Oh my god JB.. these are the reasons why I love your blog and writing.. keep it up!! when i read your scenario if Eun Jo ever tried to call Ki Hoon oppa.. i was ROFL!!!!!!

Is it only recently (by that, it could mean within the last 20 yrs) that the term 'oppa' has carried that romantic element to it? I know the Korean language has evolved in some respects. Just wondering.

Oh Jesus. More people will run around saying Oppa... if you are going to try to teach Korean, can we not teach words that will be misued and overused? Can't we teach REAL Korean sentences or something.

It's going to end up like all the little Japanese otaku freaks saying Baka. Annoying as hell and pointless.

Had to pause through reading to love your forever for this: If the currently popular trope of the cold-on-the-outside, fuzzy-on-the-inside hero can look to Mr. Darcy as its archetype, then the quintessential oppa is surely Mr. Knightley.

Two of my favorite things in one post! K-dramas and Jane Austen!

... That Wax Oppa song, from 0:56 - 1: 23, it sounds dentical to Cyndi Lauper's 1983 song, "She bop" (1:15 - 1:48, the chorus)!! Hmmmm......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAzm64zXNjk

LOVE it jb :)
I think definitely though that kdramas are at fault for popularising the word oppa and especially the whole three mix is SO kdrama. I first saw it in Stairway to Heaven and haha it doesnt get more confusing than that.

Your right, its very loaded, and lots of people take issue with it, but also theres the added element that there is no 'oppa' equivalent in vietnamese, chinese or japanese- well there is, but like nothing that carries the same weight so I think thats why people are hooked on it. Ive been on forums where there has been discussion of non korean girls using it on korean guys, or korean girls using on on korean guys, or both non koreans using on eachother.

But really, I adore the word but yes people, its a sign of closeness. dont call them oppa right off the bat.

Definitely now, I think its either the blood relative, or if not, the girl has romantic feelings for the guy.

Ironically, I only call one guy oppa and hes my good friend/ crush of four years.

oh kdramas, you influence daily life way too much.

JB, I think Laeah is new to your blog, and does not understand the purpose and nature of your site or how your readers are..

Being a follower of your blog, I understood immediately the context of your post and I think I'll love the Glossary series.

I HAVE A QUESTION JAVABEANS..

Who is the Mr. Darcy and Mr.Knightley that you mentioned as the archetype???

I love this, javabeans! :) Great addition to your already addictive recaps.

In Tagalog, we have "kuya," but both sexes use it to call an older guy. If "oppa" is romantic, "kuya" is like the male counterpart of "noona," because the older guy would insist on dropping the word if he starts thinking of the girl as a woman.

OPW is annoying as heck. I'm racking my brain for any instance when I didn't mind the OPW, and I still can't think of one.

@ xiaoSxin
Mr Darcy is from Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice and Mr Knightley is from Jane Austen's novel Emma. Both these characters are the typical romantic heroes and actually more like the original :) hope that helped ^^

haha jb I love this new section to your website, makes the website even more awesome then it already is ^^ I wouldn't even know where to start if I was trying to explain the term oppa! :) haha

&& YAY for Wax's Oppa! i've loved that song since forever. the lyrics are fit so well with the term oppa and the shenanigans that come with it :)

@starlighttears, I think there you're wrong. The use of oppa and the different meanings it carries is more a reflection of the actual Korean society than the other way around. If anything, kdrama merely brought the use of the word to the limelight to non-Koreans.

@xiaoSxin, hehe, I can tell JB is a big Jane Austen fan, which explains her love for kdramas. :-) Mr Darcy is the male protagonist in Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and Mr. Knightley is the male protagonist in Austen's "Emma."

Could an ahjussi become an oppa?

In keeping with the Jane Austen theme, i the case of Col. Brandon in Sense & Sensibility, Marianne would presumably address him as 'ahjussi' initially and towards the end, when they become romantically involved, would she have called him 'oppa' then, at least before they are husband and wife?

When I started watching K-drama, without knowing you have a glossary of terms, I asked my teenage son to ask his Korean classmates the meaning of the names they call people like noona, noonim, oppa, etc. The explanation is not as comprehensive as yours, of course, but shed some light.

Thanks!

Hahaha, this is hilarious. I personally only use 'oppa' for my cousins because it sounds too intimate if I call a guy friend that. I'll think about using it if...when I get a boyfriend. I've got to think positive. ;)

It was great to see all the references from dramas. Thanks javabeans and keep up the great work!

@Andromytta
Not sure if anyone else had answered your question, but no an older female would not call a younger male "oppa", unless they were purposefully being cute and saying it in a joking manner.

But LOL on the height reference. sorry! BUT, he can call you "noona"!

HEY! I finally found out what the kekeke means at the end of people's twitters! WOO!

