Honestly, after being addicted to Kdramas and Kpop, I appreciate younger guys more now than guys my age. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing but damn it, I want a Noona killer of my own.

YES! I knew you were going to use What's Up Fox as your first example. LOL. I love how in My Name is Kim Sam Soon, Hyun Bin's character uses "noonim" sometimes to tease Sam Soon.

I totally feel the same. My younger brothers must call me noona, I get too pissed off if they use my real name. =P

It reminds of how one word like "noona" draws line between Min Jae and Shin Young..totally a dramatic use.

it's kinda sad cause noona means so dramatic (not in normal situation. i don't mind if someone call me noona, but that's different in love situation). it's like a different between us as a sister and he as our little brother. especially if he are the person we love. different with oppa that mean closeness. well noona also show a closeness but it's just complicated. like we're close, in love, but we have a different age that some people always talk if we, girl, have a younger boyfriend. what a dramatic noona...
btw girlfriday, thanks god you love gong yoo. his picture is so cute in here. give me more pict of him if you write some more glossary, haha... :)

@29 annieee

I think the young boyfriend's use of "noona" in 9E2O was actually to highlight his immaturity. (As birdscout pointed out, he would still revert to calling Nan Hee that even after they were talking marriage.) There was never a doubt through the course of the series that his love for Nan Hee was deep and true. He just wasn't grown up enough to be able to be a true partner. You'd never mistake the poor boy as someone wise beyond his years.

" That would upset the balance of like, the fabric of existence in Korea." really? Do you really think that the gender roles can never ever change in Korea? :-)

#54 destriana:
btw girlfriday, thanks god you love gong yoo. his picture is so cute in here. give me more pict of him if you write some more glossary, haha… :)

I totally agree with destriana, girlfriday!!! Gong Yoo's so cute & cuddly in this picture!!! Plus I love what you said about Coffee Prince's rating...about forever being in love with Choi Han Kyul!!! I too, have fallen for GY & will go to Seoul in a few days...with the sole intention of "stalking"him!!! LOL!!! joke!!!
Me & my Gong Yoo lover friends timed our visit to greet him on his birthday on July 10th, with the hope that he might hold a fan meet of sorts!!!

@ 50

Oh, I forgot to add that the romance in 9E2O was also absolutely "believable".
(I think most women want a "Hyung-tae" in our lives ;)

Can you guys post about the term "Ajusshi"? I remember that girl in Oldboy kept calling the lead actor "ajusshi", but the subtitle still translates it as his name Oh Daesu. In Sweet 18 the main girl calls her 10 years older husband as ajusshi, too.

That was a nice read :)

@ 57 birdscout

I totally agree. Hyung-tae and Nan-hee's long-term friendship/developing relationship was definitely the reason to watch. I love how towards the end of the series, they even started moving and sounding like each other, like an old married couple! (I'm thinking of the scene when all their friends finally come to the apartment and how frustrated Nan-hee & Hyung-tae are.)

Lol @ 36: "Being called Noona makes me all warm and fuzzy. And it also makes me tired and broke cause my cousins take advantage of my weakness"-- poor Becky!

Kim Bum can call me noona annnnnny daaaaaay.

But seriously, being called noona is cute to me. I actually like it!

Way way way way better than being called ahjumma, right ladies? :(

@maiself

For me Ahjussi(male equivalent of Ahjumma). I reserve it for those that are slightly past marriageable age. But I also look at the guy and if I know he already had to have gone through Military service, but has no chance of great grankids. Ahjussi is acceptable. 35-60yrs

Of course I could be using it wrong. I just started learning last year. I will wait to see post like everyone else.

@63
I seriously don't want to be called Ahjumma either, but lord knows I qualify.

Wow, that was fast. Go away for a day and BAM! Noona post. ^_^

I love all the people who expected SHINee and Lee Seung Gi to make it into this post, but keeping it k-drama relatable is nice as well. Plus, you pictured 3 noona dramas that I absolutely loved. While I don't really consider younger guys good dating material for myself, it's nice to think that it could happen to someone...

i would feel so awkward if my boyfriend ever called me "noona." i have some close guy friends who call me that since they younger and it makes me feel like we are family. it makes me happy when i get called noona though...i feel like i'm important to that person and close enough to be considered family :3

so i wouldn't like it if my boyfriend called me that haha xD

So "oppa" can be used as a term of romantic endearing, but not "noona". However, using "noona" clearly puts you as the inferior or the child in the relationship. But doesn't using "oppa" then imply the same thing, only it's more socially acceptable because the inferior is the woman? Or at least, that is the implication I see - not that I'm saying any Korean woman calls her boyfriend "oppa" or her boyfriend wants her to call him "oppa" because they see this implication. But how can Koreans, who seem so conscious of names, not see the same implication? Or am I reading too much into it?

