Tag Archives: jake

03 Mar

What starfish?

Who taught: Jake, Andrew, Carol and Mark

Chocolate Starfish (source: http://www.choconet1.com/)

You would not believe what I learned lately. This one is literally crazy. Whoever came up with this expression, he/she must have an amazing imagination. Or, maybe it is a kid. Very possible!

OK! So, I was with my friends, having dinner a few days ago. I cannot remember how we ended up talking about this expression but I do remember the expression so vividly. This is definitely one of the expressions that I would not forget at all. Anyways, Jake said, “chocolate starfish.” And.. I was totally puzzled and asked, “What? What starfish?” “Can you guess what it is, Terry?” said he.

I tried to think of the meaning of it. I knew it cannot be a kind of starfish at all because that is too easy. Besides, all of my friends started to giggle as they heard it. So, it’s gotta be something very funny. “What the… I cannot think of any. You gotta tell me.” And, Jake was like, “Think about the color of chocolate and the shape of the starfish.” Poor Terry… I tried again but no success. So, I had to cheat, looking up urban dictionary.

As the search result showed up, I had to be shocked. “Oh My …. What? Really? This is amazing.” Guess what I found? For this expression, I do not ask you to feel it because you have to feel it as I reveal what it means.

It means….. Oh man.. It is so embarrassing that I feel like I should not tell you. OK… Here we go! It means… “Asshole.” Wait!!! Here comes more specific one! It is “asshole, specifically when it is encrusted with fecal matter.”

I am sorry if you are reading this post while you are eating something. 🙂 Now, you could understand why Jake asked me to think of the color of chocolate and the shape of starfish, right?

Let me guess! This post would be one of the favorites for you guys. Am I right? I am not sure whether I can eat chocolates for a while or not. I will think of this expression every time I see chocolate from now on.

10 Feb

Wet bar

Who taught: Alen and Leslie

Wet Bar (source: http://good-times.webshots.com/)

I have been hunting my house for the last two months. It takes a lot of my time but it is kind of fun to look around bunch of different houses with different architectures. It is hard to find houses having the same floor flan in the U.S. And, another interesting thing is that many houses have a space called a family room. They are usually in the lower level. Some nice houses have a bar along with the family room. But, if the bar does not have a sink with running water. Then it is a dry bar. If it has, then it becomes a wet bar. I heard that expression from Leslie when I went to see a house with her. Looking at the bar and hearing what she was talking about, it was pretty easy for me to understand what she meant. But, if someone says the expression in the middle of any kind of conversation, I would be puzzled. I would probably guess the expression to mean a bar where people are getting wet. Why wet? I do not know. Maybe they are all going crazy, drinking beer or cocktails, and throw drinks to each other. Or, there is some sort of sprays on the ceiling of the bar? It actually sounds like fun to be in that kind of bar in summer. Sounds like a great business idea! Don’t you think?

I might have not been able to remember the expression if I only hear it from Leslie but I heard it again, watching a TV show, Two and a Half Men. In the show, Alen used this expression to his new girl friend, saying “I want to make a wet bar in your house. Can I?”

Speaking of an expression that have “wet” in it, I learned another one from my friends. (Forgot who it was. Maybe Andrew or Jake?) So… I would say almost all of men in the world experienced this, especially when they are teenagers. Waking up in the morning, you have experienced that something is wet around your testicles, haven’t you? No?  Oh… come on! Let’s be honest! A lot of times, this happens with those dreams with hot girls, right? Now, let’s make an expression. That’s right. The expression is “wet dream.” Whenever I see or hear this kind of expression, I feel like I can say whatever I think of, combining some words. But, then when I do that, my American friends would be like, “No, we don’t say like that.” What the heck? Don’t you want to try to your American friends? Try it! They will tell you the same thing. “Hey dude! That sounds weird.”

