I was joking around with my HS3M cohort on Wednesday night. I try so hard to get along with those boys, but it remains a difficult class.
They were trying to teach me the Korean slang term 양아치 [yang.a.chi]. It's hard to translate. The official dictionary translation is useless, as it says "ragpicker." I told my students that that might have meant something to my great-grandparents' generation, but it means nothing to me.
During class, I got the idea it might mean something like "slacker," but in researching it online (in various Korean-English slang dictionaries that people post on their blogs), I've decided it might be more faithfully reflected by something like "punk" or "thug." But as such, it's a "poser punk" or "poser thug" – not the real thing. These are the "wannabe bad-boy" clique in school, maybe.
Anyway, after they'd tried to teach me the meaning, they said there were a lot of Yangachi in Gangnam (a kind of high-status area of Seoul). Jinu said there was a whole Gangnam Yangachi Army. I said that sounded alarming, but added that it would be a good name for a rock band. The boys rather liked this idea, and riffed on it for a while.
I'm going back to work today after my post-op rest yesterday. The pain is pretty bad, but I guess trying to function normally is the best distraction.
[daily log: walking, 6km]