Korea – Page 4 – Life In Limbo

The Funniest Konglish Phrases

August 14, 2014

I’ve been living in Korea for over 5 months now, but the English translations can still make me laugh out loud. Walking around, you see a surprisingly large amount of English printed on t-shirts and signs, but very little that makes any real sense. Hence the term Konglish! Konglish technically means words in the Korean language that are basically English words, but most foreigners have adopted the term to mean hilarious translations of Korean phrases into English as well.

I have noticed that most of my students use Naver translation services (Naver is basically the Korean Google) to translate words into English and the results are almost always bizarre or too formal. By contrast, typing the same word into Google usually gets a more accurate translation. As an example: on Naver, the result was “refractory” but on Google the result was “annoying”, which is what the student meant.

I can only assume that the thousands of Korean t-shirt companies are also using less-than-ideal translation software to come up with the gems that they do. All of the phrases listed below are taken verbatim from store names, poster slogans and of course, the infamous t-shirts. Anything that looks like a typo or grammar mistake on my part is not – all are written exactly as they were originally seen.

Ps. In case anyone is worrying – I truly am not meaning to make fun of anyone Korean in posting this. In fact, I think most Koreans who have a grasp on English would also find these shirts and slogans absolutely hilarious. Not to mention that I don’t think it’s a reflection on Korean people if they don’t understand that these sayings are funny. I live in Korea, the language is Korean, and English is not overly important here, nor should it be. All this is to say: take it lightly, the way I do! It’s not a reflection on anyone Korean.

Hot Dog Fighters
Be classy with eye gentry
Baby Café
N. Hollywood I Am
Play wave athletic sportive
How to Slake Summer Festival
Holy chic, try popular new things
Play with me joy
Zombie nation eats your hard
Venereal disease
To the Difference
Kitsch Something
Grand Open
Fashionabl stylemixpink
Beard Papa’s
New Paradigm Party Restaurant
Let’s Party Time
Love Ritual Hoegaarden
Jerry is the natural leader
These sailing crews will explore the Atlantic
You’re nothing but a pack of cards
Lady yourself more

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Funny, right? They always put a smile on my face, especially when I spend time thinking about what the original Korean phrase could even have been before it was translated. Some of them just seem like a graphic designer threw words together that looked cool, and others I just laugh and think that there must be a native English speaker at a desk somewhere giggling as they design gibberish phrases for the fronts of t-shirts.

24 Before 24: Have a Picnic Somewhere Stunning

August 6, 2014

I’m doing 24 fun or new things before I turn 24. You can see the rest of my list here.

For the month of August, I have a different work schedule – I’m working 9-6 instead of 1-9. I’m not much of a morning person, so last week I was really tired as I tried to adjust to the change. Even still, I have to admit that having my evenings free was totally wonderful. Finally I’m on a similar schedule to my friends, leaving us open to exploring the beautiful city we are lucky enough to live in. That means that in the evenings last week alone, we had a gorgeous dinner sitting on a patio, explored some awesome English bookstores in the university area, and of course, had this picnic at one of the most scenic spots in Busan.

Igidae Park offers one of my favourite views that I’ve seen in Korea. The park itself is made up of fingers of land that jut out at various intervals, parallel to the far shore, which means that no matter how far you walk along the coast, you get stunning views of the city – the Diamond bridge on the left with Gwangalli beach behind, Marine City in the middle, Haeundae beach and Dongbaek Island further right, and of course Dalmaji Hill. None of those names will mean anything to you if you’ve never been to Busan, but the pictures speak for themselves. It’s beautiful.

After work last Thursday, we took the metro 11 stops, then hopped in a 5-minute cab ride and ended up in Igidae. We were met with gorgeous views, beautiful clouds, and the prettiest blues and pinks of the sunset. I’d been once before, in the Spring, but I absolutely loved it at dusk.

Our picnic fare was random (as the best picnic food is!) but perfect. We had kimbap (kind of like Korean sushi), chips, pastries, crackers, wine and cookies.

