniest vestiges of tones, most of which are unnoticed even by Koreans themselves.)

Because there are so many possibilities, it is nearly pointless to ask: "my Korean name is 'Sook-Myung.' What does 'Sook-Myung' mean?" Unless one actually knows the Chinese character behind "sook" and "myung", it is not possible to say what the name means exactly. It can mean anywhere between "clear and bright," "dark jade" and "drunk bean." Like Rebehak pointed out, "Sook-Myung" can mean "destiny," if one wrote the word with these Chinese characters: 宿命.

It is possible to make an educated guess. It is very unlikely for the name "Sook-Myung" to mean "destiny," if only because Koreans customarily do not use the characters 宿命 to name a child. There are certain sets of Chinese characters that Koreans commonly use for a name--which the Korean covered in this post. Based on the commonly used characters, one can somewhat narrow down the possibilities. If the Korean was forced to guess the Chinese characters behind "Sook-Myung," he would have guessed this: 淑明, i.e. "clean and bright" or "demure and wise." (These are the same characters used in Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul.)

But even this guess is inexact, because there are also multiple commonly used Chinese characters that share the same sound. For example, the common Chinese characters for the syllable "yoon" in a Korean name can be 潤 (rich), 允 (truth) or 胤 (first-born). So the bottom line remains the same: to know what a Korean name means, one has to know the Chinese characters used for that name.

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

It’s Not Just That They All Look the Same

Dear Korean,

What is up with Korean names? My brother works front desk at a hotel in Canada which is owned by a Korean conglomerate, which leads to many Korean people staying there on business. As guests, he generally finds Koreans to be polite and trouble free, except when he must direct calls to their rooms-he says that for any given Korean name, he may have three people by that name staying in the hotel, and he has no idea which room to direct the call to. Are there just not enough suitable Korean names? Is there anything else my brother could use to direct calls properly?

Jenny B.

Dear Jenny,

The Korean appreciates your providing yet another excuse to dig into the Korean’s favorite topic – Korean names. Despite numerous posts about Korean names (try… here here and here), the Korean still has a thing or two to say about Korean names.

So why all the same names? Is this a part of Koreans’ diabolical plan to confuse the whitey? We already all look alike, so we will all give ourselves the same name to torture those hapless hotel clerks! Those silly Canadians will never know what hit them.

Just kidding. Let’s break it down a little bit, shall we? First, we all know that many Koreans have the same surname. (The Korean already covered this topic here.) Roughly 1 in 5 Koreans are Kims, 1 in 7 are Lees, and 1 in 10 are Parks. Kim, Lee, and Park put together comprise 45 percent of all Koreans. So that is one source of confusion.

(Aside: Koreans are not even close to being the worst offender in this area – approximately 40 percent of Vietnamese have the last name Nguyen.)

Korean first names could also be confusing. First, you have to understand the structure of a Korean first name. Korean first name is almost always two syllables. Those two syllables are almost always made up of two Chinese characters with distinct meanings.

(Although they are Chinese characters, Koreans pronounce them differently from the way Chinese people do. It’s akin to the way same alphabets are pronounced different across English, French, and German.)

So generally, the way Koreans name their children is to select two Chinese characters with good meanings and cool sounds, and put them together in some order. Some characters are associated with boys, some with girls, and some characters are unisex. The Korean’s own name is also unisex. (What is it, you ask? Wouldn’t you like to know.)

Just to show the Korean naming process, here are some examples:

Popular boys’ characters and meanings – Jun (excellence, hero), Seung (rise, victory), Jae (talent), Cheol (philosophical), Jin (advance), Tae (big), Seok (excellence), Hwan (brightness) etc.

Popular girls’ characters and meanings – Mi (beauty), Min (clever, smart), Ah (grace), So (serene), Suk (demure), Hee (joy), Eun (silver, grace), Bin (brilliance), Hye (grace) etc.

Popular unisex characters and meanings – Jeong (pure, correct), Hyeon (wisdom), Su (excellence), Sang (high official), Yun (brilliance), Hyo (filial), Yeong (glory), Seong (success), Ji (wisdom), Kyeong (capital, top) etc.

So let’s name some Korean children! For a boy, pick two “boy” characters or one “boy” and one unisex character, and mix and match. Something like Seung-Jun? (Victorious hero, also one of the Korean’s nephews’ name.) Jun-Seung is equally acceptable. Or how about Su-Cheol, an excellent philosopher? (Not a bad name for one of the most distinguished guitarists in Korea in the 1980s, Kim Su-Cheol.) Or try a girl’s name. Currently, Jeong-Ah (pure grace) is a very popular girl’s name in Korea. Or how about Su-mi, an excellent beauty who is also a world-renowned soprano (Cho Sumi)?

Please, before you write a snide comment or email, note that the Korean simplified the process by a ton. Some letters work in one position and some do not. (e.g. “Hwan” is almost always the second letter, not the first.) Some letters change sex in different positions. (Sounds dirty written that way – but e.g., Kyeong would be unisex as the first letter, but would sound feminine as the second letter.) Also, this process does not account for purely Korean names without involving any Chinese character, which are increasing in number. The Korean also skipped over Korean naming convention (dollimja), because that deserves another post.

But this process would cover most Korean names, and you can see the source of confusion. Strictly speaking, it is not very common that two Koreans have the exact same first name. (In other words, there is no exact equivalence to “John” in Korea, technically speaking.) But it is more or less the same letters floating around in different orders. Unless you are very familiar with all different renditions of them, it could get confusing.

Making this even worse for English-speakers is: because so many of your fellow English speakers cannot remember two unfamiliar sounds, a lot of Koreans drop one syllable of their first name just to make it easy for the whitey! Usually the dropped syllable is something that is hard to pronounce in English, like Seung or Hyeon. So you end up having a ton of Joon Kim or Young Park, a completely mangled Korean name that could have been Joon-Ho Kim or Joon-Seung Kim, or Young-Suk Park or Young-Hyeon Park.

So what advice could the Korean give for Jenny’s brother? The best advice is to learn the whole name of a Korean person. Just the last name or last name and the first name initial would be very unhelpful. And pay attention such that you wouldn’t mix up Min-Jeong Kim and Jeong-Min Kim. Unfamiliarity is often confusing and irritating, but hey, all immigrants do it, and they do it with a smile and minimum wage.

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

How Dare You Call Me by My Name!

Dear Korean,

I was wondering why when you first meet a Korean, you can't casually call them by their first names. I've become acquainted with this guy on a professional level and we've talked on several occasions, but he has never addressed me by my name – come to think of it, I don't think he's ever asked what it was – even though he's pretty much asked every other question about me. Is it just this weirdo or is this a common Korean code of conduct?

Confused Korean American Chick


Dear CKAC,

The person you are dealing with is certainly not a weirdo. Not calling first name is a common Korean code of conduct, particularly in a professional setting. In fact, doing otherwise is extremely rude.

Confucianism is too often used to explain away Korean culture, and the Korean thinks it is unjustifiably overused. However, at least this much is clear: Confucianism envisions a society with a clear hierarchy. Every individual in the society has a rank, determined by age, family relations, or social status. People’s interaction every day must involve signifiers that remind each person where they stand in the society. Usage of one’s name, as such, is one of the most important signifiers.

In Korean manners, being able to use someone’s first name either meant very close intimacy or extreme superiority. Therefore, relatively few people may call you by your first name. Here is the list of those people: your parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts; your older (but not younger) siblings; your close friends of the same age or older; your owner (if you are a dog, cat, or other pets, or a slave in the old days.) That’s it.

