Squid Game Alive
Don't waste your money, Netflix
안녕! It’s Ari, your talkative Korean friend and weekend reminder 🎉 Today’s newsletter is about a sandwich recipe, why Netflix doesn’t have to waste their money on making a real-life Squid Game, and how to ask your dates about their job in Korean. Let’s start!
This Sweet & Spicy Egg Toast Will Fill You Up
Have you heard about gilgeori toast? It means “street toast” in Korean and it’s a popular salty-sweet egg sandwich sold by many street-food vendors in Korea as New York Times introduced before. There are many gilgeori toast chains in the country. One of the most popular chains is Egg Drop which sells sweet and spicy egg toasts with various toppings. Many young Koreans enjoy the toast with an iced americano usually for lunch. Before you come to Korea to visit Egg Drop, you can easily make the toast at home with the above recipe video 👆 Bon appétit!
Squid Game Alive
A Korean journalist was researching causes of fatal car accidents which occur near schools. She found that the most common cause is sleep driving of truckers. She wanted to know why so many truckers sleep drive so she spent 24 hours with a trucker to learn about their working environment. Shockingly, the trucker she followed had only one meal and took a nap for only one hour during the 24 hours before immediately going to work again. It’s a typical work day of a Korean trucker according to her report.
Korean truckers have been on strike for about 2 weeks now demanding extension of a minimum pay system which ends this year. The minimum pay system is like a minimum wage for the drivers. It went into effect in 2020 to make sure truckers can make reasonable wages without working overtime and overloading. The system significantly increased some truckers’ earnings. Currently, the system only applies to drivers who carry cement and containers. For example, average monthly earnings for cement truckers went up from 1,500 USD (before the system went into effect) to 3,200 USD (after the system went into effect). Their average monthly working hours decreased from 375.8 hours to 333.2 hours. Without the system, they’ll be forced to go back to days when they earned so little money while driving longer hours and overloaded.
While truckers say the system should be permanent and wider in scope, the government says it will abolish the system. Also the government is taking strong measures to crack down the strikers. They include invoking a "start work" order, the first in the country's history, on 2,500 drivers in the cement industry, requiring them to return to the road or face penalties. The president said the truckers are "holding the people's living and national economy hostage at this time of economic difficulty." He also said, “the strike is like a nuclear threat from North Korea."
About a year ago, I talked about why Squid Game was born in South Korea. And the lives of the truckers once again proves why the dystopian series was made in this country. It was because for low-wage workers in SK, Squid Game has been alive all along. The biggest difference between the series and the reality is unlike players in the series who voluntarily risk their lives for 38 million USD, the truckers are forced to risk their lives and therefore others’ only to barely make their ends meet.
Why bother making a real-life Squid Game when you already have it in its origin country? 😞
Ask Your Dates About Their Job In Korean
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The first Korean mission finally arrived 😎 It’s about asking your dates about their job in your undercover speed dating operation. With this mission, you’ll learn how to ask someone about their job and talk about your job. It’s easier than you think!
Q: 어떤 일 하세요? What kind of work do you do?
A: 저는 your job 예요/이에요. I’m a (your job).
When your job in Korean ends with a vowel, say 예요 and when your job ends with a consonant, say 이에요. For example, “I’m a lawyer” is 저는 변호사예요 while “I’m a firefighter” is 저는 소방관이에요. 변호사 (lawyer) ends with a vowel, ㅏ while 소방관 (firefighter) ends with a consonant, ㄴ.
Asking someone about their job is not easy. 직업이 뭐예요? meaning “What’s your job?” could sound somewhat rude and blunt. So I recommend saying 어떤 (what kind of) 일 (work) 하세요 (do you do)? It sounds more indirect and polite.
Practice with my TikTok video above to meet your K-Drama character dates who have different jobs. If you have any questions or feedbacks, leave a comment on my TikTok or here in my newsletter. It’ll make my day!
I’m so proud of myself finally uploading a video. It took a lot of time overcoming my insecurity even though it’s just 6-sec of me wearing sunglasses 🫠 Now I started it, I’ll get used to showing myself soon. At first, I thought I’ll upload Korean missions only. But now I have a lot of other video ideas. So my videos won’t likely be limited to missions. From now on, I’ll pick one of my TikTok vids and give you more details about it here in my newsletter just like I did above. Hope it helps your Korean learning!
One last thing for today is a cute animal video we all deserve for surviving the week :D The caption says, “When man-made fence does not block someone but gives satisfaction and happiness.”
Thanks for reading! If you liked my newsletter, like, share, or leave a tip 👇 to support my work. It’ll help me a lot to keep creating 😘 See you next week, 안녕!