Busan, Korea, December 21, 2011.
About a month ago, Bianca and I became friends on Facebook with this woman. I'm not going to share her name here, but I'll give you some information about her. She is a Korean woman living in Busan who sells cellphones for a living, and she is in a relationship with an American guy who teaches English here, always identified in her status updates as “my man”.
Her Facebook status updates are consistently amazing. Here’s her status update from this morning. Enjoy.
"Last night I had to talk about Big Foot for one and half hours with my man at 3:00 a.m which I didn't want to but he got a bit drunk and he was really serious about Big Foot.
After that we went to bed and I had dream that my man I got kidnap from Aliens to their mother ship and they said they are going to attack human beings and we got panic and didn't know what to do.
And suddenly the other Arien brought one Big Foot and it was holding cup ramyen. And Aliens saw that and take that cup ramyen and ate it.
And they said they decided to not attack this planet cause of cup ramyen and they let us go free and we ran and ran and ran till we couldn't run anymore. Yes, with a Big Foot.
All after that, all kind of Aliens in this univers, they are visiting and buying cup ramyen and the earth became a very popular planet in this univers.
So, yesterday I was looking up on internet for find some lego characters because I wanted to make something for orphanage kids for this Christmas (not sure that I can do tho) and randomly saw Darth Vader lego figure and thought about my friend who really likes Darth Vader. And later night my man talked about Big Foot and we ate cup ramyen before go to bed and I had this dream.
This dream reminds me of the movie 'Star Wars' in some way. Maybe version of Korean."
Pure gold. Bigfoot saved them from an Alien attack because there is nothing in the universe more delicious than a cup of ramen noodles.
Bad English
Busan, Korea, December 13, 2011.
I've recently (since moving to Asia) become much more aware of a unique, relatively recent phenomenon. With the advent of widespread global trade, the spread of British and American pop culture, and the establishment of English as the first global lingua franca, English is so hot right now. English.
But there is one dialect of English that's hotter than the rest: Bad English. It's not hard to see why.
"When Paris was queen in the 18th and 19th century, every educated person in Europe spoke French, a trait that lasted into the 20th century. Today, everybody speaks English, or at least Bad English, which is the world's fastest growing language." -Josef Joffe
[By the way, I took all of these pictures this year in Busan and Seoul. Enjoy!]
How should we describe this cup of coffee?
"Coffine Gurunaru wants to be a tree and
a ferry in a river just like a place to rest.
A good quality of coffee and the health
benefits of wine will definitely make your
body and your mind upgrade
and even your pride in your
life. Please take a deserved
break at Coffine Gurunaru.
Coffine Gurunaru is a resting
place for you."
A poem on a box of tissue.
"Scent of a Woman
Your smiles twinkling with a brimful of sunlight,
Your limpid tone of voice like as a dew,
With your sequestered song,
I feel very happy endlessly this moment, now.
Like as a sky after rain,
In your fagrance hanging down from the brimful of
sunlight,
Today, I feel every beautiful day, again."
This boutique shop is called "TiTi club". I was confused at first, because when I was in the Army there was this place the guys called... nevermind. It's not a big deal.
Another boutique shop with a name that makes me feel like a dirty old man. "Romantic Pussy".
This is the sign on one of the boutiques in the underground shopping mall next to the subway.
"Sometimes called an atelier, especially in earlier eras."
I have actually seen a few girls walking around wearing this t-shirt that says "Your Text Goes Here".
"The best ingredient in food is starvation."
I disagree. The best ingredient in food is, you know, the food.
I think this was supposed to say "Summer Beach Festival", but that's not what it says, is it?
Sometimes Bad English is a result of a too-literal translation. I'm sure "Open Minded Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic" sounds better in Korean than it sounds in English.
"What's in your mind? Are you girly, lovable and naive? Are you fatal, bad and sexy?"
On the side of Geumnyeon Mountain, you can enjoy a cup of "STARBUS COFFEE".
I would love to visit New York, New York, AKA "Gottrem City".
I guess whoever started this business to sell hiking clothes didn't look up the word "Blackface" on wikipedia: "Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person." Ouch. Is it racist if it's an accident?
When I got here in the summer, the sign in front of this cafe on Gwanganli beach was my favorite example of Bad English.
"Sometimes...