We sat on the rocks overlooking the water as the sun went down, and for as long as we could after it was dark, until the ceaseless mosquito bites made us flee the scene. We talked about how lucky we felt to be able to experience such a beautiful place on a weeknight, after work, a short half hour trip from where we lived. It felt like freedom, and summer, and I was so grateful to be living so close to the water, to have made such great friends here, and to be eating Ritter Sport chocolate. It made me feel excited and inspired to make the most of the rest of my summer evenings as much as I possibly can. Life is grand.

Summer 2014

July 9, 2014

It’s hard to explain how happy I am that I decided to do this video project again (the last time was in 2012) for my year in Korea. It makes me happy at almost every stage of the process: while filming funny snippets of life and my friends, while listening to music and auditioning it in my head, while editing together the videos and laughing all over again at some of the moments I captured, and of course, while beaming as I watch the finished product. It makes me so happy to know that I’m documenting my life in a way that I find beautiful and funny, and I know that I’ll be so excited to look back on these videos and remember what life looked and felt like in 2014, in Korea.

It’s starting to feel more okay knowing that I won’t be able to capture everything, and that my video is sometimes shaky. I’m doing this project for myself, and for my friends, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s perfectly imperfect! One of my favourite quotes is “I want to feel my life while I’m in it”, and making these videos, every step of the way, reminds me to pay attention and appreciate all the beauty and fun and humour I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by.

So here’s part one of summertime in Korea (May to early July), just in case you’re curious as to what my life looks like here. I had too much footage already to make just one summer video, so there will be another (yay!), probably in a few months’ time. I’m roughly dividing these by season because it’s a less stressful, more fun way for me to produce them (as opposed to every month). In the last few months we spent a lot of time outside, on rooftops and on the beach, on beautiful islands and on boats and on coastal trails. We found a trampoline, we did a lot of tumbling on the sand, we explored temples, we went to a music festival, and we climbed a dormant volcano. Even though some of the moments might have not been perfect or ideal at the time, looking back on this video I only feel blessed and grateful.

Jeju Island, Korea

July 7, 2014

Our weekend on Jeju island wasn’t what we had expected, but it was still magical in its own way. July is the rainy season in Korea, but I didn’t know that when we booked our flights. We also had no way of knowing that Korea was going to be getting the tail end of a monsoon this weekend. All this is to say that we were completely soaked for most of our time on the island, but the gorgeous scenery more than made up for it.

The fact that it’s an island makes it seem like it would be small, but in fact it’s quite big and spread out. Jeju is a very popular tourist destination for Koreans, and it’s actually laughable how many attractions and museums there are on the island. Gorgeous scenery and natural wonders of the world aside, you can also visit museums about sex, teddy bears, chocolate, seashells – there are over a hundred on the island. We didn’t visit any of them, preferring to experience the stunning natural beauty of the island, despite the pouring rain and long bus rides.

It seemed like everywhere we looked on Jeju, we saw something beautiful. The whole island is so lush and green, full of tropical plant life and huge cliffs and deep blue water. The highlight for me was definitely Seongsan Ilchulbong Sunrise Peak, which formed from an underwater volcanic eruption. It is absolutely majestic and otherworldly because of its size and greenery, and the fog hanging over it while we were there. While we were doing the tough hike (steps pretty much straight up to the top of the crater), it was also coincidentally raining the hardest it had on our whole trip. It was a good exercise in patience and staying present and reminding myself to look around and take in all the beauty. When we got to the top, we just kind of surrendered to the pouring rain because, well, we didn’t have much of a choice! Our umbrellas and rain ponchos weren’t doing much of anything, so we stripped them off and embraced it, fooling around and even taking some yoga photos because we’re crazy. It ended up being a lot of fun.

Our last stop was the Samyang black sand beach where the sun finally broke through the clouds and gave us a little warmth. The beach itself was small but beautiful, and the black sand was pretty awesome. We rounded out the weekend with drinks and snacks and even got a gift of some delicious treats from a Korean family sitting nearby.

All in all, it was a great weekend. We were lucky enough to see some very beautiful places and have a little vacation, which was much needed after a pretty stressful week. It wasn’t perfect, but I was proud of our attitudes and our ability to stay positive despite the weather.