Sunday, April 10, 2011

뻑이가요!

I love my 6th graders. They are my oldest students, meaning that they've been with me since the beginning. They've witnessed my awkward transition into elementary education, let alone into Korea. They've also become my one-stop shop for answers on Korean culture. Of course my co-teachers can help me out with issues regarding daily life and language, but pop culture is an entirely different story.

I have a bit of a crush (as does every female in Korea) on the Big Bang rapper/"singer" T.O.P.
This guy. Is so hot.


So anyhow, he launched a solo-ish career with fellow Big Bang-er, GD (or G-Dragon). This KHip-Hop duo pumps out some excellent beats that you literally cannot escape in Korea. For example, while shopping for an hour on Saturday, I heard their song "High High" literally 8 times in different stores.

But my favorite release is their more recent "Knock Out," or 뻑이가요. It has an awesome beat and the video is wonderfully hilarious (Segways, puppies, and tanks!). However, I had no freaking clue what 뻑이가요 meant. Sure, the translation was "knock out" but what exactly does that entail? I posed the question to my co-teacher and was met by a blank stare. This needed to be handed over to the students.

So, after 5th period English class, I asked a gaggle of 6th grade girls about my linguistic query. They debated for a moment, giggled ferociously, then began to explain what it meant. "First time meet, love, big!" Ah yes. But in order to convey the meaning more accurately, they formed hearts with their hands, placed their hands in front of their faces, and began to move the heart forward and backward. Kind of like this:

 

And now I know, thanks to my very with-it, in-the-know 6th graders, I now know that 뻑이가요 means, essentially, "love struck," that a person a total "knock out" and you become instantly smitten. So pretty much my feeling when I first saw T.O.P. at that YG Family concert back in December...

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