Lost My Way

The Awkward Thing About Americans

...We don't have stuff like respect prefixes and suffixes. 

Sure, we have "Mr." or "Mrs."/"Ms.". If you and/or your parents are from the eastern side of the world (I'm talking Asia, Middle East, some parts of Europe), then yeah, you do.

{Culture Lesson: The Philippines (Filipino)}:

As the middle child of a Filipino family, I'm required to call my sister Ate, or older sister. Likewise, my brother calls me Ate too. The same goes for any of my older cousins (I call them Ate, or if they're an older guy, I call them Kuya, or older brother).

If you've ever seen me on the phone in real life and I'm talking to my parents, I say the word po often. I say po as a sign of respect to the people way older than me. Like, past 40 years old. 39 and younger is sort of an exception.

When I see one of my parents' friends, some random Filipino person (of course, 40 and older), or my actual aunts and uncles, I either have to call them Tita (ladies) or Tito (gentlemen). There's a lot of them out there...

And when I first see someone 40 and older (honestly, I'm not even sure if it is 40 and older) or before I leave, I have to bless them. Er, they have to bless me. Explanation: They hold out their hand and you have to put the back of their hand (not the palm) to your forehead. Another sign of respect; it's like them giving you their blessing to leave. In my mind it makes sense.

THAT BEING SAID--I just brought this up because my sister and I watched the clip of Jungkook immediately saying "I'm not your oppa!" (oppa meaning boyfriend, or older brother) to a fan who'd yelled "JUNGKOOK-OPPA!" at a fan-meeting/fan-signing. Jin goes on to say that he doesn't want anyone younger than him calling him "Seokjinie" and so on and so forth. Because I'm not educated in Korean sign of respect, I would probably call them their actual names (but just Jin, and not Seokjin), nothing like "Mr. Kim" because let's be real--there's 3 "Kim"s in Bangtan Sonyeondan and if you called "Mr. Kim!" those 3 would turn around, making it more awkward. If I knew what to call them, like how they call each other with the suffix -hyung (is it suffix?), then I probably would. My only requirement is to know the most basic Korean, like greetings, goodbyes, stuff like "Okay!" or "Thank you!" 

I guess I know how to say some things? I can count to 3 (hana, dul, set! thanks BTS ;D), and if I work hard, I can count to 20! I can say "Annyeonghaseyo!" or "Hello!", maybe not with the proper pronunciation. I can say "Annyeong!" or "Bye!", again, maybe not with the proper pronunciation. 

I'm just lazy. I want to be dedicated to things that actually matter, but I end up not wprking hard enough.

Do you understand me? I hope you do.

Annyeong!