On the other hand, here is the list people who can NEVER call you by your first name: your younger siblings; your children, nephews, nieces; your in-laws, regardless of age; your co-workers, regardless of rank; anyone who is younger than you, regardless of how close they are to you.

How would these people call you? For families and extended families, there is a particular term for each relation. For example, the Korean Brother (younger) has to call the Korean hyeong, the term for “a man's older brother”. (Although he rare does nowadays - the Korean Brother has gotten uppity ever since the Korean Family moved to America.) The Korean Sister-in-Law (older) has to call the Korean doryeonnim, the term for “a woman’s younger brother-in-law.” Yes, it’s that specific – men and women have different terms for each position in the family tree.

For people met through professional acquaintance, the correct term is to use the person’s last name, followed by his rank or profession. Thus, if you are a manager (bujang) whose last name is Kim, you would be called Kim bujang-nim. (nim is an honorific, which makes the whole thing translate to “Manager-Sir/Madam Kim”.) If you are an owner of a store whose last name is Kwon, you would be called Kwon sajang-nim. (sajang means “owner of a business,” so you are being called “Owner-Sir/Madam Kwon”.)

(An aside: unlike U.S., an attorney is a respected profession in Korea. Therefore, a lawyer whose last name is Lee would be called Lee byeonhosa-nim (“Attorney-Sir/Madam Lee”). Among Korean American attorneys, a convenient acronym of BHSN is used in emails. However, what would one do in a Korean law firm to show the rank? After all, everyone in a law firm is a lawyer, but managing partner of the firm has to be differentiated somehow. Answer: at least in the case of the largest law firm in Korea, the managing partner is called “Dr. Kim” (Kim baksa-nim), so that he can be signified as being “higher” than ordinary BHSNs.)

So, here is an important piece of business etiquette in meeting Koreans. Like any other business meeting, people would shake hands and introduce each other’s first and last name, sometimes exchanging business cards. But after that, first names are not to be uttered. This is so important that the Korean will repeat again. Never, never, never, never, never, NEVER use a Korean person’s first name in a business meeting. Dropping your pants and pissing in the person’s briefcase would be only a little ruder than calling him/her by his/her first name. Recount the people in the “okay to use first name” category – they are all family or close friends, except the “dog owner” category. When you just met a person for the first time, you are neither family nor friend. So guess what calling them by their first names mean?

(However, because contemporary Koreans are familiar with Americans’ barbarian habit of calling people by their first names, it may be ok if the Korean businessperson with whom you are meeting explicitly tells you to call him/her by his/her first name.)

Here is a bonus point: the word for “you” follows the same rule as first names. So watch out for whom you call neo or dangsin – in a wrong situation, the word “you” in and of itself could be a swear word. So instead of, for example, saying “I like your idea” in a business meeting, Koreans would say “I like Kim baksa-nim’s idea” (while speaking to Kim baksa-nim, or Dr. Kim, as if they are talking about someone who is not there.)

There is one important group that was not covered – what about husbands and wives? Traditionally, they did not call each other’s names either. Instead, they called each other yeobo, the term that is still in use in modern Korea, translated as “honey” or “sweetie”. However, the etymology of yeobo is definitely not as romantic as "honey"; the term originally means, “look here”. Yup, Koreans knew all about romance.

Another traditional term is dangsin, which simply means "you", although this term is used in more intimate situations. (Almost all "you" in old Korean pop songs are dangsin, while new Korean songs tend to use neo or geudae more often for "you" -- an interesting development.) Alternatively, after having children, husbands and wives often call each other as their children’s father and mother. That is, if a child’s name is Jinyoung (a solid, unisex name), the husband may call his wife Jinyoung umma (Jinyoung’s mom), and the wife may call her husband Jinyoung appa (Jinyoung’s dad). Romance all the way, those Koreans.

However, modern times have a way of changing traditions. So while many husbands and wives still use the old terminology, still others go on a first-name basis. (Because your spouse is your best friend!) Or others retain their terminology while they dated. Thus, (because women tend to be the younger one in a relationship,) many younger wives call their husband seonbae (“class senior”, the term for anyone who went to the same school before you did,) or [first name]-ssi (“Mr. [first name]”, the catch-all term for all other ambiguous situations, often happening during dating scenarios.) Or – horror of all horrors to purists like the Korean himself – some young wives carry on calling their husbands oppa, women’s term for calling older brother or men who are a little older them.

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

More about Korean Names

Note: See another post about Korean last names here.

Dear Korean,

My mother's side of the family is from Korea. My mother always says to be very proud of my Korean last name Kim. My mother and grandmother told me our family "Kim" comes from the "An Dong Kim she." What is that supposed to mean? When I ask my grandmother she says her great grandfather was Kim An Dong. She says he was someone very famous and our family comes from the royal family. Is that true? And if so can you tell me a little about this man?

Jen D.

Dear Jen,

The Korean dearly hopes that you are no older than 12 years old, given the incredibly poor grammar through which your email was written. (The Korean fixed it up.) Bad grammar by Americans kills a little part of the Korean's soul -- the Korean spent all that effort learning English, and Americans can get away with incorrect English? (If you are indeed younger than 12, cover your eyes whenever you see a foul language on this site.)

But your question supplements a post that the Korean wrote a while back, so it's worth addressing. The effort that Korean people put into their last names truly redefines the concept of sticking with your family.

Let's start from the top. Why do we have names? Simple - for the purpose of identification. But the way in which we identify ourselves has changed drastically over time, and Korean last names are prime examples.

Now, imagine yourself being in a world two millennia older, when Korea first began. Farming was the only way to live, and you are tied to your land. Therefore, you generally live around your extended family. Nonetheless, from time to time you run into strangers. What is the way in which you identify yourself that succintly gives the maximum information of who you are? Answer: you tell who your family is. That way, you convey the information about where you live, and who you live with.

This is not exclusively a Korean phenomenon. The same process happened with Anglo last names such as Ford and Underwood. Mr. Ford used to live by a stream, and Mr. Underwood lived downhill from the wood. The difference between Mr. Ford and Mr. Kim, however, is that Mr. Kim knows exactly who the first Mr. Kim was.

In other words, each last name in Korea has one clear starting point. For example, father of all Kims is a man named Kim Suro. "Kim" originally means gold. Why gold? Because the very first Kim (really "Gim" in Korean pronunciation,) i.e. Gim Suro, was born from a golden egg.

So at first, it was possible to identify yourself as, say, Kim-ssi 5-dae-son. Ssi means Mister. (It's the same word that Jen mis-Romanized as "she". Although ssi is now used for both men and women, it only meant Mister in the old days.) Dae means "generation", and son means "offspring." So when you say "I am a Kim-ssi 5-dae-son," you are saying that "I am Mr. Kim, and I am 5th generation offspring from the very first Kim."

Simple enough? But there's more. As time passed by, clans grew and split up. Especially for a big clan like Kims, it was not enough to say "I'm in the Kim clan" -- you needed more in order to identify yourself. So people began adding the name of the region in which they clustered. Sometimes the region might be the place where the clan simply happened to live; other times, the region is a gift of land given from the king to the head of the clan. It's important to note that just like clans, each subclan has a single starting point. "Andong" is a region in southeastern Korea. So when you say you are an "Andong Kim", that means you are a Kim clan member, originally from Andong region.