Memory origin space
Maybe, it's..Park"
"Boston, Massachubatts
Est. 1600"
There is a real place called Boston, Massachusetts. It was established in 1630.
This is one of the things you encounter in Korea that's just impossibly cute. It's a notebook that looks like a passport. I saw it in the gift shop at Namsan Tower in Seoul.
"LOOK ME. Thank You. I am Sample."
These t-shirts are trying really hard to be badass, but it's just not working. Street shopping in Myeong-dong, Seoul.
"DEAB OR ALIVE
ONE OR EIGHT
GODSPEED YOU
NUFFSAID!"
"WHEN I DIE
BURY ME FACE DOWN
SO THE WHOLE DOWN
CAN KISS MY ASS!!"
"BOSTON: SINCE 1932"
If you've been reading this post for a few minutes, you might remember that Boston was established in 1630. I thought this might be referring to one of the professional sports teams in Boston, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The Boston Bruins hockey team was established in 1924. The Boston Celtics basketball team was founded in 1946. The Boston Red Sox baseball team was founded in 1901. I guess it's possible that something has been going on in Boston since 1932, but I don't know what that is.
This is a "Character Silicone Skin for the iPhone 4". Nothing out of the ordinary, especially the "MADE IN CHINA" tag. Wait a second... why the hell does it say "I ♥ PORN"?
I don't know. That's the kind of mind-blowing shit you're going to encounter when you expose yourself to Bad English.
I've recently (since moving to Asia) become much more aware of a unique, relatively recent phenomenon. With the advent of widespread global trade, the spread of British and American pop culture, and the establishment of English as the first global lingua franca, English is so hot right now. English.
But there is one dialect of English that's hotter than the rest: Bad English. It's not hard to see why.
"When Paris was queen in the 18th and 19th century, every educated person in Europe spoke French, a trait that lasted into the 20th century. Today, everybody speaks English, or at least Bad English, which is the world's fastest growing language." -Josef Joffe
[By the way, I took all of these pictures this year in Busan and Seoul. Enjoy!]
How should we describe this cup of coffee?
"Coffine Gurunaru wants to be a tree and
a ferry in a river just like a place to rest.
A good quality of coffee and the health
benefits of wine will definitely make your
body and your mind upgrade
and even your pride in your
life. Please take a deserved
break at Coffine Gurunaru.
Coffine Gurunaru is a resting
place for you."
A poem on a box of tissue.
"Scent of a Woman
Your smiles twinkling with a brimful of sunlight,
Your limpid tone of voice like as a dew,
With your sequestered song,
I feel very happy endlessly this moment, now.
Like as a sky after rain,
In your fagrance hanging down from the brimful of
sunlight,
Today, I feel every beautiful day, again."
This boutique shop is called "TiTi club". I was confused at first, because when I was in the Army there was this place the guys called... nevermind. It's not a big deal.
Another boutique shop with a name that makes me feel like a dirty old man. "Romantic Pussy".
This is the sign on one of the boutiques in the underground shopping mall next to the subway.
"Sometimes called an atelier, especially in earlier eras."
I have actually seen a few girls walking around wearing this t-shirt that says "Your Text Goes Here".
"The best ingredient in food is starvation."
I disagree. The best ingredient in food is, you know, the food.
I think this was supposed to say "Summer Beach Festival", but that's not what it says, is it?
Sometimes Bad English is a result of a too-literal translation. I'm sure "Open Minded Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic" sounds better in Korean than it sounds in English.
"What's in your mind? Are you girly, lovable and naive? Are you fatal, bad and sexy?"
On the side of Geumnyeon Mountain, you can enjoy a cup of "STARBUS COFFEE".
I would love to visit New York, New York, AKA "Gottrem City".
I guess whoever started this business to sell hiking clothes didn't look up the word "Blackface" on wikipedia: "Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person." Ouch. Is it racist if it's an accident?
When I got here in the summer, the sign in front of this cafe on Gwanganli beach was my favorite example of Bad English.
"Sometimes...
Memory origin space
Maybe, it's..Park"
"Boston, Massachubatts
Est. 1600"
There is a real place called Boston, Massachusetts. It was established in 1630.
This is one of the things you encounter in Korea that's just impossibly cute. It's a notebook that looks like a passport. I saw it in the gift shop at Namsan Tower in Seoul.