14 Jan

ride the short bus

Who taught: Andrew, Jake, Carol and Jean

Have you ever walked any street in the United States? If you have and paid careful attention, you would have noticed that there are some differences between roads. Do you know what that is? It is the name of streets. As far as I know, there are 7 different names. They are Ave, St, Rd, Blvd, Pl, Ln and broadway. Broadway is kind of unique in a sense that it does not have any specific name. It is just broadway. Most of cities I have visited have this road but I do not think Pittsburgh has broadway. I have never heard of it in Pittsburgh. Anyways, the most common ones are Ave (Avenue), St (Street) and Rd (Road). On these, there are usually many traffic. Blvd (Boulevard) one is tricky. It is kind of hard to pronounce correctly. Why don’t you try it now? Do you think you can speak it correctly? Good for you!

You would not see Pl and Ln very often. They are usually narrow which means not that many cars are using those. Well, when I first saw those, I had no idea what they are. I actually pronounced Pl as “pai” because I thought “l” is not lowercase L but uppercase I. But, it is lowercase l and shortened one for Place. Ln is Lane. Are there any other ones? I cannot think of any but I am sure there are more.

Short bus (source: http://conorheffernan.com/)

Two times on weekdays, you can see so many yellow vehicles running around in the United States. They are school buses. Typical school bus is always yellow and pretty big and long. Here is one interesting fact related with school bus I found on Wikipedia.

Every school day, over 480,000 school buses transport 26 million children to and from schools and school-related activities.

This is very different from Korea. Most of students in Korea either walk or use public transportation to or from schools. Well, anyways, they look very simple but they do have many safety features including something related with seats. It is called compartmentalization. Google it up! You will find it very interesting.

A few months ago, my friends and I had dinner and they used an expression, riding the short bus, which I had no idea what they are talking about. This is of course related with school bus. As I said, typical school buses are pretty long but there are short ones too. Well, before I heard of this expression, I thought those short ones are just short because there are not that many students using the bus.

Well, it turns out that those short ones are mostly used to ferry students with special needs. So, if you are in that bus, then what? Well, I do not want to go too far and leave this to your imagination. You can use this expression to your friends when they say something dumb or do stupid things. But, this expression is derogatory so that I would not encourage to use it. Once again, it is good to know so that, if someone uses this to you, you can properly respond. If you know what I mean!! 🙂

13 Dec

whale tale

Who taught: Jake, Andrew, Pat

Last Saturday, there was a christmas party Phil and Kelly threw. It is one of the parties Jessy and I are always looking forward to. It is always amazing. Thanks, Kelly and Phil! There were around 30+ people at the party. Jessy and I knew that we would be the only Koreans. So, we decided to wear traditional Korean dress, Hanbok, this year. We brought them when we come to the U.S. but have never worn at all for about 5 years. We felt kind of sorry not wearing them because my parents packed them very carefully saying, “You should bring and wear these as much as you can.” Well, honestly, we did not like wearing them just because it requires long time to wear and feel kind of weird. But, I really wanted to show Hanbok to my American friends. I think it went well and my friends were very curious about them and asked us a lot of questions not only about Hanbok but also about Korea.

There are certain things you would like you to know about party in America.

1. Most of the time, you do not sit at all. You can sit if you want but not many people really sit down at all. In Korea, all of the people sit down throughout a party.

2. Since you do not sit, you actually walk around and get to have a lot of chances to talk to many different people. Some are the people you never met before. This used to be the part Jessy did not like a lot because of her English. She had a hard time to understand English. It is not just because of the issue of hearing English but the noises of other people’s conversations. To be able to go to a party in America, you should really be prepared to mingle with so many different people. That means you need to listen and speak English a lot. It is not that easy. But, you know what! If things are easy, there are not that much fun at all.