Therefore, Jen, what your grandmother said does not make sense -- there is no one named "Kim Andong," as Andong is a name of a place, not a person. What she may have meant was that her great-grandfather was the very first Andong Kim, i.e. the starting point. But that doesn't make sense either, because that would make you Andong Kim-ssi 7-daeson, i.e. 7th generation Andong Kim. Right now, Andong Kim is at around 29th~31st generation. But read on, because there's more.

Even the regional designation was not enough as subclans got bigger. Currently, the largest Kim clan is Gimhae Kims, which has more than 4 million members. So people began to add sub-subclan designation, called "-pa" (literally means "branch".) "pa" is usually preceded by a name of a famous person. Imagine yourself in old Korea again. A famous person, usually a high official to the king or a distant relative of the king, gets a large tract of land and huge house. All of his family would live off that land and house. So that's another good identifier.

But there's even more!! pa could branch off even more, if it gets long enough. In such a case, the root-pa is designated as "hu". So the full Korean last name actually looks like this:

[region] [last name]-ssi [subclan]-hu [sub-sub-clan]-pa [number]-daeson.

Let's try and apply this. If the Korean were to live roughly 300 years ago, this is how he would identify himself:

Milyang Bak-ssi Gyujeonggong-hu Nakbonggong-pa 26-daeson.

Milyang is a region in southeastern Korea. Bak is usually Romanized in English as Park, and that's the Korean's regular last name. Gyujeonggong was a high official to the king, and so was Nakbonggong. The Korean himself is 26th generation offspring from Nakbonggong - i.e. Nakbonggong's grandson to the 26th power. (The Korean knows this is not exactly correct, but please don't nitpick about math. The Korean hates math.)

This allows people to count exactly how far the Korean is removed from the very first Park/Bak. For example, the first Milyang Bak, Prince Milseong, was 30 generations removed from Bak Hyeokgeose, the first Park. The first Milyang Bak Gyujeonggong-pa (Gyujeonggong himself) was 15 generations removed from Prince Milseong. The first Milyang Bak Gyujeonggong-hu Nakbonggong-pa (again, Nakbonggong himself) was 10 generations removed from Gyujeonggong when he branched off. The Korean is 26 generations removed from Nakbonggong. That makes the Korean 81 generations removed (30+15+10+26) from the very first Park.

(All those information is kept and updated in a book called jokbo, literally meaning "family book." The head of each pa is in charge of keeping and updating jokbo.)

Take a step back and think about how incredible this is. Sure, this is a sexist system, because women are not counted. Sure, modern-day Koreans mostly don't really care about tracing their clan names. But just think about it. If each generation is roughly 30 years, the Korean has the knowledge of every single grandfathers, uncles, and cousins for the last 2,400 years! Twenty-four hundred years! Can you even imagine how amazing it is to definitely know that a part of yourself can be traced to a single person who lived 24 centuries ago?

But you asked about Andong Kim. There are actually two families with the names Andong Kim. They are distinguished as Gu-Andong Kim and Sin-Andong Kim, meaning old and new Andong Kim. Both families put together produced 19 jeongseung (= Prime Minister), 6 daejehak (= National Scholar), and 3 queens during Joseon Dynasty, the most recent dysnasty of Korea before it was colonized by Japan.

The new Andong Kim family was especially powerful in the late phase of Joseon Dynasty. The queens of the three Korean kings from 1790 to 1834 were all from Andong Kim family. None of three kings was especially a strong leader, allowing their in-laws wield power by proxy. The strength of Andong Kim family survived into modern era, as it includes very prominent independence movement leaders such as General Kim Jwajin.

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

Still More about Korean Names!

[Series Index]

Dear Korean,

I noticed in quite a few cases (at least on TV) that siblings share one syllable of their name. How common is this, and what is its origin? I get the sense that it is not considered as eccentric as giving all your children names which begin with the same letter. I also noticed that close friends and family sometimes will call a person by the syllable which is not shared with the sibling. What could you tell me about that?

Andrew T.

Dear Andrew,

You, sir, know how to jump the line in AAK! -- by asking questions about one of the Korean's favorite topics, Korean names. Korea's naming conventions are elaborate and unique, and the Korean never gets tired of talking about them.

What you identified is a custom called dollimja (돌림자, "circulating letters"). To understand this custom, you have to first understand the clan names of Koreans, which is explained in this post. To summarize quickly:  Koreans can generally trace their last name all the way back to the very first person who held their last name. For example, the "Kim" clan can be traced to a single, actual person who lived around the first century. Every reputable lineage society (종친회), at least one for each last name and several for large last names like "Kim", maintains the record of the lineage and the children born into the clan. Based on that record, each Korean can precisely identify, by number, how many generation s/he is from the very first ancestor of her/his last name.

In this context, the function of dollimja is to show another person what generation level you are in. The shared letter is not just shared among siblings -- it is shared among everyone who is at the same generational level. This includes your siblings, your first cousins (because their parents belong to the same generational level as your parents,) your second cousins, etc. By the same token, your father, uncles and the parents of your second cousin would all share a syllable in their names. Also, your children and nephews would all share a syllable in their names.

This tradition has weakened somewhat in modern times, but it is still fairly strong. Formerly dollimja would only cover male heirs  -- don't forget the fact that traditional Korea was very sexist -- but now it is fairly commonplace for daughters to take the dollimja as well, when the dollimja is conducive to making girls' names as well. For example, the most famous brother-sister actor-actress pair in Korean history, Choi Jin-Sil and Choi Jin-Yeong, shared the dollimja "Jin" ("truth"). In the Korean's family, all the girls took the dollimja as well.

Dollimja is unique by clan; each clan has a line of dollimja to be used for all of its children. This necessarily means that you share the dollimja with the children of your father's brother, but not with the children of your father's sister (because those children would take the last name of your father's sister's husband.)

More after the jump.

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

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.

What do Korean Last Names Mean?

Dear Korean,

What do Korean last names mean? I mean, I know most of them come from dynasties—but what does Kim mean? Pak? Cho? And others? I can't believe they exist sui generis!

The Mexican

The Mexican strikes again!

Here in AAK!, the most important policy is that the Korean will do whatever the hell he wants with this blog. The second most important policy is this: whenever Gustavo Arellano, i.e. the Mexican, i.e. the owner of ¡Ask a Mexican! and the inspiration for this blog, sends a question to this blog, that questions gets answered as soon as possible, no matter how long the line is and no matter what the question is. That is right, the Korean has answered numerous questions about Korean names before, but what does it matter? When the granddaddy of all "Ask" blogs asks your blog a question, you answer. That's it.

So what do Korean last names mean? Let's put it this way: Korean language has a Chinese backbone, as just like English has a Latin backbone. In other words, while there are plenty of Korean words that have a stand-alone meaning in Korean, a lot of Korean words have a meaning that one must refer back to Chinese to understand -- that is, those words are Sino-Korean. Sino-Korean words tend to appear in clusters in a given word group. For example, Korean law tends to be heavily laden with Sino-Korean, just like American lawyers speak of a sui generis action that should be so obvious that it is res ipsa loquitur, for example.

Name is another area in which Sino-Korean tends to dominate. Although pure Korean names are gaining popularity in the last several decades, the overwhelming majority of Korean names are Sino-Korean. In fact, this type of questions hits the Korean's inbox fairly frequently:  I have a Korean name; what does my name mean? (In most cases, the questioners are adoptees who are attempting retrace their roots.) And usually, the Korean's answer is:  unless you know the what Chinese characters were used for your name, the Korean can't really say what your name means.

Korean last names are 100% Sino-Korean. That is, all Korean last names have an underlying Chinese character. So the meaning of Korean last names are basically the meaning of the Chinese characters underlying those last names.