"LOOK ME. Thank You. I am Sample."
These t-shirts are trying really hard to be badass, but it's just not working. Street shopping in Myeong-dong, Seoul.
"DEAB OR ALIVE
ONE OR EIGHT
GODSPEED YOU
NUFFSAID!"
"WHEN I DIE
BURY ME FACE DOWN
SO THE WHOLE DOWN
CAN KISS MY ASS!!"
"BOSTON: SINCE 1932"
If you've been reading this post for a few minutes, you might remember that Boston was established in 1630. I thought this might be referring to one of the professional sports teams in Boston, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The Boston Bruins hockey team was established in 1924. The Boston Celtics basketball team was founded in 1946. The Boston Red Sox baseball team was founded in 1901. I guess it's possible that something has been going on in Boston since 1932, but I don't know what that is.
This is a "Character Silicone Skin for the iPhone 4". Nothing out of the ordinary, especially the "MADE IN CHINA" tag. Wait a second... why the hell does it say "I ♥ PORN"?
I don't know. That's the kind of mind-blowing shit you're going to encounter when you expose yourself to Bad English.
Some dark thoughts on a train ride from Seoul to Busan
This is a transcript of a voice recording I made on November 28, 2011 at 11:12am.
I have been thinking about Korea a lot, obviously because I’m in this country, I’ve been here for almost six months, and I think I have really adjusted to living here. I think I have adjusted to the culture and a lot of those types of things. Of course, I’m not Korean, and even if I stay here for twenty years, I never will be Korean.
One of the things I am just blown away with is, “How did this happen? How did Korea go from, sixty years ago, being one of the poorest countries in the world, to now being one of the wealthiest countries in the world?” It’s an incredible accomplishment. I spent some time in Europe last year, I have spent time in a lot of the biggest cities in the U.S., a lot of the wealthiest cities in the U.S., and none of them quite compare to this place.
I feel like if you had gone back in time to 1955 or something and just said, “Using the U.S. as your model, how would you try to build a modern country more or less from scratch?” That’s almost exactly what Korea looks like today. I think about things like the fact that I can ride this train that goes almost 200 miles an hour from the biggest city in Korea to the second biggest city in Korea in less than two hours and it costs me $45 one way, cheaper than a plane ticket.
This morning I woke up and I was in a neighborhood (Hongdae) in Seoul. So I walked for five minutes and then I got on a train, rode the train for twenty minutes to Seoul Station, the central station, and then came up from that train, got in line, got a train ticket, got some McDonald’s breakfast, and then got on the next train bound for Busan. When I get to Busan, I will walk outside the train station, and I am going walk right outside, walk to this bus stop, get on the bus, be on the bus for less than half an hour, and then get off the bus at the stop right in front of my school.
Imagine if that was possible in the U.S. What if you could do that in Houston? What if I could stay with my friends Summer and Matt in Houston, and there was a subway station a few blocks away from their home, and I could take that subway station to downtown Houston, to a place we can call “Houston Station”, and there was this huge central train station in Houston. There were trains that go to the airports, there were trains that go to all the different suburbs, subways that go to the different areas of the city, and then there was a bullet train that went to Dallas and Fort Worth and another one that went to San Antonio and Austin.
I think it would be remarkable. I would be...it’s almost silly to speculate on that, because what we have is so far from that. But why is it silly to speculate on that? Why is it impossible? It’s impossible because we made all these decisions over the last 50 years, and the more I look at them the more it looks like we just made the most irresponsible choices that we could have made.
Instead of investing in our infrastructure of our cities, we built rings of suburbs around them and then let the cities deteriorate. Instead of following up the successes of the civil rights movement with some effort to actually bring Blacks and other minorities up to a level with Whites, we followed the Civil Rights movement with the War on Drugs and Vietnam and all these things that just absolutely brutalized the Black community and set them back...
So here we are, forty years later, and there are neighborhoods in the inner cities of Dallas and Houston, and every other major city that White people just won’t go to, because they are these crime-ridden environments that are just really dangerous and destructive, devastating to people’s lives.
How did we (the U.S.) get from there to here? It seems like such a high level of hubris on our part, to just assume that the world is going to continue down this track where we can continue to be the most successful country in the world. I was thinking abut the history of it, we talk about East meets West, these two cultures that developed more or less separately from each other coming together for the first time and how the West had all these natural advantages over the East, and the East was very slow to adapt to that.
