"So, do they eat with chopsticks and that?"


It turns out not everyone looking at this page actually lives here, so I think it makes sense to give a few tips on getting along in Korea. And yes when I get to D, I'm going to do Dogmeat.

[Disclaimer- I really like Korea, it's people, it's food, it's traditions. So if something offends you, take a deep breath, relax, and don't write me any angry emails.
Also I'm not trying to show off saying I know loads about Korea, I know I know nothing]

A is for...

Acorn Jelly-

Pointless foodstuff that sometimes comes as a side dish, looks like green turkish delight and has no flavour. You've got to admire someone for making a dish out of acorns mind.

Ajumma-

Literally 'mother with a pouch' (like a kangaroo) this is the name given to middle aged married women with kids- they're normally dead busy looking and sort of fierce with permed hair and shouty voices. Proper korean restaurants serving proper korean food are always staffed by these ajummas, you have to yell them over ("Yogi-yu!") when you want something filling up or replacing, then they come over and take the mick out of you.
The most fashionable item for Ajumma's seems to be the tinted plastic sun visor Wild West card dealer style- mmm-hmmmm. Since achieving Ajumma-ship isn't really something your average 20 or 30-something aspires too, you've got to be careful calling someone this.

Ajoshi-

This is pretty much any fella old enough to wear his horrible golf trousers pulled up over his belly. They must get a load of hassle from their wives (ajummas) which explains why they love drinking soju, smoking and spitting when they're not around.
Ajoshi's also enjoy wearing oversized baseball caps which say things like "Burberry playboy golfing style". Unlike "Ajumma" no-one seems to mind being called an "Ajoshi", so feel free to use it liberally, even if (as someone said to me for some reason) the full text of your statement is "Ajoshi! Ajoshi!... Puck you! Puck you!".

"Anyung!"-

"Hi!", the short form of "Anyung-haseo" ("Hello") or "Anyung-ha Shimnika" ("Hello, oh respectable one"). This is what you say to kids if they're staring at your freakishly pale skin and want to fool them into thinking you know korean. They'll probably reply by saying something like "Have a nice day!", "Sister" or hiding.
Whilst we're on the subject, saying goodbye depends on who's going somewhere and who's staying put. How mad is that? Luckily it always sounds just like "Anyung-haseo" if you say it quick enough.

Apkujong-

The posh area of Seoul that, whilst very nice, is not quite believable as a glamour rival to Monte Carlo because when you got here on the subway, there was someone selling a load of dodgy fake socks off a blanket on the steps.

"Assa!"-

Korean for "Get in!" or "Oh wow!". This is a popular phrase amongst foreigners out here, probably because most of the 7 year old kids they teach say it all the time. Whether it's acceptable for a grown man who's just finished a training session with some fellow computer professionals and is nipping out for a cheeky ice-cream I don't know.

B is for...

Bundaegi-

Boiled Silkworm larvae- an inexplicably popular street food snack. They're like little grey shells in a milky stock, smell bad in a kind of ammonia way that you can pick up from 50 metres away, and are just plain wrong.
I have never met a foreigner who likes these things, but korean kids eat them like sweets. Why?!

Bi-bim-bap-

This is a bowl with rice, some spicy vegetables and a fried egg on top, sort of like a hot salad.
In keeping with the korean thing of most foods being cooked at the table, this dish isn't actually ready to eat until you stir it all up together- the yolk breaks and runs into everything else all the flavours all mash up properly and you can add a bit more hot sauce, some strips of seaweed, or whatever other side dishes are on the table.
If it comes in a heavy and spitting hot stone bowl then it's called "Dolsot bibimbap"   (the bowl is a dolsot see?). Only the vegetables are in the bowl to start with, the rice is still in a little dish and the egg will be raw in it's shell on the side. You chuck everything in, and mix it up with the egg cooking and the rice almost frying against the sides of the hot bowl.
If everything was right in the world there'd be shops selling this stuff next to every indian and chinese takeaway on the high street. But as it is I don't even eat this much because it's beaten into place by so many other cracking korean meals. Koreans can't really get their head around vegeterians, but this is one thing that veggies can have without fear of the restaurant sneaking a bit of ham or fish in there without realising they're doing it.