Having said that, here are the ten most common Korean last names, the underlying Chinese characters, and what they mean:

• 김 [金] [Kim] - Gold.
• 이 [李] [Lee] - Plum tree.
• 박 [朴] [Park/Pak] - Magnolia tree.
• 최 [崔] [Choi] - Pinnacle.
• 정* [鄭] [Chung/Jung/Jeong] - "Zheng" (name of a Chinese kingdom.)
• 정* [丁] [Chung/Jung/Jeong] - Large nail (as in hammer and nail.)
• 정* [程] [Chung/Jung/Jeong] - To count
• 강 [姜] [Kang] - Ginger.
• 조* [曺] [Cho] - Group, companion.
• 조* [趙] [Cho] - "Zhao" (name of a Chinese kingdom.)
• 윤 [尹] [Yoon] - To rule.
• 한* [韓] [Han] - Korea.
• 한* [漢] [Han] - "Han" (name of a Chinese kingdom.)
• 임* [任] [Im] - To be in charge.
• 임* [林] [Im/Lim] - Forest

*Chung, Cho, Han and Im/Lim are interesting oddballs -- each of those last names actually has two or more different Chinese characters, which are pronounced the same way in Korean.

So there you have it, Mexican. Catch you next time.

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

Uh, No. Arirang Belongs to Korea. Thanks.

[Note: This is a reaction to Roboseyo's post, titled Nobody Owns Arirang.]

I remember the first time when I saw my family's jokbo when I was a child growing up in Korea. Jokbo means "lineage book," and it shows the flow chart of everyone who is related to me starting from the very first Korean person who shared my last name, who was born in 69 B.C.E. It was, and still is, an awe-inspiring sight. My family's jokbo is consisted of more than 30 volumes, broken down by centuries, clans and subclans. The volumes would take up two full rows of a bookcase in my grandfather's run-down house, their uniform spines forming a brick-paved road toward my origin. My grandfather would flip to his favorite pages -- dog-eared for easy reference for his show-and-tell with his grandchildren -- and point to a name. The name could be a famous scholar, general, someone I would have learned about in school history classes. After going through some dozen names like that, he would flip all the way back to the last page of the last volume. And there it was -- my name, son of my father, grandson of my grandfather, 81 generations and more than two thousand years from the fountainhead of my family.

Roboseyo, a blogger I like and respect, recently claimed "nobody owns Arirang". I disagree with his view. I begin this post with the story about my jokbo is because I sense that Roboseyo does not have my sense of connection with the past, as is typical of North Americans. I believe that once people understand the feeling of having a meaningful connection with the past, they will have an easier time understanding why Koreans and the Chinese have such significant interest in laying claim on their history and culture.

(More after the jump)

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

Culturalism, Gladwell, and Airplane Crashes

A few weeks ago, I attended a PGA golf tournament. You might think watching golf is boring, but I beg to differ: professional golf tournaments offer a chance to witness firsthand one of the amazing athletic feats in the world. 

If an ordinary weekend golfer made ten great shots in a row, that might be the best day of her golfing life. If I saw two ordinary weekend golfers making ten great shots in a row at the same time, I would start exclaiming out loud after each shot and buy a round of beer for both of them. Now, imagine watching a hundred fifty golfers playing, in a championship golf course that is designed to leave a very small margin of error. Imagine watching virtually every one of them knocking off ten great shots in a row. The good players may hit 20 or 30 great shots in a row; the best ones, 40, 50, 60 great shots. This is why a golf tournament is so exciting: it is a collective display of perfection, shown over and over and over again.

Against the backdrop of such perfection, errors become magnified. The mistakes end up drawing more attention than the shots well hit. If all three golfers in a group hit the perfect drive, such that their balls are a foot away from one another's in the middle of the fairway, the gallery would give a polite applause. But if one of the golfers shanks it into the woods, the gallery would exhale a downcast "ooh," and hurry toward the golf ball among the trees like buzzards toward a rotting carcass.

I am not an exception; watching a tournament, I also fixate on the golfers' mistakes. When I see a golfer hitting a poor shot, I take a moment trying to recreate the swing in my mind, trying to see if I could identify what went wrong. I picture the golfer making his approach to the ball; the stance; the back swing; the alignment of the club head when the back swing reaches the top; the down swing; location of the hip during the down swing; the follow-through. Then I think about the path of the ball flight, and try to identify which part of the swing contributed to the deviation from the intended path.

And then I do something peculiar. I look up which country the golfer is from. And if I happen to remember a poor shot from a different golfer of the same country, I try to see the bigger picture in addition to their respective swings. I start wondering if there is something about that country's culture that affects their golf swings. In the particular golf tournament attended, I saw two Canadian players hitting a poor shot. One golfer hit it short in the 10th hole, dropping the ball into the water. The other, in the narrow 16th hole, badly sliced the drive and ended up in the woods. Quickly, I mustered every scrap of knowledge I had about Canadian culture in my head, and I tried to connect the dots: is there something about Canadian culture that leads to poor golf shots by two different golfers at two different holes?

Just kidding--of course I am kidding. Obviously, I did not think about connecting Canadian culture and poor golf shots, nor do I ever try to connect any national culture with poor golf shots. Nobody in the right mind would do such a thing. We all know that.

But if we all know that, why do so many people do the same thing when it comes to airplane crashes?

*         *         *

(source)

This post is about the Asiana Airline's crash-landing in the San Francisco Airport last Saturday. It is also about culturalism. The term "culturalism" is my coinage, which I introduced the concept several years ago in this blog. Culturalism is the unwarranted impulse to explain people's behavior with a "cultural difference", whether real or imagined. Because the culturalist impulse always attempts to explain more with culture than warranted, the "cultural difference" used in a cultural explanation is more often imagined than real. To paraphrase Abraham Maslow, to a man with a culturalist impulse, every problem looks like a cultural problem.

Seen collectively, landing an aircraft is not unlike a golf tournament. It is not an easy task to land a giant, fast-moving tube of metal onto a small, defined target while keeping everyone inside the tube alive. Each landing of a jumbo jet may as well be a small miracle. Yet, like a golf tournament filled with the world's greatest players, air travel is a marvelous display of perfection: airplanes manage to land millions of times every year with very few accidents. (Let us be charitable to the much-maligned airline industry, and define an "accident" as something more significant than a delayed flight or lost luggage.) It is common knowledge that you are much more likely to die in the car that you drive to the airport, than in the airplane that you board at that airport. 

Perhaps we focus so much on a plane crash for the same reason that golf watchers focus more on a poor shot than a good one: it is a rare deviation from perfection. Like the golf gallery surrounding an errant ball landed among the trees, we surround and gawk at every minute detail of the latest airplane crash. We run through all kinds of scenarios about what went wrong, and talk about them. We explain, then we over-explain--which is when the culturalist impulse kicks in. Already, venerable news organizations like CNN, the Washington Post and NBC News are wondering aloud: did Korean culture contribute to this extremely rare event?

(More after the jump)

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

Best of the Worst 2010 - Part II

Keeping it going with the weird questions!  The Korean forgot how many of these there were -- looks like there will be a Part III in a few days, where the worst email of the year will be revealed. Again, these are all real emails that the Korean received, copy/pasted verbatim except for personal information.