Thanks JB! :-D

Thanks for explaining the Oraboni part.. now I understand... =) Interesting...

"Oppa" is also how daughters call their fathers - take the movie "my frivolous wife" for instance, at the end of which she eventually uses that word for her dad, which caused him to almost cry as it was a first.

Thus I tend to think that "oppa" conveys the fatherly features: protection, strength, omnipotence, omniscience, care and yes, love. It is a sign of respect and closeness, indeed, yet I find it awkward in a wife-husband relationship, unless for the purpose of teasing him.

Too bad Philippines' version of Oppa isn't as sexy or as awesome as "Oppa"...tsk tsk tsk...

I want to have my own Oppa. In fact, I want to call him Oppa!!!

I've figuered out oppa - not to the "nth" degree but enough to understand through context. Two that make me shrug are (pardon my spelling) - Oni (or ie) and uroboni I know oni refers to women and uroboni refers to men. Other than that - I haven''t gota clue.

Thanks from a Scotch-Irish-Italian Korean dramas fan.

lovely clarification JB.. and I sooo remember that whole OPW debacle back many OTs ago.. Its a guarenteed success!, it was pretty entertaining too :) oppa~ lol

Never imagine the explanation of word oppa can draw so many comment and they are interesting to read, like seeing it from many different point view from many different culture. Thing like this that make me keep coming to this site.

Perhaps like other Asian, word oppa isn't much confusing to me (after watch few kdrama series I can figure out what oppa word mean and its application (and complication) as you say JB). I remember my Mom always upset and complaint when I called my family members without term that refer their position in the family ( calling them with name only is like doing a sin ). I think those kind of words just one of the way to show our respect to our elderly, family, and culture as Asian.

PS: I love Jane Austen too

@ JB

Thanks for answering my question. Now I realize I actually feel the same way! Oppa is so deeply ingrained in me as an older blood brother type of thing that using it romantically just makes me cringe.

Of course like you said, that's just a Korean American bias but it's one that I don't think I can get over....

@127 javabeans

I went through the exact same process when learning about the "other" meanings of "oppa", and it was all thanks to kdramas:)

@ 22 rainerust

I had not thought about it, because it sounded so similar to me but now that you've mentionned it, I did some research. You are right: "dad" is spelled 아빠 (short for 아버지, I guess) according to Google translation while older brother is 오빠. ^.*

I don't think the Korean language is the only one to confuse / muddle the term 'older brother' with 'my older boyfriend'. I think Vietnamese (just to randomly name one) does the same, although I'm no expert in the language to be a reliable source of information.

Whilst I would love to call someone an 'oppa' one day (wishful thinking since most of the men in kdrama land fall into the 'dongseng' category), I too think that it has been hammered into my head that there are certain terms and references for blood relations and to cross the boundary between blood relation and boyfriend would seem weird to me.

Nonetheless, in kdrama land, the term oppa has become an endearing one to me and has humoured me greatly over the years when all of a sudden the words are muttered by the strong female lead and everyone (including the male it is aimed towards) shudders from the sound. lol I think I'm just referring to Eun-chan and Han-kyul in Coffee Prince. I love it and the memory still brings a smile to my face to this day.

This has become a very long post but I love that you have remembered the scene in Soulmate as I think it was also in this scene that I learnt the power of the term oppa. Thanks for lighting up my day, JB.

Hi, I'm a new K-Drama addict, and I'm interesting in knowing the implication(s) of the word usage 'ajusshi'. I've heard that used in 'Be Strong Geum Soon', which Geum Soon calls Jae-hee 'ajusshi', and more recently, in 'Neighbor Enemies/The Enemy Next Door', Ha Young (Han Chae Ah) addresses Ki Hoon (Choi Won Young). In these two cases, the implications are romantic, but is this used often in K-Dramas?

This was a pretty amusing post...

Hey JB,

I've recently picked up on your site as a good source of English-language information and analysis for korean television and thank you for your continued work. I thought I'd give back by providing some thoughts regarding the Korean fascination with faux-incest stories.

I once read an essay about time travel in Korean film, which focused on the films Il Mare and Ditto. In both of these instances, the two romantic interests were divided by the impossible barrier of living in different times. The paper then continues to draw a parallel with the impact on the dividing of the Korean peninsula on the Korean psyche, sounding the implication that some of the interest in these time travel romance stories is influenced by a desire for reunification.

While, I don't necessarily buy the thesis of that essay, I think that it has a point in that I think that the division of the one Republic of Korea into separate states after Japan's relinquishing of the state after World War II had a tremendous impact on the psyche of most Koreans, watching as their countrymen became divided by a seemingly impossible barrier of politics and ideology, while harboring a hope for reunification.