The biggest country in the East, China, waited until the last thirty years to try to adapt. But now it seems like places like that are making all these bold moves. China is building this nationwide high speed rail network from scratch and trying to do it in ten years, at the same time that America’s infrastructure is deteriorating.
I have been thinking about Korea a lot, obviously because I’m in this country, I’ve been here for almost six months, and I think I have really adjusted to living here. I think I have adjusted to the culture and a lot of those types of things. Of course, I’m not Korean, and even if I stay here for twenty years, I never will be Korean.
One of the things I am just blown away with is, “How did this happen? How did Korea go from, sixty years ago, being one of the poorest countries in the world, to now being one of the wealthiest countries in the world?” It’s an incredible accomplishment. I spent some time in Europe last year, I have spent time in a lot of the biggest cities in the U.S., a lot of the wealthiest cities in the U.S., and none of them quite compare to this place.
I feel like if you had gone back in time to 1955 or something and just said, “Using the U.S. as your model, how would you try to build a modern country more or less from scratch?” That’s almost exactly what Korea looks like today. I think about things like the fact that I can ride this train that goes almost 200 miles an hour from the biggest city in Korea to the second biggest city in Korea in less than two hours and it costs me $45 one way, cheaper than a plane ticket.
This morning I woke up and I was in a neighborhood (Hongdae) in Seoul. So I walked for five minutes and then I got on a train, rode the train for twenty minutes to Seoul Station, the central station, and then came up from that train, got in line, got a train ticket, got some McDonald’s breakfast, and then got on the next train bound for Busan. When I get to Busan, I will walk outside the train station, and I am going walk right outside, walk to this bus stop, get on the bus, be on the bus for less than half an hour, and then get off the bus at the stop right in front of my school.
Imagine if that was possible in the U.S. What if you could do that in Houston? What if I could stay with my friends Summer and Matt in Houston, and there was a subway station a few blocks away from their home, and I could take that subway station to downtown Houston, to a place we can call “Houston Station”, and there was this huge central train station in Houston. There were trains that go to the airports, there were trains that go to all the different suburbs, subways that go to the different areas of the city, and then there was a bullet train that went to Dallas and Fort Worth and another one that went to San Antonio and Austin.
I think it would be remarkable. I would be...it’s almost silly to speculate on that, because what we have is so far from that. But why is it silly to speculate on that? Why is it impossible? It’s impossible because we made all these decisions over the last 50 years, and the more I look at them the more it looks like we just made the most irresponsible choices that we could have made.
Instead of investing in our infrastructure of our cities, we built rings of suburbs around them and then let the cities deteriorate. Instead of following up the successes of the civil rights movement with some effort to actually bring Blacks and other minorities up to a level with Whites, we followed the Civil Rights movement with the War on Drugs and Vietnam and all these things that just absolutely brutalized the Black community and set them back...
So here we are, forty years later, and there are neighborhoods in the inner cities of Dallas and Houston, and every other major city that White people just won’t go to, because they are these crime-ridden environments that are just really dangerous and destructive, devastating to people’s lives.
How did we (the U.S.) get from there to here? It seems like such a high level of hubris on our part, to just assume that the world is going to continue down this track where we can continue to be the most successful country in the world. I was thinking abut the history of it, we talk about East meets West, these two cultures that developed more or less separately from each other coming together for the first time and how the West had all these natural advantages over the East, and the East was very slow to adapt to that.
The biggest country in the East, China, waited until the last thirty years to try to adapt. But now it seems like places like that are making all these bold moves. China is building this nationwide high speed rail network from scratch and trying to do it in ten years, at the same time that America’s infrastructure is deteriorating.
Koreans are nice.
Busan, Korea. 12:24am, December 5, 2011.
It’s hard to define exactly what it is that makes Korea such a fun place to live. There are a lot of things that go into it. The cities are well planned and have amazing public transportation. There’s hardly a street corner in Busan or Seoul that doesn’t have a bus stop on it, and in many parts of the city you are never more than a 5-10 minute walk away from the subway.
Korea is something like 70% mountains, and most of those, even in the city, have almost no development on them. From my apartment in downtown Busan, I can be hiking in the mountains within about 20 minutes. There are beautiful steams and creeks on the sides of all these mountains, and breathtakingly beautiful temples on almost all of them.