Whale tale cookie (source: http://www.thefunctionkey.com/)

So, shall we talk about today’s expression? I have no idea how I get to hear this expression. I totally forget. My friends and I must have talked about women for sure. Anyways, in the middle of the conversation, there was a new expression i had never heard. WHALE TALE. Well, the word itself is so simple and it does not sound like a very interesting one at all. Without the context, I would not be able to catch that it is not just the tale of a whale. Now, what it would be? Can you feel it? I bet you cannot. Let me give you a hint! It has something to do with a woman’s back. (Well, who knows it could be a man’s back. But, I hope not.) Can you imagine the tale of a whale from a woman’s back? Where it would be? That’s right. It is butt. Now, the butt itself cannot be the whale tale, right? There is a specific condition for a woman’s butt to look similar to the whale tale. She should wear low-rise jeans and a thong. If this condition meets, then it is almost 100% possible that the thong will be shown out of her jeans. Now, can you picture it? 🙂 That is the whale tale the girl is showing. Now, as always, I have a question. Do women wear low-rise jeans and a thong to intentionally show the whale tale? I think it is just an accident, right? Tell me I am right.

06 Dec

fan death

Who taught: Jake, Carol, Stan and Andrew

Fan Death (source: http://askakorean.blogspot.com)

Growing up in Korea, I have always been told from my parents, “Do not leave an electric fan run overnight. You could die.” Also, I swear I heard a few news reports, talking about possible deaths caused by an electric fan. Due to this, I have never doubted this so that every time I use an electric fan, I become very careful and always use a timer switch.

When I had dinner with my friends a few days ago, Jake asked me a question, “Hey Terry! So, do people die because of fans in Korea?” “Yes! In fact, my mother always told me to be careful with a fan every summer,” said I. Then, other friends started to ask me questions like, “Are you sure people would die because of fan?” I answered, “Yeah, that is what I heard and I am sure it is true.” They asked me again, “Why?” “I think I heard it is something to do with the lack of oxygen that can happen if a fan continuously running in a closed room,” said I.

While we are discussing this, Stan looked it up on Wikipedia using his iPhone and started to read what he found which I have never tried to look up. He said, “Fan death is an urban legend prevailing in South Korea in which an electric fan left running overnight in a closed room can cause the death of those inside.”

Here comes the funny thing which my friends really enjoyed!

As soon as I heard it, I said, “See! It is true. That is exactly what I heard.” Well, as I said it, my friends started to laugh. Do you know why?

Well, apparently, I did not know what ‘Urban Legend’ means. Thus, I thought Wikipedia describes a true story of the fan death. It did not take a long time for Andrew to ask me, “Terry! Do you know what urban legend is?”

Here is the definition for you!

A modern myth. A frightening untrue story in which the storyteller insists it is true, but has no evidence to back up.

Before I argue about whether the fan death is really a urban legend or not, I have my own theory about why the fan death became a big issue in Korea. I think Korean government tried to encourage media to talk about this to make people not turn on their fans overnight so that they can reduce overall electric power usage during summer. Back in 1980’s, Korea was still kind of poor in comparison to these days.

I have done a few researches about this fan death and found this blog post which includes a scientific theory to support the fan death.

Here is the science of how a fan could kill. Remember the conditions under which Fan Deaths happen – summer (=heat), enclosed room, fan directly on the body. An electric fan cools your body in two ways: by pushing cooler air onto your body, and by allowing your sweat to dry rapidly and take away heat in that process. But clearly, the fan does not generate the cool air on its own, unlike an air conditioner. And eventually — especially if you are a passed-out drunk who is already somewhat dehydrated from the alcohol — your body will run out of water to turn into sweat. So what happens when it is very hot, but the entire room is enclosed such that no cool air comes in from outside, and you have no more sweat to cool your body with? Basically, the entire room turns into a gigantic turbo oven. Turbo oven is a conventional oven that has a fan inside that continues to blow air onto the food. This oven is known to cook at lower temperature than a regular oven, yet cook more quickly. Similarly, in a heated room without an outside source of airflow, very hot air is constantly pushed directly to your body, which is a far more effective way of raising your body temperature rather than “baking” in hot air. If you get enough of this, you would die – of hyperthermia, or abnormally high body temperature. (Source: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/)

Would you still think the fan death is an urban legend? I think it is not.