Here's where the faux-incest comes in: Incest is tremendously taboo in most cultures (and with good scientific reason), so the implication or appearance of incest is clearly an impossible barrier of a less sci-fi nature than living in different eras. Nonetheless, that possible incest or the appearance of incest also implies a closeness between the individuals involved and therefore the barrier between the two seems all the more difficult and unfair.

The division of the single state into two Koreas is only the most visible and memorable of the "impossible barriers" in Korean history and society. Previously, Koreans struggled against other barriers, especially class (think of folk tales like Chunhyang). Consequently, I think that part of this desire to cross impossible barriers is partially ingrained by culture and history and manifests itself in this trope of faux-incest as one of many reasons why two otherwise deserving people can't be together.

Another reason why it might be so popular is because there is a cultural tendency in Korea to follow the leader and if one hit drama uses the trope successfully for huge ratings, it's then considered almost a given that a new show might reuse that idea. A last hypothesis is that it's done simply because the writers are lazy and it's one of the easiest ways to complicate a relationship. Imagine this PD/writer discussion:

Writer: I got it, our arrogant rich jerkface male lead and our comely innocent impoverished female lead instantly have a belligerent relationship, during which her regular tirades against him eventually wear down his defenses and his small moments of being kind to her cause her to fall in love with him too, but neither of them know it.

PD: Which will work for maybe *four* episodes. Maybe five if I throw in a good half hour of angsty brooding set to our soundtrack music. What happens when they finally are able to express their feelings for each other? How do we get this to our magic 16?

Writer: I know! We'll imply that our female lead is an orphan whose parents are unknown and that our male lead's aunt and uncle ran away after being disowned for not marrying within the wealthy persons community. This way... THEY MIGHT BE RELATED! I mean... it worked for Winter Sonata, right?

PD: Brilliant! Multiply the incest with the naiveté of the leads and we got 16 episodes! All we need now is a concept...

Writer: Oh! A contract relationship! He pays her to fake being his girlfriend in order to appease his grandfather's will and gain his inheritance...

...well... anyone else have any ideas for why we have so much faux-incest in Korean fiction?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E08473ynZeE&feature=related

just reading through the "Oppa" & "Noona" post......isn't the use of these 2 words a typical Asian thing?

I'm Indonesian & we have similar words for Oppa -> Mas and Noon -> Mbak. So I can totally relate the way these words are used when watching K-drama. "Mas" is usually used to call your older brother, but then your boyfriend can also be called that way. Eventhough your boyfriend is younger than you, you may want to call him "Mas"..... it' just to show that you (as the girl), respect/look up to your boyfriend.....a typical male-female Asian role. People say I'm a very independent gal...but stil, I love to lean on a guy! Asian all the way I guessss......

Any other Asian countries having similar use of the words?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OR5EWGU1Jg&feature=related

this is very interesting video about " OPPA"

actress Han Ye Seul said "OPPA" so manny versions~~ lol~

I love Pride and Prejudice and Emma! And I do agree that Mr. Knightley is a good example of an Oppa Class II and Class III.

LOVE soulmate!! and i love min-ae's explanation. i remember laughing my head off the first time i listened to it because i always used oppa but never really thought about it. sort of like how you dont think about what color your door is, you just KNOW but you never realize it (or is that just me?)

anyways, its true not to abuse "oppa" because when used correctly, its like the "bend and snap"!

@ Javabeans: I totally understand! :O I have an older brother (who I call oppah) and am Korean American. I've understood how people in Korea use it even before reading this article, but I've always reserved "oppah" to blood relatives, which is why I can't imagine calling my own boyfriend that.

Haha I remember this one time I accidentally called my friend oppah o w o; And he really liked it. Javabeans isn't joking when she says the word "oppah" holds power, folks. x)

I'm loving the Glossary series a lot. Keep up the good work! And this reminds me of my first encounters with K drama. I was so confused with oppa, hyung, noona and onni....Now of course, I know which is which!

Just chiming in to add that a) I LOVE this glossary series and b) that yt with the explanations of Oppa had me bent over wheezing with glee. Glorious!

i like how people call each other in korean language its so beautiful

Opa means Grandfather in German, therefore its funny to listen to young girls calling their boyfriends oppa :D

Also in greek there is oppa too...I'm not sure but in greek its like a sound of joy or hapiness (correct me if I'm wrong)

lmao @ Cinderella's Sister refrence

Thank you for the clarifications! LOL especially for "oraboni". I had seen My Girl during its original run (what seems MANY years ago) and I've never understood the difference between "oraboni" and "oppa". In my confusion, I had assumed "oraboni" had uncle-ish undertones to it... hahaha
Now I understand! Hallelujah

"Could you imagine the reaction she’d get if Eun-jo ever tried to call Ki-hoon oppa? I’m guessing that would be the first and last time, since he’d be dead from shock"...............LOL!
I love to read ur post!!!!