But I think what I really like about Korea is the people. I have had conversations about this, especially with Bianca. I don’t think Koreans are incredibly polite. It’s not unusual to have someone bump into you walking down the sidewalk. Oh, yeah, you can also be honked at by someone riding a motorcycle on the sidewalk. This strikes me as incredibly rude, and I don’t think I’m going to change my opinion on that anytime soon.
I once heard Bianca tell a Korean, “Korea is such a happy place!” and I agree somewhat, but I think that’s missing the point a little bit. Koreans are pretty stressed. Many are overworked. They are under a lot of pressure to succeed, and the pressure starts early. My middle school students are already worried about getting their test scores up so that they can get into a good university, so that they can get a good job with a big corporation, so that they can get married and support a family... It’s a lot of stress, and I think it gets in the way of really being happy.
Tonight, after spending much of the day sitting around the apartment watching TV shows, I ventured out into my neighborhood to get some bibimbap. One of the staple dishes of the Korean diet, bibimbap is basically rice, vegetables, a spicy paste, and a fried egg, served with side dishes of course. So I went to my usual place and ordered my usual bibimbap.
I noticed a strange voice coming from the table next to me. After observing for a minute, I figured out that the middle aged people sitting at the table, two men and a woman, were all deaf. They were communicating in what I assume is Korean sign language, and also making some of the vocal sounds that I have heard deaf people make before. They noticed me eating my meal, and we kind of nodded at each other and smiled.
Sometimes, when I am hungry, I can eat an enormous meal in less than five minutes. It’s a skill I developed by being a kid, and then perfected when I was in the Army. That’s pretty much what I did with my bibimbap tonight. I wolfed it down. One of my deaf neighbors pantomimed a bulging belly, and I laughed.
The woman offered me some of their gimbap (rice, “bap”, wrapped in seaweed, “gim”). So I got up, walked over to their table with my chopsticks, and ate a piece of their gimbap. Of course I had to exchange handshakes, fist-bumps, and pats on the back with them. I then sat back down at my table to finish my side dishes.
One of the men at the table communicated to the waitress that he wanted to order another plate of gimbap. I realized that he was ordering it for me! So the waitress made a plate of gimbap, put it in a to-go box, tied it in a bag and set it in my backpack.
I went back over to their table for another round of handshakes and fist-bumps. I wanted to say something in Korean to them, but I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to hear it. So I pulled out my flash cards and found the card that says "가는그렉이에요", or “My name is Greg” in Korean. Then I was out the door and back onto the street, with my plate of gimbap that was bought to me by some deaf Koreans who probably don't have as much money as me, and almost certainly have a harder life than mine.
I think I know what makes Korea such an amazing place: the people. They aren’t supernaturally happy, or polite, but they are the friendliest people I have ever met.
Everywhere I have been in this country, Koreans introduce themselves to me, want talk to me in broken English and compliment my very basic Korean, and treat me like family. They always want to buy a meal or a drink, and they always ask about my family. One day I was hiking in the mountains and stopped to ask a Korean for directions. Half an hour later, this guy took me to a little restaurant on the side of the mountain and bought me my fill of pajeon, aged kimchi, and makkeoli (rice wine). Suffice it to say that I was full and a little drunk by the time I got on the bus back down the mountain. Oh, and the old woman who owned the restaurant made me take about a kilogram of her aged kimchi home with me.
I think a language tells you a lot about how the people who speak that language think and act. Korean doesn't really have pronouns. When you’re talking about someone, or to someone, you either refer to them by their name or by your relationship to them. And most of these relationship names that people use are really family names. A Korean girl or woman will refer to an older friend as “unni”, which literally means “my older sister”. My Korean friends tell me that I should call a middle aged woman working at a restaurant or market “imo”, which literally means “my mother’s younger sister”.
All these are words to describe family relationships. And that’s what I’ve found about Koreans. They will go out of there way to treat you like a member of their family. It feels great to be treated that way, especially when you are thousands of miles away from your own family.
It’s hard to define exactly what it is that makes Korea such a fun place to live. There are a lot of things that go into it. The cities are well planned and have amazing public transportation. There’s hardly a street corner in Busan or Seoul that doesn’t have a bus stop on it, and in many parts of the city you are never more than a 5-10 minute walk away from the subway.