More Heartbreaks

re: hi

hi
im sara.im iranian.im 22.i love korea.i like to be friend with a boy from korea.please

sara lopez

Iranian Latina is looking for love.

re: A Korean man’s woman

How do I know if he loves me? I just thought to throw the question out into cyberspace... Don't really expect to be heard or answered. He is Korean American but adopted by Caucasian folks. Some nights I miss him terribly... Interesting blog and appreciate your candor. He said he would meet my dad, but then I think he had cold feet. He has other women... ? I guess I am kind of ok with it... I am Taiwanese American. We are close in age. I have surrendered myself to him.

Diane L.

Funny thing about throwing the question out into cyberspace, Diane -- someone on the other end of the cyberspace is going to be hit with your crap. And then you will show up here.

re: (no subject)

Hi. My name is Michael. I have a question regarding a beautiful Korean masseusse named Mia. I went to an asian massage parlor a few months ago and Mia gave me the best 1 hour massage of my life. At the end she asked if that was it. Well, it wasn't it and it was happy. Although she does not speak english too well, we have pretty much bonded and I have gone there 20 or so times. It is strictly a passionate happy ending and nothing else. My intention is to stop this and possibly ask her to go out on a date with me. However, I have my concerns and she probably has hers. Hers may be why I went in the 1st place. Well, I am coming off a seperation leading to a divorce after 20 yrs of marriage. I am a handsome 42 yr old Italian and Mia is 31. She has been in the US for 3 yrs (strange she doesn't speak better english) and is so warm and shy. She is absolutely different from the other massage therapists. She works 6 days a week, lives in the place she works and goes to Queens NY on her day off. She tells me what she does and we talk about education and the possibility of her buying a computer. She is very grateful for all my help.

Anyway, my concerns are these: 1. Not so much she does what she does. she has intentions of stoppiing and I'm sure the money must be good. weird she works so many hours. In the beginning it was clearly business and she seldom talked. 2. I don't have the nerve to ask her how she started this and am real scared if she says she was a prostitute in Korea. Your advice would be go on Match.com and leave her alone. That is probably the right answer, but, this woman is so sweet. We sometimes talk for a half hour passed our 1 hr session. I do have to stop it and would like your input. Thanks so much, Mike from New Jersey.

Mike, you pay money to have sex with this woman and you are worried that she was a prostitute back in Korea? What difference does it make?

re:  Korean Female First Name

Hi,

Great, great blog. I have a question about women's first names. You see, I have a most worrisome and difficult problem. I recently met one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. She's Korean, and I immediately fell in love with her - all the way - I didn't even hear her voice yet. I don't do this often - it's happened twice before in my life - and now a third. There's a problem though(besides being capable of falling in love all the way on site!). She told me her name, but I was so nervous I can't remember it fully. I remember the second part of the first name and the last name(if my new and limited understanding of Korean naming traditions is correct). The first part of her first name is something like 'Tee', 'Ty', 'Tae', or maybe, 'Ta'. I can't remember! When I see her again - I cannot say her name incorrectly! I'd rather lose a finger! I would totally disrespect her. I hope you understand. I've spent hours trying to logically narrow down the list of possible Korean first names that start with a T. Sounding like: Tee, Ty, Ta. It can't be 'Tee' - I mean you drink Tea - right? Her name can't be Tea. I went so far as to go to the Korean owned local store and they kinda helped and kinda made fun of me - 'you drink Tea, haha, what do you mean Tea, hahaha'. So they told me that her name can't be 'Tee' because that would be Chinese(or apparently a beverage). My interent research tells me her name is most likely 'Tae' - like 'TaeKwonDo'. Man, I'm at a loss, and have spent hours now of the past couple days. I did discover that there may not be many Korean names that start with a T, so that kinda helps, but whew! I'm reaching out. I'm gonna go back to the Korean owned store today as soon as I think this out more!

Great articles on Korean naming traditions and prejudice of dark skinned people.

Most gratefully,

m

You know, TaeKwonDo sounds exactly right. It's a very popular girl's name. You should name your daughter that.

More weirdness after the jump.

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

What is the State of ESL Teachers in Korea?

Dear Korean,

I came across this article today in the Los Angeles Times concerning the Anti-English Spectrum and English language teachers in Korea. Is this simply a homegrown, right-wing nut group, similar to what one can find in the U.S. and other countries, or are ESL teachers in Korea really this problematic?

John C.


Dear John,

Where does the Korean begin? This issue has the potential to blow up in the Korean’s face in any number of ways, since many of AAK! readers are ESL teachers in Korea who are sensitive to this issue. So the Korean must begin with his clear and unequivocal position on what he thinks about Anti-English Spectrum (AES):

The Korean thinks that AES is a nut group. Its leader engages in stalking ESL teachers, and exhorts others to do the same. Having a group like AES is an embarrassment for Korea. It needs to go away.

But the influence of AES needs to be put in perspective. Korean society most certainly does not endorse stalking anyone, and Koreans who care about the situation – including AES members themselves – have roundly criticized this tactic.

Nonetheless, even an unsavory group like AES could serve as an indicator of how things are – and failure to recognize how things are comes at a cost. For example, most liberals derided and dismissed “birthers” who dominated town hall meetings in America and claim that Barack Obama was not an American citizen. Obama is obviously an American citizen, but that is not the important part. Liberals should have realized that many people in America were deeply pissed off at Obama for whatever reason, and that many Americans were willing to latch onto any dumb reason to vent their hate. Instead of sincerely exploring what was angering these people, many liberals blamed their usual parade of horribles – Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, racism, dumb rural Americans, you name it. And the result now is that liberals have frittered away their dominating advantage by losing the Senate seat that was held by the icon of American liberalism for decades.

Laughing at them is easy. But figuring out why they do this is the right thing to do. (Source)

(Here is the Korean’s unsolicited advice to future politicians and pundits: Never, never, never assume that people are stupid. They are not. There are stupid individuals in the world, but a group of people is never stupid. If you don’t understand why people are doing certain things, you are the one who is stupid – not the people.)

So what can the existence of AES tell us about the state of ESL teachers in Korea? Right now, Koreans are feeling deeply uneasy about their new reality – that there are many in Korea who do not look like them, affecting them in a way that they do not necessarily like. This uneasiness feeds into the tension between Koreans and ESL teachers. This tension right now is still mostly under the surface, because most Koreans are reasonable enough not to express that tension like AES does. However, there is always a chance that the underlying tension could blow up, sparked by a certain event. Therefore, it would be important to understand the factors that feed into the tension, and neutralize them in any manner we can.

The Korean believes that there is no party with clean hands in this situation – (some) Koreans and (some) ESL teachers must share the blame. To that end, the Korean prepared “blame scorecards” – the laundry list of everything wrong that everybody has done (that he can think of.) First up is Korea.

Blame Scorecard:  Korea

· Half-baked Policy to Bring in ESL Teachers – This is the action that began the entire cycle. ESL teachers came to Korea as early as early 1980s, but the ESL teacher population exploded in the last 10 years or so. (As recently as 1988, there were barely over 1,000 non-Korean ESL teachers in the entire country.) This happened because as English education became more emphasized in Korea, Korean government loosened up the visa requirements for people who are known as NSETs (= native-speaking English teachers.) As a result, more than 20,000 NSETs entered Korea every year since 2002. For a country that has never experienced mass immigration, this was a very significant number.

But, as governments often do, Korean governments set up regulations that emphasized quantity over quality, which means they did not properly filter out unqualified NSETs – which blew up with the case of Christopher Paul Neil. Neil, an internationally wanted child molester, was arrested in Thailand after having fled from Gwangju, Korea, where he worked as an ESL teacher. When these loopholes were exposed, the government overreacted and swung to the other direction, requiring drug and HIV testing (that it did not require for Korean teachers) that nearly amounted to harassment.