I guess I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how these two words relate and the implications of their usages. Not that I do any better in my language. I'm Vietnamese and our term "anh" is pretty much equivalent to "oppa", and "chi" to "noona", only oddly enough whenever people begin dating they invariably fall into the "anh/oppa" routine, no matter the age gap of the couple and who's older than who. And I'm just as puzzled with that.

Is Lee Seung-gi the original? He even came out with a song about noona, lol. His "relationship" with Chae Yeon on XMAN was adorable.

I loved reading that. My friend is dating someone 10 years younger than her, but he won't call her noona because he wants to be seen as a man. Haha....I told her to watch The Woman Who Still Wants To Marry because their situations have so many parrallels. Except it's him going abroad and not her.

It's really true how much the langauge amounts for social conduct in Korea. Even as a teacher, there are so many different ways to call my collegues at my school. It's funny though they all call me by my first name without sshi but I feel rude if I do it to them. I love the unnies I have here, are you going to define that and hyung as well? I hope so:)

dramas with "noona killer" which are my favorite..

2003
Shooting a Star : Jo in sung - Jeon do yeon
2005
My name is kim samsoon
2006
What's up Fox
2007 or 2008
Oh Dal Ja
2010
The Woman Who Still Wants to Marry

ahhh love them

Korea's social hierarchy is extremely bizarre and even annoying to anyone like me who comes from an egalitarian and relatively informal culture. I can't fathom the idea of assigning everyone a position in some arbitrary hierarchy based on their age, gender and social status. It serves no purpose. It's irrational. It needlessly complicates interpersonal relationships.

I think part of the reason why "noona" and "oppa" don't have the same power is simply because of culturally observed gender role dynamics. All four of the younger-to-older pronouns, "hyung", "oppa", "noona" and "unni" imply a close relationship, but also that the person who receives the title "hyung", "oppa", "noona" and "unni" has an obligatory duty to look out for the giver of the title, as though they were their actual relative.

In some sense, it's an intricate way to develop and engender a relationship or put a word to that specific kind of relationship. However, if a male gives the title of "noona" to a woman, it instantly puts her in the protector role and the man in the role of the charge. The standard patriarchal gender roles of men as protectors and providers for women is common practice in Korea and sort of goes hand-in-hand with being a man in a typical heterosexual relationship.

Consequently, by being engaged in a romantic relationship with an older woman, using the word "noona" subverts the gender role of the man, making him the powerless one to be looked after. I think most Korean men *and* women would balk at having their gender roles switched in a romantic relationship and therefore the use of the word "noona" in a typical Korean relationship is unlikely. Likewise, if these sort of lingual connotations were built into the structure of most cultures languages, assuming similar patriarchal leanings, we would find a similar limitation on the use of the equivalent female-to-older-male pronoun.

That said, I imagine certain unconventional relationships could use "noona" in a romantic sense: sugarmamas and/or cougars and their boy toys. I imagine the gender dynamic is already reversed in these cases so the use of "noona" would actually be appropriate insofar as respecting the implication of the word's use.

Love learning these words, JB & GF....thanks! I'm not Korean but I work with a young man who is and knowing I'm a budding K-drama fan, he addresses me as *Noona* and not knowing what it meant or inferred - quite frankly, I've been bothered by it. I equated it w/ *Ahjumma*. NOW... with this explanation, I'm certain that I am no longer offended but feel quite honored..actually.... =)

Korean social ranking and status are too complicated for me. Thank you for enlightening us.

Girlfirday: Just curious, what do you see of the real life CJW-LJW relationship? It looks like CJW is porttraying herself as a 27-year old, rather than 35-year old and acting cute and embarassing after asking LJW for a birthday cake (during the recent interview).

Under above circumstances, do you think LJW will address her as noona or baby or the other way round. Would appreciate your enlightenment!! Hehe...of course, the safest answer is only they will know!! ^______________^

It's important to consider the cultural context of Korea--as a centuries-old patriarchal society--and also hold back from judging it solely from an outside perspective. From a Western, egalitarian point of view, these deep-rooted gender roles may be hard to swallow or understand. Case in point: you hear me complain about the wrist grab all the time. While I would like for everyone to be considered equal, balanced, regardless of gender, the truth is that no society is blameless when it comes to gender politics.

I think that in context, the words are defined as such and meaningful because of the cultural values assigned. And yes, I do think that the gender relations in Korea can change--they're changing every day.

