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Since it is winter and cold, I really miss 찜질방 back in Korea. It is basically a public sauna. You go there to sweat out some bad things and warm yourself in this kind of weather. Korean people love to go there as a family or a group of friends.
People go there to sweat out and eat and sleep. It is really fun going there. There are some places that you go and sweat like a sauna.
There are some places where you can lie down and sleep.
After you sweat in a sauna, you can go to a hot spring or public bath and take a bath.
How nice!!!! Huh!!??
There is one thing that Korean people do when they go to Jjimjilbang. It is making a sheep-head hat (양머리Yangmeori) with a towel. A very famous Korean drama started this hat in Jjimjilbang, and people started doing it since then.
Check people's 양머리.
This is how you make 양머리.
When you go to Korea, make sure you visit 찜질방 if you don't mind washing in a public bathtub...(Of course, you need to get naked when you are taking a bath.)
I think Korean people have the most fun time in college in their life in general.
When you are a high school student, you hardly have free time because you need to study to get into a college. It is really stressful. We even have a joke that there are three types of people in the world, men, women, and high school seniors.
Anyway, once you are done with high school life, you enter a college. (Around 80% of Korean high school students go to a college. That is really high.)
You start doing a lot of fun things like 미팅(miting), 소개팅(sogeting).
미팅 is a group blind date.
소개팅 is a 1 on 1 blind date.
Your parents will not be against you dating anyone now. You are in a college!!!
You do lots of blind dates.
You join 동아리(dong-ari). 동아리 is a group(circle). When I was in a college, I joined a travel 동아리 and a choir 동아리. The travel 동아리 got together a lot and drank a lot, so I didn't really like it and quit it. I really like the choir, and I still talk to people in the choir.
You go to lots of 엠티(emti). 엠티is MT(Membership Training). It is basically people in a same major or 동아리 go to the countryside, rent a house, play games, and drink alcohol together. It is usually one night and 2 days activity.
In Korea, we say countries' names by their real names, but some countries which have had a relationship with Korea for a long time, we have some different Koreanized names for them.
The countries are
USA, China, Japan, Germany, UK, Thailand, Taiwan, and India.
미팅(miting) is 'Meeting.' It has two meanings. The first one is like english, 'meeting' at a company. The other one is 'group blind date.' Since you meet someone for the first time, we call a blind date 미팅. If there are three girls who want to meet guys, a friend of them can introduce three guys to them. That is 미팅.
You do 미팅a lot when you go to college since you have almost no time to meet people and date in high school. You are supposed to study for a college and then you can date after you become a college student.
소개팅(Sogeting) is a combined word of 소개(soge) and 팅(ting). 소개 is introduction. 팅 is from 미팅. So this is an 1 on 1 blind date. Your friend hooks you up with another opposite sex.
Korean people are quite shy, so they would hardly approach some strangers and start talking to them. So... even if a Korean man meet his ideal woman on the street, he will probably not approach her. And, if you approach her and try to get her number or something, she will think that you are a player trying to pick up girls on the street. So... Korean people sometimes complain that they can't meet new people. so, they ask their friends to introduce somebody to them so that they can meet new people and possibly start dating.
Anyway, if you are still single, I hope you will find someone for you soon. :)
처녀(Cheonyeo) - Single woman(Bachelorette)
총각(Chongkak) - Single man(Bachelor)
처녀, 총각 are basically unmarried single woman and man. 미혼녀(Mihonnyeo), 미혼남(Mihonnam) are the same words as 처녀, 총각.
Here 녀(Nyeo) is woman, and 남(Nam) is man.
노처녀(Nocheonyeo) - Old bachelorette
노총각(Nochongkak) - Old bachelor
Many Korean people think that marriage is a very important thing in your life. If you are not married even after you turn 30, people around you start to say things like, "When are you gonna get married?" "Do you have someone to marry?" "Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?" "You need to start thinking about getting married seriously!"
So, many old bachelors or bachelorettes get stressed out whenever people say things like that to them.
노처녀, 노총각 don't have any starting age.
Even only 20 years ago, people consider women over 27 노처녀 and men over 30 노총각.
However, now, people think that women over 35 are 노처녀 and men over 40 are 노총각. But, everyone thinks differently. Some might think that a woman who is 31 years old is 노처녀 and some might not.
Once you get married, you become 기혼녀(Kihonnyeo), 기혼남(Kihonnam) or 유부녀(Yubunyeo), 유부남(Yubunam)
There are some slang words for these. Recently people have started to use 품절녀(Pumjeolnyeo), 품절남(Pumjeolnam) for married woman and man. 품절 means 'Sold out.' Basically, it is sold out or taken, so that the person is not available anymore.
There are some hoodies with 품절녀, 품절남 written on. You might want to wear them on your honeymoon.
Check these videos about 노총각 and 노처녀.
(Go to 1:25 to see the 노총각 part)
One thing that you should know about Korean culture is most Korean people think that older son or daughter should get married before younger ones.
The younger brother of 노총각 wants to get married, but since his older brother doesn't have any girlfriend and doesn't seem to get married any time soon, the younger brother gets frustrated and worries that his girlfriend might break up with him out of impatience.
Lots of 노총각, 노처녀s are complaining that their relatives are the ones that put the most pressure on them about marriage. So, holidays when families and relatives gather are the time that 노총각, 노처녀 are not really happy.
