꿀을 파는 날

Since some of the soldiers will be going back to Korea soon, I went to a restaurant to eat with my boss and two other soldiers this morning. The restaurant was named after the typhoon Haiyan and it’s located 30-45 minutes away from the base camp.

I would have enjoyed it more if only I could understand what they were saying. They talk too fast and use a lot of slangs or dialects which I haven’t heard of before so I couldn’t keep up with the conversation most of the time. T^T Anyway, let me share two things I learned from them today.

“때려 빠쁠라”

When the waitress served the tuna sandwich, my boss suddenly uttered these words when she was out of earshot. I don’t know exactly what it means but they told me it’s a dialect that roughly translates to “I’ll make a juice out of you”.

“꿀을 판다”

It literally means “selling honey”. They use this phrase when someone is not doing anything productive but still earns from it. It’s like when you go to work but not doing the task assigned to you and yet, at the end of the month, you still get paid for doing nothing. One of them said, “What we are doing right now is an example of 꿀을 판다. It’s working time and yet, we’re out eating and enjoying a ride while sipping on mango shake.”