What I hope is that no matter what corner of the globe we live in, that we'd all be the kind of people to push the boundaries and question these roles, the words, the dramatic uses--because they're a reflection of the way we feel about each other.

Thanks for the info. Now I know why my husband refuse to call me noona.

I'm a gyopo married to a korean. While I was in Korea i dated a younger man and he called me noona. Then I married a man 1 year younger and he refused to call me noona. To this day he calls me my by name or jagiya, Korean culture and society very important. But sometimes I want to hear noona from him to send goosebumps.....lol.

Oh my!!! What an interesting topic...LOL

i feel so mature hearing "noona" from my guy friend,
and as to "noona killers" whoa!!!
Yoo seung ho...you can call me "noona"!!
i'll take care of you...kekeke

Another Off topic question
Any suggestions regarding “best friends as lovers” drama. I have watched and rewatched 9E2O many times

..and how 'bout them noona killers who insist you call them oppa! As if things weren't complicated enough as it is.. =P

OMG I didn't know u guys had a space for Korean terms~~^^ Cool :D

Not a coincidence: the same power-infused gender pronouns in Korean have a similar, if not, the same feel as in Vietnamese (although this is not coincidental...Asian cultures are very similar in foundational values that definitely include gender roles). "Anh" is the "Oppa" equivalent and "Chi" the "Noona" equivalent. I agree with Javabeans -->as much as I pride myself in being an independent woman and preach egalitarian values, I still understand that society isn't perfect as interestingly reflected in its language. Even if a guy is younger than the girl (or man to the woman), the fact of the matter is: a woman would not want to be called "Chi" by her romantic counterpart, ever.

On a similar vein: Has anyone ever been in a predicament of NEEDING to figure out their friends' parents' ages? In Vietnamese, you call your parents' siblings as well as their friends the same thing YET it's totally based on age: if they're younger, it's a specific title and if they're older, it's a different one. Arrrrgghhhh! Thank goodness I don't have many Vietnamese friends.

thank you girlfriday and fellow blog-viewers, for clearing things up!
this is really interesting stuff, and it totally reminds me of this theory in anthropology called the sapir-whorf hypothesis, which claims that language kinda constructs the way you think, the way you view the world. i would say it totally makes sense, esp. when u look at the korean language!

Informative AND entertaining. Wish I were still of noona age to some of the current crop of little noona-killers. Is there such a thing as an ahjumma-killer? Those'd be my best bet, I guess.

Thank you for this!

87 giddygirl108
its the same for koreans, too. depending on whether my mom's/dad's siblings are first born, middle, youngest, or whatnot, what i call them changes. plus side is once you figure out which uncle/aunt is who based on their age, they wont be confused who you're calling for.

and like girlfriday said, you cant really judge from an outside perspective. if you think about the korean history, "assigning roles" based on what you call makes sense. a person's status (gener, social status, etc) was important to where in society they are. or something like that. for this part of it, i say ask confucius.

i must say though, i am quite comfortable in some ways with where the boundaries are because that is the cultural environment i grew up in (family's quite traditional). though it may seem uncomfortable and complicated to someone who didnt grow up in it, to someone who did its pretty natural. and when in doubt, ask your parents =)

mmmhmmmm...SHINee definitely romanticized the term "noona". *swoons*

Ahhh, many thanks for feeding my voracious addiction to gloriously nitpicky language details (and doing it so generously too!). I love the lengthy explanations of seemingly-tiny points, whether plotwise or cultural, that turn out to have huge implications. They are the most fun, I think!

This has open my mind. Thank you for the easy to understand, full of awesome examples, explanation. I was always wondering what noona really meant.

I am digging these glossary entries. It's great to learn what different words mean. =)

I remember in My Lovely Kim Sam-soon, her BF's ex-GF called her "noona" and Sam-soon's reaction was "What? Were sisters now?".

I miss this kind of post...

The thing is, I really want to meet Kim Nam-Gil one day and call him "oppa". Do the whole oppa-pout-wiggle thing.

But I'm way older so I guess he'd be calling me unni, sigh.

I use to be an oppa-lover but now, I'm nothing but a noona to all the boys. Makes me so sad. Us older women hate the term, cougar... But with the word noona, it just seems more cute and appropriate. Hahha. That's just me though.

I know I'm late to the party but I just finished What's Up Fox? Ms Go should go back and holla at that brother Cho Jung myung he is age appropriate now on real life...anyway please was that The Worst Final Episode ever? Dammitt Man did the writer drink a glass of Stupid. Ughhh