Bap-

...means 'rice'. Simple as that.
But it can also mean 'meal' which should have you going "Aha!" in a "So rice is vital to every meal eh? I get it" kind of way, but not always- cos when you eat a BBQ style korean meal (i.e. every chance you get) you have to ask for rice, and a lot of korean people I've eaten with don't bother with it. (I just thought I'd throw this in because I'm always reading giude books that say a meal in Korea isn't complete without rice, and it ain't true and it drives me mildly annoyed)

Business Club-

A charming name for one of the many, many establishments near my hotel.
Now I've never been to one of these places, although I've been given plenty of little sweets or sticks of chewing gum attached to a business card advertising them when eating in restaurants, and from what I understand, they're where you go with all your businessmen buddies after a good meal to drink expensive drinks, and be 'entertained' by young ladies.
Everything I've ever heard about these places suggests that the women provide the full entertainment package  - actually forget the euphemisms- I've heard they're all brothels (there, I said it) but it's hard for my little Catholic mind to take in. There must be a good 20 of these places within a 5 minute walk of my hotel, and most of the business men I see in the restaurants who are presumably going there all seem very respectable married men. Surely it can't be so accepted in Korean society for men to nip into a club, take care of business and then off home to the wife and kids as though they'd just had Port and cigars. Can it?

Breakfast-

There doesn't seem to be any differentiation between what koreans eat for breakfast and what they'll eat for lunch, or even dinner (except possibly for a couple of bottles of soju for an accompaniment).
The average korean breakfast, for the older generation at least, seems to be rice, Kimchi and some soup. I guess you know you've been here a long time when that's what you fancy at 7am. On a related note, it's common in korean offices for an ajumma  to come round in the morning to deliver your choice of yogurt or milk drink. [I wish they did this back home, with maybe a bowl of coco pops on the side, I hardly ever get round to having breakfast].

Burberry-

I was going to write a little bit about how rife counterfeit brands are in Korea, and how people see nothing strange about having, say, a fake puma trainer with "Umbro" written on the back. But I think this picture says it better than I can:
Subtle street fashion

C is for...

Cass-

There are three native korean beers that I've seen; Hite, Cass and OB. All of them taste like a slightly blander Budweiser. THIS IS A BAD THING.
Bear in mind that this is a country where all of the food has the flavours turned up to at least 10, the staple vegetable, Kimchi, manages to be hot, sweet, salty, spicy and sour all at the same time. However all three domestic beers taste (faintly) of paper.
The one saving grace is Hite Prime. This is approaching more of a Becks kind of thing, a beer you can actually tell you are drinking, rather than just thinking "Why is this water fizzy? Why do I keep telling people they're my best mate?". Rant over, I feel better now.

Corea-

When Japan took over Korea back in the day, they (alledgedly) changed the spelling from C to K so that it would come after the J for Japan in the alphabet. I suppose spellings are always a bit arbitrary going from one alpabet to another, there's a korean consonant which is pretty much halfway between 'g'  and  'c' and another between 'r' and 'l'.
The issue seemed to get tangled up in the whole patriotic fever of hosting, and then getting to the semis of, the World Cup and lots of Koreans (sorry, Coreans) want the spelling changed back again. Funny what effect footy has on people eh?

Corn Flakes-

This might take some explaining. With the way my job has worked out over the past few years I haven't spent any long amount of time in Korea- but I have been back and forth six times. On about my fourth trip I deicided I was actually going to learn some small amount of the language, before that it had been a three week visit and if I wanted to eat something Korean I'd either go to a restaurant I'd been to before and sit there like a moron untill they brought me what I ate last time, or get one of the receptionists to write down what I wanted on a piece of paper I then handed to the Ajumma.
So on this fourth trip I bought a Korea dictionary / phrase book, and tried to do a few things myself, one of which was buy some corn flakes. So I looked it up in the dictionary, and saw the usual jumble of lines that was the phrase written in the korean alpahbet, and 14 syllables which was the phonetic version. After saying each one individually for about 2 minutes, a pattern seemed to emerge "Kor-Un-Puh-Lay-Keu", "Kor-Un Pu-Lay-Keu", "Korun Pu-Lay-Keu", "Corun PuLayKu- hey! It's just like saying 'Corn Flakes' with a dodgy Korean accent!".
Once you've got that accent down, you can usually make a lot of things understood, so in the same way that in a french department store you might say "Avez vous un Duffel Coat?"" it's always worth when asking for, say, an ice-cream trying out "Ice-u Cu-Ree-Mu?".

Cheese-

You might as well ask for an Oldham Athletic away shirt as a block of good cheese in most shops in Korea. The only way it enters the equation is on the top of pizza or as a slice of plastic on the top of a burger.

Canadians-

Lovely people, which is just as well because everyone I seem to meet comes from Canada. The theory I've heard goes that Koreans want their children to learn american accents, to the extent that teachers from other countries are asked if they can 'do' an american accent in class, but a lot of people don't like americans. I guess this is because there's a pretty big US military presence here, and not all of the soldiers are candidates for sainthood.
The best solution to the problem? Canadians by the dozen, and a generation of Korean kids who know how many Stanley Cups Wayne Gretzky won in his career (it's 4, I talk to them too).