Also, Korean government did not anticipate what should have been reasonably anticipated – that importing such a huge number of people to work in an area that Koreans care so, so much about (i.e. English education) -- would cause a lot of friction. Initially there was no real training that would get the ESL teachers ready for living and doing their job in a culture that can be radically different. Even though there are more trainings offered in recent years, they tend to be done in a manner Korean government is known for – bumbling and haphazard.

The idea to bring NSETs to assist in English education was not a bad idea. But Korean government’s execution of that idea was simply terrible. Problems that could have been avoided through reasonable anticipation were (halfway) mended instead through trial-and-error, pissing off everyone involved in the process.

· Bad Behaviors from Employers of the ESL Teachers – It is no secret that education business in Korea is very lucrative, which means it sometimes attracts unscrupulous characters who really should not be anywhere near education, period. Well, it was no secret to Koreans anyway; not so much for NSETs. Many ESL teachers were blindsided by the fact that their employers would cut corners and rip them off at any chance possible. To this day, the horror stories of ESL teachers getting ripped off by their employers are a dime a dozen on the Internet. (For example, here.) Not paying salaries? Arbitrarily changing schedules? Refusing to provide health insurance (as they are legally required to do)? Generally reneging promises? You name it, it’s there.

Even places that are otherwise reputable, like the public school system, sometimes give into the temptation of screwing over ESL teachers, since ESL teachers have a harder time fighting back compared to Korean teachers.

· Poorly planned use of ESL teachers – Even in cases where Korean schools act with the best of intentions, they often put ESL teachers in a position to fail. Particularly at public schools, ESL teachers are supposed to be co-teachers with a Korean teacher. Often there is poor communication between that Korean teacher and the ESL teacher, leading to confusion and resentment on the part of both sides. Many schools have no orientation process and simply tell the ESL teachers to go to it and teach the children. Considering that most ESL teachers do not have a previous teaching experience, much less experience in teaching English to non-English speaking children, they often fail even with their best efforts, frustrating everyone involved in the process.

· General racism of Korean society – As the Korean said previously, Korea was not (and still is not, although to a lesser degree,) a place where its people are used to dealing with race relations. This often conflicts sharply with ESL teachers who are from countries that are more more accustomed to dealing with race relations. (e.g. United States.) Because of this inexperience, Koreans often do not hesitate to ascribe particular characteristics to a given racial group and judge the entire race – which is exactly what racism is. Once a few bad apple NSETs emerged, the idea that every NSET is a drug-sniffing child molesters began to gain some traction in Korea, which made NSETs in Korea to feel unfairly persecuted. It also does not help that news media in Korea often play on Koreans' xenophobia by writing sensationalistic but factually dubious articles every now and then.

· Jealousy of Korean young men – This factor is not often discussed, but is very significant in understanding the actual people who fuel the tension. Korea has had a chronically high unemployment rate among young adults, which has been recently exacerbated with the global recession. These young adults – particularly men – are right now forming a very pissed-off social group. They have sacrificed much in their lives – grueling schools, going to college, serving their military duty, etc. – for the promise of having a good job. Understandably, not having a job after all the tribulations makes these young men very angry.

NSETs often provide a convenient target for their rage. ESL teachers are generally a group of young people who have no better education than Korean young people, but somehow they get a cushy job that pays well (by Korean standards) simply by virtue of being born into speaking English. On top of that, NSETs never served in the military.

Another thing – do you know what happens when a guy doesn’t have a job? A lot of things, but one of them is that he doesn’t get a date very often. And when you are young, few things matter more than getting a date. So when male ESL teachers flaunt the fact that they date Korean women (more on this below) – well, you can imagine the rest.

These men are most certainly not the majority in Korea, but the ability for these men to sway the public opinion is not to be discounted. They are generally tech-savvy, and all they have is time. According to a study by Naver – Korea’s largest search engine, with a format similar to Yahoo! – less than 1 percent of the people who view a news article leave a comment on the article. Predictably, 76.7 percent of all comments are men, and 61.1 percent of them were under 30. But the astonishing part is this: 3.4 percent of all commenters generated more than 50 percent of the comments. In other words, less than 0.0034 percent of all news viewers generated more than half of all comments. But that is enough to make the government overreact and put in restrictive policy towards ESL teachers, making them feel unwelcome in the process.

But again, the ESL teachers are not free from blame either. More blame game after the jump.

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

Best of the Worst 2014

Come one, come all, to this humble blog's annual holiday tradition: the worst emails of the year 2014! Let's all gather around and wallow in the Interweb's swill of stupidity! Despite seeing the examples of dumb questions from 2008, 2009, 2010 (in Parts I, II, and III), 2011, 2012, and 2013, people simply do not learn.

As usual, these are all real emails that TK really received from real people for the past year. Below, among all the shitty emails that TK has received, he has selected the douche de la douche, the crap de la crap. Other than redacting personal information, not a single thing about the email is changed or modified in any way. TK's comments and thoughts on the emails are highlighted in blue.

*                  *                 *

In Soviet Korea, All Foreigners are Subject to DNA Testing for Racial Identification

re:  I have a question

Hi The Korean! My name is Emily and I am an ethnically Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, Polish, Spanish American that looks really Asian. I also speak fluent English and Japanese. I am proficient in Korean and French. So, if I ever lived in Korea, how would I be treated?

Like a person. Moron.

re:  Korean Men and Chinese Women

Hey Korean Person,

I have a question. I am a Chinese woman in my late “tens” (18) and I have never been attracted to Korean guys until recently. Truth is, I actually had a Korean boyfriend before and the experience led me to believe Korean guys frankly, look down on Chinese girls. I read your blog post about what Koreans think of Chinese and as thorough as your post was, I don’t think it answers my questions. It was more of a historical and general viewpoint.

So my question is, what do Korean men think of Chinese women? I know Korean men are men before they are Korean but I am sure most Korean men would never date anyone of African heritage, even if the Kenyan woman happens to have 32D breasts with an amazing smelling vagina. So, Korean men like almost all race have a certain racial preference.

I can pass for either Chinese or Korean in the Winter and Filipino or half Spanish in the Summer so most people can’t really guess my race. I am just afraid that Korean guys might be turned off when they find out I am Chinese. From my experience, I have no problems with Korean Americans but I am talking about Korean Korean men. Koreans born in Korea who had spent the first half of their life in Korea.

Thanks a lot! :)

After many years of bad emails, TK developed a perverse appreciation for bad emails. This type is one of his favorites: an email that starts ok enough, then slowly degenerates into full crazy over several paragraphs.

re:  hellow

hi how ru, my name is amira and i have loads of question cuz im

moveing to korea in maybe 2to3 months got my visa already and i want

to know about life in korea would i make friends, would people be nice

to me, would i get a job and most importantly would i get harrased for

being black i really need information but its hard to get some and

also i had been watching kbs for 10 years such a big fan not just

dramas but everything was interesting i knw one friend in tv lol so i

got another question how would i get my oppa just so i can know the

feeling i would be happy if i can marry a korean too but i dont want

to go that far yet. please help me providing some infos i would

appriciate that thanks

"Here is my imaginary oppa. I love him but I don't want to marry him yet. Too much pressure."

More ridiculousness after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com. But no stupid questions please. For God's sake, will you please think of the children?

