You might find this article interesting on Korean language purism: http://www.geocities.com/mlovmo/gallery15.html

My grandfather grew up under the Japanese occupation and much to his shame he still uses many Japanese words which he passed on to his kids and now to his grandkids (he went to japanese schools and was even sent to Tokyo to study). The hard part I think is that he has a real love of Japanese language and culture, but can never bring himself to admit it because of what they did to the country. I recently found a diary he keeps in secret in Japanese and I've heard my grandmother talk about a Japanese girl he still pines for. She gets furious when she thinks about it and he gets furious that she brings it up. Sometimes I think his soul is split down the middle.

In my family we always used the world babo to mean stupid but I have some korean cousins who use the word to mean boyfriend. So when they kept talking about my babo this and that I thought they were talking about a group of stupid guys. Very confusing!

Never called my grandfather Boji though. ;)

mm. I can imagine your grandpop's face on that day.

i was not involved in running around screaming that word. i thought it was only paul who said that!

both my parents are N. Korean in origin as well and I know my mom & her sisters use slang and dialect that is particular to NK (although they were all born in Shanghai due to the Japanese occupation). Anyway, I don't know enough Korean to misspeak it, but I was laughed at when I went to Seoul to learn Korean once summer. I said one of the only words I knew-- eepooda. Apparently that is a NK pronunciation. The correct word is yeh-pooda.

Hi there! What a great blog! I love reading it. This is the first time I've responded, though. So I'll do a brief intro - my name is Alicia, I'm 35 and live in TX with my family. Our youngest child, Nate, was born in Changwon City. We adopted him from Korea in 2003 and have tried to bring some bits of Korean culture into our family so when he's older he'll have some knowledge of his heritage and maybe won't feel as awkward around other "Korean Koreans". ;o) Of course, whether we succeed or not remains to be seen. We have LOVED learning about Korea and have a special fondness for Korean food, so we do eat lots of kimchi and bop!
I was just cracking up about your "Bogi" fiasco! I called my grandpa a "Dildo" one time because he was being goofy and I could have sweared I'd heard the word used in that way before. Of course, I was mortified when my more worldly cousin enlightened me of the true meaning of the word. So....I can totally identify with you on that one!
We also picked up the term "jji-jji" when we were in Korea picking up our son. It sounded more like "shi-shi" when his foster mother said it. Now I know what ELSE I can use the term for! :)

Thanks so much for your blog!

I'm a Hawaii-born Japanese-American who taught English at a public junior high school in Korea for 2 years. My wife is from the extreme southwest area of Korea (Chulla do). Anyway, the word jji jji (dirty) is a common word that adults use when talking to young kids; the regular word is turupta.
Incidentally, the phrase chi-chi is what Japanese say for boobs and can also mean mother's milk. The Korean equivalent phrase = chut.
The proper (medical) term for breasts in Korean (taken from Chinese) = yoobang.