Korea is something like 70% mountains, and most of those, even in the city, have almost no development on them. From my apartment in downtown Busan, I can be hiking in the mountains within about 20 minutes. There are beautiful steams and creeks on the sides of all these mountains, and breathtakingly beautiful temples on almost all of them.
But I think what I really like about Korea is the people. I have had conversations about this, especially with Bianca. I don’t think Koreans are incredibly polite. It’s not unusual to have someone bump into you walking down the sidewalk. Oh, yeah, you can also be honked at by someone riding a motorcycle on the sidewalk. This strikes me as incredibly rude, and I don’t think I’m going to change my opinion on that anytime soon.
I once heard Bianca tell a Korean, “Korea is such a happy place!” and I agree somewhat, but I think that’s missing the point a little bit. Koreans are pretty stressed. Many are overworked. They are under a lot of pressure to succeed, and the pressure starts early. My middle school students are already worried about getting their test scores up so that they can get into a good university, so that they can get a good job with a big corporation, so that they can get married and support a family... It’s a lot of stress, and I think it gets in the way of really being happy.
Tonight, after spending much of the day sitting around the apartment watching TV shows, I ventured out into my neighborhood to get some bibimbap. One of the staple dishes of the Korean diet, bibimbap is basically rice, vegetables, a spicy paste, and a fried egg, served with side dishes of course. So I went to my usual place and ordered my usual bibimbap.
I noticed a strange voice coming from the table next to me. After observing for a minute, I figured out that the middle aged people sitting at the table, two men and a woman, were all deaf. They were communicating in what I assume is Korean sign language, and also making some of the vocal sounds that I have heard deaf people make before. They noticed me eating my meal, and we kind of nodded at each other and smiled.
Sometimes, when I am hungry, I can eat an enormous meal in less than five minutes. It’s a skill I developed by being a kid, and then perfected when I was in the Army. That’s pretty much what I did with my bibimbap tonight. I wolfed it down. One of my deaf neighbors pantomimed a bulging belly, and I laughed.
The woman offered me some of their gimbap (rice, “bap”, wrapped in seaweed, “gim”). So I got up, walked over to their table with my chopsticks, and ate a piece of their gimbap. Of course I had to exchange handshakes, fist-bumps, and pats on the back with them. I then sat back down at my table to finish my side dishes.
One of the men at the table communicated to the waitress that he wanted to order another plate of gimbap. I realized that he was ordering it for me! So the waitress made a plate of gimbap, put it in a to-go box, tied it in a bag and set it in my backpack.
I went back over to their table for another round of handshakes and fist-bumps. I wanted to say something in Korean to them, but I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to hear it. So I pulled out my flash cards and found the card that says "가는그렉이에요", or “My name is Greg” in Korean. Then I was out the door and back onto the street, with my plate of gimbap that was bought to me by some deaf Koreans who probably don't have as much money as me, and almost certainly have a harder life than mine.
I think I know what makes Korea such an amazing place: the people. They aren’t supernaturally happy, or polite, but they are the friendliest people I have ever met.
Everywhere I have been in this country, Koreans introduce themselves to me, want talk to me in broken English and compliment my very basic Korean, and treat me like family. They always want to buy a meal or a drink, and they always ask about my family. One day I was hiking in the mountains and stopped to ask a Korean for directions. Half an hour later, this guy took me to a little restaurant on the side of the mountain and bought me my fill of pajeon, aged kimchi, and makkeoli (rice wine). Suffice it to say that I was full and a little drunk by the time I got on the bus back down the mountain. Oh, and the old woman who owned the restaurant made me take about a kilogram of her aged kimchi home with me.
I think a language tells you a lot about how the people who speak that language think and act. Korean doesn't really have pronouns. When you’re talking about someone, or to someone, you either refer to them by their name or by your relationship to them. And most of these relationship names that people use are really family names. A Korean girl or woman will refer to an older friend as “unni”, which literally means “my older sister”. My Korean friends tell me that I should call a middle aged woman working at a restaurant or market “imo”, which literally means “my mother’s younger sister”.
All these are words to describe family relationships. And that’s what I’ve found about Koreans. They will go out of there way to treat you like a member of their family. It feels great to be treated that way, especially when you are thousands of miles away from your own family.
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