Korean President Power Ranking

On February 20, President Lee Myeong-bak held his last cabinet meeting, effectively ending his tenure as the president of Korea. (The inauguration for the next president Park Geun-hye is on February 25.) With another president into the pages of Korean history, it seems like a good time to have . . . the presidential power ranking!

Technically, the Republic of Korea has had ten heads of government since its birth in 1948: (1) Syngmn Rhee (1948-1960); (2) Chang Myon (1960-1961); (3) Park Chung-hee (1961-1979); (4) Choi Gyu-ha (1979-1980); (5) Chun Doo-hwan (1980-1987); (6) Roh Tae-woo (1987-1992); (7) Kim Young-sam (1992-1997); (8) Kim Dae-jung (1997-2002); (9) Roh Moo-hyun (2002-2007) and; (10) Lee Myeong-bak (2007-2012). But one can see that Chang Myon and Choi Gyu-ha did not last very long, because they abdicated from their posts when their successors rolled into Seoul with tanks.

(Note:  Several commenters pointed out that Yoon Bo-seon, not Chang Myon, was the president after Syngman Rhee. That comment is technically correct, but it is not a fair comparison. Korea's short-lived Second Republic was a proportional representation system, in which the people elected the Prime Minister, the head of government. The National Assembly elected the president, the nominal head of state without much real power. Yoon Bo-seon was the president; Chang Myon was the prime minister. Therefore, apples-to-apples comparison should involve Chang Myon, not Yoon Bo-seon.)

Thus, a fair ranking would involve eight presidents. How would they stack up? Here is the Korean's ranking, in reverse order.

(More after the jump)

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

How do Koreans refer to America?

Dear Korean,

How would the US have been referred to in everyday conversation? Surely Koreans have their own way of referring to the US other than the phonetics for "US" or "America."

Kapok Crusader

Indeed Koreans do have their own way of referring to the United States. It's 미국 (pronounced "mee-gook".) It is Korean pronunciation for the Chinese characters 美國 - the "beautiful country."

God bless 미국!

(source)

But this is where it gets interesting -- why "beautiful country"? And why Chinese? Does this apply to all countries?

The basic rule of referring to a country's name is the same rule that applies to all foreign words -- 외래어 표기법 (Transliteration Rules for Foreign Words) established by National Institute of Korean Language (국립 국어원.) In fact, the Korean already explained this once, about why Koreans call "Haiti" like "IT":

What comes into play here is Rule of Foreign Words Transliteration established by the National Institute of the Korean Language (국립국어원). Just like L'Academie francaise, NIKL governs all things related to Korean language, including how words that did not originate from Korea are supposed to be written. The overarching principle of the rule is to transliterate the words as they are pronounced in their language. Specifically, the Rule of Transliteration provides a chart that matches up the International Phonetic Alphabet to Korean characters, with more detailed rules in different languages such as English, Spanish, Japanese, French, etc.

The Korean likes this rule because it shows respect. Although Korean language sometimes has a separate name for a famous city in a foreign country -- for example, Sang-Hae (상해) for Shanghai (상하이) or  Dong-Kyeong (동경) for Tokyo (도쿄) -- under this rule, Koreans are supposed to write them as 상하이 and 도쿄, not as 상해 or 동경. (In contrast, English-speakers have no qualms for calling München as "Munich" or Praha as "Prague".) Calling a different country/culture with the name that they gave to themselves shows a lot more respect than calling with the name that we came up for them.

(By the way, did you notice Dominique Strauss-Kahn in that post? What a year he has had!)

So the default rule for a country name in Korean is to pronounce it as closely as the countrymen would pronounce. Then why 미국? Why not 아메리카 ("America")? That's because Rule 5 of the Transliteration Rules -- "For foreign words that have been already solidified in use, respect the common usage." Rule 5 sometimes feels like an exception that swallows the whole default rule, because the "solidified" foreign words are usually the most commonly used ones. In other words, the exceptions are so prominent that it becomes easy to forget the rule.

At any rate, it is no surprise that the names of the countries that interact the most with Korea fall under Rule 5.  Most of these names originate from the 19th century, when Koreans finally realized that the world had more countries that their own, China and Japan. For the newly discovered countries (from Korea's perspective,) Korea borrowed the Chinese transliteration convention -- that is, take the prominent sounds of a name, pick the Chinese characters with good meanings that match the sound, and add the character 國 to signify that it is a country. The Chinese called America 美國 -- pronounced "mei-guo", taking "mei" from "aMErica". (Yes, it is quite arbitrary.) Koreans borrowed the word 美國, and simply pronounced it their own way -- thus, Koreans refer to America as 미국.

Other countries who fall under Rule 5? At this point, China (중국 -- "joong-gook", not "zhong-guo"), Japan (일본 -- "il-bon", not "nippon") and Germany (독일 -- "dok-il", not "deutschland") are pretty much it. (-EDIT 8/6/2011- There are also Australia (호주 -- "ho-ju"), England (영국 -- "yeong-gook") and Thailand (태국 -- "tae-gook"). Clearly the Korean should have given this post another day and thought about it harder.) In older Korean books and among older Koreans, one can catch glimpses of the words like 불란서 (佛蘭西) instead of 프랑스 (France) or 구라파 (歐羅巴) instead of 유럽 (Europe). But those uses are rapidly fading away.

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

Ask a Korean! News: Islamophobia Reaches Korea

This cannot end well.

An absurd assertion arguing that Islamic immigrants will bring down Korean society, spreading online, is causing a controversy. Other racially discriminatory assertions, not simply against Islam but also demanding the abandonment of the current multiculturalism policy, are also being boldly made, attracting attention as to the identity and the background of those who submit such writing. Some suggest that certain particular groups, dissatisfied with the multiculturalism policy, are intentionally disseminating Islamophobia to gather like-minded people similar to the "Tablo incident."

[TK note: Tablo is a celebrity rapper of Korea who is a graduate of Stanford University. There have been persistent allegations on the Internet that Tablo faked his degree, which managed to survive even after Stanford registrar produced a true copy of Tablo's diploma. The ringleader of the people who spread this false rumor was arrested for defamation. More background on that story here.]

On the 18th of this month, according to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, there have been 1500 posts on the free discussion board on MOEL homepage titled "Exclude Islamic Nations from Labor Export States" since the 23rd of last month. The posts, submitted after having undergone true name certification, argued that "Europe recently prohibited the importation of labor from Islamic nations such as Bangladesh and Pakistan," and "Korea must likewise forgo the multicultural policies." The submitters of the posts also suggested a mass objection against the current administration's multiculturalist policies, linking to the homepages of MOEL and e-People [TK note: Omnibus government website that receives all grievances against the government.] They are also continuing the attack by publicizing the telephone numbers of the chambers of National Assemblyman Jin Yeong, the Grand National Party member who proposed the Unified Basic Law on Multiculturalism last December. Spokesperson for Assemblyman Jin said, "We get dozens of calls a day asking us to give up on the multiculturalism policies." MOEL deleted all related posts, citing that "Same repeated posts are causing inconvenience to the operation of the board." MOEL is also cautiously considering asking for police investigation if such posts continue to be submitted.

Experts are casting their suspicion on an article titled, "Ruination of Sweden by Islamic Immigrants (the Future of Korea)," which is spreading through online communities and blogs. The article is mostly sensationalistic and hortatory, alleging that Sweden's social problems worsened after permitting Islamic immigrants to enter. Choi Yeong-Gil, professor of Arab Regional Studies of Myongji University, noted: "It appears that people who are dissatisfied with not just a particular religion but the multicultural society itself are duplicating and expanding Europe's Islamophobia." Kim Yi-Seon, director of Safety Center for Multiculturalism and Human Rights of Korea Women's Development Institute, said: "As the economy faces difficulty and the society becomes more chaotic, resistance against multiculturalism is gaining traction," and emphasized: "What is clear is that the current problems of Korean society is not due to multiculturalism."

