One of my goals for this blog is that I'll let the rest of the world know the cool things of the country I love. I'm not sure if I've been doing that well so for this blog post I want to talk about Korean expressions.
Like most countries, Korea has it's own old sayings or proverbs. These proverbs are taught to Korean students as young as those in elementary school. Unlike just regular figures of speech, these it's hard to determine the meaning of most of these proverbs which is why they're taught in schools. For example, a worm wiggles even when it's stepped on (지렁이도 밟으면 꿈틀한다) means even a nice person can snap if you push their buttons too much. You wouldn't have been able to get that meaning out of just the proverb itself, could you?
I'm not quite sure if this one is also a proverb or just an expression, I think it's the second one, but it's one of my favorite sayings - "you're pouring gasoline to a house on fire" (불난 집에 기름 붓는다) which means that you're making an angry person even angrier. I've used this saying in English and people laugh because the meaning of this one is more obvious, especially in context, even though it's not really said in English.
In a previous blog post, I talked about how I don't like how grown ups and elderly people basically have absolute authority in Korea but I do have a soft spot for the old people who would still wear their Hanboks in modern day Korea and use these brilliant old sayings and so that all Koreans, regardless of age, use them as well. Okay, I don't have sources to really back this up but at least that's what I think. What I'm trying to say is that I respect those ancestors who've really set up Korean culture and society. I want to talk more about Korean culture by also incorporating its history and just gush about the country that I love in future blog posts.
(345)
No comments:
Post a Comment