Closing Time-

There isn't one, bars stay open forever. Assa!

Chinese- 

The chinese food in Korea tastes nothing like the stuff I was getting back in England. Maybe it's because I'm so great with the menu reading, but everytime I seem to get a vaguely pleasant tasting mix of weird looking seafood odds and ends with rice, kimchi and a few side dishes. I've had chinese food in america and it's pretty similar to the english version, one of us is off the mark somehow, anyone been to china?

Chon / Cheon / Cheong

Now hold tight here, three words, three totally different meanings, but sounding so similar it makes steam come out of my ears.
Cheon- Thousand, the eo sounds like the u in fur.
Cheong- Floor, as in take me to the third floor.
Chon- Blood relative of different kinds- see the entry for Family

Each one of these three words can be used with a number, so 3-Cheon is three thousand, 3-Cheong is third floor, 3-Chon is uncle (seriously, see the entry for Family).
This is the golden, shining example why I don't believe I'll ever be able to speak korean well enough to have a conversation... oh and there's another one, Chung , which means 'office'.

D is for...

DVD-bang-

One of the many things from Korea that I'd love to see back home. A DVD-bang (bang=room, these used to be called Video-bang's untill a few years ago) is a kind of halfway house between renting a film from a video shop, and going to the cinema. You pick a film in the normal video rental way, but instead of going back to wherever to watch it, you go into one of the little rooms they have in the back and watch it there.
Now this is smart because Your average Korean might agree with all of these points, but the one at the top of the list would undoubtably be that you can watch with other people.
DVD bangs have a bit of a reputation as a cheap place to take a date when you want a bit of- you know- privacy. *Wink*.
The sofas in the rooms are built for two and are, ahem, easy to clean, plus you'll never be disturbed by anyone knocking on the door in the middle of the, err, main feature. In a country where people live with their parents untill they get married and a sex before marriage is a big taboo, these are important considerations.

Which really makes you wonder what the man behind the counter thinks when I go in there on my own.

Dogmeat

I get asked about this every time I come here, it's probably the most famous thing about the place apart from the fact they've got nuclear bombs (that's North Korea you mooks!). So here is what I know about it so far: What can I say?- I think the beating with sticks thing is out of order, but past that I reckon anyone who eats meat can't really say much without being hypocritical. I still don't know if I'd eat it given the choice (there's a poll on the message board if you have an opinion), but I know I'd eat a wolf steak with no qualms- or maybe just a small side order of qualms- and there's not a massive difference between the two. But on the other hand, could I really eat Old Yeller?

Doo-boo

Means 'tofu'- this is a pretty popular ingredient here, and isn't really used as just a meat substitute in the same way as back home. Vegetarians in Korea can be easily lured into a false sense of security by the promise of, say, "Doo-boo Chigae" (tofu stew), which then arrives stuffed with shellfish, whole prawns, chunks of beef, ham hocks...
There's a restaurant near my hotel that specialises in doo-boo, and the first time I went it really was nothing but tofu, loads of loads of the stuff cooked in 10 different ways, and no discernible meat anywhere. So when I invited some vegetarian friends over, I was pretty sure they'd get a good meal.

When the food arrived there was, predictably, meat piped into every available space including some pretty big pieces of beef liver in the soup. Trying out a newly discovered korean word I asked for "Pa-jeong" which I thought (and in fact still think) means a spring onion pancake. Apparently however, you have to specificaly state that you don't want squid tentacles in the pancake. And that doesn't just include saying "No meat, no fish" when you order.
I know I've said this before, but most Koreans really don't understand vegetarianism, I spoke to my korean friend Eonmi once...
Me: "Actually Sam doesn't eat meat, she's a vegetarian"
Eonmi: "Really? What about beef?"
Me: "Oh no, beef's fine"...

"Ddong-chim"-

This is priceless, in America they have the wedgie, in Britain we have sneaking up behind someone and getting down on all fours whilst someone else pushes them over so they fall and break their spine, in Korea they have Ddong-chim.
The idea is that you clasp your hands together as though praying, with just the fore fingers still pointing up and pressed together. Then sneak up behind your victim and try and shove your fingers as far up their arse as possible.
I'm not kidding. The translation means "Poop Needle" and although the only time I've ever seen it is on a cartoon, teacher contacts everywhere tell me this is a very real danger in the life of Korean children. Poor little buggers.

In the course of the extensive research and fact-checking that goes into making this site I found this game where you too can enjoy the fun of ddong-chim. Ignore the Korean instructions and just click Start, you'll work it out.


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