광우병… 타블로… 이번엔 ‘이슬람 공포증’ [Dong-A Ilbo]

Many, many different angles to explore here, in no particular order.

1.  Multiculturalism, as a policy, is not a thoroughly examined policy in Korea yet. Non-Ethnic Korean (let's call them "NEK" for short) Korean citizens, especially in the form of mail-order brides and immigrant laborers, crept up on Korean society until they all of a sudden became a reality for mainstream Koreans. Korean elites were sympathetic enough to set a pro-multiculturalism agenda, such that legislators and mainstream media pushed for tolerance and acceptance. This is the first occasion in which opposition to that agenda is materializing in a meainingful, organized manner.

2.  Dong-A Ilbo is a conservative (within the spectrum of Korean politics) newspaper, and it clearly drew the battle line stating that opposition to multiculturalism is "absurd". More liberal newspapers (for example, the Hankyoreh) have been consistently promoting the multiculturalism agenda also. No politician so far has made a career by antagonizing immigrants yet. Cut off from mainstream media and politics, how will the opponents of multiculturalism legitimize their agenda? Which mainstream media and policians will co-opt into this advantage?

3.  Two faces of Korea's nationalism are in conflict here -- the more traditional race/culture-based nationalism and the more modern citizenship/polity-based nationalism. Which one will emerge victorious? Or will there be another variant to nationlism to accommodate both? (Perhaps, for example, language-based?)

4.  How will the NEK Koreans respond? Probably not much reaction is possible right now, but recall that a significant proportion of children (up to 10 percent) in Korea's rural areas are mixed-race children. Four years ago in the third post ever on AAK! -- so long ago that the Korean was speaking in first person -- the Korean wrote: "Unless Koreans do something to radically change their attitude toward foreignors and interracial people (unlikely), wide-scale race riots a la Los Angeles or Paris in about 20 years is a virtual certainty." Korea has done more than the Korean expected to move toward changing their attitude. But will the progress thus far be enough to avert wide-scale race riots 15 years from now, when these mixed-race children become young adults?

5.  How will Germany's recent disavowal of multiculturalism policies affect this discussion? How will America's anti-immigration rhetoric? Remember, "what other advanced countries do" holds a lot of sway in Korean political discourse.

6.  The Korean is not positive that even those Koreans who advocate for multiculturalism policies truly mean "multiculturalism" as the word is understood in other parts of the world.  When this debate intensifies such that the proponents begin to realize that "multiculturalism", originally envisioned when the term was coined, involves a lot more than they might be comfortable with -- e.g. bastardizing traditional Korean cuisine, maybe -- how will they respond?

7.  Kim Yi-Seon is correct that immigrants have little to do with Korea's current problems -- as of now. In the future when more immigrants come, they will contribute to Korea's problems, not because immigration is inherently problematic but because no movement of a large human group is free from at least some negative consequences. Will this change the debate in the future? Could proponents of multiculturalism solidify their grounds enough before the problems inevitably come?

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

Are Vaccinations Safe?

Dear Korean,

My name is Roy, and I am reaching out to you on behalf of the Los Angeles County Dept. of Public Health (LADPH). LADPH just launched a public awareness campaign that urges people to protect themselves and their loved ones from preventable disease through proper vaccination. I work with SAESHE, a marketing agency that handles LA County's Asian American marketing and community outreach.

Los Angeles County is currently experiencing the worst epidemic of whooping cough in 60 years, with more than 870 cases last year alone. Effective of July 1, 2011, a new California school immunization law will require all 7th-12th graders in public and private schools to receive a pertussis booster (Tdap) shot, protecting them from whooping cough.

On behalf of LADPH and Los Angeles County, we are asking The Korean: Are vaccinations safe? Why should we get vaccinated?

Roy Cho
Assistant Account Executive

Dear Roy,

Despite the wishes of the Korean Parents, the Korean is not a doctor. But it does not take a doctor to know that vaccinations have done a tremendous amount of good for humanity. Thanks to vaccination, very serious diseases like polio, diphtheria and tetanus are practically eradicated. Vaccinations are safe, and we should be vaccinated to avoid preventable diseases.

Vaccination should have a more special meaning for Korean Americans, as it is one of the more enduring gifts from America to Korea. A very underrated contribution that America made for Korea is Korea's vast improvement in public health. As a Japanese colony, Korea's public health was miserable. Under the Japanese rule, Koreans had virtually no opportunity to receive medical education and become a doctor. Public health at the time was entirely focused on allowing the Japanese to live safely in Korea. The imperial police was in charge of public health in colonial Korea, and patients were treated as criminals, not people with illnesses. Virtually no attempt was made to treat the patients who were quarantined.

A good example of the brutality of Imperial Japan's "public health" policy is the way it treated Korea's leprosy patients. By the time of independence in 1945, Imperial Japan had built the world's largest leper colony in Korea, holding some 6,000 leprosy patients in an isolated island of Sorok-do. These patients, and their Japanese watchers, did not learn of Japan's defeat in World War II until three days after Japan surrendered. The Japanese in charge of the island heard the news along with some of Korean patients when they visited mainland to receive supply. The Japanese officials then killed 20 Korean patients on the boat to prevent the news from spreading, then returned to the island to embezzle the supplies in the island. The news nonetheless spread among the lepers, and the Japanese officials killed more than 60 patients in the ensuing riot before leaving the island.

The state of public health went from miserable to atrocious following the independence and through Korean War. At its height in the late 1940s, Seoul had 40 new smallpox patients every day; 40 percent of the patients died -- and we are talking about the disease whose vaccine was discovered in 1796. According to the U.S. military reports in 1946, nearly a thousand people died in one small town alone (Seonsan, Gyeongsangbuk-do, a little north of Daegu,) in just one week from at least five different communicable diseases. In 1949, it was estimated that more than 1.4 million Koreans had tuberculosis. In 1951 during the war, the same number was estimated to be 2.8 million.

American presence in Korea since the independence and through Korean War played a huge role in vastly improving such atrocious state of public health. Vaccination played a huge part in this. Of course, the starting point of American military's public health policy in Korea was its concerns about the health of their own soldiers who come in contact with Koreans at the time. During Korean War, one of the first steps to join KATUSA -- Korean soldiers who assisted the U.S. troops -- was to be sent to Japan and be vaccinated for smallpox, typhus, cholera, etc. But it is too cynical a view to think Americans acted out of pure self-interest. Despite being on a lower priority, Korean civilians eventually received regular vaccinations in an organized fashion. Much of humanitarian aid from America also focused on vaccination as well.

(Source: 전우용, 현대인의 탄생 (2011))

Elementary school students in Gaejeong, Jeollabuk-do

line up for BCG vaccination against tuberculosis (circa late 1950s.)

American emphasis on preventive public health is 

very much alive in Korea to this day.

(source)

In this day and age, the Korean does not know a reason why anyone would refuse to be vaccinated. But if you are a Korean American who need more reasons than the good folks at VaccinateLA could give, here is one more: thanks to the vaccination practices that America transplanted in Korea, Korea now has one of the lowest death rates in the world -- ironically, much lower than those of the U.S. Vaccination has proven to be a life-saving gift; it would be terrible manners to reject such a gift.

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